An Anniversary Worth Noting, Liberation and the Myth of Martyrdom

July 2025 marks the 110th anniversary of the U.S. occupation of Haiti.

Christ at the column, by Caravaggio, via Wikipedia

The United States’ use of Haiti as a means of income is most characterized by its occupation of the Caribbean country. From 1915 to 1934, Haiti, residing in the States’ backyard, was treated like a playground instead. With purported efforts to stave off German interests, the interaction between the two became one of conqueror and conquered. By the time the United States left Haiti, Haiti’s constitution had been changed so foreigners could own land, gold had been pillaged from Haiti’s national bank, the government was centralized in Port-Au-Prince, puppet politicians were put into place, and countless people were murdered, raped, or both.

The 110th anniversary marks this occasion.

In the revolutionary spirit that characterizes Haiti, rebel forces grew. The Cacos, an armed militia group known for their guerrilla warfare, made a re-emergence. Charlemagne Peralte was one of their leaders. His strategy was so effective that the U.S. was forced to increase its presence in the country. Four years afterward, Peralte was killed, shot at close range and strapped to a mule, pinned to a door, and photographed. Photos were passed out to Haitian citizens, and his body was left to rot in the sun. Fifteen years after that, the U.S. exited the country.

Peralte’s story is a good one. He escaped a sentence of forced labor after a failed coup. He engaged in guerrilla warfare. He organized. He fought. He was made an example of. His fight, his strategy, is memorialized on Haitian money.

The United States unintentionally created a martyr of Peralte. Christlike in his manufactured gait, upon a door like Jesus on the cross, his sacrifice was immense, and, in this moment, the United States worked soundly against its own interests. The people were inspired.

With the crucifixion of Peralte, the United States reinvigorated the rebellious spirit of the people of Haiti. Taking into account the intended result, the massacre of Peralte was used as a wager in a pseudo-war between colonized and colonizer. His body was a tool, similar to the uses during the trans-Atlantic slave trade, to reach an end, to instill fear, to remind the conquered that their lives could easily be taken away without consequence to the murderer. Like strange fruit in the United States South, he was an exhibition in service of perpetual fear, a show and a reminder that the onlookers could end up the same way.

This is not ok.

Mamie Till is famously known for avoiding the Civil Rights Movement until her son, Emmett Till, was tragically lynched. That same movement began to lose steam before the four girls in Birmingham were killed by racist bombers at 16th Street Baptist Church.

Jesus, on the cross, serves as the ultimate sacrifice. His tearful resignation to his Father before being crucified shows the reader, the Christian, that he was a man, made of flesh, who decided to give in to his responsibility and give up his life for others. The ability to endure abuse, harshness, crowns of thorns, bombs to churches, the creativity of sadism plays out as something good, something worth undergoing as long as it’s being done for a good reason, is sanctified.

These actions are seen as models of humanity–goals to which everyone should attempt to accomplish. Photos are pinned to walls, and statues are erected in their memories with good reason. Jewelry is fashioned after those who have had their lives taken, and stories are passed down generation to generation about how great–or at the very least, noble–a deed someone has done (or was forced to do). Reminders of what we can all do. Reminders that we all fall short.

And, all the while, the makers of these stories benefit from the unlimited giving of the believer.

While during times of war, death is unavoidable, the ceremony, instead of the sound condemnation, lays the foundation for it to happen again and again and again.

This is not ok.

The propping of the murder, the victim, their body, and the sanitation of their story offers a cruel reality: the bodies of revolutionaries are propaganda. Their bodies during life are ripe for assassination. Change may or may not occur from it.

I would like to ask the martyrs if they would have done it all again, if their story—told through the lens of history—was told in the way that they imagined it, if their end was achieved. I would want to know if they were even in pursuit of legacy and if that legacy has marred their initial intent. I would want to know their perspective on history and history’s work to speak on behalf of them.

The nineteen-year occupation was a realized desire to protect United States interests; the proximity of Haiti made it ripe for colonization. And, they were successful at it. Puppet governments still reign in Haiti, the government continues to be outside of the reach of the people who live there, and the wealth of Citibank and its associates has increased enormously.

Human beings’ bodies have been taken from the earth, made into an artful display for the pursuit of power, money, and generations of leverage. In turn, those same stories and dissimilar interpretations inspire the conquered and remind them that there was bravery among their ancestors, that they did not bow to oppression.

Ironically, the function of martyrdom does the same thing the U.S. sought to do with Peralte. Martyrdom’s goal is to make a sacrifice so sacred that it does not need to be made again. It is to reach an end that (hopefully) does not need to be reached again and again and again. But it does. It’s a sacrifice often made in vain. The breadth, gravity, and determination of systemic harm persevere. Sometimes, it’s easier on the psyche to believe in boogeymen and saints, to believe that there are chosen ones, so that we do not have to make amends with the truth, to be safe psychologically. So, instead, history, survivors, or the oppressors themselves create a fairytale out of it because at the center of these stories is a slain man, or girls, who have had their lives cut short for the pursuit of power—power that ultimately is wrested from the cause.

This is not ok.