Papa Doc: Haiti’s Voodoo Dictator

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anything the caribbean has ever seen under his watch up to sixty thousand were murdered thousands more were tortured or driven from their homes or while the rest of society plunged into soul-crushing poverty in today's episode biographics is investigating how a gentle seeming doctor wound up becoming absolute ruler of his country and the nightmares he unleashed [Music] [Applause] when francois duvalier was born in haiti's capital of portugal prince on april 14th 1907 there was nothing to suggest it'd ever amount to anything much less become leader of his nation his family were bitterly poor as members of hate his creole speaking black majority tended to be part of a vast underclass ruled by a tiny french-speaking light-skinned elite yet it wouldn't just be life on the margins that came to define valier's upbringing but also events because young francois had been born just in time to experience one of haiti's defining eras the american occupation since achieving independence from france in 1804 duvalier's nation had spent a century being battered by forces both internal and external within haiti itself there had been corruption coups and assassinations well from the outside france had imposed a crippling debt on its breakaway colony that sapped the young nation even so as the end of the 19th century arrived there had been signs that things were looking up after many turbulent decades society was stabilizing local culture was flourishing and vast inequality aside trade was picking up but then uncle sam came knocking and everything immediately went to hell this was the era of great american interference in the caribbean in 1905 the us had seized control of the customs house of the dominican republics the other nation sharing the island of hispaniola with haiti so when haiti began one of its regular slides towards chaos washington was right there to make things worse starting in 1911 a series of revolutions and coups deposed seven haitian presidents in four years sparking american worries that haiti would default on its debt in fact they got so worried that in 1914 president woodrow wilson ordered the seizure of the nation's gold reserves transferring them to new york but rather than calm the chaos that robbery only exacerbated it like to a crazy extreme on july 28 1915 the haitian president vilbran guillaume sam was lynched by a furious mob just hours later wilson ordered marines and deported prince soon 5000 u.s soldiers had landed on haiti establishing an occupation it was meant to last until order was restored instead the u.s presence would wind up dragging on for 19 long years for francois de valia that meant growing up in a city and a nation brutalized by an occupying force coming from a u.s that was going through what's been called america's nadir of race relations many of the marines brought their racism with them that meant things like the kay's massacre when u.s soldiers opened fire into a crowd of demonstrators killing 12 people it meant things like scores of political dissidence being executed but the americans attitudes also showed themselves in more insidious yet equally damaging ways a major one was the elevation of the already rich light-skinned elite into most positions of power further widening the gap between french speakers and the creole majority another was the corvae system which saw tens of thousands of black haitians made to work as forced laborers a state of affairs that saw perhaps 5 000 die from mistreatment in short the americans took the poisonous divides that already existed in haitian society and stretched them until the bonds holding the nation together simply snapped so when francois de vallee steps into politics in the near future promising a haiti that is unashamedly for the black creoles he's going to get an extremely sympathetic hearing but all of that for another chapter for now we'll leave off with fdr pulling the plug on the intervention in 1934 just as devalier is graduating from the university of haiti school of medicine someone from a poor background qualifying as a doctor must have felt like a great achievement armed with his new life d'valiere immediately began working in hospitals but he soon began consorting with a group of writers who'd been radicalized by the long occupation he'd come out convinced that a rigid black nationalism was haiti's only way forward and they shared another trait too a deep interest in voodoo as a religion that rose out of the slave trade's force mingling of cultures voodoo had long been an integral part of haitian society while the city dwellers including devalier tended to be catholics out in the haitian countryside voodoo was everywhere whole swathes of the nation seeped in practices aliens of the american occupiers perhaps that's one of the reasons why davalier's circle was so keen on it as the clearest signal that haiti lived a distinct spiritual life but devalier also had other reasons for being interested in voodoo ones that were far less spiritual and far more practical jump forward to the early 1940s in the united states program to try and eradicate yours in haiti a disfiguring skin disease that mainly affects children yours is one of those nasty things like polio that the world would be better without and while the u.s eradication effort would fail washington would damn well try recruiting haitian doctors to go to remote villages and administer shots among their number was francois de valier it was from these years of traveling haiti's fields and scaling its mountains armed with medicine that papadoc got his nickname he was bringing relief to long neglected areas but it was also these years that showed him how immersed in voodoo the black majority were how important it was to their lives and just as other aspiring dictators might align themselves with powerful christian or muslim figures d'valiere began to cultivate ties with regional ungans voodoo's male priests it seemed benign at this point just a gentle doctor making friends with religious leaders as he tended their villages but really devalier was laying the groundwork for his next great step into politics as the 1940s past papadoc worked to raise his profile becoming the head of the ante yours campaign and director general of haiti's health service in 1948 he finally got the promotion he'd been dreaming of becoming secretary of labor under president demar says estine but if debarlier had assumed his next step would be into the presidential palace well fate was about to send him tumbling back to the bottom of the entire staircase in 1950 president estimae announced that he'd grown rather fond of being in charge and wouldn't be stepping down at the end of his term to which the military replied uh-uh not happening they overthrow him and installed colonel paul e maglois although black himself maglois was a puppet of the light-skinned elites under his watch haiti threw its arms open to international tourists even as it all but barred creoles from public life but for devalier that meant expulsion from haiti's corridors of power returning to private practice almost as if his jump into politics had never happened but now he had had the faintest taste of power there was no way devalier could go back to being a mere doctor again instead he became involved in the ante maglois resistance years later this era would become a key part of duvalier's myth a source of romantic legends and funny stories like how he evaded maglar's goons by disguising himself as a woman on a practical level though this period also saw two very important moments the first was the birth of papadoc's son jean-claude de valier better known as baby dog the second was the relationship that he established with another resistance leader clemor barbeau a one-time school teacher turned full-time sociopath barbo would later become key to enforcing devalier's blood-soaked rule but first they needed to get rid of maglois fortunately mother nature was about to lend a helping hurricane in the fall of 1954 hurricane hazel came crashing into haiti trailing devastation rather than help the afflicted communities magoir allowed his cronies to siphon off the relief funds standard practice for a corrupt regime but the response was anything but standard outraged the population turned on the president although he managed to cling to power until 1956 a wave of strikes and protests eventually forced him to flee the country what followed was a dizzying series of six caretaker administrations each one more chaotic and shorter lived than the last eventually though it became clear that no caretaker was going to navigate haitians out of this growing crisis that an election was needed to install a legitimate leader one who could restore order to an ever more lawless country and restore order the 1957 election absolutely would but only at the cost of something far dearer than stability freedom all his life papadoc was convinced the number 22 was his lucky charm so when the 1957 election was announced for september 22nd he may have assumed he'd therefore win if he did he was the only one although divalia entered the election a known quantity a former politician who'd helped topple maglois corruptocracy he was far from the front-runner he was just too gentle the sort of president you could picture being overthrown by the girl scouts the one issue that he did have strong opinions on unashamed black nationalism was also the exact sort of thing that should cause all the elites to try and discredit him as the campaign wore on though it soon became clear that all these handicaps might actually be strengths take the good doctor's naivety while it might have seemed like devilier wouldn't make a strong leader that was exactly what many wanted the military for instance began to bag duvalier apparently thinking they could use him as a puppet the light-skinned elites too looked at the slight perspecticled man talking about making the economy run for the black majority and basically went that guy threaded us please not was it just haiti's powerful who failed to see the dark heart of francois de valier across haiti many still remembered him as the doctor who'd cured their village of yours he was liked trusted even in a fair election he may have won but with the all-powerful military now putting their thumb on the scales papadoc's path to the presidency was sealed election day saw devalier sweep the board netting over 72 percent of the vote and capturing the chamber of deputies a month later on october 22nd the new president gave an inaugural speech where he declared my government will scrupulously protect the honor and civil rights which constitute the joy of all free peoples it was exactly the sort of thing everybody expected to hear from a man who'd made his career as a doctor barely had the cheering stopped though before devali revealed himself as lesser patch adams and more a dr hannibal lecter within weeks of taking up the presidency davalier had ordered his political opponents jailed on spurious charges now this wasn't super unexpected in a corrupt place like haiti but the violence which accompanied it was on a whole other level on devaluing his orders the former school teacher clermont barbo had spent the last few months recruiting tough men as a private paramilitary force now they descended on those who'd stood against devalier in 1957 they attacked them they tortured them they purged them from society before a year was up 300 people had been murdered including children but it was what came next which really sealed papadoc's reputation around the time of his first anniversary in power part of the military seems to have woken up to how bloodthirsty their so-called puppet was vague plans were played for a coup plans duvalier's men managed to disrupt before they got anywhere yet the mere threat of being overthrown was still enough to make papadoc pivot from his army backers to turn those thugs barbara had recruited into his own secret police force known as the tonton makut they would bring terror to the heart of haiti based on the haitian bougie men said to stuffed children into his ghani sack then eat them for breakfast the tonton makut were masters of both image and indiscriminate violence imaged because they usually appeared wearing shiny dark suits eye hiding sunglasses and stylish hats dressing like dead gangsters return to life and violence because well just listen to some of the atrocities that they committed as duvalier's goons the makut didn't just kill people they slaughtered them burning them alive or stoning them to death before dumping their bodies in marketplaces as a warning rather than pay them to bali and barbo allowed them to make money on the side however they wished with complete immunity from the law the result was violent so random that no one knew who might be next old and young rich and poor light-skinned and dark could all find themselves dragged away to be beaten tortured or murdered for sport extortion robbery and blackmail became just facts of life and then there was what the makut did to women without dwelling on the details the complete free reign these sadistic youths had around portu prince gave rise to a tidal wave of sexual assault but what did francois de valia care with his tonsil makuu now numbering 10 000 the dictator had already broken and he hauled the armament bat over him from now his hidden cruel side would be fully unleashed and the result would be a humanitarian tragedy the regime took suffocating hold papadoc began to cultivate a new personality one that went beyond the standard dictator model of uniformed dude in sunglasses possibly with mustache and into something far stranger duvalier began to purposely model himself on baron samedi a spirit at the graveyard's baron samadhi is an integral part of haitian voodoo's cosmology a trickster eternally reminding the living of their fate but while his role in voodoo is not to instill fear that's exactly how papadoc used his likeness he deliberately dressed like the guardian of cemeteries complete with suit top hat and cane like the tonton makut channelling a creature of folklore it was an intimidation tactic but it was also a sign by stepping into the role of a voodoo spirit devalier was signifying his connection to haiti's religion showing the influential unguns that he was one of them that they could support him not that the freakiness of his new personality hurt his hold on power encouraged by the regime rumors sprang up that the tonton makoot was zombies papadoc had raised from the dead others claimed he ate the hearts of his murdered enemies and thus gained their strengths that he could cast spells bringing the severed heads of rebels back to life to interrogate at leisure as time went on there's evidence duvalier began to believe his own hype at one point telling associates he was invulnerable yet when death came knocking it wouldn't be barron's samity that saved pappadoc's life but uncle sam like many others during the occupation the young doctor had learned that the u.s was a force to be reckoned with that no regime could survive without washington's backing so when he took power in 1957 duvalier made sure to combine severe repression at home with some good old-fashioned ass kissing abroad casting himself as an anti-communist bulwark papadoc wowed washington so spectacularly that uncle sam was soon throwing millions of dollars at him while this allowed the regime to consolidate its power and embark on harebrained schemes like trying to build a new model city named duvalierville the real advantage came in 1959. that year devalio suffered a heart attack that nearly killed him in another universe perhaps it would have in this universe though america responded by flying in specialists to help nurse him back to health all while the macoot bombed newspaper officers and tortured dissidents it took ages but finally after enjoying the best medical support american money could buy papadoc returned to the presidency and at that point he immediately went back to being an award-winning with devalier out of action his old loyalist barber had become acting president now though the rejuvenated dictator accused his friend of planning to supplant him and ordered him thrown in jail for 16 months not long after he staged a phony election despite still having two years left in office announced that it won 100 of the vote and claimed an illegal second term it was this last bit more than anything that finally got washington to reel in the aid that it was sending to pap a dog but even now the c.i.a didn't try to topple him they might no longer be willing to fund his regime but so long as devalier was publicly flipping the commies of the bird the americans didn't get a damn what he did and what the good doctor wanted to do now was terrify even his loyal supporters throughout his reign papadoc relied on random cruelty to keep people in line not just with the opportunistic targeting of civilians by the macutes but also by frequently sending once-cherished aides to be tortured for no rhyme or reason in 1963 though this repression of his supporters reached new heights that spring clermont barbeau now out of prison tried to get his revenge onto valier by kidnapping his son baby doc the ambush on the charles sherford car killed three people but ultimately failed rather than say babo's thirst for vengeance it instead sparked a blood-soaked backlash when news reached papadoc he ordered 65 of his own officers immediately executed in case they were tempted to join barbo he then ordered every black dog in the country shot playing on a local rumor that barbo was capable of turning into a black dog to escape assassins finally he had the makut corner barbo and his followers in a sugar cane field and set the crop on fire those who stayed burned to death those who tried to run were unceremoniously gunned down it was the last time anyone in his inner circle tried to stand up to de valier from that day on even his closest allies kept their heads down sadly that wouldn't save them as the 1970s dawned it was on a haiti now firmly under papadoc's faux voodoo spell back in 1964 devalier had done what all tyrants eventually do and had himself declared president for life what followed had been the birth of a personality cult so preposterous even kim jong-un would find it tasteless with duvalier firmly in charge the lord's prayer was rewritten its opening line changed to ah doc who art in the national palace hallowed be thy name this despite the bat connects communicating him from the church not that it stopped devali attending he still went every sunday only now surrounded by armed men just daring the priest to throw him out then there was the grandiose title he bestowed upon himself one that proclaimed him incorruptable leader of the great majority of the haitian people renovator of the republic chief of the revolution and spiritual father of the nation as if to prove his popularity villagers were shipped in from all over the country and made to dance outside the palace crying his name and cheering it was an absurd sham an entire nation mobilized to soothe one man's fragile ego yet behind the spectacle lay nothing but violence and sadism in this era teenagers who spoke against the regime were executed with shocking regularity close to the palace devilier began personally leading the firing squads that disposed of allies that he believed had slighted him it was even said that he had pee pulse cut into the walls of torture chambers so that he could watch as the tonton magoot abused their victims the haiti the 1970s dawned on then was an oppressive nightmarish place a land soaked in blood it was also a place about to undergo seismic change ill with diabetes papadoc had always appeared older than his age looking frail and elderly despite being barely 60. now even as his power increased his health began to slide in november 1970 a second heart attack left him weaker than before sadly though the death of the patriarch wouldn't bring haiti relief but only more of the same in february of 1971 de valia forced through a constitutional change eliminating age requirements for the presidency that done he named his 19 year old son baby doc his heir a dumb well-fed oath of a playboy jean-claude valiere looked even less of a likely president than his dad just like his old bar though he'd cling on to power for a long time backed by a brutality that would have made papadoc proud not that the older tyrant would be around to witness it a mere two months after sorting out his succession francois de valliere died of heart disease on april 21 1971 he was 64 years old at the moment he died papadoc was haiti's longest serving leader since president jean-pierre boyer fled into exile in 1843 yet what had his 13 plus years got in his nation ninety percent of the population was illiterate those with means in education had all fled resulting in a massive brain drain per capita income was just 75 dollars per year making haiti one of the poorest nations on earth even divali a signature youthful achievement had been reversed with so much poverty around yours had come roaring back along with a wave of malnutrition and then were the deaths today it's estimated between thirty thousand and sixty thousand haitians were murdered by the devilier regime on top of the hundreds of thousands tortured forced into exile or sexually assaulted that's a total few other tyrants in the americas could even dream of high enough to make the devali regime one of the deadliest scene in the post-world war ii western hemisphere sadly for haitians there would never be any justice today haiti is still a nation struggling with the after-effects devalier's long rule the majority are still crushed by extreme poverty a poverty they were plunged into under devalier which subsequent leaders have failed to save them from in a way perhaps this is haiti's greater tragedy that those who came after pepper and baby dog never managed to repair their wounded land in many cases they never even tried but for all haiti may suffer a chronic lack of good leaders and the united states that constantly intervenes there can be no doubting who should shoulder the most blame as leader francois de valle brutalized his people ruining their lives their prospects and their economy even as he showered himself with ever more ludicrous titles often in these videos we try to find some nuance in our subjects a spark of good among even the worst a hint of cruelty and even the greatest but there can be no nuance when discussing papadoc nothing else to say except that he was a shallow callous man who did no good in the world and far too much bad that his legacy lives on while so many of his victims are forgotten is nothing short of a tragedy [Music] you

Channel: Biographics

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Id: z8rOp6IiSO0

Length: 23min 42sec (1422 seconds)

Published: Thu May 05 2022