Philippe Sudré Dartiguenave

Schmidt's The United States Occupation of Haiti reads Sudre Dartiguenave as the Haitian politician who became president under the occupation's effective direction in 1915 — a figure whose willingness to accept the conditions the U.S. imposed (the treaty placing Haiti's finances and security under American control) placed him at the center of the collaboration question that the occupation raised. Schmidt's institutional analysis situates Dartiguenave within the political economy of the occupation: a Haitian elite that found advantages in American sponsorship, including protection from domestic rivals and access to U.S. financial backing, at the cost of formal sovereignty. His presidency embodied the occupation's fundamental logic — Haitian faces on American imperial administration — and his eventual replacement by Louis Borno in 1922 represented the occupation's consolidation rather than any shift in the relationship.

Dartiguenave's presidency embodied the occupation's fundamental logic — Haitian faces on American imperial administration — his willingness to accept U.S. control making him both collaborator and client.

Plummer's Haiti and the United States situates Dartiguenave within the long history of U.S.-Haiti diplomatic relations — reading his presidency as the culmination of decades of American financial and political interference in Haitian sovereignty that preceded the 1915 landing. Plummer's diplomatic history complicates the simple collaboration narrative by showing how constrained Dartiguenave's choices were: the National City Bank had controlled Haitian national finances since 1910, American naval vessels had repeatedly intervened in Haitian political crises, and the political class that Dartiguenave represented had spent a generation navigating between competing imperial financial interests. His acceptance of occupation terms in 1915 was not simply collaboration but the outcome of a long trajectory of Haitian elite accommodation with American power that the occupation formalized rather than created.

Dartiguenave's collaboration with the occupation was the culmination of decades of Haitian elite accommodation with U.S. financial and political power — the occupation formalized a relationship that National City Bank control and repeated naval interventions had already established.

Renda's Taking Haiti situates Dartiguenave within the cultural politics of the occupation — a Haitian collaborator whose relationship with American power was constructed and represented through the paternalist racial ideology that the occupation deployed. Renda reads the occupation's use of Dartiguenave as evidence of how paternalism required a Haitian collaborator: the narrative of benevolent tutelage needed a native partner who appeared to accept American guidance willingly. His presidency provided the juridical fiction of Haitian consent that the occupation required, while the actual governance remained in marine hands. Renda's analysis of how the occupation was represented to American audiences — through photographs, newsreels, journalism — shows how Dartiguenave appeared in these representations as the grateful Haitian statesman whose country benefited from American direction.

Dartiguenave's presidency provided the juridical fiction of Haitian consent that the occupation's paternalist narrative required — a native partner whose apparent willingness to accept American guidance made benevolent tutelage representable.