Charlemagne Péralte died 107 years ago in Grande-Rivière-du-Nord

107 years ago, on 1 November 1919, Charlemagne Péralte, leader of the Cacos who rose up against the American occupation, was killed near Grande-Rivière-du-Nord.

An Officer Who Refused to Yield

Born in Hinche to a well-off, educated family, he studied at the Institution Saint-Louis de Gonzague. In 1915, when US troops landed, he was in command of military security in Léogâne. He refused to surrender his weapons and the flag without an official order from the country's authorities. With his career in ruins, he resigned and went back to Hinche to look after his family's land.

The Cacos War

In 1918, the forced labor imposed to build roads stirred anger in the countryside. At the end of the year, armed peasants, known as "cacos," rose up. Péralte took command of them alongside Benoît Batraville. With old rifles and machetes, his men harried the marines so relentlessly that the Americans had to reinforce their troops and bring in aircraft. In 1919, he proclaimed a provisional government in the North, then attacked Port-au-Prince in October.

Betrayal and Memory

Betrayed, he was killed by the Americans on 1 November 1919. A photo of his body tied to a door, with the two-colored flag, was printed in thousands of copies and circulated throughout the country. Benoît Batraville succeeded him on 2 December 1919, before being executed in turn on 20 May 1920. After the Americans left in 1934, Péralte's remains were exhumed, identified by his mother and buried with honors in the cemetery of Cap-Haïtien.