Scope and arrangement
The Duvalierist Government Collection has three series: FRANÇOIS DUVALIER CORRESPONDENCE, DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE, and MISCELLANY. The collection primarily documents matters of Haitian governance, finances, and relations with the United States from 1958 to 1989.
The FRANÇOIS DUVALIER CORRESPONDENCE, 1958-1967 series contains letters between President François Duvalier, President Dwight D. Eisenhower, and Duvalier's ambassador to the U.S., Ernest Bonhomme. The collection primarily documents matters of Haitian governance, finances, and relations with the United States from 1958 to 1967. The letters between President Duvalier and President Eisenhower focus primarily on U.S. aid to Haiti and Duvalier's offer to provide the U.S. with land to build a military training and missiles base. Following the turn to communism by the leadership of the Cuban Revolution (1959), Duvalier secured substantial financial and political support from the United States. Despite the atrocities of his regime, Duvalier maintained the support of the U.S. because the U.S. wanted to contain the threat of communism in the Caribbean and readily financed regimes that opposed Fidel Castro. However, the reality of Duvalier defecting to communism was, at best, a slim possibility. Duvalier solicited money under the pretext of public-works projects. These projects included a new airport, a sugar mill, and an irrigation system in the Artibonite Valley.
The DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE, 1979-1989 series stores letters from Haitian diplomats in the Dominican Republic, the United States, and Canda to Jean-Claude Duvalier and General Henri Namphy. The letters discuss Haitian representation in media outlets and Haitian interests abroad. The bulk of the correspondence comes from Fritz Cinéas and Herve Denis, ambassadors to the Dominican Republic. Both ambassadors spend considerable time discussing Haitian migrant workers in the Dominican Republic, student protests against Haitian deportation, possible business ventures, such as soap factories, and border tensions. Most of the letters are routine, detailing the dates of traveling emissaries to Haiti and their own meetings with prominent Dominican officials. They also reveal strong alliances between the Haitian government and Dominican police and military officials, who routinely interrogated Haitian political refugees. In the Denis file, we witness the seamless transition from Jean-Claude Duvalier's presidency to General Henri Namphy.
The MISCELLANY, 1958-1985 series stores documents on Haiti-U.S. relations, anti-Duvalier statements and fiscal revenue charts. A highlight of the series is a joint declaration against communism Duvalier signed with Dominican President Raphael L. Trujillo Molina in 1958. This series documents arrangements for the U.S. to temporarily train the Haitian military (1958), efforts by the Haitian government to provide the U.S. with missile bases (1958), and press releases generated in the U.S. to alert its citizens to crises in Haiti. There is a report discussing Haitian migration to the Dominican Republic and some questionable solutions to the "Haitian question" (1985).
The Duvalierist Government collection is arranged in three series:
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1958-1967
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1979-1989
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1958-1985