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Creator
Haiti. Département des affaires étrangères
Call number
Sc MG 770
Physical description
0.21 linear feet (1 box)
Language
English; Some material in French.
Preferred Citation
[Item], Haitian Government documents, Sc MG 770, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division, The New York Public Library
Repository
Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division
Access to materials
Request an in-person research appointment.

This collection consists of diplomatic correspondence and documents pertaining, for the most part, to Haiti's relations with the Dominican Republic between 1947-1950, and to the planning and implementation, between 1948-1952, of a United Nations technical assistance mission to Haiti.

Biographical/historical information

In February 1949, the government of Haiti charged its Dominican counterpart of violating Haitian sovereignty by taking part in a plot involving Astrel Roland, ex-Colonel from the Haitian military and a protégé of Dominican president Rafael Trujillo, to overthrow Haitian president Dumarsais Estimé. On June 9, 1949, the two governments signed an agreement, under the American Treaty on Pacific Settlement (Pact of Bogota), that prohibited any hostile activity on their territory that could disrupt the peace and stability of the neighboring country. In January 1950, the Haitian government brought new charges at a meeting of the Permanent Council of the Organization of American States of a plot to burn down the Dominican embassy in the Haitian capital as a pretext for the Dominican Republic to invade Haiti. A five-member OAS investigative committee found that a close associate of President Trujillo, Anselmo Paulino, had "played the principal part" in the ongoing Roland conspiracy, and recommended various diplomatic, economic, and military sanctions under the 1947 Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance (Rio Treaty). Max Dorsinville was the General Secretary of the Haitian Department of Foreign Affairs between 1946 and 1952. Joseph D. Charles, succeeded by Joseph L. Déjean, represented Haiti at the OAS during the crisis. The writer Jean Price-Mars was Haiti's ambassador in the Dominican Republic, while the historian Timoléon C. Brutus served as minister of foreign affairs.

Scope and arrangement

The Haitian Government documents, 1947-1953, consists of diplomatic correspondence and documents pertaining to Haiti's relations with neighboring Dominican Republic between 1947-1950, and to the planning and implementation, between 1948-1952, of a United Nations technical assistance mission to Haiti. The collection documents the Haitian side of the negotiations leading to the Pact of Bogota agreement of June 1949, and to the OAS Investigating Committee report adopted unanimously by the OAS Permanent Council on April 8, 1950. Included are communications between the Department of Foreign Affairs in Port-au-Prince and Haiti's representatives in the Dominican Republic and at the OAS; Dominican Ambassador Joaquin Salazar's countercharges translated into French; and two reports on Haitian-Dominican relations and on the 1937 massacre of Haitians in the Dominican Republic. Other documents pertaining to Haitian-Dominican relations include a seven-page letter by Dominican ambassador and author Manuel Peña Batlle, with attachments, concerning Price-Mars's appointment as ambassador to the Dominican Republic.

The collection also documents the various steps leading to the deployment of an economic and technical mission from the UN Economic and Social Council to assist the Estimé government in setting up a comprehensive development framework for Haiti. The UN Technical Assistance file comprises correspondence and other documents exchanged between the Haitian representation at the UN on the one hand, and President Estimé and Col. Antoine Levelt, a member of the Military Executive Committee that succeeded Estimé in power in 1950, on the other. Other documents pertain to a $4 million loan from the Export-Import Bank to finance an agricultural development project in the Artibonite Valley (1949); Walter White, National Secretary of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People; and efforts to develop a ceramics village in 1947. There is also a correspondence file between Ambassador Joseph D. Charles in Washington and the General Secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs, Max H. Dorsinville, in Port-au-Prince.

Administrative information

Custodial history

Max H. Dorsinville was General Secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs in Haiti between 1946-1953. The collection was found outside his New York residence after his death in 2005.

Source of acquisition

Purchased from Michael Kaufman Antiques and Heirlooms, February 2007.

Revision History

Finding aid updated by Lauren Stark. (2020 October 13)

Processing information

Accessioned by Andre Elizee, June 2007.

Using the collection

Location

Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division
515 Malcolm X Boulevard, New York, NY 10037-1801
Second Floor