AnnouPale Haiti
History • Memory • Justice
A space inside AnnouPale to preserve, explore, and advance Haiti's history, our memory, and the pursuit of justice.
Editorial illustration — not a historical document
Educational material. Every lesson shows the sources it rests on so you can walk back to the evidence.
What happened to part of the gold held at Haiti's national bank in December 1914, how contemporary accounts differed, and how we know.
On 17 December 1914, gold held at the Banque Nationale de la République d'Haïti in Port-au-Prince was placed aboard the U.S.S. Machias and carried to New York.
The United States Department of State recorded the shipment as $500,000 and stated that $400,000 remained in the bank's vaults in Port-au-Prince. A Haitian Government account preserved in the diplomatic record gave different figures: $907,800.20 deposited and $388,000 remaining, producing a difference of $519,800. These are two contemporary accounts of the same shipment, not two separate shipments.
The records also describe the gold as connected to funds intended for retirement of Haiti's paper money and nickel currency. The Haitian Government objected that the funds could not leave the Haitian Treasury without its formal consent, while the United States Department of State described the removal as a protective measure.
The December 1914 shipment came before the United States military occupation that began in 1915. The Office of the Historian places the Marine intervention in July 1915. A financial convention between Haiti and the United States was signed on 16 September 1915. These events are connected historically, but they are not the same event and should not be collapsed into one date or one explanation.
MigraTeck's lesson is an original educational synthesis. The historical documents used to support it remain linked so readers can inspect the evidence themselves.
Where this lesson simplifies a contested subject, here is what it leaves out:
The lesson presents both the U.S. $500,000 figure and the Haitian $519,800 figure because the contemporary records disagree. The two figures refer to competing accounts of the same shipment and must not be added together. The lesson introduces the chronology but does not attempt to teach the full U.S. occupation of Haiti, the complete 1910 loan arrangement, or the ultimate disposition of the gold after it reached New York. Those subjects require their own sourced lessons.
This lesson rests on these. Follow one to read the document itself.
The Secretary of State to the Minister of Haiti, December 31, 1914, File No. 838.516/27, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1914, Document 583.
U.S. Department of State account of the 17 December 1914 shipment, including the $500,000 figure and $400,000 remainder.
Minister Bailly-Blanchard to the Secretary of State, December 30, 1914, File No. 838.516/55, enclosing the Haitian Department of Foreign Relations note verbale, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1914, Document 581.
Haitian Government account preserved in the diplomatic record, including $907,800.20 deposited and $388,000 remaining.
U.S. Invasion and Occupation of Haiti, 1915–34, Milestones in the History of U.S. Foreign Relations, Office of the Historian.
Secondary chronology used only to place the Marine intervention in July 1915.
Answers are editorial content, reviewed with the lesson. No score is kept and nothing is counted.
Every claim traces to evidence