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Editorial illustration — not a historical document
On 17 December 1914, gold was removed from the vaults of the Banque Nationale de la République d'Haïti at Port-au-Prince and carried to New York aboard the U.S.S. Machias. Contemporary U.S. and Haitian government records gave different figures for the same shipment. In 1915, a U.S.–Haiti convention established a General Receiver for Haitian customs revenues.
Contemporary records agree that gold was removed from the Banque Nationale de la République d'Haïti at Port-au-Prince and carried to New York aboard the U.S.S. Machias on 17 December 1914. The United States Department of State stated $500,000. The Haitian Department of Foreign Relations, using bank officials' depositions, described $907,800.20 as deposited and $388,000 as remaining, yielding a $519,800 difference.
Disputed: Two contemporaneous official records give different amounts for the same shipment. MigraTeck publishes both figures and does not select one as the uncontested amount.
The U.S. account said $400,000 remained in the vaults. The Haitian account recorded $388,000 remaining. The figures differ, but both describe a remainder rather than an emptied deposit.
The U.S. and Haitian diplomatic records describe the gold as associated with funds intended for retirement of Haitian paper money and nickel currency. The Haitian Government disputed its removal without formal consent.
The gold shipment occurred on 17 December 1914. The Office of the Historian dates the U.S. Marine intervention to July 1915, roughly seven months later. The financial convention was signed on 16 September 1915, about nine months after the shipment. These are related historical developments but distinct events and dates.
Article II of the convention provided for a General Receiver appointed by the President of Haiti upon nomination by the President of the United States to collect, receive and apply customs duties. Article V specified the order for applying those revenues.
Every figure travels with the source it came from and the place inside that source where it appears.
The United States Department of State's stated figure for the 17 December 1914 shipment.
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. ↗
Located at: Document 583, File No. 838.516/27The same transaction, not a further payment. Two accounts of one movement of money are never added together.
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. ↗
Located at: Document 581, File No. 838.516/55The Haitian Foreign Relations enclosure records $907,800.20 as the deposited amount described by the bank accountant.
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. ↗
Located at: Document 581, File No. 838.516/55Totalled separately per currency. No combined figure is produced, because that would require exchange rates nobody here has cited.
Built from the recorded endpoints. Amounts are only added together when they share both endpoints and the same currency.
Not placed on the graph: 1
1 competing figure(s) are shown beneath the transaction they contest and are left out of this graph.
Several readings of the same sum may coexist. None of them is an official amount — there is no such designation.
No calculation model published yet.
MigraTeck researched and wrote this dossier from multiple cited government records. Competing contemporary figures are displayed side by side rather than added together. Documentary facts, official characterizations and later editorial analysis remain separately attributed.
This dossier covers the December 1914 gold shipment and the customs provisions of the convention signed on 16 September 1915. It remains separate from the France/1825 dossier.
Stated so the edges of the work are visible. Absence here means not-yet-evidenced, not zero.
This dossier does not establish what happened to the gold after arrival in New York, the institution that ultimately held it, or the final disposition of those funds. It does not infer unsourced customs receipts, debt totals, repayment totals or modern present-value figures.
a protective measure merely, in behalf of American interests which were gravely menaced
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. ↗
Every claim traces to evidence