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The Invaded
 The Invaded
How Latin Americans and Their
Allies Fought and Ended
U.S. Occupations

AL AN McPHERSON

1
 1
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without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press,
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outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department,
Oxford University Press, at the address above.

You must not circulate this work in any other form

and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

McPherson, Alan L.
The invaded : how Latin Americans and their allies fought and ended
U.S. occupations / Alan McPherson.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978–0–19–534303–8 (alk. paper)
1. Latin America—Relations—United States. 2. United States—Relations—Latin
America. 3. Anti-Americanism—Latin America—History—20th century. 4. Nicaragua—
History—1909–1937. 5. Haiti—History—American occupation, 1915–1934.
6. Dominican Republic—History—American occupation, 1916–1924. I. Title.
F1418.M3729 2014
327.8073—dc23
2013023259

1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2

Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper

To Cindy, my love
 CONTENTS

Acknowledgments ix

Introduction: Occupation: Why Fight It? 1

PART ONE INTERVENTION RESISTANCE

1. Nicaragua, 1912 13

2. Haiti, 1915 22

3. The Dominican Republic, 1916 34

PART T WO OCCUPATION RESISTANCE

4. Nicaragua, 1913–1925 53

5. Haiti, 1916–1920 59

6. The Dominican Republic, 1917–1922 68

7. Nicaragua, 1927–1929 73

8. Brambles and Thorns 91

vii
 PART THREE THE STAKES

9. Cultures of Resistance 113

10. Politics of Resistance 131

PART FOUR TR ANSNATIONAL NET WORK S

AND US WITHDR AWALS

11. US Responses, Haitian Setbacks, and Dominican Withdrawal,

1919–1924 159

12. The Americas against Occupation, 1926–1932 194

13. Nicaraguan Withdrawals, 1925–1934 213

14. Haitian Withdrawal, 1929–1934 238

Conclusion: Lessons of Occupation 262

Notes 275
Bibliography 347
Index 369
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book was a decade in the making, and many are to thank for making it my
most rewarding, personally and professionally.
Funding the research was arduous and precarious, but eventually many gen-
erous sources came through. My former employer, Howard University, pro-
vided me with a New Faculty Research Grant that allowed travel to Nicaragua,
France, and England. The federal government awarded the project a Fulbright
to the Dominican Republic. The Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute of the
Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, the Hoover Presidential Library Association, the
University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies, and the Duke-UNC
Consortium for Latin American Studies kept my spirits buoyant with research
grants. Harvard University’s David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Stud-
ies, where I was the Central American Fellow for a semester, finally allowed me
to write the manuscript.
Archivists and colleagues at home and especially abroad helped me find and
understand a multinational set of sources. Archivists and reference librarians at
all institutions I visited in the United States, France, and England were invariably
courteous and resourceful.
In the Dominican Republic, Roberto Cassá and Quisqueya Lora proved
that professionalism and a boost from the state could rehabilitate Caribbean
archives. The Universidad Autónoma de Santo Domingo was helpful with the
papers of Tulio Cestero. Vetilio Alfau opened his father’s collection to me. “Na-
tacha” González showed me how to teach Dominican students. Hamlet Her-
mann helped me understand Dominican politics. Federico “Chito” Henríquez y
Vásquez, the grandson of Federico Henríquez y Carvajal, provided family docu-
ments over a cafecito. Also helpful were Salvador Alfau, Julio del Campo, José del
Castillo, Emilio Cordero Michel, Dantes Ortíz, and Alejandro Paulino. The US
embassy’s cultural staff, especially Rex Moser, gave me the opportunity to share
my findings at public universities throughout the Dominican Republic.
ix
x acknowledgments

In Nicaragua, Margarita Vannini of the Instituto de Historia de Nicaragua y

Centro América not only allowed me access to her center’s archive but also fa-
cilitated entrance into the jewel of Sandino history in Nicaragua, the Centro de
Historia Militar. There, Soraya Sánchez did the hard work of digging up relevant
materials.
I owe a special debt of gratitude to graduate assistants who brought me moun-
tains of materials, to which I responded with demands for bigger mountains.
Among these were Sarah Chancy, Joseph Hartman, Christina Violeta Jones,
John Kitch, and especially Glenn Chambers.
Colleagues provided advice and feedback as I made presentations and wrote
short pieces. Thanks to John Britton, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, Max Friedman,
Michel Gobat, Michael Kazin, Hal Jones, Joseph McCartin, Marisa Navarro,
Mary Renda, Yannick Wehrli, and John Womack. Jeffrey Taffet was most helpful
by reading the entire manuscript.
My present employer, the College of International Studies at the University
of Oklahoma, has been more than generous, giving me time, resources, and en-
couragement to bring the book to completion. Thanks especially to Zach Mes-
sitte and Mark Frazier and to fellow Latin Americanists John Fishel, Robin Grier,
Erika Robb-Larkins, and Charlie Kenney. Special thanks go to Sandi Emond and
Ronda Martin.
Susan Ferber at Oxford University Press was an attentive editor, giving my
originally bloated manuscript two thorough, fastidious readings that slimmed it
down and improved its accessibility. Oxford also sent the manuscript to the two
best anonymous readers I have ever experienced, greatly enhancing the finished
product.
Finally I owe my greatest debt to my family. Work on this book overlapped
with the birth of my two lively, lovely boys, Luc and Nico, who bring joy into
my life every day—even though that day starts earlier than I’d like. The project
germinated before I even met my wife, so since she has known me, Cindy has
been married also to this book. With all its demands on my time, this project was
most challenging for her, and she responded with patience and encouragement.
To her I dedicate this book.
The Invaded
 Introduction
Occupation: Why Fight It?

Shortly after the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, a Washington Post reporter tagged
along with a US Army company in Baghdad. He asked the troops if the people of
Baghdad wanted them to stay. “Oh yeah,” responded a twenty-year-old special-
ist from Louisiana. Assessing the friendliness of the neighborhood they were
about to enter, he offered, “95 percent.” The Post man asked a staff sergeant from
Minnesota the same question. “Maybe 10 percent are hostile. About 50 percent
friendly. About 40 percent are indifferent.” Around the block, an Iraqi offered his
own statistic: “We refuse the occupation—not 100 percent, but 1,000 percent.”1
In fact, polls throughout the occupation indicated that around three quarters of
Iraqis wanted the occupation to end.2
A lot can account for these wildly varying assessments. Surely nationality, but
rank, region, religion, education, past perceptions of the war, and self-images
also play a role. Such markers of identity always lie at the heart of resistance
movements to military occupations and determine both their motivations and
effectiveness. They were certainly salient during US occupations in Latin Amer-
ica in the first third of the twentieth century. Depending on how one defines
interventions, there were from 40 to 6,000 south of the Rio Grande between
the Civil War and the 1930s.3 Three of them—Nicaragua (1912–1933), Haiti
(1915–1934), and the Dominican Republic (1916–1924)—are the subjects of
this book.4 There were other occupations—Puerto Rico, Veracruz in Mexico,
Chiriquí in Panama, and several in Cuba—but these three were the longest and
most complex.5 They involved large numbers of US troops—2,000 in Haiti,
3,000 next door, and well over 5,000 in Nicaragua. Intended to be temporary,
they were neither annexations nor colonizations.6 Neither were they mere inter-
ventions. During occupations, US Marines took over many of the functions of
the state—least so in Nicaragua, where politicians invited the occupation; more
so in Haiti, where the marines ruled indirectly through a treaty; and completely
so in the Dominican Republic, where Washington ran a military government.

1
2 t h e i n va d e d

Marines also policed a large portion of these territories and interacted with
every social group.
Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and Nicaragua were all small, poor, agricul-
tural nations with only incipient industrial sectors. In Haiti, French and Kreyol
were spoken; in the others, Spanish, with some indigenous languages, and Eng-
lish in Nicaragua. Haiti was the smallest in area and had the densest population,
including a capital, Port-au-Prince, of as many as 100,000 souls. Dominicans
were a third of Haiti’s population and far more dispersed, and only 21,000 to
35,000 lived in Santo Domingo during the occupation.7 Nicaragua was about
three times the size of the Dominican Republic, but with a population of only
400,000 concentrated on its coasts.
In all three countries, those who resisted invasion were motivated not pri-
marily by nationalism but by more concrete, local concerns that were material,
power-related, self-protective, or self-promoting.8 Resistance to these occupa-
tions proved effective at bringing about an official US policy of noninterven-
tion, the Good Neighbor Policy.9 This book argues that resistance was the most
important factor in ending occupations precisely because it reflected concrete
grievances and also because it spurred transnational resistance movements.
Latin Americans were at their most effective (determined, united, persistent,
persuasive) when their interests (personal security, land, culture, local auton-
omy) were most threatened.
While most studies of occupation focus on occupiers, this book views events
through the eyes of the invaded.10 To do so, it draws on a score of state and per-
sonal archives in five countries and three languages, engaging specific events
on the ground and emphasizing similarities and differences among these three
occupations.11 Some of the similarities are well known: each occupation con-
fronted a rural insurrection, motivated partly by marine brutality. Less known
is why the Haitian and Dominican insurrections failed while the Nicaraguan
one outlasted the marines, or why the Dominican occupation ended in 1924
while Haitians lived through another decade of occupation. This book also dis-
tinguishes between two waves of resistance, a first against the fact of occupation
and a second against its conduct.
Past studies have also limited a comprehensive understanding of resistance
to occupation in Latin America by emphasizing the actions of peasants and
rural guerrillas. But, with notable exceptions, peasants put up relatively less
resistance to marine rule than all other groups save merchants. Once violent
insurrections ended and occupations continued in Hispaniola, contact between
the military and peasants declined. Several other underprivileged groups—
workers, prostitutes, other urban “untouchables”—had more than their share
of encounters with occupiers, many of them unpleasant. The process of occupa-
tion also threatened the status and wealth of prominent groups. Unemployed
 Introduc tion : Occupation : W hy Fight It ?  3

politicians, landowners, lawyers, and journalists became second-class citizens

under US rule and engaged in everyday acts of resistance. The invaded were
already engaged in contested, violent processes of centralization, which occupa-
tion both accelerated and placed in the hands of foreigners, prompting further
contestation and violence. This book gives peasants and rural insurgents their
due while adding weight to the resistance of other groups, especially peaceful
ones, which were ultimately more effective than guerrillas, save for Nicaragua
in 1927–1933.12 It also uncovers links between rural folk, urban resisters, and
other groups.
Among those other groups were anti-occupation allies abroad. Unlike in tra-
ditional war, anti-occupation activists cannot use their nation-state to resist and
instead resort to insurgency, civil disobedience, sabotage, and defiance of cen-
sorship. They also operate above the state, appealing to overseas civil societies
that collaborate as transnational networks of resistance. In Latin American oc-
cupations, links forged in Santiago de Cuba, Tegucigalpa, Mexico City, Buenos
Aires, New York, Washington, and elsewhere allowed those living under occu-
pation to communicate their grievances to the Americas, Europe, and beyond.
The progressive movement, the growth of higher education, the war in Europe,
improvements in communications and transportation, and the global expan-
sion of US power helped spur the creation of overlapping and interlocking
transnational networks made up of activists, writers, scholars, religious leaders,
and government officials who argued that the era of occupations should come
to an end. From 1912 to 1934, these networks helped amplify the messages of
the invaded through their informational power and political freedoms as well
as an increasingly coherent pan-hemispheric identity. While not supplanting
occupied activists, transnational networks provided crucial links to an anti-
occupation chain that began with the invaded and ended with policymakers in
Washington.13

The battle over occupations was primarily a struggle over political culture. The
beliefs and practices of politics were what occupiers wanted to change and what
the occupied wanted to protect.14 The repertoire of political culture during US
occupations in Latin America included elections, to be sure, but also other goals
ranging from a narrow insistence on constitutional forms of rule to efforts to
broaden socioeconomic equality, depending on occupiers’ own beliefs and
prerogatives and on local conditions.15 In addition, large gaps existed between
the rhetoric and practice of political culture. Rhetorically, clear differences over
political assumptions distanced occupied Latin Americans from US occupiers.
The former spoke of violence as a legitimate tool for achieving political legiti-
macy; the latter preferred constitutional means. The occupied were personal-
ists, believing in following leaders and parties regardless of ideology; occupiers
4 t h e i n va d e d

emphasized platforms and programs. The occupied believed that the state ex-
isted mainly to enrich officeholders; occupiers saw government as a collective
service. The occupied often operated without an opposition, preferring to re-
press it; occupiers claimed that occupations should respect civil liberties.
In reality, the occupied cherished their peaceful independence, distrusted
their leaders, and knew little about their governments. US occupiers mean-
while pursued peace through war, pluralism through dictatorship, civic respon-
sibility through relieving the occupied of responsibilities, and civil liberties
through censorship and repression. This book upholds the central proposition
of ­occupiers—that their primary purpose was to “improve” Latin American po-
litical culture—yet takes exception to the assertion that the United States did so
for “idealistic” reasons.16 Equally important, it asserts that political culture, while
not originally the primary stake in interventions, became so as other reasons
faded to the background.

Resistance to political cultural change emerged from the fact that, in the decades
leading up to the Great War in Europe, US policymakers concluded that politi-
cal culture was the connecting tissue of geopolitical, economic, and cultural ra-
tionales for occupation. Stabilizing politics was not necessarily the most urgent
problem, but it proved the most convenient rationale. When military fears of Eu-
ropean intervention turned out to be exaggerated, US policymakers fell back on
their political altruism. When economic rapaciousness could not be admitted or
did not exist, the desire for political change did and could. And when policymak-
ers proved unable to recognize their prejudices, they explained culture through
identifiable political behaviors. Occupiers stated clearly and often their intent to
transform the politics of the occupied.17
To be sure, these other motivations may have been sufficient to prompt at
least short-term military interventions. Geostrategically, the US Navy wanted
to secure the Windward Passage—the natural shipping lane from the Atlantic to
the Caribbean that runs between Cuba and Haiti—and partly for that reason ac-
quired a naval base at Guantánamo Bay after the War of 1898. In 1891 and again
in 1913, US administrations also tried to buy Haiti’s Môle Saint-Nicolas, which
stood on the other side of the passage.18 Dominican leaders offered Samaná Bay,
the most attractive spot in the Caribbean for a naval base. By 1914, with war
brewing in Europe, the US Navy was even more eager to secure lanes to the newly
opened Panama Canal. During the war the United States purchased Mexican oil
and Chilean nitrates, crucial for its allies, so keeping enemies out of the Carib-
bean was crucial.19 Washington had long wanted a canal in Nicaragua instead
of—then in addition to—Panama, and in 1914 it signed the Bryan-Chamorro
Treaty, which gave it the right to dig in exchange for $3 million to the Nicaraguan
government.20 Part of Washington’s reason for deposing Nicaraguan President
 Introduc tion : Occupation : W hy Fight It ?  5

José Santos Zelaya in 1909 was to keep him from selling the canal rights to an-
other power, perhaps Japan.21 Another common strategic argument was that the
United States landed in Haiti in July 1915 because the French cruiser Des Cartes
arrived in Port-au-Prince and the Germans plotted to do the same.22
While geostrategies may have justified interventions, they were insufficient
to explain the transformative occupations that followed. The Japanese had no
intention of taking Nicaragua or digging a canal. The French merely wanted
to protect their lives and property in Haiti and retreated as soon as they saw
the US Navy doing the job for them. “Anything likely to cause difficulties with
[the] United States should be avoided,” ordered the Quai D’Orsay.23 During
World War I, German submarines never operated in the Caribbean.24 When
Robert Lansing, Woodrow Wilson’s secretary of state, once explained the Hai-
tian occupation on the basis that he suspected a German move, the New York
Times responded that that “scarcely justifies” occupation.25 Naval planners in
1904 did foresee “advance bases” in Haiti and the Dominican Republic that
might require occupation, but the idea largely lost its appeal by the late Wil-
liam Howard Taft administration.26 The navy never acquired the Môle nor
Samaná Bay yet continued occupying Haiti and the Dominican Republic after
the war.
The marines also protected and promoted US economic interests.27 By 1912
the United States bought a third of Latin America’s exports and sold a quarter
of its imports.28 The Panama Canal opened its locks to many more trading ves-
sels than gunboats.29 Economic motives got their own policy moniker—“dollar
diplomacy.” Begun under Theodore Roosevelt and flourishing under Taft, the
policy gave out Wall Street loans to Latin American governments in exchange
for the right of marines to control the customs houses to pay back those loans. In
1907 the Dominicans signed over their customs in a treaty that became the legal
justification for the 1916 landing, and in 1910 the United States set up a col-
lectorship in Nicaragua, the Dawson Pact, modeled after the Dominican one.30
A $1.5 million loan soon followed, giving Wall Street ownership of the national
bank, the national railroad, and a steamship company.31 Wall Street also muscled
its way into Haiti, taking half the national bank and the entire national railway in
1910–1911.32 All this demonstrated the US intent to expand its economic and
financial power in Latin America through intervention.33
However, military occupations were far more costly than any investments
they might protect. In 1913, Nicaragua, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic to-
gether made up less than 1 percent of US investments in the Caribbean basin.34
In Nicaragua in 1912, US assets amounted to only $2.5 million, 90 percent of
them on the sparsely populated east coast.35 In Haiti pre-occupation invest-
ments probably did not rise to $15 million.36 Further, investments and loans
were virtually always secured before occupations.37 Heads of state were only too
6 t h e i n va d e d

happy to hand over financial oversight if they could get more loans from the
deal, and Haitian elites clamored for financial tutelage like the Dominicans and
Nicaraguans had.38 Occupations, moreover, turned out to be bad for business.
Investors stayed away from any place foreigners with guns antagonized natives
with guns. In 1910, one US mine manager in Nicaragua discussed how the pre-
vious year’s revolution had driven away “practically all the native Nicaraguan or
‘Spaniards’ who are the only men practically suitable for underground work.”39
Finally, virtually no private interests pressured State Department personnel into
ordering occupations. The main exception was businessman Roger Farnham,
but he scared Wilson with tales of French and German intrigue in Haiti, not
of economic catastrophe.40 The goal of dollar diplomacy therefore was not to
enrich US corporations—though that did occur—but to transfer debt from
Europe to Wall Street and thus bolster regime stability. As the State Depart-
ment’s Dana Munro wrote, dollar diplomacy’s “purpose, under Taft as well as
under Wilson, was purely political.”41 Wilson, especially, refused to send troops
“at the beck and call of the American dollar.”42 In a speech in Mobile, Alabama,
on October 27, 1913, Wilson foresaw the end of unfair loans and subsequent
land grabs and predicted Latin America’s coming “emancipation from . . . private
enterprise.”43
US cultural rationales also played an undeniable though not primary role
in military interventions. The main statement of the progressive movement,
Herbert Croly’s 1909 The Promise of American Life, advocated armed polic-
ing of the hemisphere.44 The racist paternalism of US policymakers even more
clearly justified military intervention. In the late nineteenth century the drive
began to define the US role in the world as advancing white Anglo-Saxon civi-
lization overseas. In 1886, Josiah Strong’s best-selling Our Country linked these
sentiments to a divine plan for spreading Protestantism. Missionaries were es-
pecially imbued with cultural Americanization ideals and unleashed them on
Puerto Rico.45 So were bankers and soldiers. In 1898, the desire to “help free
little Cuba” compelled Smedley Butler, at sixteen, to lie about his age so he could
fight Spain.46
Yet no single policymaker made a case for landing marines primarily on the
basis of US cultural superiority or Latin American inferiority.47 Rather, progres-
sives’ morality often led them to counsel restraint in international affairs. Sec-
retary of State William Jennings Bryan concurred with Wilson on this, calling
colonialism an “inexcusable blunder.”48
The desire to remake political culture, however, did compel occupations after
short-term rationales for landing faded.49 Occupations were uniquely intended
to reform permanently the institutions, practices, and beliefs of governance.50
In the narrowest argument, a Latin America in which leaders passed on the
reins of government peacefully and contracted no outrageous debts would keep
 Introduc tion : Occupation : W hy Fight It ?  7

Europeans at bay. Broader US visions included weeding out corruption and

teaching industry and sanitation in ways that would induce foreign investment,
eviscerating the need for dollar diplomacy. To many, too, political culture reform
was about transferring US values to the hapless poor and the clueless rich. Good
culture made for good politics, and good politics made for good business.
Wilson was the prime exponent of political reform, dubbed “constitutional-
ism” for the president’s determination to support only Latin American lead-
ers who won power through constitutional means. “I am going to teach the
South American republics to elect good men!” Wilson supposedly said when
he refused to recognize Mexico’s Victoriano Huerta.51 Political reformism ap-
plied to most US policies and predated Wilson. In 1907, the US government
justified the customs receivership by saying that Dominicans spent a full 80
percent of their revenue on government salaries.52 In lieu of such corruption
and waste, Wilson wanted “orderly processes of just government based upon
law.”53 Wilson’s Mobile speech counseled restraint but also suggested spread-
ing “constitutional liberty” throughout the hemisphere—a contradiction he
failed to acknowledge.54 Six weeks later he specified that “the Wilson doctrine
is aimed at the professional revolutionists, the corrupting concessionaires and
the corrupt dictators in Latin America. . . . It is a bold doctrine and a radical
doctrine.”55 Munro agreed that the first goal of occupations was not to make a
profit but to “discourage revolutions.” He found the objective “neither sinister
nor sordid.”56
Some within the US government disagreed with coercive political reform-
ism. “You shall not push your remedies for wrong against these republics to
the point of occupying their territory,” Secretary of State Elihu Root warned
during the Theodore Roosevelt administration.57 Others realized the paradox
of occupations that sought self-government by Latin Americans by sapping self-
government from Latin Americans. When in 1916 Wilson circulated a speech
that included the line, “It shall not lie with the American people to dictate to
another what their government shall be,” his own secretary of state scribbled in
the margin, “Haiti, S. Domingo, Nicaragua, Panama.”58
Yet the desire for reshaping Latin Americans’ political behavior rode an un-
stoppable momentum, especially in response to events in small republics in the
circum-Caribbean. In 1915, Haiti had had seven presidents assassinated or over-
thrown in four years.59 The Dominican Republic was also caught up in rapid rev-
olutionary cycles after the death of President Ramón de Cáceres in 1911.60 And
Nicaragua degenerated into civil war in 1912. Such events tended to simplify
rationales for occupation and draw US gunships.
Although the motivations of occupiers were important, those who most
tried to stop the coming of occupations were Latin Americans themselves, who
often reminded US policymakers that they had signed on to peaceful resolution
8 t h e i n va d e d

methods, such as in the 1907 Dominican treaty.61 When diplomacy failed, the
threat of occupation bristled Latin Americans; occupation itself enraged them.
A US major general spying in Mexico in 1911 reported that when a mere rumor
of an invasion spread, “Mexicans of the better classes did not hesitate to inform
American residents that not a ‘Gringo’ would escape assassination.”62 When the
US government took over Veracruz in 1914 for seven months, riots erupted
throughout Mexico. Eggs, rocks, and tomatoes rained on the many US citizens
who fled.63
Resistance to gunboat threats also arose in Nicaragua, Haiti, and the Do-
minican Republic. In the first, President Zelaya and memories of his overthrow
were the primary obstacles to a landing. Initially pro-United States, in 1906–
1907 Zelaya opposed US meddling in a war between Guatemala and El Salva-
dor, seeing it as a threat to his own hegemony over Central America.64 There
were other issues—loans contracted outside the United States, the slow settle-
ment of claims, flirtations with Germany and Japan, the execution of two US
adventurers, and especially the US decision not to build a canal in Nicaragua.
In late 1909, Secretary of State Philander Knox, whose former law firm repre-
sented US mining interests in conflict with the Nicaraguan president, broke
diplomatic relations and sent a thousand marines to overthrow Zelaya. The Ni-
caraguan fled to Mexico, where shouts of “Death to the Yankee!” greeted his
every appearance.65
Haitians’ bloody eighteenth-century revolution against the slaveholding
blancs and the century-long diplomatic isolation that followed convinced them
that no white man valued Haiti’s welfare. Haitians encoded within their con-
stitutions prohibitions against white, later foreign, landownership and rejected
Washington’s attempts to buy the Môle Saint-Nicolas. In the 1910s, anti-foreign
sentiment swelled, targeting first Syrians and then the French, Germans, and
Dutch.66 In 1915, a rebellion broke out against the MacDonald railroad conces-
sion in the north.67
After the 1907 customs treaty, which banned new loans without Washington’s
approval, Dominicans also resisted additional encroachments that might lead to
occupation.68 In 1911, the Dominican Congress rejected a US project to install a
US director of public works and financial advisor with expanded powers. Wilson
soon threatened a marine landing if his conditions were not met. In 1912, Santo
Domingo declared Spanish the national language.69 In November 1915, after
taking over Haiti, Washington increased its demands on Dominicans, includ-
ing replacing their military with a US-led constabulary. The administration of
President Juan Isidro Jimenes rejected what it called “an abdication of national
sovereignty.”70
And so, in the early 1910s, Washington stood ready to reform through oc-
cupation the political culture of its southern neighbors, a political culture that
 Introduc tion : Occupation : W hy Fight It ?  9

degenerated into violence partly because of previous US intervention. The para-

dox was obvious to many Latin Americans, but the enormous power differential
between the United States and the small nations of the circum-Caribbean easily
overwhelmed the will to resist.

The Invaded is organized largely chronologically so as to capture an evolving

multinational story of opposition and US response from the landing in Nica-
ragua in 1912 to the withdrawal from Haiti in 1934. The first three chapters
relate Latin American responses to initial landings, arguing that these inter-
ventions prompted a first wave of violent and peaceful revolts based largely on
national strongmen’s fear of losing political power. The next five chapters exam-
ine a second wave of resistance, made up of longer revolts by regional and local
strongmen, their followers, and ordinary people, against the style of occupation
rather than the fact of intervention. Part III, consisting of thematic chapters on
culture and politics, shows how occupations threatened values and practices that
had little to do with nationalism but rather with concrete ways of life that would
not easily be transformed by reformist marines. The final four chapters focus on
peaceful resistance movements, including transnational networks, that followed
the defeat of insurgencies in Haiti and the Dominican Republic, as well as the
final years of the struggle of Augusto Sandino.71

The major claims of this book—that the invaded resisted because of local auton-
omy rather than nationalism; that resistance was effective for this very reason;
that peaceful activists were as central to the struggle as were violent guerrillas;
and that transnationalism amplified all these struggles—contribute to a histori-
cal narrative of the era of occupations that is still, a century later, incomplete,
misunderstood, and romanticized. These cases were specific to their time, space,
and culture, and a familiarity with Nicaragua, Haiti, and the Dominican Repub-
lic is essential to grasping both their uniqueness and their similarities. These
cases also show that the first third of the twentieth century stood neither as an
aberration of US expansion nor as an exemplar of timeless US behavior in times
of occupation. While the conclusion draws present-day lessons from these oc-
cupations, the specific circumstances of every US occupation should be kept
foremost in mind. Falling short of respecting the local and the concrete would
dishonor the memory of the invaded.
 PART ONE

INTERVENTION RESISTANCE
 1

Nicaragua, 1912
So bitter as to be scarcely understood by civilised people.
—Smedley Butler, on Nicaraguan political parties

The US intervention of 1912 in Nicaragua was a typical case of first-wave

­intervention resistance, with a distinction. Behind the resistance lay a long-
simmering distrust of US dollar diplomacy in Nicaragua, and militarily the in-
tervention was swift and effective. What distinguished Nicaraguans’ anger from
that of subsequent invaded peoples was the intensity of their attachment to po-
litical parties. It colored all their political decisions, including their resistance to
debarking marines. Paradoxically, that distinction drove US invaders to try to
change ­Nicaraguan political culture permanently, laying the groundwork for a
generation-long occupation.

In seeing so-called national or federal caudillos displaced from power, Nicaragua

in 1912 shared a key characteristic with the Haitian and Dominican resistance
to landings in 1915 and 1916, respectively. Strongmen who practiced politics
through violence dominated Latin America in the nineteenth century, aided by
weak nation-states after the departure of European colonizers. That weakness
was evident in the state’s inability to raise enough taxes or provide services, its
lack of national consciousness, and especially its inability to monopolize force.
National caudillos sat atop a precarious pyramid of authority, with most of the
political loyalty and military force at the bottom, in towns and provinces. Caudi-
llos who held on to power in the capital were vulnerable to foreign intervention,
especially if competitors called on the marines to provide the required monop-
oly of force.1 In the early twentieth century, while this state of affairs dissipated in
larger, more industrializing nations such as Venezuela and Argentina, in Central
America and the Caribbean, nation-state formation remained embryonic.2
A major reason for the bottom-heavy allocation of pyramidal power was the
clientelist nature of caudillismo. From the pampas of Argentina in the 1840s
to the partisan towns of Nicaragua in the 1910s, strongmen, whether national

13
14 t h e i n va d e d

party leaders or local chieftains, mobilized followers largely through a two-way

exchange of favors. Followers’ interests could certainly be emotional and politi-
cal, but they were often also hardheaded and material: they risked their lives and
butchered their leader’s enemies for rewards of all kinds, including protection,
sociability, promotions, a political voice, even a steady supply of shoes and beef.3
The first wave of US interventions offered only a glimpse of these relationships,
but their potential for resistance became more salient as interventions settled
into occupations. Initial interventions also presaged a more popular resistance
outside the purview of caudillos: one equally material, partly nationalist, yet
devoid of partisan interest.
In Nicaragua, caudillismo expressed itself in the form of political parties more
than in the Dominican Republic and Haiti. Before the land consolidation of the
1920s and 1930s led by sugar and cattle, coffee was Nicaragua’s economic driv-
ing force. Largely cultivated on small, independently owned farms, it brought
relative equality, social mobility, and stability.4 Such attributes may have driven
Nicaraguans to follow family-oriented, non-ideological Conservative and Lib-
eral parties, whose personal and political vendettas tended to overwhelm an-
tagonisms to the United States.
In 1912, invading marines struggled to grasp such complexity. But interven-
tion contained a paradox: meant to stabilize political culture through strength-
ening the nation-state, it instead made state-builders appear to be collaborators,
destroyed incipient processes of centralization under national caudillos, and en-
couraged further rebellion from local caudillos.

The military intervention of 1912 ended in a quick, decisive victory for Wash-
ington and its Nicaraguan allies.5 In the midst of a civil war, on August 3, Ni-
caraguan Minister of Foreign Relations Diego Chamorro warned of a danger
to US lives and property in Managua and asked Washington for an interven-
tion force.6 The following day, 100 bluejackets or navy sailors went to the
capital to guard the US legation. In mid-August Major Smedley Butler joined
them from Panama with 354 marines.7 Within a few more weeks there were
2,350 US forces in Nicaragua, more than enough to overtake any Nicaraguan
challenger.
Overtake they did. On September 24, the leader of the rebellion, Secretary of
War General Luis Mena, surrendered to Butler and his marines. Two days later
he was on a ship to Panama, promising never to return.8 On October 4 came the
decisive defeat of one of Mena’s generals, Benjamín Zeledón. Two days later the
marines took the town of León. On October 8, the war was over.9 By the end of
1912, only 120 marines were left.10 “The disturbance of the peace in Nicaragua
has now ceased,” cabled Admiral William Southerland, who commanded the
navy forces, “and public feeling is quieting down.”11
 Nicarag ua , 1 9 1 2 15

Had it? What had disturbed the peace and how did that disturbance portend
resistance to the remaining force of 100?
Before the intervention, Nicaraguans, among all Latin American peoples,
perhaps most resented the long-term economic and strategic control that Wash-
ington and Wall Street arrogated over Latin America. Nicaragua was deep in
debt after the José Santos Zelaya dictatorship and the 1909–1910 civil war, and
by 1913 foreigners owned 40 percent of that debt.12 In 1911 and 1912, the US
State Department brokered classic “dollar diplomacy” bargains in which Nica-
ragua got $2.25 million in loans from bankers Brown Brothers and J. and W.
Seligman, in return for which the two corporations received a 51 percent share
of the National Railway and the country’s steamers and wharves.13 Mena seized
the company’s steamers during his rebellion.14
The deals united Nicaraguans in hostility, a stunning feat considering their
extreme partisanship. In 1911, the US minister found “an overwhelming major-
ity of Nicaraguans . . . antagonistic to the United States” because of the loans.15
When Secretary of State Philander Knox visited in March 1912, rumors of an as-
sassination attempt abounded, and President Adolfo Díaz jailed demonstrators
and muzzled the press.16 Knox still met with hostility from both parties. Liberals,
then out of power, greeted the secretary with violent demonstrations while Con-
servatives engaged in angry speeches, accusing fellow Conservatives who signed
the loan deals of an “Americanizing mania.”17 The assemblyman who introduced
Knox to the National Assembly sarcastically derided US meddling.18 Part of the
suspicion centered on the deal-brokers themselves: Knox was the former lawyer
of the La Luz and Los Angeles Mining Company, prominent in Nicaragua, and
Díaz was its former bookkeeper, and everyone knew it.19
Nicaraguan opposition to the deals went even deeper. In September 1912
Liberal delegate and revolutionary Leonardo Argüello expressed to Admi-
ral Southerland his three-fold opposition to the landing. Argüello argued
that any intervention weakened Nicaragua’s sovereignty and independence.
He also rejected the right of the United States to defend its property—the
banks’ railroad—since it rested on land owned by the Nicaraguan people.
Finally he questioned the concept of a government intervening on behalf of
a private company.20 Although Argüello articulated a thorough rejection of
dollar diplomacy shared by Mena and others, Butler dismissed such argu-
ments as “rot.”21
There were other reasons for the temporary Nicaraguan unity. Mena posited
a popular, non-Spanish, mixed-race identity for Nicaragua. He also marshaled a
bipartisan alliance, naming a Liberal, Zeledón, as co-commander. When Mena
launched his rebellion in July 1912, he fled with 600 troops to the Liberal town
of Masaya, set up an alternate National Assembly, symbolically deposed Díaz,
and later bombarded Managua. On August 3 it was US minister to Nicaragua
16 t h e i n va d e d

George Weitzel who prodded Díaz to request intervention.22 The State Depart-
ment’s Dana Munro recalled that “North Americans were in real danger because
Mena’s followers as well as the liberals were resentful toward the United States.”
Two US citizens apparently died in the bombardment of Managua and many
more petitioned for succor.23
Partisans, however, exaggerated the danger of violence against US citizens.
One member of the American colony in Matagalpa attended a ball in 1912 at
which “we all learned that there never had been danger or threat of massacre
or molestation of foreigners.” Furthermore, “the whole massacre story was an
arrant hoax, sent out, as was openly avowed to me, for the purpose of bringing
US forces into Nicaragua so as to cow and overawe the Nicaraguan liberals.”24
Indeed, after the landing of 1912, US forces identified with Díaz and against
the Liberals. Butler naïvely thought he was a peacemaker and expressed surprise
when he received an order “virtually changing our status from neutral to par-
tisanship with the Government forces. This goes back on all the things I have
told the rebels.”25 Late in his life the US military court-martialed Butler when he
implied that the Department of State had rigged the elections of 1912 in favor
of Díaz by proscribing most Liberal politicians from participating, a move that
engendered further opposition to US intervention.26 Once president, Díaz un-
derstood his marching orders in favor of US investors. As one US mine man-
ager wrote in December 1912, after the rebellion, “If those people out there
[US investors] want mines, I should think that now would be the time to get
them—That [Díaz] Government will be run from Washington more than from
Managua.”27
Before such a US-friendly government could function, however, Mena had to
be conquered. The landing marked the first time marines walked into Managua
and was the largest US force to date in Central America. Two to five thousand
Nicaraguans died during the civil war and US intervention.28 Butler wrote that
the enmity between Nicaraguans was “so bitter as to be scarcely understood by
civilised people.”29
There was plenty of bitterness left over for the invaders. The first incidents of
resistance in spring 1912 were attacks on Granada, a Conservative town. After
a drought, hungry farmers overcrowded cities, including Granada, and many
blamed the United States, saying, “The Conservatives sold the country and the
gringos don’t care if the people of Nicaragua die of hunger.”30 More specifically,
a US official in charge of Nicaragua’s custom duties held up government imports
of grains. In June, when the government did buy grains, the move brought infla-
tion and a more dire situation. Hunger and crime soared. To make matters still
worse, Zeledón and his rebels—the majority of them dissident Conservatives—
blamed Granadan elites for the fall of Zelaya, so they tortured and humiliated
the town’s men and women for two months.31
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
gewaande verpleegster keek, waaruit hij terecht kon afleiden, dat het
drietal het over hem had.

Daarop stond de hoofdverpleegster op, nam haar papieren bijeen en

draaide het licht boven haar tafel uit zoodat de zaal in het duister gehuld
was, met uitzondering van de rosse lichtplekken daar, waar de
surveillanten met hun lantaarns stonden.

Een hunner geleidde de hoofdverpleegster met haar lantaarn naar de

deur, terwijl de andere zich op haar plaats zette met de lantaarn voor
zich op tafel, om bij dit weifelend licht een avondblad te gaan lezen.

De andere surveillante richtte zich juist op dezelfde wijze in aan een

klein tafeltje vlak naast de deur, zoodra deze achter de
hoofdverpleegster gesloten was.

De taak van deze beide vrouwen bestond slechts hierin dat zij acht
moesten geven dat geen zieke de zaal zou verlaten en om in dringende
gevallen bij een plotselinge verergering den dienstdoenden geneesheer
te waarschuwen.

En voor de rest behoefden zij slechts aan [27]patiënten, die dit noodig
hadden, op gezette tijden geneesmiddelen ingeven.

Zij zouden om zeven uur in den morgen worden afgelost.

De groote zaal werd nu dus slechts verlicht door het flakkerend schijnsel
der beide kaarslantaarns en zij maakten een troosteloozen, bijna
somberen indruk op den man naast het bed van Beaupré, met al die
bedden, met hun vage witte omtrekken, en hier en daar een donkere
plek van een hoofd op een kussen.

Charly dacht nu niet meer aan borduren!

Integendeel—al zijn zenuwen waren gespannen en hij voelde nog eens

of zijn revolver nog wel op haar plaats zat.
Het onrustig schijnsel van de kaarsen in de lantaarns tooverde grillige
schaduwen op de gordijnen van de tien hooge ramen, die zich allen aan
één zijde bevonden,—dezelfde zijde waar het bed van Beaupré
geplaatst was.

Traag kropen de kwartieren, de halve uren—de uren voorbij!

De surveillanten waren blijkbaar ingedommeld boven hun kranten,

hetgeen menigmaal geschiedde als er geen ernstige gevallen waren.

En Charly zelf, hoezeer hij zich ook inspande, vocht slechts met moeite
tegen den slaap die hem dreigde te overmannen.

Ook den vorigen nacht had hij zeer weinig kunnen slapen—en hij
beschikte niet over de ijzeren wilskracht van een John Raffles, die
desnoods drie dagen en drie nachten zonder slaap kon blijven!

Maar eensklaps werd hij uit zijn halven dommel gewekt door een heel
licht geraas!

Hij hief het hoofd op—en eensklaps was hij klaar wakker, zoo wakker,
als hij zich in geen tijden gevoeld had, naar hij meende.

Hij luisterde met de grootste aandacht, maar het geluid herhaalde zich
niet.

Mogelijk had een van de surveillanten zijn lantaarn verschoven.

Maar toen onderging Charly een nieuwe, onverwachte gewaarwording—

hij gevoelde een kouden luchtstroom langs zijn voeten strijken.…

Langzaam, zonder het minste gerucht, stond Charly op.

Hij nam een lantaarn met een zeer sterk licht tik zijn zak, en bevestigde
deze met een haak voor op de borst.
In een oogwenk was het door zijn hoofd gegaan, dat de koude
luchtstroom, welken hij zooeven gevoeld had, onmogelijk verwekt kon
zijn doordat de deur open ging—want dat had hij stellig moeten hooren,
en bovendien, de surveillant zat daar nog altijd even rustig als daar
straks, met gekruiste armen, en het hoofd op de borst gezonken.

Charly liet zijn blikken langs de lange, linnen overgordijnen voor de

ramen dwalen—en toen bleef zijn blik op een enkel punt gevestigd.

Hij kon zich niet vergissen—een van die gordijnen had heel licht
bewogen alsof er een tochtje langs streek—of alsof daarachter iemand
het met de hand aanraakte.….

Onhoorbaar voortsluipend, zonder het minste gerucht te maken op zijn

gummizolen, ging Charly om het voeteneinde van het bed heen, en trad
op het gordijn toe—zijn revolver in de rechterhand, een vinger van de
linkerhand op den drukknop van de lamp.

Hij stond nu slechts een paar decimeter van het gordijn af.…..

Toen drukte hij op den knop van zijn electrische zaklantaarn, en een
onderdeel van een seconde later rukte hij het gordijn terzijde, hief zijn
revolver op, en beval mat gedempte, maar dringende stem:

—Handen op!

Dit bevel was gericht tot een man, met een bleek vertrokken gelaat,
waarin twee boosaardige oogen fonkelden, en die blijkbaar eenige
minuten te voren door het raam was binnengeklommen. Een hoog,
dubbel raam, dat bij wijze van een deur open ging, en evenals andere
ramen uitkwam op een smal bordes.

De man achter het gordijn liet een sissenden klank hooren, maar zijn
handen gingen de hoogte in.
De surveillanten waren wakker geworden, door het onverwachte, sterke
lichtschijnsel, en door het terzijde rukken van het linnen gordijn en
snelden nu in de hoogste verbazing en schrik toe.

—Wat moet dat beteekenen, Miss? riep een hunner, schor van
ontroering uit.

—Dat zult gij aanstonds zien, zeide Charly kortaf. Onderzoek zijn
zakken, maar doe het voorzichtig! Ik zal hem intusschen in bedwang
houden en ik zweer u [28]dat ik den kerel neerschiet als hij ook maar een
vinger durft verroeren. Hij had het gemunt op het leven van mijnheer
Dubois!

Terwijl Charly de revolver op het voorhoofd van den moordenaar gericht

hield, tastte een der surveillanten voorzichtig in zijn zakken, en haalde
daar een revolver, een vlijmscherpen dolk, en ten slotte een klein houten
étui uit, dat er uitzag als een dier kleine kokertjes, waarin men wel
dunne stiften voor vulpotlooden pleegt te verkoopen.

—Open het maar eens, gelastte Charly, zonder den schurk uit het oog
te verliezen, maar wees op uw hoede.

Het étui werd voorzichtig geopend, en bleek een vaccinatienaald te

bevatten, waarvan de punt met een weinig watten was omwikkeld.

—Houdt dat gevaarlijke ding maar hier en laat het onderzoeken! ging
Charly voort, ik ben er van overtuigd dat die naald gevuld is met een
snelwerkend vergif! Maar eerst zullen wij dezen ellendeling machteloos
maken! Snijd een stuk van het gordijnkoord af, en bind hem stevig de
polsen bijeen.

Het bevel werd opgevolgd en de surveillanten schenen hardhandig te

werk te gaan, want de schurk brulde van pijn en woede.

Charly snelde nu naar de telefoon en belde de politie op.

Daarop wendde hij zich weder tot de beide surveillanten en zeide
haastig:

—Gij zijt getuigen van dezen laaghartigen overval geweest en gij zult er
wel voor zorgen dat hij aan de politie wordt overgeleverd, welke ik
zooeven heb opgebeld, ik zelf ga aanstonds Madame Dubois op de
hoogte brengen en wat den patiënt betreft, als hij maar even vervoerd
kan worden, breng hem dan morgen onmiddellijk naar een vertrek, waar
dergelijke aanrandingen tot de onmogelijkheden behooren. Bewaak dien
kerel goed, want ik acht een sluipmoordenaar tot alles in staat! Ik geloof
dat ik zijn gezicht ken en de politie zal hem zeker ook wel kennen!

Met deze woorden snelde Charly weg en hij had het gebouw reeds
verlaten toen de politie daar aankwam om den moordenaar in ontvangst
te nemen.

Een uur later waren Raffles en Marthe Debussy—de ongelukkige vrouw

had onmogelijk kunnen slapen—van alles op de hoogte gebracht. [29]

[Inhoud]
HOOFDSTUK VII.
 De inbraak.

Den volgenden dag, omstreeks vier uur in den middag, hield er een
huurauto stil voor een prachtig huis in de Drury Lane, het verblijf van Sir
Roger Maxwell.

Daaruit stapte een eenvoudig gekleed man van omstreeks vijf-en-

veertig jaar, met een ernstig, donker uiterlijk, vlugge bewegingen en die
blijkbaar gewend was om te bevelen.

Hij belde aan, nadat de chauffeur was weggereden, en verzocht den

bediende zijn kaartje aan Sir Maxwell te willen brengen en deze mede te
deelen dat hij hem over een zeer ernstige zaak moest spreken.

De bediende wierp een blik op het kaartje en las daarop: „Filip

Greenwood”, „Particulier Detective”.

Hij wierp den bezoeker een verbaasden blik toe, maar haastte zich met
het kaartje weg, na hem te hebben verzocht plaats te nemen in de
prachtige marmeren hall.

Na eenige minuten keerde hij terug en vroeg den detective hem te willen
volgen.

Een oogenblik later stond Greenwood tegenover een man van een jaar
of zestig met een geel gelaat, dikke lippen, paarse wallen onder de
oogen en zoo goed als geheel kaal.

Die man was Sir Roger Maxwell, zeer bekend in de uitgaande wereld en
in sportkringen.

Hij wendde zijn waterige blauwe oogen naar Greenwood terwijl hij het
kaartje tusschen zijn vingers heen en weer draaide en vroeg, terwijl hij
zijn woorden als met een scheermes afsneed:
—Greenwood? Nooit van gehoord. Ga zitten. Wat wenscht gij? Zaak
van belang? Nooit iets met politie uitstaande gehad! Port? Madera?
Sigaren?

Greenwood was kalm gaan zitten en antwoordde, terwijl hij zijn heldere
grijze oogen op het schatrijke Hoogerhuislid vestigde:

—Ik zal geen misbruik maken van uw tijd, Sir! Sterken drank gebruik ik
niet, en ik rook ook nooit als er werk voor den boeg is. Ik zal zeer kort
zijn. Men komt hedennacht bij u inbreken!

De waterblauwe oogen knipperden eenige malen snel achtereen en

toen liet hun bezitter zich in een stoel vallen.

—Inbreken? Bij mij? Nog nooit voorgekomen! Hoogst merkwaardig!

Zullen van een koude kermis thuis komen! Tien man politie zeker wel
voldoende?

—Ruimschoots, Sir, antwoordde Greenwood rustig.

—Nadere bijzonderheden, alstublieft? Hoeveel bandieten? Hoe laat?

—Zij komen waarschijnlijk met vier of vijf man, zij zijn gevaarlijk en zij
komen om half twee!

—Heel snugger! Heel snugger! Dan is hier alles naar bed. Vervloekte
schurken! Hoe weet gij dit alles?

—Pardon, Sir Maxwell, dat zijn beroepsgeheimen, antwoordde

Greenwood.

—Ben niet nieuwsgierig! Hoofdzaak is dat schurken opgeknoopt

worden! Banditisme is sterk verspreid! Sterk verspreid, Sir! Sterk
verspreid! Zullen ons tot het uiterste verdedigen tegen rapaille! Maak u
mijn compliment! Zorgt gij voor alles?
—Ik zal zorgen, dat er hedennacht om twaalf uur tien man in de
vestibule verborgen zijn opgesteld, want de schurken denken binnen te
dringen door een der ramen die in de hall uitkomen, en die met een
ijzeren luik gesloten zijn. Ik vrees dat zij medeplichtigen binnenshuis
hebben, of anders moet er van te voren iets aan het luik geknoeid zijn!

De edele Lord stak den detective die hem aldus kwam waarschuwen,
twee vingers toe, welke deze echter niet scheen te zien.

Hij stond op, maakte een korte buiging voor het lid van het Hoogerhuis
en verliet het vertrek.

De huisknecht, door het bellen van zijn meester gewaarschuwd,

geleidde hem naar de deur en liet hem uit.

Op de stoep staande haalde Raffles—want hij was [30]het—zijn horloge

uit zijn zak en mompelde, na het geraadpleegd te hebben:

—Ik ben precies zeven minuten binnen geweest. Nu, die Sir Maxwell
mag een leeghoofdige, schatrijke en oude doordraaier zijn, hij is
tenminste geen kletsmeier. En ik moet tot zijn eer opmerken dat hij de
zaak tamelijk flegmatiek behandeld heeft. Wij zullen eens zien hoe onze
vriend zich vannacht houdt!

Juist toen het middernacht sloeg ging een deur in den muur van den tuin
achter het groote huis van Sir Maxwell open, en verleende doorgang
aan een tiental agenten, onder aanvoering van een inspecteur.

Een oude bediende, trillend van zenuwen, verzocht hen met schorre
stem hem te volgen en bracht hen naar de vestibule, terwijl de
inspecteur zich naar het werkvertrek van Sir Maxwell begaf dat op de
eerste verdieping was gelegen.
Binnen een kwartier waren alle maatregelen genomen, en wie onkundig
was van het veldtochtplan, zou, indien hij de vestibule ware
binnengetreden, zeker niet vermoed hebben dat er achter alle deuren,
achter een gordijn, en achter een zware pilaar, agenten verborgen
stonden, gereed om toe te springen!

De tijd verstreek langzaam, terwijl Sir Maxwell dien verdreef met het
drinken van eenige glazen rooden wijn, en het rooken van eenige fijne
import-sigaren.

De inbrekers mochten komen, zij zouden het niet eens tot aan de trap
brengen.

Zoo werd het half twee—en toen had iemand met een scherp gehoor,
beneden in de groote hall een zacht geklikklak van metaal op metaal
kunnen hooren en kort daarop het langzaam opengaan van een zwaar
ijzeren luik.

Een flauw schijnsel drong nu de hall binnen, afkomstig van een

straatlantaarn, die schuin tegenover het groote huis geplaatst was.

Langzaam klauterden vijf mannen zeer voorzichtig en geluidloos naar

binnen, nadat er vlug en behendig een ruit was uitgesneden.

En nauwelijks hadden zij een tiental schreden afgelegd, of de hall

baadde in het electrische licht, hetwelk de inspecteur had opgedraaid en
bevelend klonk de kreet:

—Geef u over of wij schieten!

En uit alle hoeken en gaten kwamen thans de agenten aanstormen.

Maar de bandieten schenen zich niet zoo voetstoots te willen

overgeven; er kraakten schoten, een agent werd aan den arm gewond,
en een der bandieten kreeg een kogel door den schouder.
Dr. Fox, die de inbrekers had aangevoerd, lichtte zijn revolver op en
wilde vuren, maar een schot klonk, de bandiet slaakte een rauwen gil en
viel voorover op den marmeren vloer.

De bandieten waren nu spoedig overmeesterd en geboeid en werden

weggevoerd.

Men tilde Dr. Fox, die blijkbaar zwaar gewond was, en die door een
kogel in het voorhoofd getroffen was, behoedzaam op en droeg hem
naar buiten waar een groote politieauto, die inmiddels gewaarschuwd
was, kwam aanrijden.

Maar juist toen het portier geopend was, en men den zwaargewonde
naar binnen wilde dragen, richtte Fox zich eensklaps overeind, rukte
zich los, schoot een der agenten neder die het dichtst bij hem stond met
een kleine revolver, welke hij in zijn mouw verborgen had gehouden, en
snelde zoo vlug zijn beenen hem wilden dragen, in de duisternis weg.

Voor de agenten van hunne verbazing bekomen waren, was de bandiet

reeds uit het oog.

Klaarblijkelijk had hij zich slechts bewusteloos gehouden, en het bloed,

dat uit een onbeteekenende wonde vloeide, over zijn voorhoofd
gestreken, terwijl hij voorover op den vloer van de hall lag.

Aan een achtervolging behoefde men niet te denken, want heel in de

verte klonk het geluid van een wegrijdende auto, die blijkbaar op de
terugkomst der inbrekers had gewacht.

Het gevecht met de bandieten had ternauwernood een kwartier

geduurd, en nu was het weder rustig in het groote heerenhuis.

De agenten hadden zich met hun gevangenen verwijderd, onder

aanvoering van een brigadier, en de inspecteur begaf zich nu maar de
werkkamer van Sir Roger Maxwell, ten einde dezen rapport uit te
brengen, en hem mede te deelen, dat alles veilig was, en hij zich wel ter
ruste kon begeven.

Het Hoogerhuis-lid ontving den politiebeambte met [31]de grootste

kalmte, en naar het scheen zelfs niet al te nieuwsgierig naar den afloop
van het gevecht.

Zijne lordschap vond het blijkbaar niet meer dan natuurlijk, dat een
inbraak in zijn huis iets onmogelijks was, en van te voren tot mislukking
gedoemd.

Hij klopte den inspecteur vaderlijk op den schouder, presenteerde hem

een sigaar, en verwaardigde zich zelfs, hem persoonlijk bij het afscheid
nemen naar de kamerdeur te begeleiden!

Daar wachtte een bediende die dien inspecteur zou uitlaten.

Sir Roger Maxwell keerde weder in zijn werkkamer terug om nog enkele
papieren te ordenen, toen hij plotseling als aan den grond genageld
bleef staan.

Tegenover de plek, waar hij zooeven aan zijn schrijftafel gezeten had,
aan de andere zijde van dit meubel, zat een man in een gemakkelijken
leunstoel, die heel op zijn gemak een sigaret rookte, blijkbaar zooeven
uit een zilveren doos genomen, die midden op de tafel stond.

Sir Maxwell herkende hem dadelijk als de detective, die hem

dienzelfden dag op de hoogte was komen stellen van de plannen om in
zijn woning in te breken.

Hij kwam verbaasd eenige schreden naderbij en zeide:

—Lang hier? Heb u niet gezien! Hoe komt dat?

—Ik zat in die kast daar, Sir Maxwell, antwoordde Raffles kalm.

—Kast? herhaalde Zijne Lordschap toonloos. Rare plaats! Waarom?

—Omdat ik liever niet gezien wilde worden! kwam het antwoord, op
denzelfden rustigen toon gegeven.

—Niet gezien? Eigenaardig! Bang voor uw eigen collega’s? Vreemd.

Hoogst merkwaardig. En—wat is nu het doel van uw komst?

—Ik kwam mijn honorarium halen! antwoordde Raffles koelbloedig, en

hij blies een groote rookwolk uit.

—Uw honorarium! herhaalde Mylord, met stijgende verbazing, en ook

een weinig ongerustheid in zijn stem. En Scotland Yard? Die betaalt u
toch zeker?

—O, zoo weinig! zeide Raffles glimlachend. Men mag het werkelijk geen
naam geven! Neen, de hoofdsom denk ik van u te ontvangen!

—Maar—dit is werkelijk een curieuse handelwijze! riep Sir Maxwell uit,

die zijn geduld begon te verliezen. Gij hadt dan toch morgen bij mij
kunnen komen, dan zou ik u gaarne een paar pond als belooning voor
uwen ijver en moeite hebben geschonken!

—Zeer vriendelijk! hernam Raffles spottend. Maar ik vind het wel wat
weinig!

—Weinig! riep sir Maxwell nu toornig uit. Hoeveel dacht gij dan wel te
vragen?

—Tien duizend!

—Tien duizend pond sterling? kwam Mylord, en hij werd vuurrood. Zeg
eens, mijnheer—ik vind, dat uw grapjes wat ver gaan!

—Het is geen grapje, Sir Maxwell, maar bittere ernst! zeide Raffles,
terwijl hij opnieuw een dichte tabakswolk deed opstijgen.

—Dus—een poging tot bedreiging! riep Mylord op heeschen toon, en hij

deed een stap in de richting van de telefoon.
—Als gij het zoo noemen wilt.….. zeide Raffles onverschillig. Neen—
ging hij haastig voort, blijf waar gij zijt! Ik maak geen gekheid! En laat uw
revolver ook maar met rust, want als gij haar zoudt nazien, dan zoudt gij
bemerken, dat de patronen er zijn uitgehaald. Dat heb ik gedaan terwijl
gij even de kamer verlaten hadt, en voor gij terugkwaamt, om uw
revolver uit de lade van uw schrijftafel te nemen! Men kan nooit te
voorzichtig zijn!

—Maar—wie zijt gij dan? riep Mylord, schor van drift nu, en een geheel
ander man, dan toen hij er zoo zeker van was, dat zijn bezit geen
gevaar liep.

—Mijn naam is John Raffles, Sir Maxwell! antwoordde de gentleman-

inbreker, en hij nam een versche sigaar uit de zilveren doos.

Het Hoogerhuis-lid verbleekte.

—Dus—bedrogen! stamelde hij. Ik moet zeggen—het is—het is bijna

geniaal!

Raffles maakte een lichte buiging met het hoofd en zeide:

—Dank u. Heel vriendelijk van u. En laat ons nu even de zaken regelen.

Goede rekeningen maken immers goede vrienden! Vlak naast u staat
uw brandkast, en de sleutels bevinden zich in gindsche lade, zooals ik
gezien heb. Open haar slechts met een oog op het slot, en het andere
op mijn revolver gericht, en betaal mij het bedrag hetwelk ik u zoo even
noemde. Hoe meer [32]haast, hoe liever het mij zal zijn! Tegenstreven
zou u niets baten, en mij alleen noodeloos ophouden. Ik zou dan
genoodzaakt zijn, de kast zelf te openen. Gij zijt nu in mijn macht,
bedenk dat! De bedienden hebben zich allen te ruste begeven—in mijn
zak zit de geluidontvanger van de telefoon, en de draad van de schel is
doorgeknipt! Kom, kom—bedenk u niet te lang, of ik maak er twintig
duizend van! Gij zijt waarlijk niet bekocht, want de bandieten, voor wie ik
u gewaarschuwd heb, hadden stellig uw geheele kast ledig gehaald!
Sir Maxwell scheen nog even te aarzelen!

Toen koos hij, zooals men dat noemt, eieren voor zijn geld, stapte op de
kast toe, na de sleutels te hebben genomen, opende de zware deur,
telde haastig een pak bankbiljetten af en stak het Raffles toe.

Deze ging vluchtig den inhoud van het kostbare pak na, stond op, en
wierp zijn sigaret in den aschbak.

—Mijn taak is gedaan, Sir Maxwell! zeide hij, op zijn gewone rustige
manier. Het spijt mij, dat ik u langer heb moeten ophouden, dan mijn
bedoeling was. En tot mijn leedwezen zal ik nu genoodzaakt zijn, u even
in uw eigen kamer op te sluiten—om begrijpelijke redenen! Gij zoudt het
mij nog al te warm kunnen maken! En wat het geld betreft, dat ik u
zooeven ontnomen heb—wees er zeker van, dat het een betere
bestemming zal krijgen, dan gij er met mogelijkheid aan zoudt hebben
kunnen geven!

Nog een hoffelijke buiging—en Raffles had het vertrek verlaten, na den
sleutel uit het slot te hebben genomen.

[Inhoud]

De volgende aflevering (No. 306) bevat:

Een avontuur van Koning Alfonso.

 Inhoudsopgave

I. Een Adellijke Bandiet. 1

II. Een nieuwe patiënt. 5
III. Een raadselachtig geval. 11
IV. Het verhoor van Big Billy. 17
V. Het plan wordt uitgewerkt. 20
VI. De dood achter het gordijn. 24
VII. De inbraak. 29
 Colofon
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Metadata

Lord Lister
Titel: No. 305: De
schijndooden
Theo von
Blankensee
[Pseudoniem
Auteur: Info https://viaf.org/viaf/8133268/
van Mathias
Blank (1881–
1928)]
Felix
Info
Auteur: Hageman
https://viaf.org/viaf/5168161211441040070000/
(1877–1966)
Kurt Matull
Auteur: (1872– Info https://viaf.org/viaf/56770919/
1930?)
Jan
Illustrator: Wiegman Info https://viaf.org/viaf/65074834/
(1884–1963)
2023-09-22
Aanmaakdatum
20:58:09
bestand:
UTC
Taal: Nederlands
(Spelling De
Vries-Te
Winkel)
Oorspronkelijke
[1920]
uitgiftedatum:
Detective
and mystery
Trefwoorden:
stories --
Periodicals
Dime novels
-- Periodicals

Codering

Dit boek is weergegeven in oorspronkelijke schrijfwijze. Afgebroken

woorden aan het einde van de regel zijn stilzwijgend hersteld. Kennelijke
zetfouten in het origineel zijn verbeterd. Deze verbeteringen zijn
aangegeven in de colofon aan het einde van dit boek.

Documentgeschiedenis

2023-09-21 Begonnen.

Verbeteringen

De volgende verbeteringen zijn aangebracht in de tekst:

Bladzijde Bron Verbetering Bewerkingsafstand

1, 18 [Niet in bron] , 1
1 Adelijke Adellijke 1
4 vergeellen vergezellen 1
4, 4, 5, 6,
14, 15,
16, 16,
dr. Dr. 1
16, 16,
16, 16,
17, 19
5 , [Verwijderd] 1
5 Schotland Scotland 1
6 gelieven geliefden 2
6 [Niet in bron] te 3
7, 26 [Niet in bron] . 1
8 opgengedaan opengedaan 1
9 Sedtr Sedert 2
10 , . 1
10 wij zij 1
11 cocaine cocaïne 1/0
12 verergde verergerde 2
14 Eduard Edouard 1
15 [Niet in bron] en 3
15 dr Dr. 2
16, 18 . : 1
bewuste-
17 bewustelooze 3
telooze
17 open de opende 1
17 Big-Billy Big Billy 1
17 . ? 1
18 [Niet in bron] — 1
18 plaatst plaats 1
19 haer haar 1
Scotland- Scotland
20 1
Yard Yard
20 Wal Wat 1
22 mecaniek mechaniek 1
23 zachjtes zachtjes 2
23 k Ik 1
24 bodschap boodschap 1
25 meemalen meermalen 1
26 mannen vrouwen 5
26 slecht slechts 1
28 .. . 1
29 alsublieft alstublieft 1
29 Bandietisme Banditisme 1
29 tSerk Sterk 2
30 kwarier kwartier 1
30 Maxwel Maxwell 1
32 [Niet in bron] in 3