In Dubious Battle

Someone recommended Steinbeck's In Dubious Battle to us at the blog a few years ago, perhaps in 2018. Now, after three years, we finally read the novel and cannot even recall why exactly it was recommended. Perhaps due to our interest in Georges Sorel, labor radicalism, communism, and anarchism during the years of 2017, 2018, and 2019. Regardless of the uncertain reasons why it was suggested reading for us, it was a worthwhile read. Steinbeck's short novel about a doomed strike and the ways in which their dubious battle harms all parties remains a timeless tale of the deeply unequal American society of the 1930s. And despite the casual racism and, as expected, problematic gender roles of these working stiffs and the Communist agitators Jim and Mac, there is a charming quality to these beaten and downtrodden working fruit pickers in the fictional Torgas Valley. 

The novel also brings to mind our experience with the nefarious ways of various incarnations of communists who believe the ends justifies the means. And we see some truly reprenhensible behavior from Mac and Jim, True Believers who want to use the strike to agitate and push their socialist vision, even as they know the strike will fail. Steinbeck faced criticism for his depiction of the Party in this novel, but to us at the blog it rings true of so many types encountered in today's world. Sure, let's hope they don't assault high school children like Mac, and their heart is in the right place. 

But one cannot help but feel that Doc Burton is the most compelling character in the novel. He rightly calls to question the difference between group-man and individuals, and need for something besides blood to motivate the crowd (or, mob). Burton can see the totality of the problem, whereas Mac and Jim are so obsessed by their ideology and the requirement of "blood" for motivating the strikers to continue their doomed struggle against the Growers. Perhaps, like Sorel suggested, the strikers need that sense of heroic sacrifice, violence, and a 'myth' to rally their forces and continue their strike. But Burton serves as a voice of reason, pointing out how the violent tactics and repercussions of the strike will only result in more violence. We here at the blog will continue to ponder the question of the dangers of the crowd, doctrinaire Marxism, and the disastrous outcomes considered in Steinbeck's ouevre. 

La colonie cubaine

1876 article from Spectateur on Cuba, urging a degree of caution due to the question of race and the US intervention, yet hopeful for Cuban independence.

Although the movement of Haitians to and from Cuba over the course of the American Sugar Kingdom in the Hispanic Caribbean is a well-known story, the 19th century movement of Cubans to Haiti is, though numerically smaller, an important story in the path to Cuban independence. This process was also accompanied by an acceleration of US power in the Caribbean region, as the Spanish-American-Cuban War brought Cuba and Puerto Rico directly into the US imperial orbit. However, before Cuban independence, the circum-Caribbean region played a key role as refuge and center for resources for the Cuban independence movement. Specifically, as a result of the Ten Years War (1868-1878), many Cubans fled abroad to escape repression, pursue business opportunities in tobacco (Key West comes to mind), and plan for eventual Cuban victory over Spanish forces. Haiti received many of these Cubans during this period, and as a movement weakening European colonialism and slavery in the region, enjoyed support. In order to grasp the scale of Cuban migrations during these turbulent decades, note how one scholar cited an estimate for 1500 Cubans residing in Jamaica for the year 1872.  Cubans based in Jamaica also interacted with Haitian exiles in Kingston, an important site for Haitian exile political activity described in great detail by Matthew Smith. 

1893 advertisement for Jean Rodriguez's barbershop, mentioning that he cut the hair of the Haitian president. Rodriguez was likely of Cuban origin.

The Cuban question became the focus of new pan-Antillean anti-colonial politics, consciousness, and debate as Cuban, Haitian, Puerto Rican, and Dominican intellectuals reconsidered their mutual ties and the necessity of a common front against colonialism. Betances, Marti, Maceo, Firmin, and Gregorio Luperon became the intellectual forebears of pan-Caribbean politics, proposing in various forms an Antillean federation to counter US and European imperialism in the region. The struggle for Cuban independence, and Haitian support for it, albeit often officially neutral, represent the development of this shift in Haitian conceptions of the Caribbean space. Moreover, the actual movement of Cubans in Haitian urban areas during these last 3 decades of the 19th century presented a transformation in the trades and novel attempts in the tobacco industry. Thus, Haiti's participation in the Cuban wars for independence also represented economic and social changes as hundreds, if not thousands, of Cubans moved to Haitian shores. This, in turn, likely shaped the nature of social struggle, the evolution of artisan associations in Haiti, and a discourse of national industry in which both Haitian and Cuban intellectuals sought to define their nationhood in the interest of the laboring classes.

1896 advertisement for a respected Cuban shoemaker in Port-au-Prince, Augustin Garcia.

According to Matthew Casey, who is one of the few to write about Cubans living in Haiti during the 19th century, Cubans were, by the 1890s, the most numerous nationality in Port-au-Prince after resident Germans and French. Their arrival in significant numbers is intimately tied to the Ten Years' War, and many of these Cubans, according to Zacair, were of African descent. It is understandable why Afro-Cubans would have, perhaps, preferred Haiti over Jamaica or the Dominican Republic as their homes, due to the proximity of Haiti and its history of slave revolution. It may even be that some of these Afro-Cubans, if from Oriente, possessed familial ties to Saint Domingue. Furthermore, their presence was felt in other principal towns, such as Jacmel and Cap-Haitien. Even smaller towns attracted Cubans, as Aubin found a Cuban shoemaker living in Petite-Riviere in the early 1900s. Cuban artisans in Haiti from 1870-1900 likely practiced their trades, especially those of barber, shoemaker, and tailor in all the major provincial towns.

A letter from a Cuban based in Gonaives, attesting to Haitian sympathy for the cause of Cuba Libre. From January 1897, to a Paris-based Cuban newspaper.

Indeed, according to some, they reinvigorated Haitian artisan professions by taking local apprentices. For example, Fequiere, writing in 1906, praises Cubans for perfecting the trades. In a history of Bel-Air, an area of the capital inhabited by workers and artisans, the author alluded to all the best tailors or shoemakers having been trained or shaped by Cuban expertise. Fortunately, historian Roger Gaillard names some of these influential Cuban shoemakers, whose work was held in high regard: Rufino Duarte, Augustin Garcia, Jean Laurin, Felice Shuey. These and other Cubans not only repaired shoes, but produced them, thereby weakening dependence on imports from abroad. Cubans additionally worked in a number of other professions, and were clearly held in high regard by Haitian journalists, educators, and intellectuals for their hard labor, willingness to train locals, and ability to exemplify respectable labor. The Cuban colony in Haiti was still favorably viewed in 1903, when an article in the 14 February issue of Le Devoir praised them for their contribution to Haitian artisan trades, even mentioning their marriages to local Haitians. Their comportment contrasted them with Europeans, or, even worse, the growing Syrian presence. Fequiere also praised Cubans for abiding Haitian laws and not intervening in political affairs, unlike resident Europeans and Levantines. 

1895 article from L'Echo d'Haiti expressing Haitian solidarity with Cuban independence fighters and refusing to expel their Cuban supporters from Haiti.

Cubans were also courted in Haiti for their technical skills and experience in the tobacco industry. Unlike, say, the Dominican Republic, where Cuban immigrants found a place in the burgeoning sugar industry in the last few decades of the 19th century, Haiti did not offer such favorable conditions for aspiring planters. However, during the same period, Cubans were involved in a number of attempts at launching tobacco farming on a large-scale, as well as cigar production. For instance, in 1876, a group of around 100 Cubans arrived in Port-au-Prince, eager to settle and establish a tobacco industry. However, due to a concurrent diplomatic row with Spain involving the Ten Years War, a Cuban and a Spanish national, the Haitian government decided against allowing them refuge. Charles Vorbe saw this as a missed opportunity for Haiti to develop a tobacco industry. Cubans were also involved in a later attempt to cultivate tobacco on a large scale, this time on the Dumornay estate of Charles Fatton. Unfortunately, a fire led to the dissolution of the plantation, and the Cuban workers left for Jamaica. 

Two Cuban mechanics offering their services in Port-au-Prince in 1870.

By the beginning of the 20th century, Cubans were almost certainly involved in a more durable tobacco company, based at Diquini, STL. Launched by Germans and Americans, STL endeavored to use scientific methods to grow tobacco on a vast scale, employing over a hundred people on its farmland and fabrique. Aubin identifies the workers as Jamaicans, but US Minister Powell's consular report mentioned Cuban cigarmakers producing over a thousand per day, about half for the domestic market. Of course, Haiti's tobacco industry never expanded to match that of Cuba or the Dominican Republic. Yet, the significance of Cuban labor in the attempts to develop one indicate the significance of Cuban migrants. They were sought for improving production and to launch another industry, further tying Haiti into global commodity chains and diversifying exports. Cuba was undoubtedly the school for Haitians such as the mechanically-inclined Pantaleon Guilbaud, who also launched his first cigarette fabrique in the 1910s, after living in Cuba. Guilbaud later becamed a celebrated industrialist in the 1920s and 1930s, producing cigarettes with a modern factory. For additional information about this industrialist whose success in the tobacco sector, Candelon Rigaud and Antoine Bervin's  Pantal à Paris provide more detail. Without precedent in tobacco from Cubans or experience in Cuba first-hand, it is hard to imagine Guilbaud succeeding.

1870 Notice for the visit of Francisco de Paula Bravo, a Cuban, to Haiti to promote solidarity with  during the Ten Years War.

Now that it has been established that the Cuban presence in Haiti influenced artisans, urban labor, the small tobacco industry, and shaped Haitian relations with Spain, their larger significance in a moment of regional change can be ascertained. By improving the trades in Haiti, Cubans improved production standards and shaped consumer demand. They almost certainly, as hinted by Roger Gaillard, influenced how their apprentices and Haitian peers saw themselves and the class question, too. For example, the rising participation of  Coeurs-Unis des Artisans in Cap-Haitien by the end of the 19th century might also be partly related to the diffusion of ideas from Cuban artisans. Moreover, the Cuban tobacco sector of the 19th century often included the most militant workers organized into associations and unions, the cigarmakers. While few of these established themselves in Haiti, their influence might have lingered with the nascent tobacco sector laborers in Haiti. Robert J. Alexander's history of Cuban Labor Movement also refers to walkouts and strikes among shoemakers, tailors, drivers, and others during the 1870s, when some of these very same artisans were moving to Haiti. Undoubtedly, the militancy, work stoppages, and early attempts at unionization by Haitian shoemakers could also have something to do with the influence of Cuban teachers, although many of the master artisans would have been petit-bourgeois owners of workshops employing others. In short, the Cuban presence  shaped the course the development of class consciousness, as the appearance of a pamphlet in 1890 probably reflects.

Dr. Ulpiano Dellunde, a Cuban based in Cap-Haitien, friend of Marti, and Haiti delegate of the PRC.

The Cuban colony, over the course of the late 19th century, also tightened bonds between Haiti and the Cuban struggle. Cuban patriots had visited Haiti since 1870, and would continue to do so. Maceo, Marti, Betances, and other prominent proponents of Cuban and Puerto Rican sovereignty spent time or lived there, formed associations to assist the liberation struggle, and came to regard the place as central to the story of Caribbean autonomy. Even as Cubans continued to struggle over the racial question and fear of another Haiti, their presence there forged ties that did not dissolve after independence. The mutual respect grounded in the revolutionary past of Haiti, its utility as a base of operations for insurgents, and the centrality of Hispaniola within the Antillean space made it so. 

Thomas Trenard, a Cuban tailor, promoted his business in various Port-au-Prince newspapers for several years, such as this 1888 newspaper.

Thus, Cubans residents continued to advertise their businesses in Port-au-Prince newspapers after 1898. Cuban and Haitian trade connected the two islands as Haitian emigration to Cuba expanded exponentially under the aegis of US empire. The return of Haitian migrants from their Cuban sojourn exerted new influences on music, taste, sensibility, and politics. And it goes without saying that the Cuban medical missions after the Revolution have been life-saving for countless Haitian citizens. Today, Cubans come to Haiti for shopping, and are still well-liked by the Haitian people. These bonds were forged by the experience of anti-colonial movements of the late 19th century, in which the Cuban colonie of Haiti played a pivotal role. In spite of this anti-colonial heritage, the two were bound by a new form of domination that reversed migration ways with the rise of US empire.

Servants, Laborers, and Shophands in the Cities of Tokugawa Japan

Although it is a subject far out of the 'expertise' of this blog, Leupp's Servants, Laborers, and Shophands in the Cities of Tokugawa Japan offers an interesting study on urban history and the rise of wage labor. Focusing on urban domestics, servants, casual laborers, and shophands rather than artisans or the urban poor or street peddlers, Leupp's study demonstrates the key role played by the state in instituting wage labor over life contracts between employers and laborers. The Tokugawa period, although often described as "feudal," paved the way for new social relations and proto-industrialization, a key step toward the development of capitalism. That is the importance of this text, although the study limits itself to the working population of Tokugawa cities and their lives.

 

The conditions were propitious for these developments as merchants became more status-obsessed like the aristocrats, flaunting their wealth and position. The urban boom in the early period of the Tokugawa era favored rural to urban migration as well as a high demand for labor, plus the shoguns mandated the daimyos and their relatives spend a significant amount of time in Edo, thereby fomenting the need for servants and workers to provide services. Soon employment agencies emerged, work groups with a boss who provided labor to clients, shophands and clerks who worked for various businesses, and entertainment venues for all social classes. It's astonishing how modern it sounds, these transformations in Edo, Kyoto and other Japanese castle-towns or urban areas.

 

Leupp's book also analyses in great detail master-servant relations for domestics, forms of resistance (usually individual forms, such as flight or theft, not collective action), housing for the urban laborers, Tokugawa government policies with regards to incarceration and vocational training, urban riots, wages, and gendered dimensions of the workforce. He draws on a wide array of sources, particularly literary ones to perceive societal attitudes towards changes in the workforce, master-servant relations, and the audiences of theater performances. For the casual reader with only a superficial knowledge of such literary references, it could be confusing at times.

However, perhaps the monograph would have been strengthened by including street peddlers, the urban poor, and artisans in the analysis. The groups overlapped considerably, since many day laborers also hawked goods or food in the street, or joined criminal elements and vagrants. Further, some apprentices and artisans, such as carpenters or masons, are included in the analysis. These categories overlapped and would have frequently crossed paths as commoners in the cities and towns, even if many artisans were organized into guilds and possessed more of a petty bourgeois outlook. It would also have been useful to see how technological changes over time contributed to the growth of wage labor and skilled or "unskilled" trades and professions. Was there a rise in the number of artisans who joined the ranks of the day laborers and urban hawkers?

Nevertheless, this is a fascinating perspective on the rise of a proto-proletariat before the Meiji period, and offers some insights into the rise of capitalism. Leupp acknowledges this throughout the book, comparing Japan with early modern European cities to stress the distinctive and shared patterns. Again, the key role played by the "feudal" state is central, although it throws into question what exactly feudal or capitalist systems entail.

CPUSA

Although problematic like most documentaries, this somewhat sympathetic history of the Communist Party is full of interesting anecdotes about the experiences of its members. Furthermore, the documentary recognizes how the Communists played a pivotal role in numerous progressive social causes, particularly during the Depression. For that reason alone, closer scrutiny of the CPUSA is required. Of course, my reasons for any interest in it at all is related to its connections with Caribbean organizations and figures. 

The Formation of the Parti National Travailliste

Although there remains a lot more digging in archives and newspapers to be done, Antoine Pierre-Paul and the formation of the Parti National Travailliste is deserving of some attention. As the first official labor party in Haitian history, it's formation is intimately linked with the US Occupation of Haiti and the rising numbers of the working-class. It's formation symbolizes the convergence of an incipient working-class and the middle-class and elites also opposed to the US Marines. And while it may not have been a Communist party, to the chagrin of the US Daily Worker, the Parti National Travailliste did possess a larger political platform than simple opposition to US imperialism. The party very well might indicate a greater degree of inter-class solidarity during the US Occupation, in addition to providing background to the later growth of labor, Marxism, and noirisme in Haiti during the 1940s.

Combing through articles from Le Matin and Le Nouvelliste in the 1920s and early 1930s reveals the appearance of a number of labor organizations or associations. However, as correctly noted by Hector, many of these organizations were not unions, and it's questionable to what extent the typographers and chauffeurs really did have a syndicat in the 1920s, but the growing number of worker associations fueled the eventual rise of a political party geared towards labor. The Union Patriotique and Joseph Jolibois fils certainly sensed the importance of cross-class collaboration against imperialism, and we already know Jolibois fils had a following among workers in Port-au-Prince. Jolibois fils launched his own labor confederations, represented Haiti at a labor congress in Santo Domingo, and traveled across Latin America, thereby engaging with anti-imperialist, socialist, and nationalists across the hemisphere. Others, such as Perceval Thoby, sought to resist dispossession of peasants in their Union Nationaliste. Opposition to the US Occupation might not have been an effective inter-class collaborative effort, but there were attempts to bridge the gap, labor and peasant interests being one.

The youth, coming of age under the US Occupation, turned to new notions of Haitian identity, culture, and racism, especially through Haitian indigenist thought. Students, particularly those who launched a strike at Damien in 1929, later sparked a series of protests and solidarity strikes that eventually brought an end to the presidency of Louis Borno. These students, in addition to others who experienced the Occupation for the entirety of their youth, launched their own patriotic associations, journals, and, in some cases, embraced radical politics. Jacques Roumain and Georges Petit, for instance, rose to prominence for their journalism, activism, and experience of imprisonment at the behest of the US-controlled Haitian government. As one can see, the students were poised to play a major role as a spark in some type of social conflagration. 

Let's look at Antoine Pierre-Paul. Born in Les Cayes in 1880, he was a lawyer, businessman, and associate of former president Antoine Simon. He was also part of an attempted coup against Dartiguenave in 1916, which establishes his nationalist credentials against the US-appointed government. Moreover, Pierre-Paul participated in the Union Patriotique in the 1920s, after the armed insurrections of the cacos failed. Another organization he appears to have been a member of or affiliated with, the Association Fraternelle des Travailleurs, appears to be the link between his later involvement in labor politics and Haitian labor organizations prior to the 1929 demonstrations. According to Le Matin, this association was already calling for strikes against the US Occupation in 1921. This aforementioned article indicates the group consisted of some 100 or so members, including patrons and workers. Significantly, Ernest Gauchier, a member of the Association Fraternelle, later appeared as a member of the Parti National Travailliste. Thus, Pierre-Paul and the Parti National Travailliste inherited a history of cross-class collaboration, labor solidarity, and anti-Occupation tactics.

The party officially formed in November 1929, in the midst of the student strike at Damien and the later massacre of peasant protesters at Marchaterre. Its early membership likely consisted of artisans, such as Charles Mervilus, a carpenter, and other urban laborers. According to documents written by Pierre-Paul himself, published in Le Nouvelliste in October, the political party saw itself as representing the majority of the nation. The working-class, Pierre-Paul argued, experienced worsening conditions under US Occupation. Furthermore, the party sought to identify the cause of workers with peasants because of the close familial bonds between the two and, presumably, rural to urban migration. Clearly, Pierre-Paul was linking the cause of peasants and workers, not just urban workers and artisans. Whether or not the party was ever successful at organizing rural residents, it did develop a following in Port-au-Prince and near Les Cayes, where the Marchaterre massacre occurred.

The party's political platform, at least in November 1929, consisted of a series of administrative, economic, and legislative reforms. Protections for national industry, the creation of an industrial and agricultural credit and banking institutions, restrictions on foreign ownership of land, labor legislation on the length of the working day and minimum wages, savings funds for workers, and reorganization of night schools. While certainly not a socialist party calling for class war, it pursued a series of pro-labor reforms and economic agendas that would have improved conditions for the working-class, peasants feeling a crunch from US agro-industrial companies, and promote the national bourgeoisie instead of foreign capitalists. These reformist views bring to mind 19th century Haitian reformers and intellectuals like Edmond Paul and Louis-Joseph Janvier, not to mention subsequent Marxists who also sought to develop the local bourgeoisie and protect national industry. 

In terms of the party's impact on the anti-Occupation movement, it developed a following in Les Cayes (possibly due to Pierre-Paul's family ties and political connections there) and entered a pact of organizations also opposed to the occupiers. Gesner Guillou, the head of the regional committee of the Parti National Travailliste in Les Cayes, participated during the December 1929 demonstrations in the same city, when US Marines fired upon protesters. Pierre-Paul later claimed it was Marchaterre that finished Borno and brought the Forbes Commission to Haiti. To what extent the Parti National Travailliste can claim credit for organizing peasant and urban protests in 1929 is unclear at the moment, but the party did play a major role in consolidating a mass movement opposed to Borno's new taxes and the Occupation. 

As for the longevity of the party and its larger social significance after 1929, it appears throughout the 1930s and again, in 1946. Pierre-Paul was a presidential candidate on his party's ticket. He represented Haiti at the 1933 Montevideo Conference, challenging the Occupation. It's unclear to what degree the party actually existed independently of Pierre-Paul, who would later serve as a minister of labor under Francois Duvalier, but one article suggests the party possessed thousands of adherents by January 1930. Nonetheless, it seems like the party was probably limited to Port-au-Prince and Les Cayes, and it lacked the characteristic traits of a large political party like Fignole's Mouvement Paysan Ouvrier, which published its own journal, established locals, and appears to have developed from greater leadership of working-class members than the Parti National Travailliste. Nor did the Parti National Travailliste connect with Jolibois fils's labor ephemeral labor confederation, which did endeavor to build a labor movement connecting rural and urban Haiti.

It would take another democratic movement in 1946 to cement the conditions more favorable for legally recognized labor rights, middle-class political power, and the development of radicalism in Haitian politics. However, the Parti National Travailliste serves an as early precursor to these later developments, indicating the extent to which a labor party was both strengthened yet limited by the socio-economic and political conditions of Occupation. More work must be done to assess critically the political party's daily operations, its relationship with members inside and outside the capital, as well as its transformations in the 1930s and 1940s. But hopefully it serves to indicate the importance of a nascent working-class on the movement against the Occupation.

Works Consulted

Haiti; 1919-1920. Blue Book of Haiti. A Pictorial Review of the Republic of Hayti. New York: Klebold Press, 1920.

Hector, Michel. Crises et mouvements populaires en Haïti. Port-au-Prince, Haïti: Presses Nationales d'Haïti, 2006.

McPherson, Alan L. The Invaded: How Latin Americans and Their Allies Fought and Ended U.S. Occupations. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014.

Millet, Kethly. Les paysans haïtiens et l'occupation américaine d'Haïti, 1915-1930. La Salle, Québec: Collectif Paroles, 1978.

Schmidt, Hans. The United States Occupation of Haiti, 1915-1934. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1995.

Syndicat des Ouvriers Cordonniers (1903)

Attempting to track down information on the alleged first Haitian labor union is a trying enterprise. Unfortunately, the Syndicat des Ouvriers Cordonniers Haïtiens, which was founded on the 24th of March in 1903, does not appear in Le Nouvelliste. The main source used by Georges Fortuné, Michel Hector, and Edner Brutus for the union's existence is a report from Lamartine Cayemitte, at the first national congress of labor in Haiti in 1949. Cayemitte, a member of the organized shoemaker association, presumably described this early labor union from oral tradition, as passed down by the members of the union or the next generations of shoemakers. Based on Cayemitte, we know the union was founded at the shoe manufacturing workshop of a Dessources Poveda, and likely included 46 workers at the atelier. Discussing the union in the context of free syndicalism, Cayemitte appears to have blamed the government for interfering and putting an end to this first labor union plus subsequent attempts to organize shoemakers under Ernest Camille. Of course, it is not exactly a surprise shoemakers emerged as the first organized labor group in Haiti, since they had a penchant for being artisan intellectuals tied to radicalism in Europe and Latin America.

Unfortunately, a complete identification of Dessources Poveda has not been successful, although one source does mention a cordonnerie established by a Poveda of Cuban origins. Another Poveda of Cuban origins, Simon Poveda Ferrer, also appears in Port-au-Prince as part of a local affiliate of the Cuerpo de Consejo in the 1890s. Thus, it does appear that a cordonnerie owned by someone with the name Poveda did indeed exist in Port-au-Prince, and by 1903, it was large enough to employ at least 46 shoemakers. As indicated by Gaillard and others, the impact of Cuban immigrants on local industry and professions was significant, especially since they took on local apprentices and brought with them ideas associated with the Cuban labor movement of the era, as the appearance of worker associations in the late 19th century likely reflects. The further expansion of cordonneries like Tannerie Continentale, which employed even more shoemakers (plus tanners), were usually owned by foreigners and likely created the conditions where shoemakers were able to find solidarity through their loss of autonomy as the large-scale enterprises limited their opportunities to establish themselves as independent workers. Perhaps this is why, like cigarmakers in Cuba, shoemakers took early on to labor unions, as they saw their independent status as producers increasingly usurped by large workshops. And like the workers at Tannerie Continentale, the dissolution of the union occurred as the shoemakers walked out of the enterprise over an issue of salaries for a member of the union. 

Cayemitte also identified the members of the first committee of the union. Unfortunately, their names have not yet been found in my digging through some of the newspapers of the era, but their functions as presidents, treasurers, and secretaries suggests some members were literate and the union had a degree of organization or bureaucracy.  Perhaps this reflects the impact of mutual aid society structures and associations of the 1890s, or even the structure of labor unions and artisan associations as they appeared in the Dominican Republic or Jamaica at this time. Unfortunately, the union does not appear to have left any records, and their two deeds which should have garnered attention from the local press, a strike in 1905 and the sending of 500 dollars to the victims of an epidemic or catastrophe in Jamaica, do not appear in the pages of Le Nouvelliste (although it is possible other Port-au-Prince newspapers mentioned it). Indeed, the only mention of a Haitian labor organization and Jamaica in the pages of the newspaper refer to 10 gourdes sent by a worker association after the 1907 earthquake in Kingston. However, 500 dollars versus 10 gourdes clearly indicates a sizable difference in the revenue-raising capacities of the former syndicat and the latter association ouvrière. That the union could raise such a sum indicates it must have had some degree of organization and size.

It is probable that this short-lived experiment in Haitian syndicalism was not quite a labor union as we know it. Perhaps it was akin to the early artisan unions in Jamaica, which, according to Richard Hart, had members who emigrated to Haiti and elsewhere. Perhaps these Jamaican carpenters, tailors, shoemakers, etc. also brought some of their own interests to Haiti, hoping to protect the reputation of their skilled profession and regulate pay and apprenticeship. It may also be useful to look at the development of gremios and early labor organizations in the Dominican Republic, which included a Liga de Artesanos y Obreros that appeared in 1899. The organization conducted meetings in Santo Domingo and issued a challenge to capitalist classes that suggests a more heightened degree of class consciousness than perhaps anything in Jamaica or Haiti at the time.

According to Roberto Cassá, the Liga's manifesto was signed by workers from Spain and Puerto Rico, which might explain why the ephemeral league denounced capitalism and embraced a libertarian socialist view. Although there is no evidence that the Liga or Jose Dolores Alfonseca, the thinker who was associated with it, had any contact with Haiti, it may be possible that the Syndicat of shoemakers heard of or encountered news of the Dominican organization. Indeed, as urban workers with some degree of literacy, plus probably contact with foreign workers from Jamaica and Cuba, it is possible to speculate a possible degree of transnational flows of information. Indeed, during the US Occupation of the island, workers in Haiti and the DR apparently expressed an interest in the affairs of the other, looking to their mutual best interest, so perhaps there were ties before 1915/1916? This could of course be a function of the physical movement of workers themselves, but it is within the realm of possibility that news involving unions and mutual aid organizations in the Dominican part of the island reached Haiti.

If any of the above is useful at all, perhaps one can surmise that the first labor union in Haiti probably combined elements of a mutual aid organization with a labor union. It successfully organized shoemakers at the enterprise (although its unclear if every cordonnier was part of the union or only 46 out of an unknown number were unionized), survived for a number of years, and presumably brought some degree of security to the affiliated shoemakers. It was probably too ephemeral to have developed its own center and maybe lacked the patronage or association with a prominent middle-class professional or member of the elite to protect from the political pressures of Nord Alexis's presidency. If the voices of the workers at Tannerie Continentale provide any indication, the workers presumably saw themselves as the creators of wealth whose labor was necessary for the function of the workshop. Of course, one cannot say these workers were advancing any sort of socialist perspective, like the aforementioned Liga in the Dominican Republic, perhaps the syndicat was part of a larger wave of mutualist organizations, a wave of further associations of various sorts across different social classes, and changes in Port-au-Prince's urban landscape. Unfortunately, without any written sources from the union or about it, it's difficult to say to say much, but it probably reflects the convergence of mutualist and syndicalist organization in the Caribbean at the time. The context of Haitian nationalism would also be significant in terms of the Centennial of Haitian independence, in addition to the reformism of Firmin's supporters and possible ideological overlap with the Coeurs-Unis in Cap-Haiti.

Bibliography

Cassá, Roberto. 1990. Movimiento obrero y lucha socialista en la República Dominicana : (desde los orígenes hasta 1960). Santo Domingo: Fundación Cultural Dominicana.

Congrès national du travail. 1958. Actes du premier Congrès national du travail, 1er mai 1949. [Port-au-Prince?]: Impr. de l'état.

Cross, Malcolm, and Gad J. Heuman (editors). 1992. Labour in the Caribbean: from emancipation to independence. Basingstoke: Macmillan.

Fèquiére, Fleury. 1906. L'éducation haitienne. Port-au-Prince: Impr. de l'Abeille. 

Gaillard, Roger. 1984. La république exterminatrice ; P. 1. Une modernisatiion manquée: (1880-1896). Port-au-Prince: Autor.

Hector, Michel. 1989. Syndicalisme et socialisme en Haïti: 1932-1970. Port-au-Prince, Haïti: Impr. H. Deschamps.

Hobsbawm, E. J., and Joan Wallach Scott. "Political Shoemakers." Past & Present, no. 89 (1980): 86-114. 

La Solidarité

A prominent political figure of Port-au-Prince in the early decades of the 20th century, Constantin Mayard was also a founding member of a long-lasting mutual aid society, La Solidarité. Formed sometime after his pronouncement at a Masonic lodge, De la solidarité; conférence prononcée à la Loge [de] la Vérité, le 9 juin 1918, this organizations appears to have outlasted other mutual aid societies in Port-au-Prince. For example, Georges Jacob's mutualist organization created in 1917, which presumably drew from artisans and laborers associated with the Maison Centrale, does not appear to have lasted very long. Mayard's project, however, was drawn on the principles of social solidarity he promoted in the 1918 brochure. According to Le Matin, Mayard disseminated the following opinions: solidarity as the essence of any organization, it was formed through worker associations, a nation, or humanity as a whole, Haitians were a race within themselves, neither Africa or France, and blaming the failure of Haiti on the entirety of the population, not the elites. 

The mutualist ideology promoted here sounds something like the promotion of the "spirit of association" spoken of by Justin Bouzon in 1892, as well as the inter-class collaboration of Odette Roy Fombrun's konbitisme. Needless to say, the US Occupation of Haiti at the time likely created some degree of solidarity or camaraderie between urban artisans and workers and the upper classes, although historians such as Michel Hector point out the limited nature of Occupation-era labor parties, unions, or confederations as actual labor power. From what can be gleamed from newspapers such as Le Matin and Le Nouvelliste, Solidarité was eventually presided over by a president, Bosq, and Lelio Joseph, who were probably lawyers or similar like-minded reformist professionals eager to bridge the social divide in Haiti and strengthen social solidarity at a time when US Marines ruled Haiti. Their meetings were held at the lodge of the Grand Orient d'Haiti in the 1920s, suggesting some base in Freemasonry or at least overlapping members, like the Coeurs-Unis des Artisans of Cap-Haitien. Notices for their meetings in the major Port-au-Prince papers indicate the general topics of of conversation revolved around general savings fund, interests, and correspondence, at least according to one 1930 notice. Presumably, funds used by the organization went to pay for illness, funerals, healthcare, and other predicaments. 

By the 1920s, Solidarité was involved in celebrating the growth of Haitian national industry, and promoting labor interests. One article from 1924 contains the words of a meeting in honor of Pantaleon Guilbaud, who launched a major cigarette company which employed over 100 workers. Celebrated as an example of a Haitian who, through industriousness, skill, and intelligence, launched a major Haitian-owned enterprise, he was seen as a role model for artisans and workers since he started his career as a mechanic. Other notices for meetings of Solidarité also indicate topics such as the experience of bakers as well as urging members to attend Mass on the feast of St. Joseph, since the special mass was said in honor of workers. So, presumably the organization brought together various types of artisans and laborers, while also uniting some lawyers, middle-class professionals, and politicians together in an inter-class organization that lasted for most of the US Occupation (if not longer). 

Although politically not an ostensibly radical organization like the Communist party which emerged in the 1930s, or even anti-imperialist like Jolibois fils and his circle, the longevity of La Solidarité, the fact that it was recognized as a public utility in 1925, and its success in bringing together various strata of Port-au-Prince society suggest an importance for mutual aid societies and urbanization. Of course, various forms of mutual aid existed in the countryside, but their evolution in Haitian towns captures elements of social formation quite well. Perhaps a further exploration into the lives, activities, and social impact of these mutual aid societies on Port-au-Prince and other towns during the US Occupation could shed light on the anti-Occupation forces and the eventual rupture in the nationalist movement?

La patrie et les conspirations

Roger Gaillard's La république exterminatrice, première partie: une modernisation manqué (1880–1896) references a pamphlet from 1890 written by a Haitian artisan or worker criticizing the political and economic conditions of the country. Suggesting that the appearance of such a document during a rise in the number of Cuban artisans and laborers in Haiti likely represents an influence of labor ideology from Cuba's incipient labor movement, Gaillard characterizes the author, J.B.H. Alexandre, as a kind of presocialist Saint-Simonian (Gaillard, 193) analyst of Haiti. This fascinating document, La patrie et les conspirations, however, is more ostensibly about the problematic political coups and political instability in Haiti, although it does embrace a class-based analysis of Haitian society. This post shall briefly sketch a possible alternative reading to Alexandre's essay, and its importance in suggesting an early working-class culture and consciousness. 

Unfortunately, neither Gaillard or any consulted sources identify the author beyond his initials and surname, but it is possible J.B.H. Alexandre was a skilled Haitian shoemaker identified as Joseph Alexandre in an issue of Les Bigailles from November 1876. One can speculate that Alexandre was indeed this shoemaker or another artisan due to his self-professed lack of superior education and the numerous Creole expressions peppered throughout La patrie. In consideration of the prominence of shoemakers among the Haitian artisan class and early labor movements, perhaps shoemaker is the best educated guess one can make for Alexandre's background. Clearly, he was urban-based, and directed the pamphlet to the Haitian political class as well as artisans, youths, and cultivators. It may also be possible that he was the same Joseph Alexandre, presumably of Cap-Haitien, whose name appears in L'Avant-garde for an article he wrote in praise of Justine Victor, the head of a school for girls in the city. Intriguingly, cultivators would have been the least likely to receive (and, most importantly, read) the text, but it's suggestive of a wider class-based discourse which embraced rural and urban workers and craftsmen. Moreover, the author references his father's past military service, illustrating the importance of the military as an institution and within Haitian nationalism linking labor and service together to further justify the worthiness of his cause (Alexandre, 7). 

In terms of the document itself, which is written in what Gaillard already references as plebeian language, it articulates a common reformist line about the importance of Haitian political stability and support for national industry, laborers, and protectionist measures to develop the economy. Indeed, at times the author sounds like an Edmond Paul, urging for state intervention in the economy to lower the price of imports consumed by the lower classes (15). Alexandre also rhetorically mocks and ridicules the Haitian civilizers, progressives, and other elite and intellectual classes without remorse. The following, from page 8, for example, brilliantly derides them for slavishly imitating France like macaques:

Already, members of the Haitian working-class, were mocking the educated classes for their pretensions to rule Haiti. Like the old proverb, pale franse pa di lespri pou sa, which Alexandre's insult echoes, artisans and working-classes saw through the words and actions of the so-called intellectual elite who emulated France to no end. Nonetheless, Alexandre clearly respected education and knowledge, calling for the government to support vocational schools to ensure youths found a productive and useful avenue to support their families and the nation (24). But Alexandre's text also, like reformist articles and texts from members of the intellectual class, promotes labor and vocational education as a solution to the political turmoil, hoping that supporting youth and struggling artisans and workers will discourage political intrigue and violence. Instead of urging artisans, cultivators and the youth to seize control of the state or organize their own party, Alexandre calls for them to focus on their labor, particularly in a powerful passage from page 17:

There are no calls for labor unions, mutual aid societies, or cooperatives among the artisans and workers from Alexandre. Instead, he supports measures such as Minister Beliard's push for the Haitian military equipping soldiers with clothing and boots made by Haitian shoemakers and tailors (21). Like Edmond Paul and broader currents in Haitian economic thought of the era, the desire is to create work, protect local industry, and develop the Haitian economy, which suggests artisans in Haiti were using nationalism to expand the parameters of those who matter by emphasizing their labor's significance for production and consumption. But in terms of the artisans and incipient working-class, to the extent that it did exist in the 1890s, Alexandre's text is slight on tangible steps forward for them. Perhaps this is why the 1890s saw the rise of a mutual aid society in 1894, a nightschool for workers associated with an organization founded to prepare for the centennial of Haitian independence, and an increasingly important fraternal and mutual aid society in Cap-Haitien originally founded in 1870. If Alexandre had no additional ideas, perhaps the next step for workers themselves had to be the formation of mutual aid societies, nightschools, and their own institutions, since he himself wrote "Les chiens grang-gouts ne jouent pas avec les chiens ventre-pleins" (8). 

After thoroughly mocking the elites, providing a few examples of the impact of Haiti's political and economic turmoil on workers, outlining the disconnect between producers of the country and the parasitic elite, one can see the limitations artisans and workers faced at the time. As perhaps only a few thousand people spread across the coastal towns and perhaps nearby rural hinterlands associated with the major coastal towns, the idea of coordinating a nation-wide labor movement at the time were likely impossible. Low literacy rates, a persistent rural and urban divide (despite Alexandre alluding to cultivators, they are more of an afterthought) and the Haitian political system's reliance on clientelistic patterns and despotic military regimes limited any reformist aims of artisans. However, some did indeed engage national politics through support for reformist politicians, such as Firmin.

They also clearly shaped the actions of presidents such as Salomon and Hyppolite, whose tenures saw a small but significant rise in the number of urban infrastructure, small-scale industries and schools. Likewise, an opening of the country to foreign capital, especially through the National Bank, created under Salomon, paved the way for an increase in the number of wage owners and independent craftsmen to sell their services. In addition, the appearance in 1886 of an industrial news journal, Le Messager Industriel, which also proclaimed itself as an organ of the working-class, promoted the development of national industry, practical education, and reforms to provide jobs and secure living conditions. Perhaps Alexandre was in part responding to these developments, but from the perspective of artisans themselves rather than elite or middle-class intellectuals like Miguel Boom or Louis-Joseph Janvier, who minimized the exploitation of labor by capital while acknowledging the inequality of capitalist societies.

As Gaillard indicated, this document definitely appears to suggest that workers and artisans of the era were not successfully wooed by either the Liberal or National parties, nor by regional and color distinctions. However, as only one document, it is unclear to what extent this was true, especially considering the importance of Coeurs-Unis des Artisans in Cap-Haitien and their support for fellow northerner Firmin. However, his reference to Alexandre's disavowal of revolutionary politics as a form of marronage is rather interesting, since it would suggest that the artisans and workers refusal to engage the system on elite terms is an act of resistance in accordance with peasant practices of marronage, running away to the hills or mountains to form their own communities outside of state authority (Gaillard, 194). Such an analogy may be inaccurate, but perhaps it does explain why Alexandre included cultivateurs in the address, as well as the degree to which urban artisans and workers invoked the legacy of slavery.

Regardless of the extent to which Alexandre represented the opinions or thoughts of artisans and the embryonic working-class, clearly an urban working-class culture was taking shape, and it mocked the pretentious upper-class, used a class-based language which included, to a certain extent, the rural population, and reappropriated nationalism for its own purposes. This clearly shaped subsequent developments in the following decades, which witnessed the rise of artisan associations, mutual aid societies, a nightschool, libraries, vocational schooling, and a new spirit of association. Although certainly not calling for class war or appropriating the means of production to fulfill a socialist or anarchist vision, a working-class culture was in formation, both threatening the established powers through their autonomy and ridiculing of their social superiors. By 1897, Pethion Errie, one of the founders of the Association Ouvriere in 1894, was calling himself a socialist in an address to residents of Bel-Air, noting the importance of the proletarian question and the need for state initiative to improve the lives of workers. Clearly, Alexandre's text spoke to some degree of burgeoning class consciousness and socialist thought. 

PCS Workers on Strike

Although it remains difficult to find primary source materials from the voices of workers in the early moments of Haitian labor history, the Port-au-Prince paper, Le Matin, provides a few examples. In early September 1908, the mechanics, drivers, and employees in the workshops of the German Compagnie des Chemins de fer de la Plaine du Cul-de-Sac went on strike for higher wages. According to Le Matin and Le Nouvelliste, service for the train was discontinued in Port-au-Prince for a few days, until the strike was resolved by the eighth day of the month. 

What, however, makes this brief strike of industrial workers important or memorable? First, this may have been the first strike to unite different types of workers, instead of the previous strikes of workers or artisans of a specific trade. Unfortunately, in this PCS employee strike, those working in the ateliers ended the strike before the mechanics and drivers, a strike of this nature may be a portent of future solidarity strikes and walk-outs and major foreign-owned companies, such as HASCO. This can also be distinguished from the walkout of shoemakers at Tannerie Continentale, where the tanners remained. 

Last, but certainly not least, the striking workers sent a letter to the director of PCS, Tippenhauer, who shared it with Le Matin, providing some idea of how the strikers saw themselves, who they were, their specialized jobs, and their names. Unfortunately, the letter, as reproduced in Le Matin, is too short, but still a valuable document on an early company strike in Haiti. Although additional research must be conducted into the history of the PCS and subsequent labor actions and unions among drivers and railway workers in Haiti, perhaps these incipient labor actions involving foreign industries in Haiti shed light on the process of working-class formation. 

Cœurs-Unis des Artisans

One of the most difficult aspects of tracing the early moments in Haitian labor history is reconstructing the origins of the Cœurs-Unis des Artisans. Mentioned by Michel Hector as an association founded in 1870, it grew and by the 1890s, expanded further to include artisans, intellectuals, and workers. Unfortunately, Hector's Syndicalisme et socialisme en Haïti: 1932-1970 does not examine the organization in detail. But, as an association of artisans founded in 1870, it would appear to resemble similar developments in Latin America and the Caribbean where artisans were also coming together in mutual aid societies or organizations. Other secondary sources that allude to Cœurs-Unis des Artisans include Laurent Dubois's Haiti: The Aftershocks of History,  Marc Péan's tomes on Cap-Haitien history, Luc-Joseph Pierre's Haïti: les origines du chaos and a chapter by Alex Bastien in Max Manigat's Cap-Haïtien : excursions dans le temps: au fil de nos souvenirs. Most of the secondary sources heavily rely on Marc Péan, who appears to be the sole historian to look in the archives and read some of the writings of Jules Auguste and other members of the association in Le Réveil, an important newspaper of the 1890s. 

Nonetheless, as the earliest known labor association (outside the rural world of Haiti and various forms of "peasant" associations), Cœurs-Unis merits further inquiry. Described by Luc-Joseph Pierre as a coterie of Freemasons who held meetings, processions, and banquets, which could not expand into a real movement during the zenith of firminisme, the association appears to be much more (Pierre 112). First of all, Cœurs-Unis was not a Masonic lodge, although several members were members of lodges, according to Alex Bastien (Bastien 27). Further, Bastien presents compelling evidence for Cœurs-Unis functioning as a mutual aid society and community institution. Its space served as a center for a chapel devoted to the Lady of Immaculate Conception, drawing worshipers and prayers from all social classes (Bastien 20). Moreover, Cœurs-Unis persisted well into the 20th century, and some of its later leadership (Jean Marquez Valbrun, an administrator of the association) lived long enough to impact Bastien and future generations. One of the usual functions of the group's local was a funeral salon, suggesting members saw it primarily as a mutual aid society for supporting similar artisans and laborers in the city (Bastien 27). 

Moreover, a plaque celebrating the centennial of the organization in 1970 describes its goal as "secours mutuels," indicating how the group's self-definition expressed mutualist aims (Bastien 26). However, Bastien's analysis of the group and its role in Cap-Haitien labor history is based on a much later incarnation of the organization. If one is searching for it's 19th century roots and ideology, only Péan becomes useful. Indeed, the three pivotal figures mentioned by Bastien were Etienne Leonce Bariento, Jean Marquez Valbrun, and Paul Emile Laguerre, none of whom appear in Péan's series on Cap-Haitien. However, their occupations give some sense of the reformist, progressive, and artisan base of the organization: Bariento was a lawyer, Laguerre a cabinetmaker (Bastien 18). Bastien also cites a book by Valbrun, which praised the labor solidarity of Cœurs-Unis des Artisans, presumably a value of the earlier moments in its foundation (Bastien 24). Sadly, Bastien does not cite any definitive proof of the organization involving itself in any labor conflicts, but he alludes to other possible mutualist acts of the organization.

In terms of the earlier development of Cœurs-Unis des Artisans, Péan's L'échec du firminisme comes closest to providing a full portrait. According to him, the organization was founded in 1870, after the civil wars of the Salnave years, to promote fraternity among Haitian artisans. This implies that Haitian shoemakers, tailors, etc. were already involved in the political affairs of the country, supporting one faction or another. However, Péan suggests that it was only in the 1880s when the organization became institutionalized through its monthly meetings, processions, banquets, and events (Péan 102). Péan additionally describes the conditions of industry and trades in the city of the late 19th century, but most learned a trade through an apprenticeship with a master artisan, including some who ran workshops of their own and were also members of Cœurs-Unis des Artisans, such as master-masons Godard Phaeton and Alcime Balthazar (Péan 103). Elsewhere, Péan names other members: William Dugue, Ocean Mompoint, Belotte, laywers like Jean Chrysostome Arteaud, the judge Cassius Daniel, intellectuals like Jules Auguste, and other artisans, such as Etienne Almajor. Péan claims most of the city's artisans were tied to Cœurs-Unis, but does not cite numbers or to what extent master artisans dominated the organization. 

Intriguingly, this mutualist organization survived for several decades, while the the Association Ouvriere in Port-au-Prince formed in July 1894 was short-lived. Even though Cœurs-Unis was suppressed during the failure of firminisme, since its members supported Firmin's message of reform, progress, and rational organization of finance and labor, somehow the organization continued to exist and exert a large influence on part of Cap-Haitien society. Perhaps the organization's longevity was due to the limited nature of industrialization in Cap-Haitien, where, despite the growth of a few small-scale industries employing between a dozen and 50 persons, the degree to which guild-like production faced challenges were limited (L'illusion héroïque: 25 ans de vie capoise, 1890-1915 describes in great detail changes in industry and the ideology of progress among would-be industrialists of the city) .

Thus, the organization did not seek to pursue unions or militant labor actions beyond mutualist concerns, since artisans and individual craft production faced fewer challenges there than in Port-au-Prince? Or perhaps the distance from the capital and the history of autonomy made it easier for artisans and workers to maintain a certain degree of independence in Cap-Haitien than in Port-au-Prince? Did the impact of Firminisme show an early example of labor and progressive politics coming together in Haiti for a social program? Why did the Coeurs-Unis not spread to the countryside? Were its members who received formal education or frequented the literary salons of the middle and upper classes sharing the same presumptions about the peasantry as the elite? To what extent did trade unions, class consciousness, or socialist ideology permeate the organization? The answer to these questions requires tackling the primary sources to move beyond conjecture.

1907 Cordonnier Walk Out and Urban Labor

Le Nouvelliste (September 20, 1907)

Although much remains to be done in tracking class formation and the conditions of urban labor in Haiti on the eve of the first US Occupation, this captures the voice of shoemakers in a large establishment in 1907 quite well. The establishment, Cordonnerie Continentale, was part of the Tannierie Continentale et Fabrique des Chaussures. An article from the International Bureau of the American Republics (1908) reported on this factory, based on US Consul John B. Terres. According to this report, the establishment employed a total of about 200 people, with a weekly output of 1500 pairs of shoes weekly, according to the Monthly Consular and Trade Reports. It also possessed a contract to supply the government with shoes for soldiers, was foreign-owned, imported most of the machinery, trimmings, and dyes from the US, and must be a great example of the few large-scale industrial workshops in Haiti at the time. 

However, this very same establishment experienced a strike in September 1907, as the shoemakers staged a walk-out when the owner, Marcou, accused them of stealing. Auguste Magloire wrote about visiting the site afterwards in Le Matin, and it would seem in 1907, Marcou was able to replace the strikers with new workers. According to the 1908 US Consul report, the business must have been doing well to employ 200 workers and enter into a contract with the government (although Magloire's visit would indicate about 80 workers in the shoe workshop area of the establishment). 

Nonetheless, the above notice, published in Le Nouvelliste, in the voice of the cordonniers themselves, indicates something, perhaps, of a nascent class consciousness. The workers express a sense of respect, dignity, and understanding of themselves as the ones who produce the shoes and oppose their alienation from the product of the labor. Indeed, a reference to slavery and their assertion of their intelligence and collaboration might indicate something beyond a mere camaraderie between workers in the same trade. Of course, more information must be located about this specific establishment and, if possible, the shoemakers employed there. Moreover, Ethéart (presumably Emmanuel), a lawyer affiliated with the Ecole Libre Professionnelle in the 1890s, would have had exposure to artisans and workers in Port-au-Prince. Thus, in spite of his name attached to the notice, it reads as if written by the shoemakers themselves, "pour les ouvriers."

Association Ouvrière

Michel Hector's chronology of Haitian labor history includes a reference to a mutualist association founded in July 1894, Association Ouvrière, in Port-au-Prince. Details about this early worker association in Haiti are scarce, but I uncovered the following.

1. Founded in July 1894, the short-lived organization included a bureau of M Laforest (Maximilian?), president, Stanislaus Madour (cabinetmaker whose work was displayed at the 1893 fair in Chicago), vice-president, P. Errié, secretary, I. Vieux (Isnardin), adjoining secretary. L'echo d'Haiti newspaper (associated with Etienne Mathon) reported on the foundation of the Association Ouvrière in July and August 1894.

2. Joseph Jérémie, writer, politician, and intellectual, was also tied to early attempts at worker organization and education in Port-au-Prince in the 1890s. He was involved with Association Ouvrière and, according to Maurice Ethéart (in Revue de la Ligue de la jeunesse haïtienne), he was a pivotal figure in the origin of Association Ouvrière.

3. Maurice Ethéart references Joseph Jérémie for evidence of the Association Ouvrière attracting nearly 200 workers (not defined, but presumably artisans and skilled workers in Port-au-Prince) to the organization's meetings. This indicates something of the appeal of the mutualist society to the workers of Port-au-Prince of the 1890s. Coeurs-Unis des Artisans, a society founded in 1870, cannot be brought into discussion of an earlier history of worker associations due to the limited knowledge available at the moment to the author, although it presumably reflects a previous interest in mutual aid and labor among Haitian artisans in Cap-Haitien.

4. However, the large numbers of people drawn to the organization's meetings and fears of socialism and anarchism, led to its eventual demise. Ethéart alludes to fears of this sort, plus L'Echo d'Haiti likewise alludes to Capoix Belton's exaggerated fears of socialism and anarchism as a threat to the social order ,which Association Ouvrière supposedly represented, despite its mutualist aims and goals.

5. Although certainly not radical, the rise of mutual aid societies among workers in Port-au-Prince by the 1890s indicates a certain incipient class consciousness, as well as the beginning of a search for common interests and social solidarity between different artisans and workers in the capital. One can likely assume most of the workers attracted to such an organization were tailors, shoemakers, barbers, printers, government functionaries, and other skilled and probably educated workers in Port-au-Prince of the era (and, one supposes, not the numerous laborers of the West Indian migrant population or other foreign skilled workers in the Republic at this time).

6. Although members of the Haitian political class and press supported the mutualist organization, one cannot help but wonder if it reflects self-movement of skilled workers in Port-au-Prince of the time. For instance, Michel Hector's chronology references a 1891 strike among coiffeurs in the city. Perhaps this, plus the founding of a night school in 1892 (associated, again, with Joseph Jérémie), reflect a burgeoning interest in mutual aid societies, craft associations, and common identification among skilled workers in late 19th century Port-au-Prince. If Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic are any indication, Haiti certainly would not have been alone if gremios, night schools, and worker associations begin to proliferate near the end of the 19th century in urban areas of Cuba, PR, and the DR.

7. Possible influence of Freemasonry and socialist or anarchist ideology is something that may also explain how and why Haitian intellectuals and workers may have supported some of these mutualist ventures. For example, much has been made of the impact of Cuban immigration on skilled trades in Haiti (especially tailors and shoemakers), and perhaps Cubans and other foreigners in Haiti may have assisted in the spread of socialist, union, and radical ideology beyond mutual aid societies among the Haitians they took on as apprentices or employees and colleagues in period between 1868-1898. More work must be done to explore this possibility, but Cubans were definitely an important influence on Haitian artisans of the late 19th early and early 20th century, if Fleury Fèquiére can be trusted. Certainly, Haitian intellectuals and politicians were aware of debates in France and elsewhere around Europe on capitalism, socialism, labor, and syndicalism, which may also have shaped the larger discourse among artisans in urban areas who interacted with the upper classes in Masonic lodges or other institutions.

8. However, given the important role of upper-class patrons and organizers within Association Ouvrière, and their own belief on the role of education in inculcating proper moral values and appreciation of labor's importance, they may also have limited the scope of the organization by opposing it against trade unions and class consciousness. Jérémie and other like-minded intellectuals also saw the danger of a large unemployed urban population without labor and other distractions, and may have supported workers organizations of a mutualist type as reformism without advocating for unions or self-emancipation of laboring masses.

Until further sources and newspapers of the era are consulted, one cannot say with any certainty what Association Ouvrière represented in Haitian labor history or its larger significance. Yet, it certainly speaks to a burgeoning embryonic proletariat and its gradual political assertion of itself in the affairs of Port-au-Prince. It also speaks to the limits of mutual aid societies and the focus on moral uplift of the toilers without class struggle. However, if events of Haiti were comparable to corresponding trends in Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, Haiti's economic structure limited the potential growth of radical and militant labor formation among the nascent working-class. If the works of Angel Quintero-Rivera, Joan Casanovas, Martinez-Vergne, Cassá and Kirwin Shaffer are any indication, events in Haiti probably resembled to a smaller degree trends among artisans and proletarianization in the region. Moreover, Haiti had, already by the 1860s, experienced the role of popular classes in political transition, and reformist elites could support mutual aid societies, night schools, and worker clubs to redirect the weak urban pre-proletariat from action against the upper-class.