Sténio Joseph Vincent (February 22, 1874 – September 3, 1959) was President of

Haiti Haiti (; ht, Ayiti ; French: ), officially the Republic of Haiti (); ) and formerly known as Hayti, is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean Sea, east of Cuba and Jamaica, an ...

from November 18, 1930 to May 15, 1941.

Biography

Sténio Vincent was born in

Port-au-Prince Port-au-Prince ( , ; ht, Pòtoprens ) is the capital and most populous city of Haiti. The city's population was estimated at 987,311 in 2015 with the metropolitan area estimated at a population of 2,618,894. The metropolitan area is defin ...

, Haiti. His parents were Benjamin Vincent and Iramène Brea, who belonged to the mulatto elite.

Presidency

In October 1930, while still under occupation by the United States, Haitians elected representatives to the national assembly for the first time since 1918. It elected Vincent as President of Haiti. He had graduated from law school at age 18 before ascending to head of Haiti's Chamber of Deputies by 1915.HAITI: Five More Years for Stenio – TIME Magazine
/ref> He ran a nationalist campaign for the presidency based on his fierce opposition to the

United States occupation of Haiti The United States occupation of Haiti began on July 28, 1915, when 330 U.S. Marines landed at Port-au-Prince, Haiti, after the National City Bank of New York convinced the President of the United States, Woodrow Wilson, to take control of ...

. From 1915 to 1934 Haiti was occupied by U.S. Marines; the United States had intervened after the murder of a president. In August 1934 U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt withdrew the Marines; however, the United States maintained direct fiscal control until 1941 and indirect control over Haiti until 1947. In 1935, Vincent conducted a plebiscite about extending his term in office, receiving a favorable vote to extend it to 1941. The plebiscite also approved an amendment to the constitution so that future presidents would be elected by popular vote. In 1936, the Haitian Communist Party was disbanded by Vincent. In October 1937 troops and police from the

Dominican Republic The Dominican Republic ( ; es, República Dominicana, ) is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean region. It occupies the eastern five-eighths of the island, which it shares with ...

massacred thousands of Haitian labourers living near the border in the

Parsley Massacre The Parsley massacre (Spanish: ''el corte'' "the cutting"; Creole: ''kout kouto-a'' "the stabbing") (french: Massacre du Persil; es, Masacre del Perejil; ht, Masak nan Pèsil) was a mass killing of Haitians living in the Dominican Republic's no ...

. Vincent had enjoyed a cooperative relationship with and financial support from the government of Dominican President

Rafael Trujillo Rafael Leónidas Trujillo Molina ( , ; 24 October 189130 May 1961), nicknamed ''El Jefe'' (, "The Chief" or "The Boss"), was a Dominican dictator who ruled the Dominican Republic from February 1930 until his assassination in May 1961. He ser ...

. After two years of relative quiet in Port-au-Prince, Vincent's failure to press for justice for the slain workers prompted protests in the capital. He took the case to the Dominican government, which agreed in 1938 to compensate the slain workers’ relatives the following year. In 1941, Vincent declared his intention to step down. The presidency was peacefully transitioned to his successor, Élie Lescot.

References

* Smith, Matthew J.
Red & Black in Haiti: Radicalism, Conflict, and Political Change, 1934–1957
'' Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009. {{DEFAULTSORT:Vincent, Stenio Presidents of Haiti 1874 births 1959 deaths Government ministers of Haiti Members of the Chamber of Deputies (Haiti) Haitian people of Mulatto descent People from Port-au-Prince 1930s in Haiti 1940s in Haiti 20th-century Haitian politicians