Charlemagne Massena Peralte (10 October 1886-1 November 1919) was a Haitian nationalist leader who led Cacos guerrilla fighters in resisting the United States occupation of Haiti.
Biography[]
Charlemagne Peralte was born in Hinche, Haiti in 1886, the son of General Remi Massena Peralte and the brother-in-law of President Oreste Zamor. Peralte was a career Haitian Army officer, serving as military chief of Leogane at the time of the US Marine Corps' invasion of Haiti in July 1915. Refusing to surrender to foreign troops without fighting, Peralte resigned from his position and returned to Hinche to take care of his family's land. In 1917, he led a failed raid on the Hinche gendarmerie payroll, and he was sentenced to five years of forced labor. Peralte escaped his captivity and gathered a group of nationalist Cacos, who waged guerrilla warfare against US troops. The United States was forced to upgrade the USMC contingent in Haiti and employ airplanes for counter-guerrilla warfare, repulsing Peralte's assault on Port-au-Prince in 1919. Peralte was later betrayed by his officer Jean-Baptiste Conze, who disguised two USMC officers as Cacos and brought them to Peralte's camp near Grande-Riviere-du-Nord. Peralte was shot at close range and his body strapped to a mule, which was taken back to US-controlled territory and photographed while stripped naked and tied to a door. However, the image's resemblance to a crucifixion made Peralte an icon of the resistance and established him as a martyr.