RedHanded - Episode 298 - Papa Doc: Haiti’s Vodou Dictator

Episode Date: May 18, 2023

What kind of leader would say of his own people that they are “meant to suffer”? Well, maybe a savage despot who claimed to be the master of the dead – a powerful sorcerer who could use vodou to raise murderous zombies at will, read minds, and even assassinate a US president…Francois Duvalier, known as ‘Papa Doc’, is one of the most ruthless dictators of the 20th Century, responsible for the deaths of an estimated 60,000 people, and a reign of terror that tragically reverberates through Haiti to this day.This week Hannah and Suruthi find out how the first nation to be founded by slaves gave way to brutal Black nationalism, black magic, and decades of public savagery.Note for Wondery+ or Amazon Music subscribers downloading our early-release episode: our ShortHand on Haitian Vodou is out on 16 May!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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And welcome to Red Handed, where I haven't got any funny quips for you today because we've got a big fucking episode. Yep. All I would say is, if you haven't yet, there is a linked shorthand to this episode, which you can listen to on Amazon Music. It is an entire shorthand focused on Haitian voodoo. So go check that out. You can do that before or after this, but do it. Please. Please. So we actually brought this episode up in the running order because of some things that have been going on in the world.

Because last month, in April 2023, a mob of civilians in Haiti captured 13 suspected gang members, dragged them into the streets of the capital, Port-au-Prince, and burned them alive using gasoline-soaked tyres. This harrowing incident of vigilantism came after weeks of horrific gang violence suffered by the people of this small Caribbean island nation. And just to tell you how bad it's been, in the first three months of 2023, 807 people were killed or lynched, 620 people were kidnapped,

and 120,000 people were internally displaced in Haiti. A couple of weeks ago, the UN even released a report saying that they now believed 80% of Port-au-Prince, so that's Haiti's capital city, is now controlled by gangs. Though reports from the ground suggest that it's more like 100%. But the gangs are just one part of the problem. Last month, April 2023, the final 10 remaining senators in Haiti's parliament left office, leaving the country without a single democratically elected government official anywhere. And Haiti now stands on a knife edge, with multiple terrifying catastrophes, from the horrific gang violence to famine, cholera, major fuel shortages and total economic collapse hurtling towards its people. Things are so bad right now that Russia's Wagner

group are even offering to help fight the gangs. Anyone who knows anything about the Wagner group, we've spoken about them on a few occasions now, they're basically a private army. They're a paramilitary organisation from Russia and they are available for hire. So we don't think that would help the situation in any way. So sure, Haiti, it's looking real bad right now. It's in real trouble. But why? How did we get here?

So many of the news outlets, if they're discussing this crisis at all, which is not many of them. Really not? No. When I was doing the research for this, because this was in the schedule to go out next month and then saw what was going on in Haiti in the news. And everyone I spoke to about it was like, oh, I had no idea because like no one is talking about it. So yes. Even Al Jazeera? No. So those who are talking about it are basically saying that the current crisis in Haiti can be traced back to the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse,

who was killed by Colombian mercenaries in 2021. But others say that Haiti has actually been teetering on the brink of collapse since 2010, when a massive earthquake took the lives of 300,000 people. Which I think is arguably the last time Haiti was in, like, the global consciousness. Yes, yes, very much so. However, we would agree with those who say that the current situation goes way, way, way further back than any of that. It's never really that simple, is it? No, no. Because it seems very hard to ignore the idea that the current situation in Haiti is not the direct legacy of a man who ruled Haiti with an iron grip from 1957 to 1971.

A man who once uttered the terrifying words, the Haitian people are made to suffer. And then went on to truly put that sentiment to test with sheer brutality. This man rose to political power on the back of the racial tensions and inequality that ran rife through Haiti, becoming the nation's undisputed dictator for 30 years, during which time he believed himself to have transcended beyond a mere mortal man, beyond president for life even, and into a powerful voodoo god who could summon demons to do his bidding. François Duvalier, or as he's better known, Papa Doc, is one of the most ruthless dictators of the 20th century,

responsible for the deaths of an estimated 60,000 people and a reign of terror that undoubtedly still reverberates through Haiti today. And 60,000 people and a reign of terror that undoubtedly still reverberates through Haiti today. And 60,000 deaths is like the best estimate that anyone can put on it. But the problem is he just buried loads of people in unmarked graves. We have absolutely no idea how many people he actually killed. And obviously to a lot of people listening who have maybe, you know, looked into the histories of Mao, Stalin, etc. I'd be like, 60,000.

But Haiti is a very small country. Like talking proportionally, he fucking ran riot over Haiti for the three decades he was in power. And now, decades on from the Duvalier dynasty, Haiti is still one of the most dangerous countries on the planet. And a country that in the last few weeks has fallen into a full-blown crisis of epic proportions. So yeah, today is a little bit of a different episode. But we are really interested in this kind of thing and we hope you guys are too. So if this isn't true crime, I literally don't know what the fuck is. Yeah.

So, it's Red Handed Rundown time. Because in order to understand where Haiti is today, we need to go all the way backity-back-back-back to 1907, which was the year that Francois de Vallier was born to a black, middle-class family in Port-au-Prince. He had a good, normal life, as many dictators do. But then when he was eight years old, in July 1915, the US invaded and occupied Haiti. And yes, as you will discover in today's episode, whilst de Vallier is a real piece of shit,

the US and France, if you hadn't already guessed from all of the French words being knocked around in the Caribbean, also have quite a lot to answer for in terms of making Haiti what it is today. The Americans back in 1915 were worried that the Germans were eyeing Haiti up to establish a Caribbean base and they just couldn't have that. Hispaniola, just like Cuba, is very tactically positioned and it's very useful to have it under your control. So, the Americans were like, absolutely the fuck not Germany, you can't have it, we'll have it. And for 20 years

the US remained in Haiti. And those 20 years were an absolute nightmare for the Haitian people. The US brought in its own brand of early 20th century racism, the best kind. And they delivered it through the Marines who were permanently stationed on Haiti. And this occupation, during de Vallée's formative years, absolutely shaped his thinking.

He would despise the US for the rest of his life, and the humiliation and subjugation he saw his country endure also opened the door for his future obsession with black nationalist politics. Have you seen Ted Lasso? No. Okay, first of all, recommend. Okay. Second of all, so the concept is it's an American football coach. He comes over here to coach Richmond FC, right?

Sure. And his kid is back in America and his kid sends him this care package and it's got all those little green soldiers in it and he's like so you can put them around you to protect you and Tez this like super motivating very nice guy and he gives he gives it to um one of the players on the team and he's like so you can you can protect yourself from blah blah and he was like I really appreciate the sentiment but um I African, so I don't have the same fondness of the US armed forces as you do. I was really wondering what the connection was. But no, I've heard good things about Ted Lassay. It's just nice. It's just a nice show.

I'll add it to the list. But getting back to Haiti, and I can't think of a very good segue to get us back there, but I'm going to just start talking. Because one of the things we have to understand about why this US occupation was so painful for so many Haitians was not just because of the racism and oppression that the black majority faced, but it was because Haiti is a nation immensely proud of its past. And to understand that, we need to take another little side quest and talk about the Haitian Revolution. And honestly, I didn't really know anything about the Haitian Revolution before I wrote this episode. It is absolutely fascinating because this revolution resulted in the first independent nation of Latin America,

the first nation to be founded by slaves, and the first country to abolish slavery entirely. That's pretty good going. It's pretty special, yeah. Definitely causes a lot of issues for Haiti moving forward, but great stuff. And they did this all while destroying the ideals and power of colonisation. So let's start in the late 17th century. This was when France came across the Caribbean island we now know as Hispaniola. All those centuries ago, the French took hold of the western portion of this chunk of land

and called it Saint-Domingue. This would become modern-day Haiti, while the rest of the island, ruled back then by the Spanish, would become the Dominican Republic. The French covered Saint-Domingue in sugar plantations and shipped thousands of slaves from West Africa to work the land. Soon, the Grands Blancs, quite literally Big White, the white French plantation owners, merchants and agents of the maritime bourgeoisie,

were absolutely raking it in. I love that they just called themselves the Grands Blancs. Yeah, not even trying. Nah. Literally like predators. The Great White. Saint-Domingue even gained the name the Pearl of the Antilles because it was the most prosperous colony in France's entire empire.

At one point, Saint-Domingue was producing 60% of the world's coffee and 40% of the sugar consumed in France and in Britain. And if you understand how small Haiti is, 60% of the world's coffee was coming from this third of an island. It's utterly bonkers. And with its reputation of industry and high production, Saint-Domingue was also notorious, even among slave colonies, for being relentlessly cruel. Slaves would be subjected to all sorts of horrific violence, from amputations to public torture. It was all to make sure that everyone else toed the line. Yeah, you don't go about producing 40% of all the sugar in Britain and France and 60% of the world's coffee by like

not destroying all the slaves that live there. I think one of the most harrowing statistics I came across was that a slave brought from West Africa to Saint-Domingue, the average lifespan of a slave on the island was three years. And the Grand Blanc ruled Saint-Domingue like this for a hundred years, making the elite all the way back in Le Gay Paris supremely wealthy. So during this time on Saint-Domingue, there were maybe 500,000 African slaves at any one time, and just 50,000 white people, mostly men. So given the lack of white women kicking around on Saint-Domingue, it became par for the course for the Grand Blanc to force the enslaved black women into sexual slavery. This resulted in a new group on Sandeman,

the mixed-race mulattoes. Now, I know that in some places, mulatto now is an outdated and offensive even term. And understandably, like, I didn't actually know this, but I looked it up and it seems like the word mulatto comes from the word in either Spanish or Portuguese or maybe both for mule. Yikes. Which, yeah, horrendous stuff because you're saying it's like an interbreeding between

two species, which obviously is not the case. But when it comes to the mixed race people of sanderman at the time this is what they called themselves they called themselves the mulatto class and they took huge pride in that fact because although i say like um the white men basically took black slave women into sexual slavery and that's how these children were born that wasn't always the case i'm sure it was the case a lot of the time i'm sure there was a lot of rape going on. I'm not questioning any of that. But there were also legitimate relationships that led to these children being born. And mulatto is what the mixed race people called themselves. And they took huge pride in being of African and European heritage. And I think like context is really important.

We're using that word because that's what they called themselves. And if you watch any documentaries, listen to any podcasts, or read any history books referring to this time, they specifically refer to these group of European African mixed race people as Haitian mulatto or Haiti mulatto class. And this group of people are very important to our story today. Back in the 18th century, the mulatto class called on France to give them an elevated status, i.e. more rights than the black population.

But France, not really that arsed about that. So eventually, in 1791, the mulattos joined forces with the black slaves, and pretty soon, rebellions were breaking out all over the nation. Plantations were set on fire, and even Port-au-Prince was burned. Toussaint Louverture, a mixed race general, led the revolution. Louverture was actually a slave owner himself and wasn't really fighting to free all of the enslaved people of Haiti. He just wanted to get France the fuck out. This is the thing. When you Google Toussaint Louverture, a lot of places are like, oh he fought for the like freedom of all of these enslaved people on haiti and i'm like he was a

slave owner and like he wasn't that interested in because i think basically what happens is that the the mixed race population the mulatto class are like hey we deserve more rights than the black population because we are half european and the french are like nah for us you're all the same like i don't really care it's not like a big enough difference for us to give you more rights or more freedoms so then when the slaves start setting fire to plantations and causing these small rebellions the grand blanc are like it's in the slave's nature to be submissive. A slave would never do this. It must be those sneaky mulattoes who keep asking us for more rights. So they blame them. So then the mulattoes are like, right, they're not going to

give us the freedom or the increased rights that we're demanding. We will team up with the enslaved population and fight back because between the two of us we can get rid of the French so really it feels like if I was very cynical it's like they're using the black population in order to free themselves of not having as many rights as they believe got it so I don't necessarily believe that Toussaint Louverture was like hey we really care about the black enslaved population because we're not going to go into it here. But when he does come into power very, very briefly, he's like, we'll just use forced labour because we've lost all the money because we've kicked the French out. Yeah. And he doesn't last very long. In 1802, he was captured by Napoleon and died in prison. Yeah. Napoleon really wasn't happy about all of the stuff that was going on in Haiti.

He wasn't happy about a lot of stuff, apart from Josephine. So after Toussaint Louverture died, another general, Jean-Jacques Dessalines, a black man born into slavery, took charge. And the revolution actually worked. This army, made up of slaves, had rebelled against their colonial overlords and managed to fight off the French. And after the French pissed off, they actually managed to stave off subsequent attempts to re-enslave them by both the Spanish and the British. And you know who else helped? The Polish. Oh, yes, yes.

There's a big, like, Polish-Hasian, like, coalition. Yeah. So Napoleon sent over a Polish infantry and they were like, fuck this noise. So they joined up with the Haitians, fought against the French, get the French out. So then all of the Haitians were like, you know what? You guys are black now. You can stay. And they became legally black people and they still are.

That's crazy. I know. That is crazy. So, yeah, like this army did fucking great work because when the French left, they're like an open target for other colonial powers to come in and try because everybody knows how fertile the land is and how rich it was the pearl of the Antilles like how rich this land was but they fight them all off and in January 1804 at last Saint-Domingue was declared independent, and the name at this point was even changed to the native-inspired Haiti.

At this point, Jean-Jacques Dessalines, the hero of the revolution, was crowned Emperor Jacques I. But he would turn out to be just as brutal as anyone who had come before him. Dessalines wanted total power, and to run the country under a strict military dictatorship, just like Louis Vautour had wanted to. But the Haitian people didn't like this very much. And just two years later, even though Dessalines had been the hero of the revolution, they killed him. They actually killed him in quite a horrific way.

They dragged him out of his palace. They dismembered him and chopped him up in the street and then fed his body to the pigs. Oh my god. Yep. And this incident really started off Haiti's run of bloody dictators and their tradition of overthrowing them. So while the leadership of Haiti post-rebellion left much to be desired. We can't actually underplay how huge the rebellion itself actually was. Haiti became the first slave colony to become free. They had expelled the French army and liberated their nation themselves, all while France was at its absolute peak, militarily speaking. Even Malcolm X and Martin Luther King would go on to acknowledge the Haitian revolution for the truly amazing achievement that it was. And this is the thing, because this is why I said at the start that although it was incredible what

the army was able to achieve, this revolution was amazing, it made them immediately a pariah state because all of the other empires couldn't be seen to be treating Haiti with a huge amount of respect because then they're like, it's just going to encourage our other colonies to do the same thing. So this was, while an amazing achievement for Haiti, also what set them on the path to immediately becoming a pariah state and being ignored by the rest of the world for so long. Because it wasn't a good precedent to set for anybody else who was in power. And we should mention here that although Haiti did do all of that liberating freedom stuff,

they were actually forced to pay reparations to France until 1947. It's disgusting. The former slaves of Haiti were forced to pay reparations to much richer France to compensate the plantation owners for their losses, and also for France to recognise Haiti's sovereignty. So they were like, you have to give us this money if you want us to leave you alone. I'm Jake Warren, and in our first season of Finding, I set out on a very personal quest to find the woman who saved my mum's life. You can listen to Finding Natasha right now exclusively on Wondery Plus. In season two, I found myself caught up in a new journey to help someone I've never even met. But a couple of years ago, I came across a social media post

by a person named Loti. It read in part, three years ago today that I attempted to jump off this bridge, but this wasn't my time to go. A gentleman named Andy saved my life. I still haven't found him. This is a story that I came across purely by chance, but it instantly moved me. And it's taken me to a place where I've had to consider some deeper issues around mental health. This is season two of Finding, and this time, if all goes to plan, we'll be finding Andy. You can listen to Finding Andy and Finding Natasha exclusively and ad-free on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.

You don't believe in ghosts? I get it. Lots of people don't. I didn't either, until I came face to face with them. Ever since that moment, hauntings, spirits, and the unexplained have consumed my entire life. I'm Nadine Bailey. I've been a ghost tour guide for the past 20 years. I've taken people along with me into the shadows, uncovering the macabre tales that linger in the darkness, and inside some of the most haunted houses, hospitals, prisons, and more. Join me every week on my podcast, Haunted Canada, as we journey through terrifying and bone-chilling stories of the unexplained.

Search for Haunted Canada on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you find your favourite podcasts. It took Haiti more than a century to pay the reparations debt off. And the amount they eventually paid was equivalent to $20 and $30 billion in today's money. That is outrageous. And actually, when the Haitian earthquake happened, a lot of people were campaigning for France to give that money back. Yeah. Obviously, that didn't happen and it's not going to happen anytime soon, whoever is president of France.

So yes, all disgusting stuff, but it gives you a good understanding of where Haiti was, what it went through, and although it achieved great things, how that might actually have ended up hurting it in some ways. But for now, let's get back to our story. So finally, in 1934, after 20 years of occupation, the US left Haiti, and the nation was independent once more. Though I have to say that the US still continued to control Haiti's public finances for decades, taking 40% of Haiti's national income to service debt repayments to the US itself and, of course, France.

So one of the questions I had when I found out that they had been paying reparations until 1947 to France, I was like, why didn't they just stop paying it? What's France going to do in 1947? Go to war with Haiti? Right, yeah. But their US, one of the conditions of them leaving the occupation was that they would take control of Haiti's finances until 1947 and make sure those reparations were paid. Boo. So anyway, it was also in 1934 that Francois de Vallier, the main man of our story today, completed his medical degree.

And ten years later, in 1944, despite his intense dislike for the country, de Vallier went to study public health medicine at the University of Michigan. He returned to Haiti in 1945, armed with miracle drug penicillin and a plan to eradicate rural Haiti of the chronic, highly infectious and disfiguring skin condition, yours. Y-A-W-S. It is very bad stuff. You can Google it. It's pretty awful. And it's super easily spread through touch. And what it does is it makes your skin erupt into these yellow lumps and ulcers. And in the later stages of the disease, yours affects not just the skin, but also the bone and cartilage of the sufferer. But the good news is very easily treated with antibiotics. So Duvalier set off on what we would describe as a medical pilgrimage.

He travelled mostly on foot into the extremely poor, rural and isolated interior of Haiti. Having spent his entire life in the urban Port-au-Prince, and then in Ann Arbor whilst at the University of Michigan, peasant life in Haiti was totally alien to a young Duvalier. Yeah, you have to remember, like, he came from a middle-class family. He grew up in urban Haiti. He isn't, like, rags to riches. But as surprised as he may have been by how these people lived,

he stuck at it, and he did genuinely help hundreds of people. Soon he became known for his healing hands and kind nature. People believed him to be a good man, a hero. And this is what earned him the nickname Papa Doc. It was also during this time that Duvalier's fascination with African heritage grew. He was obsessed with the religious practices of the Haitian peasants. Like in most former slave colonies, Haiti's religious landscape is a hybrid

of African animistic religions and colonial Christianity. In Haiti, the enslaved African people, who were abducted from their homes, typically in West Africa, and shipped to the Caribbean to work on those sugar plantations, brought with them their folklore, their beliefs, and their traditional religions. In French-controlled Hispaniola, they were then forcibly converted to Catholicism. And today, Voodoo, spelled V-O-D-O-U, the creolized version of West African Voodoon, is the only traditional African religion to have survived in the New World, which in and of itself is completely fascinating it's very impressive and again like I said at the start if you want a deep dive from us on Haitian

voodoo we released a shorthand on Tuesday this week on the very topic and you can check it out on Amazon Music right now but the reason that voodoo survived and transformed into voodoo is because while outwardly the enslaved population did take on Christianity because if they didn't they'd like get flogged and tortured and murdered and whatnot, they also recognized certain overlapping elements between their original belief systems and this new religion of Catholicism. For example, Voodoo or Voodoon are essentially monotheistic religions, which recognize a single supreme spiritual entity or god. This creator deity does not get involved in the lives of humans or

with the matters of the earthly world. But there are numerous Luar, which are powerful spirits, that followers of Voodoo pray to. And basically they could see a link between these Loire and like the saints in Catholicism. And they were like, okay, it feels like this saint is actually this Loire spirit. This saint is this one. I can still have my belief system, but I can also take on Catholicism without feeling like it's a completely alien religion to me. Like Santa Maria. Precisely. So it was during this time in rural Haiti that Papa Doc saw

first hand just how voodoo very much ruled the everyday lives of the people. And it opened his eyes to the possibility of the power that voodoo held. Now we'll come back to this. So you can put a voodoo pin that voodoo practitioners in Haiti definitely don't actually

use because that sort of thing is actually associated with Louisiana voodoo which is a different thing. Not Hait a voodoo pin that voodoo practitioners in Haiti definitely don't actually use because that sort of thing is actually associated with Louisiana voodoo, which is a different thing. Not Haitian voodoo. And even then, it likely is just a made up sensationalisation anyway from the West. But yeah, put one of those pins in it for now. We'll come back to it. Put one of your made up Western propaganda pins. Anyway, whilst he was living in rural Haiti, Duvalier also learned more about the grievances of the black majority population. After the revolution in 1804, Haiti was divided into

two groups, the black majority, including the Polish, which made up about 90% of the population, and the mixed race, lighter skinned mulatto minority. And despite being the minority, the mulattos were the ruling class. So yeah, after the French left, they very much took over. They dominated Haiti culturally, socially, and politically. They had the money, and they held most of the power. They actually kept the country in a state of near apartheid, with entire areas of Port-au-Prince forbidden to the black community. So this separation apartheid issue wasn't solely isolated to the rural working class black people that Duvalier was treating for yours.

The idea of noirism had long existed in black intellectual circles within Haiti as well. Noirism is a political and cultural movement founded on the idea that the most basic problem in Haiti was the rule of the minority mulatto ruling class, and how this group had used the state to oppress the black majority and to maintain their own power. And, since the US occupation ended in 1934, noirism in Haiti was quite understandably, I think, on the rise. So as this movement gained popularity, it ultimately led to the election of Noirist president Dumaset Estimé in 1946. And Estimé was a big old pal of Duvalier's.

And so, it was at this point that Duvalier took his first step into the world of politics. The good doctor became minister for health under President Estimé. it was at this point that de Vallier took his first step into the world of politics. The good doctor became Minister for Health under President Estimé. But, of course, it didn't last long. Because if there's one thing Haiti did best, it was overthrowing its leaders. In fact, and this is a particularly troubling statistic, between 1843 and 1915, Haiti had 22 heads of state and only one of them finished his entire term in office.

So when Estimé was overthrown by a military junta, Duvalier went into hiding. During this time, he sharpened his political chops, studying all the M's from Machiavelli to Marx to Mao, all the while just biding his time. And as you might have already guessed, Duvalier didn't have to wait too long, because the new president of Haiti was again overthrown in an army coup in 1956. Civil war seemed inevitable. So elections were called, and Duvalier decided that it was now or it was never, and he announced his run for president as a champion of the impoverished black majority of Haiti. And on the 22nd of September 1957, François Duvalier, Papa Doc, won the election in a landslide victory. At this point, most people, especially the 90% black majority population, felt hope. Duvalier looked like a moderniser. He was educated and he'd used that education to help the poorest in Haitian society when he'd wandered the rural

outback with his penicillin. He also understood the people. He had studied the culture and beliefs of Haitians from all backgrounds and many thought he really could be the answer to all of Haiti's woes. But, as we're about to see, Duvalier just used all that knowledge and education he had to exploit the superstition of the Haitian poor and consolidate wealth and power for himself, also while bleeding the nation dry. In some cases, literally. Duvalier knew that to survive his term in office and avoid being yet

another assassinated or overthrown Haitian leader, he was going to have to be absolutely ruthless. And he started with the army. They were the kingmakers and Duvalier couldn't risk another coup. So he immediately sacked all of the top military brass and replaced them with his own men. Not that even his own men would be safe in the end over the years. Duvalier would carry out a series of unpredictable purges. The point was to never let anyone feel safe or stable because that's when they start plotting against you. Like Kim Jong-un. And MBS.

But right from the off, Duvalier felt under threat. Probably because he was. Just a few months after his inauguration, someone shot at his palace. Then there was a mini-coup attempt led by eight former army leaders who'd just been sacked. But Duvalier squashed it before they could even get started.

But this little coup did deepen his paranoia somewhat. So it was now that Duvalier created the Tonton Macoute. Tonton means uncle in French. It's like baby talk for uncle. Yeah. So it comes from like a Haitian folklore boogeyman who also goes by the name Uncle Gunny Sack.

Right, right, right. So I don't know what Gunny Sack means, but apparently it means Makoot. So it's interesting they've got like the papa and the uncle connection there. So the Makoots were probably exactly what you're thinking they are. They were a mixture of gang, cult, secret police and fascist militia. Lovely. Directly under the control of Duvalier. Now the name Tonton Makute, like I said,

it comes from this Haitian folklore boogeyman and Uncle Gunny Sack was basically like a monster who would abduct and eat naughty children. So it was a fittingly terrifying name for this group. The first cohort of this new presidential army came from prisons and slums. Basically, he just goes into prisons and finds the worst people he can and is just like, you're in, you're in the gang. And basically, the men that got recruited into this were given a blank check to do whatever they wanted. Kill, rape, murder, torture, anything.

It does not matter. All they had to do was swear allegiance and total loyalty to Duvalier. Duvalier even said of the Makut, they have but one soul, Duvalier. They know but one master, Duvalier, and struggle but for one destiny, Duvalier in power. If you google images of the Tonton Makut, you will see just how scary they were. Sometimes they'd paint their faces in a terrifying demonic fashion. But face paint or no face paint, they always wore aviator sunglasses. And that gives them this sort of weird, detached, quite jarring look, despite the violence that they were carrying out. Over the years, the Tonton Makouts would grow in size,

and in the end, they would be larger than the official Haitian army. And it wasn't cheap for Duvalier to keep his little private militia kitted out. Soon he was spending 50% of the Haitian government's budget on the Makouts, while 90% of the population remained illiterate and in abject poverty. Duvalier raised taxes and was consistently plundering as much money as he could out of the state. But he knew that he was going to need more cash to keep himself in power. And much to his disgust, he realised that the only place he could turn was to his least favourite country and basically neighbour, the United States of America.

Yeah, and the US at this time wasn't keen on Haiti either. But in 1959, something happened that meant the US couldn't ignore Haiti any longer. That's my Bay of Pigs noise. So yes, Hannah has given you all a big clue there. And of course, the thing that happened in 1959 was that Castro won his communist revolution in Cuba. And Haiti, after this happened, now started saying to the US, don't worry, we're definitely anti-communist. For now. But you know what would definitely, definitely, definitely keep us away from those Cubans? Money. Lovely capitalist money, please.

Exactly. You love that, don't you? And so the US started sending Haiti, by which we mean Duvalier, millions of dollars in aid. They even sent the Marines to train the Tonton Makut. This was a huge win for Duvalier and really helped him double down on his control of Haiti. Up until now, Duvalier had been carrying out every classic step from the despot's handbook.

But things were about to change and take a bizarrely supernatural turn. Duvalier may have been all-powerful, but in the background, he had a secret. Papa Doc had diabetes, and on the 24th of May, 1959, he collapsed. His life was saved by his right-hand man giving him a glucose shot. But Duvalier spent nine hours in a coma. And somewhat ironically, he was actually flown to Cuba for treatment to make sure that no one in Haiti caught wind of his condition. Zaz taken to Guantanamo.

Well, there you go. But when Duvalier woke up, he was a changed man. And sadly, we don't mean that he mellowed or had some sort of come to Jesus moment after his near-death experience. Quite the opposite, actually. When he woke up from that coma, François Duvalier Papadoc went from cruel to demonic. And he started to refer to himself as a powerful voodoo luar. These are the spirits that we told you about earlier. And in this week's shorthand, you can find out more.

Duvalier didn't just go for any luar. He said that he was the reincarnation of the most terrifying of all. Baron Samedi. Master of the dead and ruler of the most terrifying of all, Baron Samedi, master of the dead and ruler of the underworld. Baron Samedi is often depicted as wearing a black tailcoat, a black top hat, or maybe a bowler hat, a look that Duvalier started to adopt himself. And Duvalier even started speaking in a low-pitched, nasally kind of voice. Again, just how Baron Samedi was supposed to speak. And then he fully leaned into this roleplay. The Makuts, like we said, were known for their incredible levels

of indiscriminate violence and torture. One torture chamber they used actually shared a wall with the presidential apartment, complete with pee-pee people, so Duvalier could watch the barbarism carried out by his men from the comfort of his armchair. And many of these state-sanctioned sadists actually earned themselves quite a reputation. For example, there was Luckner Cambrone, who became known as the vampire of the Caribbean, thanks to his very lucrative side hustle of selling Haitian bodies and blood to medical schools and research departments in the US.

And considering that Luckner had free reign to create his own supply chain of blood and bodies, I don't think he was Burke and Herring it. No. Which is terrifying. Then, in 1961, Duvalier made his next move. He overturned the Constitution of Haiti. Previously, that constitution had said that each president could only have one term in

office. But Duvalier had absolutely no intention of stepping down. And in the elections that year, there was only one name on the ballot paper. This farcical election, in which Duvalier won by 1.3 million votes to zero, he couldn't even give one vote to another fake opposition, gave Duvalier the power to do basically whatever he wanted. And so Duvalier, bolstered by the Tonton Bacoute, smashed down on Haiti a bloody second term. With other dictators, they tend to have an ideology, however grim and evil.

But Duvalier, despite talks of Duvalierism, had nothing of the sort. He was solely motivated by greed. He literally doesn't believe anything. No. He doesn't believe anything no he doesn't believe in anything i think the closest he ever comes is i do genuinely think he believes in noirism that's what gets him into power he also understands hey it's a 90 black majority country i just need to say that even i can do that kind of math exactly but then when he comes into power

there is not even an inkling of what duvalierism means. There is no ideology. It's just money, it's greed, it's power. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made, a seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. When TV producer Roy Radin was found dead in a canyon near L.A. in 1983, there were many questions surrounding his death. The last person seen with him was Lainey Jacobs, a seductive cocaine dealer who desperately wanted to be part of the Hollywood elite. Together, they were trying to break into the movie industry. But things took a dark turn

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You can join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Start your free trial today. The Tonton Makut rape and pillage their way across the nation, torturing and killing countless civilians as they go. All while Duvalier stays locked up in his presidential palace, increasingly wracked with growing paranoia. When he did venture outside, it was under heavy guard and he would throw money from his car window as he drove through the streets of his starving country. And as the people chased him, Duvalier would pacify himself that he was loved as well as he was feared. But that paranoia of Duvalier's was about to be proven sound. On the 26th of April 1963, in Port-au-Prince,

a lone sniper fired at Duvalier's children. The shots actually killed their chauffeur and one of their bodyguards, but the children were whisked away unharmed. Duvalier was apoplectic, and he ordered the Tonton Macout to investigate. They pointed the finger at a former army officer, Francois Benoit, which is like the most French name I've ever heard.

Now, Francois Benoit wasn't actually the gunman, nor was he involved in any way with this attempt to kill or kidnap Duvalier's children. But the Tonton-Macoute went after him with all the rage of a now half-crazy Papa Doc. Benoit, who already knew that he was at risk thanks to this government, had already applied for and been given asylum with the Dominican Republic. So now, when he heard news that they were after him, he went straight to the

DR's embassy. But even there he wasn't safe, because the Makuts actually entered the Dominican Republic embassy searching for him. Can you imagine sending troops into a foreign embassy? Duvalier doesn't give a fuck about anything. But with the Makuts in the embassy, it didn't really help because Benoit wasn't there. He'd secretly been taken to the home of the Dias ambassador where he was safe. This, however, left his family wide open and in grave danger. Benoit's wife and her family and Benoit's father

had all been at church that day. But when they got home, the Makouts were waiting. They shot and killed every person they found in the house and then burned the place to the ground. Over the next few hours, hundreds more people were brutally murdered. Duvalier's death squad roamed the streets, killing at will, no clear target in mind. All they were meant to do was to invoke absolute terror. The bodies of many of their victims were left to rot, strewn across the streets. Even the animals weren't safe.

At Benoit's house, when the chaos had started, some of the Makuts saw a black dog running, escaping the scene. And it was decided that this dog must have been Benoit, because he was some sort of shapeshifter now, apparently. So Duvalier also ordered a cull of any and all black dogs that anyone could find. Whilst this horror was unfolding on the streets, back at the presidential palace, it's rumoured that Benoit's infant son was brought to Duvalier. No one knows exactly what happened to that baby to this day.

Some say Duvalier had the child questioned. Maybe he tortured him. And others say that Duvalier sacrificed the baby to gain even more power. All this time, as thousands of people died at the hands of Duvalier, the US had still been giving millions in aid to Haiti. But now, with JFK in charge over at the White House, he had had enough. JFK cut all financial support to Haiti and made it known that he wanted to help those who were looking to bring democracy back to the nation. Duval 1963, JFK was assassinated. In Haiti, Duvalier celebrated and told everyone that he was responsible for the shooting. He claimed that he had put a voodoo curse on Kennedy, and that if anyone doubted it,

they need only look at the date that the president was killed. The 22nd was de Vallier's lucky day. He had been elected on September the 22nd, inaugurated on October the 22nd, and Kennedy had been killed on November the 22nd. This now cemented in some people's minds the idea that to oppose de Vallier was to risk your life, not just at the hands of the Tonton Makut, but also the Loire and Baron Samadhi himself. After JFK's head just did that, Duvalier's US pressure party was over, and he was once again free to do absolutely everything he wanted. So now 13 young Haitians in New York decided it was time to take things

into their own hands. They called themselves the Jeune Haiti, the Young Haiti. And most of them had lost their family to Duvalier's evil regime. So, inspired by Fidel Castro, they thought they would rock up to Haiti and kick Duvalier out with some sneaky guerrilla warfare tactics. They arrived in the summer of 1964, but soon discovered that unlike Cuba, Haiti did not have the ideal geography for hiding in the woods and overthrowing a government. First off, there's basically no woods in Haiti. And so the Tonton Moukout hunted down all 13 of the Dune Haiti, one by one, and killed them all.

And this is some of the most psychotic stuff I've ever heard. The Tonton Moukout even left one of the decaying bodies of the Dune Haiti, rotting in an armchair at the International Arrivals section at Haiti's airport as a warning.

Yeah. Happy holidays. Welcome. Yeah. So this incident, although snuffed out quickly, only served to ramp up Duvalier's paranoia. So he decided it was time for more violence. He figured out which village in Haiti the members of the Jeune Haiti had originated from or where they had family and then he set the Tonton Makut loose

to do their worst the area was completely savaged women and children were raped and murdered in front of the men who were then themselves killed it was an indiscriminate and out-of-control nightmare, designed to ensure that nobody felt safe. In the weeks after the attempted insurrection by the Dune Haiti, thousands of Haitians were murdered. Duvalier now had total power. Nobody could stop him. And it's at this point that he decides to elevate himself from mere man to god-king on earth. In June 1964, Duvalier once again changed the constitution of Haiti, essentially making

himself president for life. And rather graciously accepting this new role that he'd invented for himself, he claimed, it is not my desire, but the iron will of the Haitian people, who I give no one else to vote for. And shortly after his landslide win, Duvalier gave a speech to the nation in which he now publicly announced himself to be an immaterial being and voodoo spirit. This is the 60s. Yeah. So as we know, for years, Duvalier had used the myths of voodoo surrounding him to keep hold of power. But this is where he really ramped it up to another level. This is where he's outwardly publicly saying it in speeches. And he now even tells everybody

about a trip he took into the hills of rural Haiti to find the Troufoubon, a cave believed, since the time of the plantations, to be home to powerful evil spirits. According to Duvalier, he and a local voodoo priest held a ceremony in that cave, which brought those dangerous and malignant demons to come and live in a special room that he had built in the presidential palace. Those spirits, Duvalier claimed, were his to control, and he could unleash them on anyone who crossed him. After this, rumours about Duvalier kept coming. They talked of him creating zombies from the bodies of friends and foe. He'd sit in the bath, complete with his top hat on,

talking to the decapitated heads that the Tonton Makut had brought him we don't know how much of this is true we don't know how much of this is just like propaganda because what he does is he uses democracy to get into power he then uses violence to consolidate that power and then he uses voodoo to maintain it for life so how much of this is true how much of this is a power play because he knows it will work, it's hard to say. By the end of the 60s, Duvalier had completely cemented his reputation as a god.

He even had the Lord's Prayer rewritten about himself. And he took on more and more grandiose monikers, including Master of the Crossroads, The Haitian Flood, and my personal fave, The Man Who Sees Forever. Yeah, The Haitian Flood sounds like a Lucha Libre character. It does, yes. Some thought that Duvalier had actually gone completely mad.

Some thought that he'd achieved infinite power. But some knew better. What do we mean? Why are we asking confusing questions this late in the day? Well, there is no doubt that Duvalier suffered at least some brain damage during his diabetic coma. So maybe, just maybe, some of his new behaviours were neurological. Maybe he even believed his own hype. But those closest to him said that Duvalier understood better than anyone the power of voodoo in Haiti, but that he himself was never a believer. He knew that many of the poorest people in his country were illiterate and extremely superstitious.

He knew just how to manipulate them. And when the random violence and purges weren't enough, he turned to voodoo instead. Devalier even laid the groundwork for people linking himself to voodoo. For example, when he ran for president, voodoo priests in Haiti allowed him to use their temples as campaign offices. So clearly he had the gold seal of approval from the Haitian priests, and maybe even from the Loire themselves. The terror Duvalier rained down got so deep into people's heads that the common folk of Haiti didn't even think bad thoughts about him, just in case Papadoc could hear. And I think Duvalier always had a God complex. You know, if you look back at his journey into rural Haiti with the penicillin, yes, he wanted to cure people, but he wanted to rule people as well.

And then he wanted to totally and completely dominate them as a God on earth. And when your full-on power grab is working, why stop? I think he always has it from the start. Like people might say like, oh, but look, he put himself through so much hardship to go into rural Haiti to try and kill people of yours, taking penicillin to them. But like, that's part of the god complex. There isn't anything that says people who have psychopathic tendencies, which Duvalier most certainly does, don't also engage in altruistic activities.

They do it for different reasons. And that's why Duvalier was doing it. But in the end, whatever he believed, François Duvalier was not a well man. By 1970, he knew he didn't have long left. So he appointed his eldest son, Jean-Claude, who was just a teenager at the time, as the new president for life. And then, Duvalier Papadoc,

the man who sees forever, died peacefully in his bed on the 21st of April 1971. His son, Jean-Claude, didn't quite have the nous for leadership, and most people in Haiti just thought of him as a spoiled teenager, an overindulged fat playboy. Still, he got the nickname Baby Doc and managed to continue his father's kleptocracy for another 15 years

before finally being overthrown, which ended the Duvalier dynasty. But, as we said at the start of this episode, it's the scars of that dynasty, along with the trauma of colonisation and occupation, that still plague Haiti today. Duvalier and his cronies sucked the economic lifeblood out of the nation for decades. And the rest of the world turned a blind eye. And now Haiti hangs on the precipice of going from the first nation to abolish slavery to a total failed state.

And it's so heartbreaking. Yeah, truly. When you watch, and I would urge you guys, like if you haven't heard about what's going on in Haiti, to go seek it out. Like you can see people who are on the ground reporting this on YouTube. Mainstream news channels don't seem to be talking about it in any significant way. But Haiti and the people of Haiti are hurtling towards absolute damnation. And it is really, really sad, which is why we brought this episode up, so that we can at least raise some awareness of what's going on.

So go look at it. Also go check out our shorthand that we released this week on Haitian voodoo. It's really, really interesting. And we hope you found this interesting. I know it's a bit of a different episode, but yeah, bad stuff. Yeah, truly depressing. But sometimes good things happen. Go find them yes exactly and you can do that with us probably next week when we'll still be talking about something bad bye He was hip-hop's biggest mogul,

the man who redefined fame, fortune, and the music industry. The first male rapper to be honored on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Sean Diddy Cone. Diddy built an empire and lived a life most people only dream about. Everybody know ain't no party like a Diddy party, so. Yeah, that's what you said. But just as quickly as his empire rose, it came crashing down. Today I'm announcing the unsealing of a three-count indictment charging Sean Combs with racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking, interstate transportation for prostitution. I was f***ed up. I hit rock bottom, but I made no excuses. I'm disgusted. I'm so sorry.

Until you're wearing an orange jumpsuit, it's not real. Now it's real. From his meteoric rise to his shocking fall from grace, from law and crime, this is the rise and fall of Diddy. Listen to the rise and fall of Diddy exclusively with Wondery Plus. Harvard is the oldest and richest university in America. But when a social media-fueled fight over Harvard and its new president broke out last fall, that was no protection. Claudine Gay is now gone. We've exposed the DEI regime, and there's much more to come.

This is The Harvard Plan, a special series from the Boston Globe and WNYC's On the Media. To listen, subscribe to On the Media wherever you get your podcasts.