One hundred years after Haiti gained independence, its government could be best described as unstable and inneficient.
In 1803, Jean Jacques Dessalines defeated the French troops in the Battle of Vertierres and in 1804 declared the independence of the country, which he called Haiti, and proclaimed himself emperor.
Dessalines led a despotic government. The white settlers were expelled and exterminated, and Dessalines executed most of the approximately 10,000 whites who remained on the island. He was murdered in turn by a mulatto revolt, on October 17, 1806, initiating a secular tradition of confrontations between the majority of purely black race and the mulatto minority, which has usually been identified with the middle class and the economic elites.
At the beginning of the 20th century, the country was in a state of almost permanent insurrection. In 1915, US President Woodrow Wilson invaded Haiti to counteract the influence of the German Empire, restore order after the death of President Vilbrun Guillaume Sam into the hands of a furious people, and defend the interests of the American investment bank Kuhn, Loeb & Co. Haiti remained almost permanently occupied by the United States between 1915 and 1934, a period during which Haitian governments managed to clean up public finances, create an army and build schools and roads.