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Haitians in New York City
Transnationalism and
Hometown Associations

François Pierre-Louis Jr.

university press of florida

 Haitians in New York City

University Press of Florida

Florida A&M University, Tallahassee
Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton
Florida Gulf Coast University, Ft. Myers
Florida International University, Miami
Florida State University, Tallahassee
New College of Florida, Sarasota
University of Central Florida, Orlando
University of Florida, Gainesville
University of North Florida, Jacksonville
University of South Florida, Tampa
University of West Florida, Pensacola
 Haitians in New York City
Transnationalism and Hometown Associations

François Pierre-Louis Jr.

University Press of Florida

Gainesville · Tallahassee · Tampa · Boca Raton
Pensacola · Orlando · Miami · Jacksonville · Ft. Myers · Sarasota
Copyright 2006 by François Pierre-Louis Jr.
Printed in the United States of America on recycled, acid-free paper
All rights reserved

A record of cataloging-in-publication data is available from the Library of Congress.

isbn 978-0-8130-3601-4

The University Press of Florida is the scholarly publishing agency for the State University
System of Florida, comprising Florida A&M University, Florida Atlantic University, Florida
Gulf Coast University, Florida International University, Florida State University, New
College of Florida, University of Central Florida, University of Florida, University of North
Florida, University of South Florida, and University of West Florida.

University Press of Florida

15 Northwest 15th Street
Gainesville, FL 32611-2079
http://www.upf.com
 Contents

Acknowledgments vii

Introduction 1

1. The Dual Role of Hometown Associations

among Haitian Immigrants 11

2. The Social Construction of New York’s Haitian Community 27

3. Hometown Associations: More than Humanitarian Organizations 45

4. The Haitian State and Hometown Associations 62

5. Hometown Associations and Local Participation in New York 86

6. Race, Religion, and the Social Dimension

of Haitian Hometown Associations 102

7. New York City Politics and Relationships

with Other Ethnic Groups 117

Bibliography 135

Index 147
 Acknowledgments

I would not have been able to complete this book without the support of my
family, colleagues, friends, and the anonymous reviewers who took the time
to read and comment on the manuscript. I am eternally grateful to Professor
Irving Leonard “Lenny” Markovitz, who has been a source of support and
inspiration since I met him as an undergraduate student and who has guided
me throughout this project. Many thanks to Professor Marilyn Gittell, Direc-
tor of the Howard Samuels State Management and Policy Center at CUNY
Graduate School, for her guidance and support, to Professor John Mollen-
kopf of the Urban Research Center at CUNY Graduate School for his ter-
rific insights into New York City politics, and to all my other colleagues at the
Political Science Department of Queens College, especially John Bowman,
who gave me valuable comments on the manuscript.
I also wish to thank John Byram, my editor at the University Press of Flor-
ida, for the patience, perseverance, and professionalism that he demonstrated
throughout the unfolding of this project. There are many other people who
have helped me along the way. Although I cannot mention all of them, I wish
to publicly acknowledge a few anyway. I thank Dr. Chevy Alford of John
Jay College, Professors Michel Laguerre, Robert Fatton, and Steve Steinberg,
and the members of the Faculty Publishing Fellows of CUNY for their com-
ments and support. I also wish to thank my colleagues at the Haitian Studies
Association, primarily Dr. Marc Prou, for their support and encouragement.
For my family members there are no adequate words of thanks, especially
for my mother Maria Lina, my father, my brothers and sisters. To my wife
Georgina, my sons Patrick and Charles, and my niece Antora, I would like to
say thank you for being so understanding at times when the work demanded
all my attention.
Finally, to friends and colleagues in Haiti and New York City who gra-
ciously allowed me to interview you and who put at my disposal documents,
books, and your homes, I would like to thank all of you, especially Paul
Corbanes and Donald Guercin for lending me your archives. My heartfelt
appreciation also goes to the members of the Fédération des Associations
Régionales d’Haïti à l’Étranger (FARHE), primarily the chair and co-chair,
Athanase Chavannes and Carolle Tertulien. I would also like to thank José
viii / Acknowledgments

Carrasco, John Baumann and Scott Reed of PICO, the Office of Pastoral
Planning of the Diocese of Brooklyn, Msgr. Neil Mahoney, Father Joseph
Lynch and Rudy Vargas, the leaders of the Community Action Project, es-
pecially Msgrs. Guy Sansaricq, Rollin Darbouze, and Rev. Daniel Ramm for
their support.
To all my other friends, including Yvon and Michaelle Proux, Dr. Joanel
Mondestin, Ronel Ceran, Wesley Woo, Herbert and Jessica White, Pierre
C. and Françoise Desroches, and the members of Pati Louvri Barye (PLB), I
wish to thank all of you for your encouragement.
Finally, this book is dedicated to my wife, Georgina.
 Introduction

In 1984, when Michel Laguerre wrote American Odyssey: Haitians in New

York City, the Haitian immigrant community in the United States was less
than twenty years old. Its major preoccupations were the human rights abuses
of the Duvalier regime in Haiti, finding its rightful place in a society that dis-
criminated against people of color, and obtaining the release from U.S. fed-
eral prisons of Haitian refugees who were landing in rickety boats on Miami’s
shores. There was a mysterious new disease called AIDS taking an increasing
toll on the U.S. population, and according to the Centers for Disease Control
(CDC), Haitian immigrants were probable carriers of the virus.
Since 1984 the Haitian community in New York has changed consider-
ably. The Duvalier regime is gone and almost forgotten. Many of the Haitian
refugees are now full-fledged U.S. citizens, and some are already grandparents
seeing their children achieve the ultimate American dream: a house, a car,
and a good job. The exiles who dominated the community politically and
socially for more than three decades are now either in retirement or living
in Haiti. The CDC has removed Haitians from its list of people who pose a
risk of transmitting AIDS, and the disease is no longer uncontrollable where
there are available resources.
Haitian immigrants of two decades ago who saw themselves as sojourners
or “birds of passage,” who came to work in the United States to save money
to return home, are now buying retirement homes in Florida and looking
forward to enjoying the good life there. Although for some immigrants Haiti
is becoming this distant land that they no longer have any connection with,
there are still others who maintain contact with their homeland through the
hometown associations. Those who do maintain contact continue to speak
Creole and still travel to the Flatbush section of Brooklyn, New York, to buy
their pumpkin for the traditional New Year’s soup. The Pumpkin Soup, or
Soup Joumou, celebrates Haiti’s freedom from the French because slaves were
forbidden to drink that soup under the slavery system. During the Duva-
lier years, the Soup Joumou took on a greater meaning. Most of the immi-
grants were political exiles who could not return home, and the tradition of
the pumpkin soup on New Year’s Day reminded them of home and helped
sustain their resistance against the regime. These immigrants who came as
 / Haitians in New York City

exiles and political refugees have kept the spirit of Haiti alive in the United
States by maintaining their culture, language, and involvement in homeland
politics. Moreover, many of them postponed important decisions on issues
such as naturalization, buying a house, or moving out of the city because they
thought that conditions in Haiti would improve and they could return home.
Their life as immigrants was intrinsically linked to Haitian politics, and it af-
fected the decisions that they made to survive in U.S. society.
Indeed, this book is about the struggle of Haitian immigrants in New York
City to maintain their ethnic identity as they emerge as a political force in the
city. Through transnational practices, Haitian immigrants have found mul-
tiple ways to contribute to Haiti’s development. While the focus on Haiti
has helped the community maintain its identity, it has also increased the ten-
sion between those immigrants who desire to integrate in U.S. society and
those who wish to conduct a transnational life as a way to deal with the racial
and class issues that they have encountered in U.S. society as a triple minor-
ity—immigrants, blacks, and non-English speakers.
The literature on Haitian immigrants in the United States generally focus-
es on the challenges that Haitians encounter in their effort to integrate in U.S.
society. There have been several studies and reports on the status of Haitian
refugees in Miami and New York and the challenges of the second genera-
tion to adapt to new conditions (Stepick 1998, 1994, 1990; Stepick et al. 1982;
Laguerre 1984; Chierici 1991; Catanese 1999), on the interaction of ethnicity
and race (Charles 1992; Zéphir 1996; Foner 1987; Buchanan 1979; Schiller
1990), and on the impact of transnationalism on Haitian identity (Schiller
and Fouron 2001; Charles 1992; Catanese 1999; Richman 1992). However,
very few scholars studying Haitian migration have examined the role of the
sending state and how Haitian migrants affect the polity of the community in
which they live. As the number of immigrants increases in many urban cen-
ters in the United States—New York, Boston, Miami, Chicago—their role
as political actors in the city has also become apparent. Their critical mass has
allowed them to elect mayors in North Miami and El Portal in Florida, and
representatives to state assemblies in Massachusetts and Illinois. Therefore, it
is not enough to study the social and economic impact of Haitian immigrants
on U.S. society without investigating the impact of their incorporation on
citizenship, their relationship to other groups that are ethnically closest to
them, and the role of the state in creating an environment that is conducive
to their participation in the political process.
 Introduction / 

Haitians in New York City attempts to capture this tension through the
hometown organizations that Haitian immigrants have created over the years
to cope with integration, racism, and political incorporation while they pur-
sue an activist agenda in New York City. While the book is about the lives of
all these immigrants, it is about mine too, since my life reflects this tension
that others have experienced.
Having arrived in the United States in the early 1970s as part of the sec-
ond wave of immigrants, with parents already living in the United States, I
found little difficulty adjusting to life in New York City. Within six months
of my arrival, I had learned enough English to hold a summer job at a Hai-
tian community center on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, where there
was a strong presence of Haitian immigrants. Subsequently I graduated from
high school and went to college and, like any other young Haitian of my
generation, I was on my way to conquering the American dream. At home,
it always seemed as if we were living in two worlds. On Sunday morning
my father would listen to L’Heure Haïtienne, an opposition radio program
that was broadcast from Columbia University, for news about Haiti. Every
Wednesday he would bring the opposition newspaper to the house, where it
would be read by all of us. From time to time a notice would appear in the
building inviting Haitians to attend a meeting with Paul Eugène Magloire,
a former Haitian president who was overthrown by the military in 1956. I
spoke Creole in the house, and my parents still had relatives in Haiti to whom
they sent money regularly. Although we were concerned with our integration
in American society and with bringing family members who were still left in
Haiti to New York City, we always found time to think about Haiti and what
we could do to help the people.
Sometime in the 1980s while I was an undergraduate student at Queens
College, I became more interested in Haitian politics. I volunteered to teach
English as a Second Language to Haitian refugees who were incarcerated
in the federal prison in Brooklyn. I also joined an organization that sought
public support for the release of the imprisoned refugees while denouncing
the human rights abuses of the Duvalier regime in Haiti.
Soon after Jean-Claude Duvalier left Haiti in 1986, I moved back there
to organize with the emerging democratic movement, and in 1991 I joined
President Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s private cabinet, where I worked with grass-
roots organizations. However, going back to Haiti did not mean that I would
not return to the United States. Instead, over the years that I lived in Haiti,
 / Haitians in New York City

a routine developed: I would return to New York for the holidays and the
summer months to spend time with my family. New York City was not even
considered a second home; Haiti and New York City were thought of as first
homes. I was comfortable in both societies, had close family members in both
places, and adjusted well in both of them. As a member of President Aristide’s
private cabinet, I became more aware of the role that the middle class could
play in helping Haiti develop. Haiti’s middle class was living outside the
country in North America and Europe. Despite the efforts of the Duvalier
regime to force them to abandon all hope of returning home, they remained
attached to the country, and many were willing to volunteer their time and
talent to help the country recover from the brutal years of the Duvalier dicta-
torship. However, lack of institutional structure and a legacy of mistrust that
has been ingrained in our national psyche for the past two hundred years has
prevented Haitian authorities from taking full advantage of this goodwill.
Although it has been more than a decade since I returned to settle perma-
nently in the United States, the first military coup against President Aristide
did not diminish my love for Haiti and my desire to help it develop. More-
over, after so many years away from Haitian soil, I still feel at home when I
travel there and people in the country are still fascinated by the fact that,
though I left Haiti at an early age, I am still knowledgeable about its politics,
culture, and society. I am the quintessential transnationalist!
My experience is not unique. There are thousands of Haitian immigrants
in the United States who share this form of transnational life. It is our com-
mon experience that this book attempts to capture—an experience that is
far from traditional. Most immigrant groups do not maintain such a rela-
tionship with their homelands. But Haitians, who have been living in the
United States for more than fifty years, remain culturally, emotionally, and
politically attached to Haiti, and this attachment has been the determining
factor in their integration in mainstream U.S. society. Exile politics, ethnicity,
coalition politics, and transnationalism are all the different paths Haitian im-
migrants have taken over the past four decades to integrate into U.S. society.
Through all their activities and politics, they have managed to maintain a
separate identity from African-Americans and other Caribbean nationals.
In this book I use the practices of the hometown associations and Haitian-
American leaders to highlight the tension that Haitian immigrants live with
in the United States. Although these organizations conduct significant activi-
ties in the United States and Haiti, their role cannot be completely appreci-
 Introduction / 

ated without an overall understanding of the rich history of the Haitian com-
munity in New York. Therefore, in addition to the stories of the transnational
Haitian immigrants that are related in this book, you will also encounter the
history and experience of the exiles who first came to New York City in the
1960s and the assimilated Haitians who are now running for office, working
for the mayor, and advocating on behalf of the Haitian community.
Unlike New York’s older immigrant groups, Haitians have been settling in
New York City only since the 1960s. So they are fairly new to ethnic politics,
racial succession, and the distribution of resources that is based on political
connections in the city. The first major group to come to the United States
was comprised of political activists exiled by Duvalier’s government. Profes-
sionals and businessmen followed this group when political conditions in
Haiti began to deteriorate under that regime. The civil rights movement in
the United States and the change in immigration laws in the late 1960s made
it possible for Haitians to escape the poverty and political turmoil of their
country to settle in America. Like most immigrants to the United States who
either came voluntarily or were forced to emigrate, Haitians were expected to
sever ties with their old society as they assimilated. However, because the ex-
iled leaders wanted to return home, they were more focused on Haitian poli-
tics instead of creating institutions that would facilitate their integration in
U.S. society. They opted for a segmented assimilation pattern, which entails
the adoption of values and practices that help them maintain their cultural
differences while enhancing their economic and social standing in relation to
other ethnic groups that are discriminated against (Portes and Zhou 1994).
The hometown associations have provided Haitian immigrants the opportu-
nity to practice a segmented assimilation pattern in the United States. They
have become the linkage institutions that maintain contact with Haiti while
helping immigrants integrate in U.S. society.
Although hometown organizations are created by new immigrants in
the United States to maintain ties with their home countries, they are not
new in the annals of U.S. immigration. As far back as the 1850s, Jewish and
Italian immigrants created them to maintain contact with their homelands.
What is different with these organizations today is that they are created by
Third World migrants who want to involve the state in developing projects
back home and who also want to use them as advocacy groups in the United
States. Haitian hometown associations send goods and materials to Haiti,
raise money for projects, and help hometown officials create other voluntary
 / Haitians in New York City

nonprofit organizations. While actively pursuing these goals, they are also
engaged in civic and advocacy projects in New York City on behalf of their
constituencies.
Haitian hometown associations do not wish to replace community and
neighborhood organizations that organize and advocate on behalf of their
members. In the process of creating a space for immigrants to pursue a seg-
mented assimilation, they have provided Haitian-Americans with another
setting to cope with racial tension in U.S. society. Since Haitians come from
a nation where class is more important than skin color as a measure of social
standing, they were not prepared to deal with racial patterns in the United
States that forced them to belong to the group of minorities that are margin-
alized and subjected to constant discrimination. To cope with this tension,
they joined hometown organizations where Haiti’s glorious past as the first
black republic of the New World is constantly highlighted, the immigrant
entrepreneurial spirit is appreciated, and the cultural and language differenc-
es that distinguish them from African-Americans and other black English-
speaking immigrants are valued. In addition to hometown associations, Hai-
tian immigrants founded clubs, cultural groups, churches, newspapers, radio
stations, and businesses that cater to their needs and reinforce their objective
of pursuing a segmented assimilation in U.S. society while maintaining ties
with Haiti. These organizations also help leaders preserve their prestige and
status among immigrants in the community, and they provide a platform to
forge political coalitions with other groups in the city on common issues.
The tension of dealing with racial issues in the United States and their
desire to maintain contact with their hometowns in Haiti have encouraged
Haitian immigrants to maintain their ethnicity and to resist being labeled
simply as African-Americans. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Haitian im-
migrants in New York City identified themselves as French, rejecting the
Creole language and associating their culture with that of France. As black
consciousness developed in the 1960s, they began to identify themselves as
Haitian-Americans, creating cultural, social, and political organizations to
reinforce their identity as a distinct ethnic group in America. The reinforce-
ment of their identity took the form of emphasizing Creole as their language,
affirming Vodou as their authentic religion, and creating cultural groups that
gave folkloric dance lessons to Haitian youths.
Although the cultural organizations still exist in New York City, they
have become less important in the community. Hometown associations have
 Introduction / 

replaced them as organizations that contribute to maintaining a Haitian

identity in New York City. Through these organizations, Haitians maintain
relations with Haiti and at the same time create conditions for immigrants
to affirm their culture and language. Over the past two decades, these orga-
nizations have become important participatory institutions for immigrants
in New York City, providing training, technical assistance, and networking
opportunities to Haitian immigrants as well as sending humanitarian aid to
Haiti. Frequently members of these groups have joined other coalitions in
New York to address issues that concern the community such as education,
police brutality, and immigration.
Haitian immigrants have successfully used religion as a tool to organize the
hometown associations. As a former colony of France, Haiti after its indepen-
dence in 1804 was overwhelmingly Catholic. However, the American occu-
pation in 1915 brought along the Protestant churches, which began to convert
Catholics, and in the late 1940s an influx of Pentecostal churches from the
southern United States further contributed to the conversion of a number of
Haitians to Protestantism. These Protestant churches have influenced the mi-
gration of Haitians to the United States. The hometown organizations have
used the church to attract members and to gain legitimacy. During the 1980s
when the Haitian community was mobilizing its members for the release of
the refugees, most of the meetings were held in Catholic churches. Meetings
of the hometown organizations are usually held in church facilities.
Religion, language, culture, and the unique way that Haitians migrated
to the United States in the 1960s have all shaped their efforts to integrate
as a separate ethnic group in American society. These conditions have not
only helped Haitian immigrants foster their own identity, but they have also
encouraged a healthy competition with other ethnic groups in the city for
resources and attention. Politics, race, religion, culture, and language are all
ingredients that have contributed in making the Haitian’s integration in U.S.
society fascinating and unique.
Throughout this book, you will find stories and anecdotes about the Fé-
dération des Associations Régionales Haïtiennes à l’Étranger (FARHE), an
umbrella organization that Haitian immigrants who practice transnational-
ism have created to strengthen the leadership of the individual groups and to
encourage their members to work collectively on common issues. Members
of these organizations are my primary subjects for this book. I use them to
show what they do as members of transnational immigrant groups, and to
 / Haitians in New York City

highlight the dilemma that most of them find themselves in as immigrants

who have established family and economic ties in New York while still con-
sidering themselves “birds of passage” who will someday return to Haiti.

Structure of the Book

The first chapter begins with an analysis of the similarities and differences
that exist between Mexican, Dominican, and Haitian hometown associations
and how they are organized to address the concerns of their constituencies. I
also go into more detail about the characteristics of Haitian transnationalism
to differentiate it from other forms of transnationalism practiced by immi-
grants from Mexico and the Dominican Republic. I argue that transnational
practices respond to the need of modern postindustrial societies to provide
a segmented assimilation process to immigrants of color who are now enter-
ing these societies. Whereas in the 1960s the sending states were exiling their
citizens, today these states are welcoming them back as investors, role models,
and senior citizens. The sending states are also using their expatriates in the
United States to influence U.S. policy toward them. The success of home-
town organizations in implementing their programs depends on the capac-
ity of the state to create a welcoming atmosphere for them. States that have
democratic structures and effective bureaucracies tend to be more success-
ful with the hometown associations than those that are heavily centralized
and undemocratic. In the first chapter I also address the reasons that Haitian
hometown associations could not expect the state to support their effort to
improve the quality of life in their hometown by either matching their fund-
ing or providing technical assistance. Unlike other countries such as Mexico
and the Dominican Republic, the Haitian government has failed to address
these issues with the hometown associations.
Chapter 2 addresses the social construction of the Haitian community in
New York City. In this chapter I provide a historical overview of the com-
munity and the role of the exile leaders in creating the identity of the Haitian
community in New York City. I address how Haitian immigrants came to
settle in the United States in different waves. The first wave came to New
York in the 1960s and greatly influenced the politics of the community. As
immigrants who advocated a politics of return, the first wave spent most of
their time working toward the overthrow of the Duvalier regime instead of
building a viable community in the city. The first wave of immigrants benefit-
ed from the social and demographic changes that were taking place in the city
 Introduction / 

in the 1960s, which allowed them to integrate into U.S. society as middle-
class Haitians. Their integration as members of the middle class affected the
relationship that they established with African-Americans and other ethnic
groups in the city.
In chapter 3 I argue that the hometown associations are more than hu-
manitarian organizations, because they help repair some of the social divi-
sions that have kept Haitians separated since independence. I also discuss the
humanitarian projects that they are implementing in Haiti. All the home-
town associations are actively working on some projects in Haiti, from fenc-
ing the local cemetery to feeding children in the community. In the process of
implementing these projects, the leaders are reclaiming their family prestige
and also establishing new relationships that will maintain their privilege and
status in the community.
Chapter 4 addresses the role of the Haitian state in promoting the home-
town associations. Historically the state has always developed an antagonistic
relationship with the population. Since 1804, Haiti’s rural population has
been treated as second-class citizens by the state. Until the 1990s the state had
two types of birth certificate. Those who were born in the rural areas were
automatically given birth certificates that had “paysan” (peasant) stamped
on it, while urban Haitians’ birth certificates were stamped with the word
“urbain.” The campaign against foreigners and the division that the Duvalier
regime created between Haitians in Haiti and those living abroad have seri-
ously affected the capacity of the hometown associations to press the state to
address their needs. Although members of the hometown associations are
making great efforts to bridge the gap between overseas and homeland Hai-
tians, more work remains to be done to build trust between these two sectors.
The hometown associations cannot supplant the state in their activities even
though they are very efficient in implementing projects in their hometown.
In chapter 5 I analyze the results of a survey of hometown association lead-
ers. Although the failure of the Haitian state to accommodate members of the
hometown associations has not deterred Haitian immigrants from support-
ing Haiti or dampened their willingness to help their respective hometown, it
has, however, encouraged more immigrants to engage in local politics in New
York City. This chapter explores the tension that exists between the desire of
Haitian immigrants to remain connected with Haiti and their intention to
play an active role in local politics in New York City given the racial, ethnic,
and cultural challenges that they confront as a triple minority in America.
10 / Haitians in New York City

Members of the hometown associations attempt to deal with the tension of

living a transnational life in New York by maintaining their ethnic identity,
integrating religion in their lives, making alliances with various ethnic and
political organizations in the city to counteract incidents of police brutality
that have a negative impact on their identity, and taking an active part in
electoral politics.
Chapter 6 focuses on how members of hometown associations sometimes
straddle two worlds: a world in which their immigrant interests coincide with
those of the hometown associations, and another world in which these inter-
ests influence the politics of the hometown associations on specific issues.
As minority immigrants, Haitians are affected by the racial discrimination
and police abuse that are often found in their community. At the same time,
being members of the hometown associations, they can choose to escape mo-
mentarily from such an environment. Haitians immigrants in New York City
have attempted to live simultaneously in these two worlds through their rela-
tionships with the African-American community and their mobilization on
issues that affect Haiti. They try to maintain their ethnic identity while they
pursue their religious practices without interruption, and at the same time
they collaborate with other organizations to advance the general interests of
the immigrant community in New York by preserving their own cultural and
social differences.
Chapter 7 concludes with the realization that, despite their nostalgia for
Haiti and their longing to return home, most Haitian immigrants who have
been living in the United States for the past forty or fifty years will not go
back home. Haiti has become this mythical island that they will always cher-
ish without ever setting foot there. As a result of this reality, Haitian im-
migrants have transitioned from “birds of passage” to integrated American
citizens. They are actively engaging in local politics by making new alliances
with African-Americans and white liberals. The Haitian community in New
York City tends to support politicians who can connect their local issues with
those of Haiti. Although the tension between addressing homeland issues
and local concerns will remain, more Haitians are realizing that it does not
have to be either/or. By being politically active in the United States while
maintaining contact with Haiti, they are learning that they can be effective
in defending Haiti’s interests in the United States as citizens instead of mere
legal residents.
 1

The Dual Role of Hometown Associations

among Haitian Immigrants

Mexican and Dominican hometown associations are represented differently

in the United States than their Haitian counterparts. The Mexican and Do-
minican hometown associations enjoy the support of their governments, and
they are more focused on addressing their hometown issues. Although Hai-
tian immigrants created the hometown associations to provide humanitar-
ian aid to Haiti, their leaders also use them to maintain their ethnic identity
in New York City and to advance their agenda of democratic reforms that
started after the fall of the Duvalier regime in Haiti in 1986.
In the past, immigrant groups from Europe have likewise used hometown
associations to affirm their ethnicity in the United States. For example, Jews
from Eastern Europe created the Landsmanshaftn to help them integrate in
U.S. society and to uphold their Jewish traditions. These hometown organi-
zations provided moral and economic support to the new immigrants and
helped them maintain contact with family members in the homeland. They
also helped immigrant groups bring rabbis to meet their religious needs in
the United States and provided mutual help for burials, weddings, or other
social needs (Soyer 1997). Throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries, there were Italian, Polish, and Irish hometown associations in the
United States and Canada (Harney 1998) that attempted to fulfill the same
role as the Jewish Landsmanshaftn.
In addition to organizing activities similar to those of the Jewish and Ital-
ian hometown associations of the nineteenth century, today’s hometown as-
sociations attempt to fulfill other roles while supporting multiple functions
for their members. Levitt (2001) sees them as helping immigrants carry a
transnational lifestyle in the age of globalization where workers’ rights are
being eroded. Fouron (Schiller and Fouron 2001), on the other hand, uses his
personal experience as a transnational living in New York City to illustrate
the role of immigrant adaptation in the United States and his relations with
families left in Haiti. For Laguerre (1998), these groups are redefining the
12 / Haitians in New York City

notion of citizenship as it is understood in the nation-state. Hometown asso-

ciations today make it possible for immigrants to live simultaneously in two
worlds. As such, new immigrants who face discrimination in their host soci-
ety can always fall back on their homeland to maintain their culture and to
ascertain their identity. This option has also encouraged cross-class alliances
within the hometown associations. For example, in the Haitian hometown
associations, one finds assimilated immigrants as well as newcomers who
hope that the organization will help them integrate in U.S. society. There are
also longtime immigrant residents of New York who are attached to Haiti but
are not yet ready to renounce the emotional, social, and economic ties that
they have developed over many years with the United States. These contradic-
tory relationships help sustain these organizations, because new immigrants
are learning adaptation skills from the more established residents, while as-
similated residents continue to nurture their nostalgia for a Haiti that they
left behind years ago.
Immigrants who join hometown associations do not fit into the classi-
cal “straight-line” theory of assimilation of Warner and Srole (1945), because
they are members of an institution that attempts to bridge two worlds. The
assimilation theory of Warner and Srole assumes that each native-born gen-
eration acculturates further into mainstream society and raises its status vis-à-
vis the previous one. This theory was for a long time the most accepted para-
digm for the understanding of immigrant assimilation in the United States.
The Warner and Srole theory, also known as “melting pot,” was based on the
study of European immigrants, primarily male, who were automatically given
the suffrage and land grants once they arrived in the United States. But im-
migrants of color who arrived in the United States in the 1960s were denied
these opportunities. Often they confronted racial discrimination and were
never fully made welcome in the Anglo-Saxon culture of the United States.
The melting-pot theory failed to address the disparity that existed between
these new immigrants and their European counterparts.
Moreover, the melting-pot theory was unable to address changes in U.S.
society in the middle of the twentieth century that seriously affected immi-
gration politics. These changes included a reorganization of the U.S. econ-
omy that has eliminated most of the unskilled jobs that were once available
to children of European immigrants (Gans 1992). The skills that new im-
migrants bring with them today are more varied than those of the European
immigrants who came to the United States at the turn of the century. Some
 The Dual Role of Hometown Associations among Haitian Immigrants / 13

new immigrants are very well educated, while others are unskilled and may be
experiencing urban life for the first time. The straight-line assimilation theory
also could not take into account how globalization and progress in the field
of communications would affect immigration. Today many immigrants can
maintain ties with their home country through travel, e-mail, and telephone
communication. New immigrants in the United States are remaining con-
nected culturally and politically with their home country through organiza-
tions that can function simultaneously in the United States and in their place
of origin (Foner, “What’s New,” 1997). Transformations in the technologies
of transportation and communication have considerably increased the impor-
tance of transnational interconnections and made it possible for immigrants
to operate simultaneously in a variety of places (Foner 2000, 176). As a result
of these changes, the pattern of immigrants’ incorporation into the main-
stream and their expectations of the new society have changed considerably.
Assimilation in U.S. society for new immigrants does not mean a complete
split with their homeland. Instead, the tendency is to live as transnationals,
or in two worlds at the same time.

Transnationalism
Transnationalism is a new concept that explains the segmented assimila-
tion pattern of new immigrants in the United States (Schiller 1992; Smith,
“Transnational Localities,” 1998; Guarnizo 1998). Schiller uses the concept
“to explain the processes by which immigrants build social fields that link
together their country of origin with their country of settlement” (Schil-
ler, Basch, and Blanc-Szanton 1992, 1–2). Transnationalism is also seen as “a
multi-level process (demographic, political, economic, cultural, familial) that
involves various links between two or more settings rather than a discrete
event constituted by a permanent move from one nation to another” (Gold
1997, 410). Transnationalism has become a key element in migration theory
today because it attempts to define the new relationship that new immigrants
develop with their homeland. It forces scholars, policymakers, and new im-
migrants to see the world as an unstructured and unbounded space that links
the First and Third World nations together (Espiritu 2003).
Although certain immigrants to the United States at the turn of the cen-
tury—most notably, victims of political persecution—maintained some form
of relationship with their homeland, very few managed to have a continuing
impact there, largely because of a lack of technology. It is true that trans-
14 / Haitians in New York City

nationalism existed a hundred years ago; immigrants from Italy and other
European countries used to travel back and forth to their homelands. How-
ever, the significance of today’s transnationalism is that current technological
changes in communications and improvements in transportation have made
it possible for new immigrants to maintain ties with their home societies
(Foner, “What’s New,” 1997).
Hometown associations through their transnational activities have en-
couraged immigrants of different backgrounds to play an active role in their
home countries’ politics. Their involvement ranges from the creation of link-
age organizations in the home countries to the development of nonprofit
volunteer organizations in the United States. These organizations perform
several tasks: they provide immigrants with legitimate institutions to pursue
their own interests; they mobilize the community to raise money, lobby, and
educate the population on political as well as social issues; and they encour-
age the maintenance of cultural ties with the home country. Through linkage
associations that are established in their home country, immigrants create
platforms on which they can influence local politics and raise money for proj-
ects. “The same individual may attend a meeting of U.S. citizens in the same
ethnic group, be called as a New Yorker to speak to the Mayor of New York
about the development of our city, and the next week go back home to Haiti,
St. Vincent, or the Philippines and speak as a committed nationalist about
the development of our nation” (Schiller, Basch, and Blanc-Szanton 1992,
1). Smith (1995) relates that when the small farming community of Ticuani,
Mexico, wanted a clean water supply, it turned to a private civic group in
Brooklyn, New York, to raise $100,000 to purchase and install new tubing
that could bring clean water to the town. Haitians running for office in Hai-
ti make it a priority to visit the major U.S. cities that have large immigrant
populations to raise money and to seek support to influence electorates back
home (Laguerre 1998).
Transnational practices are not entirely dependent on immigrants’ actions.
Unlike Gold, Schiller, and other scholars who contend that immigrants are
forcing the developed societies, the “core states,” to adjust to the concept of
transnationalism, I believe that it is the advanced capitalist states that are re-
defining the terms and conditions under which they accept immigrants from
developing countries. Transnational practices therefore reflect the decision
of countries such as the United States to integrate further the developing
states, the “periphery states,” into their economy. Recent trends include an
 The Dual Role of Hometown Associations among Haitian Immigrants / 15

increasing dependence of periphery states on core states, democratic reforms

that have seen the fall of dictatorial regimes in the periphery states, and tech-
nological advances that have made it difficult for periphery states to control
and manipulate information.
Whereas three decades ago immigrants from certain nation-states like
Haiti, El Salvador, the Dominican Republic, and Nicaragua were fleeing their
homelands because of the predatory nature of their governments, today these
states are encouraging their expatriates to maintain contact with the home-
land by providing the necessary structure to sustain that relationship. Haiti in
the 1960s under the presidency of François Duvalier adopted a politics of ex-
clusion, exiling opponents of the regime. In 1991 after Jean-Bertrand Aristide
became the first democratically elected leader of the country, the government
created a ministry to welcome Haitian immigrants and seek their support
in implementing its agenda. Since Haiti was divided into nine departments,
they called this outreach agency the Ministry of the Tenth Department.
Transnationalism is seen as an attempt by immigrants to reconfigure the
old nation-state, with its fixed territorial boundaries, as a transnational na-
tion-state in which the nation and the authority of its government extend
beyond the state’s territorial boundaries by incorporating the dispersed popu-
lations (Schiller and Fouron 2001). In such a context, instead of diminishing
the role of the state, transnationalism has increased it beyond its borders. The
danger with this approach is that strong states may attempt to control civil
society and limit the capacity of ordinary citizens to act independently of the
government.
However, the extension of the state beyond its borders may encourage
expatriates to identify further with its foreign policy, especially when immi-
grants in the host countries are marginalized. Haitian immigrants who face
discrimination in the United States are proud to raise the Haitian flag as a sign
of cultural identity and as a reminder of their glorious past (Zéphir 1996).
Many immigrants, despite their differences with the Haitian government,
still have high regard for the state, since it is the symbol of their hard-earned
freedom from slavery. This admiration benefits the state and reinforces the
immigrants’ relationship with it.
The transnational nature of hometown associations allows immigrants
from developing countries to address the needs of their hometowns and to
fashion a “space” to interact among themselves in the United States. Whereas
hometown associations created by immigrant groups from Mexico, El Salva-
16 / Haitians in New York City

dor, and the Dominican Republic offer that space within a two-dimensional
outlook, the space for members of Haitian hometown associations is multi-
dimensional because they are a triple minority. What makes the space for im-
migrants from Latin America two-dimensional is that they can be perceived
as Latinos or as Hispanic-Americans, with Latinos being less integrated than
Hispanic-Americans. Haitians, on the other hand, can be perceived as Afri-
can-Americans because of their color. In cities where they are heavily concen-
trated, they are often seen as Haitian-Americans, or as Caribbean-Americans.
These two terms differ from “African-American” in that they emphasize the
immigrant and ethnic dimensions of the population.

Differences among Hometown Associations

There are marked differences among hometown associations due to how they
were created and how much influence the state and civil society have on them.
For example, hometown associations in the Mexican community have been
influenced by two main factors: the bracero program that brought in a large
number of Mexican nationals to the United States, and the Mexican state’s
support of these associations. Immigrants from the rural areas of Mexico have
been the primary force behind the creation of Mexican hometown associa-
tions in the United States (Alarcón 2002). Beginning in the 1950s with the
bracero program that encouraged Mexicans, primarily from the rural areas,
to come to the United States to do manual labor and agricultural work, there
has been a steady influx of Mexican immigrants into the United States. There
are some twenty million Mexican immigrants in the United States today and
more than one-third of them arrived here after 1997 (Gutiérrez 2002). For
many years, these immigrants went back to their local villages once their sea-
sonal contracts ended. The money they earned was used to support their fam-
ilies back home and to improve their economic conditions by buying land or
improving their homes. The primary objective of the Mexican laborers who
came to the United States was to work in the agricultural sector, but not to
stay permanently in the United States.
The social stigma attached to migrants who renounced their citizenship
or abandoned their homeland was one of the reasons that Mexicans were
reluctant to stay permanently in the United States. The term pocho, meaning
“overripe,” was a pejorative word used in Mexico from the 1930s to the 1960s
to describe Mexican nationals who adopted U.S. citizenship or American
ways. Nationalism, the antagonism of the state toward those who renounced
 The Dual Role of Hometown Associations among Haitian Immigrants / 17

their citizenship, played an important role in preventing Mexicans from tak-

ing U.S. citizenship and separating completely from their homeland. But al-
though the bracero program was supported by the Mexican state and the
government gained great economic benefits from it, the workers themselves
were neglected. A component of the program was the payment of the work-
ers’ taxes to the Mexican government, to be refunded in Mexico. However,
many workers never received that money. Million of dollars went into the
coffers of the state, while the Mexican laborers were left high and dry. This
experience made Mexican laborers more distrustful of the state and further
alienated leaders who thought that the state would be a partner in the devel-
opment of their hometown.
Until the late 1990s, the Mexican state had no coherent policy for its na-
tionals living abroad. The “discovery” of Mexicans living abroad came about
because the dominant political party, the Institutional Revolutionary Party
or PRI, was losing its grip on the population. The PRI had adopted unpopu-
lar economic measures to satisfy the demands of the International Monetary
Fund in the 1980s, and its new neoliberal policies greatly affected the liveli-
hood of poor Mexicans, who were mostly PRI supporters. What with cor-
ruption, mismanagement, and high interest payments on foreign debt, by
the late 1980s the state was practically bankrupt. As a way to foster economic
investment in Mexico, it began to approach its nationals abroad to seek their
support in promoting the interests of Mexico in the United States and invest-
ing in projects in the country. The Mexican government under the presidency
of Carlos Salinas made it a policy to court the expatriates living in the United
States to seek their support for the passage of the North American Free Trade
Agreement (NAFTA). As part of its policy to reach out to the immigrants
living in the United States, the state also began to take a series of initiatives
that benefited local villages and hometown associations. In 1990 the govern-
ment created the Program for Mexican Communities Abroad, whose goal is
to strengthen ties between Mexicans and their counterparts in the United
States. The Mexican government sends 250 teachers every year to the United
States to help U.S. schools that need bilingual support (Gutiérrez 2000).
Moreover, the government has sponsored delegations to Mexico and ar-
ranged meetings between Mexican-American leaders and their counterparts
in Mexico.
In addition to these projects, the government has matched funding for
projects that hometown associations undertook in their villages at a rate of
18 / Haitians in New York City

2 to 1. Recently the state voted to grant dual citizenship to all its nationals
who live abroad. The notion of citizenship as belonging to a fixed territorial
area no longer applied to Mexico by the 1990s, since the state decided that
the “Mexico nation extends beyond the territory contained by its borders”
(Gutiérrez 2000).
The Mexican hometown associations were able to bloom and prosper be-
cause the government recognized the importance of their contribution to the
economy of Mexico through remittances, and it also created programs and
structures to support them in the United States. Thanks to state interven-
tion, these associations were no longer relegated to the sidelines. They have
become in the twenty-first century fully fledged partners of the state in its
effort to attract investments in the country and to broaden its support in
the United States. The remittances of more than $2 billion a year by Mexi-
can immigrants in the United States and their efforts to improve conditions
in their hometowns have made Mexican hometown associations exemplary
organizations for other immigrant groups who are interested in addressing
similar issues for their homelands.
Compared to the Mexican community, Dominican immigrants who
founded hometown associations have had a different experience regarding
the state, their immigration to the United States, and the support that their
government provided to implement projects in the country. Whereas Mexi-
can immigrants were invited by the U.S. government in the 1950s to work in
the States as agricultural workers and laborers, most Dominicans arrived in
the United States in the 1960s because they were literally running for their
lives. Following a period of turmoil after the assassination of President Rafael
Leónidas Trujillo in 1961, the population elected Juan Bosch, a progressive
and an independent, as president of the country in 1964. Seven months later
Bosch was deposed by the military with the support of the United States.
Following unrest in the country after the overthrow of Bosch, the United
States sent in the Marines to occupy the country and supported the elec-
tion of Joaquín Balaguer, a Trujillo protégé. To ease tensions on the island,
the United States tacitly supported the emigration of prominent Dominican
leaders to the mainland. This decision was seen by the U.S. ambassador as a
safety valve to prevent the radicalization of Dominican politics (Grasmuck
and Pessar 1991).
For more than twelve years the Dominican Republic was under a dictator-
ship that was heavily dominated by the army. As with Haiti, the Dominican
 The Dual Role of Hometown Associations among Haitian Immigrants / 19

opposition in the United States consisted primarily of exile leaders who spent
most of their time organizing against the Balaguer regime and preparing their
return to the homeland. Unlike the Mexican community, whose primary im-
migrant population was composed of peasants in search of a livelihood, the
first wave of Dominican immigrants were primarily middle-class exiles who
had no interest in settling in the United States. They were not interested in
creating hometown associations because, like the Haitian exiles, their priority
was to change the political system back home. The second wave of migrants,
from the lower middle class and the peasantry, followed the professional Do-
minicans to the United States in the late 1960s. Unlike the first wave, which
left the country because of political turmoil, the second group left because
of deteriorating economic conditions as the transition from an agriculture-
based economy to a semi-industrial process caused dislocation of the rural
population (Levitt 2001). These later migrants were interested in establish-
ing roots in the United States, and in finding ways to maintain ties with the
Dominican Republic.
The transition from authoritarian to democratic government in the Do-
minican Republic took place in the 1980s. Despite various challenges that
came with the transition, such as the corruption scandal under the Guzmán
regime and the dominant role of the army, the country was able to maintain
the course and proceeded to attract foreign investments which contributed
to an increase in the skilled workforce. By maintaining the democratic pro-
cess over a long period of time, it succeeded in strengthening state institu-
tions. The state was thus more apt to respond to the needs of the immigrant
population and to help it establish hometown associations.

Haitian Hometown Associations

Unlike the Mexicans and the Dominicans, Haitian immigrants created their
hometown organizations to position themselves in the United States as a dis-
tinct ethnic group, to support the democratization process in Haiti, and to
address humanitarian crises there. These three factors have had an important
impact on how Haitian immigrants integrate in the United States and on
their enduring ties with Haiti. The hometown organizations began to emerge
in the 1980s at a time when a critical mass of Haitian immigrants who were
not exiled by Presidents François and Jean-Claude Duvalier began to as-
sume a leadership role in the community. These leaders were for the most
part younger and came from different political and social experiences than
20 / Haitians in New York City

the group that came to the United States in the 1960s. Most of them were
voluntary immigrants who were educated in the United States and had more
experience living in this country than the exile leaders.
Compared to other organizations in New York City such as the commu-
nity centers and the activist groups, the hometown associations tended to be
less focused on overthrowing the Duvalier regime and more willing to work
in Haiti when the dictatorial regime was in power. These organizations are
considered “transnational” because of the dual role that they play in the send-
ing and receiving countries (Laguerre 1998; Schiller 1995). Since the 1980s
these organizations have played an important role in New York City’s im-
migrant community by maintaining ties with Haiti, helping immigrants as-
similate, building leadership skills, and networking with U.S. organizations.
More than forty of these associations are gathered into an umbrella group
known as the Fédération des Associations Régionales d’Haïti à l’Étranger
(FARHE). The associations have raised money to support local initiatives
in Haiti, and they encourage immigrants to participate in political as well
as neighborhood activities. They meet as often as once a month and hold
various events to raise money for projects in Haiti, sponsor conferences, and
share news about their town. Their members usually come from the same
town in Haiti. The leadership of the associations is often elected for terms of
three to five years. The core leaders are well known in their hometown in Hai-
ti because of their wealth or their prestige in the community, and they have
resided in the United States for more than fifteen years and are very famil-
iar with U.S. culture and customs. In 1991, when Jean-Bertrand Aristide was
elected president, his very first act was to create the cabinet position called
the Tenth Department to address the needs of these organizations (Richman
1992). The ministry, so named because Haiti at that time had nine geographic
regions or departments, changed its name in 2003 when another region was
added; it is now called the Ministry for Haitians Living Abroad (Ministère
des Haïtiens Vivant à l’Étranger, or MHAVE). All subsequent governments
since 1991 have tried to follow Aristide’s lead by recognizing the role insti-
tutions such as the hometown organizations can play in the economic and
social development of Haiti.
Haitian hometown associations in New York have also benefited from the
fall of the Duvalier regime in 1986. Many prominent exiles in the community
voluntarily went back to Haiti when Duvalier left. This meant the emerging
leaders of the hometown organizations did not have to compete for leader-
 The Dual Role of Hometown Associations among Haitian Immigrants / 21

ship positions in the community. In fact, the departure of the exile leaders to
Haiti left a leadership vacuum in the community that was quickly filled by the
hometown associations. The fall of the Duvalier regime in 1986 also forced
the immigrant community to confront ethnic and racial issues in New York
City that were not being addressed before because the exile leaders were more
concerned with homeland issues. Haitian leaders who did not return to Haiti
after 1986 had to decide whether they wanted to stay in the United States
permanently and find other activities, or fade into the sunset. The hometown
associations offered them the opportunity to engage in community activities
that ranged from providing humanitarian aid for Haiti to teaching English
as a Second Language to new immigrants in the community. The Haitian
hometown associations, therefore, became institutional spaces for immi-
grants who wanted to stay connected with Haiti while they pursued their
immigrant dreams in the United States.

Ethnic Identity
In the process of helping their villages, hometown associations also contrib-
ute to the reinforcement of a Haitian identity in the United States that dis-
tinguishes them from the African-Americans who are their proximal host. As
a triple minority in a society that is structured on racial identity, Haitians are
confronted with the choice of identifying themselves as African-American,
which would place them in a minority group that has been discriminated
against in our society, or creating an ethnic identity that would separate them
from the group they are closest to. Coming from a society where social class
is more important than racial category, Haitian immigrants find themselves
relegated to the bottom of the social ladder as black immigrants in the United
States (Zéphir 1996). Accordingly, in their attempt to maintain a higher so-
cioeconomic status, they create hometown associations to fashion their own
ethnic identity and preserve their culture.
Given the racial oppression on which the United States was built, and the
constant pressure on minorities to accept the predominantly Anglo-Saxon
culture, ethnic politics has become a strategy for survival for those who want
to maintain their own culture and achieve political power in American so-
ciety. Often race, religion, and national origin are enough for a group to be
classified as an ethnic entity (Gordon 1964). At other times it is not only race
and religion but the “shared social/cultural experiences and heritages of vari-
ous groups” (Rothenberg 2001, 8). In the case of Haitian immigrants, their
Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content
 THE YEAES OF PEEPAEATION 93 recognised. In June 1883
we find General Hicks, then preparing for his fatal march, writing to
Sir Evelyn Wood : ' Send me four battalions of your new army, and I
shall be content.' But fortune protected the infant organisation from
such a disastrous beginning. The ' new army ' remained for a space
in Cairo ; and although during the Nile expedition of 1884-85 the
Egyptians were employed guarding the lines of communication, it
was not until the British troops had been withdrawn from Dongola
that they received at Ginniss their baptism of fire. Henceforth their
place was on the frontier, and from 1886 onward the Egyptian troops
proved equal to the task of resisting the northward pressure of the
Dervishes. The numbers of the army grew with its responsibilities.
Up to the end of 1883 the infantry still consisted of eight fellahin
battalions. In 1884 the first Soudanese battalion was raised. The
black soldier was of a very different type from the fellahin. The
Egyptian was strong, patient, healthy, and docile. The negro was in
all these respects his inferior. His delicate lungs, slim legs, and
loosely knit figure contrasted unfavourably with the massive frame
and iron constitution of the peasant of the Delta. Always excitable
and often insubordinate, he required the strictest discipline. At once
slovenly and uxorious, he detested his drills and loved his wives with
equal earnestness ; and altogether * Sambo ' — for such is the
Soudanese equivalent of ' Tommy ' — was a lazy, fierce, disreputable
child. But he possessed two tremendous military virtues. To the
faithful loyalty of a dog he added the heart of a lion. He loved his
officer, and feared nothing in the world. With the introduction of this
element the Egyptian army became a formidable military machine.
Chance or design has placed the blacks ever in the forefront of the
battle, and in Lord Kitchener's campaigns on the Nile the losses in
the six Soudanese battalions have exceeded the aggregate of the
whole of the rest of the krmy. It was well that the Egyptian troops
were strengthened by these valiant auxiliaries, for years of weary
war lay before them. Sir Eeginald Wingate, in his exhaustive account
of
 94 THE EIVEE WAR the struggle of Egypt with the Mahdist
power,* has described the successive actions which accompanied the
defence of the Wady Haifa frontier and of Suakin. The ten years that
elapsed between Ginniss and the first movements of the expedition
of re- conquest were the dreary years of the Egyptian army. The
service was hard and continual. Though the operations were petty,
an untiring vigilance was imperative. The public eye was averted. A
pitiless economy was everywhere enforced. The British officer was
deprived of his leave and the Egyptian private of his rations, that a
few pounds might be saved to the Egyptian Treasury. The clothing of
the battalions wore thin and threadbare, and sometimes their boots
were so bad that the soldiers' feet bled from the cutting edges of the
rocks, and the convoy escorts left their trails behind them. But
preparation was ever going forward. The army improved in
efficiency, and the constant warfare began to produce, even among
the fellahin infantry, experienced soldiers. The officers, sweltering at
weary Wady Haifa and Suakin, looked at the gathering resources of
Egypt and out into the deserts of the declining Dervish Empire and
knew that some day their turn would come. The sword of
reconquest which Evelyn Wood had forged, and Grenfell had tested,
was gradually sharpened ; and when the process was almost
complete, the man who was to wield it presented himself. Horatio
Herbert Kitchener, the eldest son of a lieutenant-colonel, was born in
1850, and, after being privately educated, entered in 1869 the Eoyal
Military Academy at Woolwich as a cadet of the Eoyal Engineers. In
the spring of 1871 he obtained his commission, and for the first ten
years of his military service remained an obscure officer, performing
his duties with regularity, but giving no promise of the talents and
character which he was afterwards to display. One powerful weapon,
however, he acquired in this time of waiting. In 1874 accident or
instinct led him to seek employment in the surveys that were being
made of Cyprus and Palestine, and in the latter country he learned
Arabic. For * Mahdism and the Egyptian Soudan, Sir Reginald
Wingate.
 THE YEAES OF PKEPAEATION 95 six years the advantage of
knowing a language with which few British officers were familiar
brought him no profit. For procuring military preferment Arabic was
in 1874 as valueless as Patagonian. All this was swiftly changed by
the unexpected course of events. The year 1882 brought the British
fleet to Alexandria, and the connection between England and Egypt
began to be apparent. Kitchener did not neglect his opportunity.
Securing leave of absence, he hurried to the scene of crisis.
Alexandria was bombarded. Detachments from the fleet were landed
to restore order. The British Government decided to send an army to
Egypt. British officers and soldiers were badly wanted at the seat of
war ; an officer who could speak Arabic was indispensable. Thus
Kitchener came to Egypt and set his feet firmly on the high road to
fortune. He came to Egypt when she was plunged in misery and
shame, when hopeless ruin seemed already the only outcome of the
public disasters, and when even greater misfortunes impended. He
remained to see her prosperous and powerful ; to restore empire to
her people, peace to her empire, honour to her army ; and among
those clear-minded men of action by whom the marvellous work of
regeneration has been accomplished, Herbert Kitchener will certainly
occupy the second place. Lord Wolseley on his arrival soon found
employment for the active officer who could speak Arabic. He served
through the campaign of 1882 as a major. He joined the new army
which was formed at the conclusion of the war, as one of the original
twenty-six officers. In the Nile expedition of 1885 Arabic again led
him to the front, and in the service of the Intelligence Department
he found ample opportunity for his daring and energy. His efforts to
communicate with Gordon in Khartoum did not, however, meet vnth
much success, and the Journals bristle with so many sarcastic
comments that their editor has been at pains to explain in his
preface that there was really no cause for complaint. Major
Kitchener, however, gave satisfaction to his superiors in Cairo, if not
to the exacting General at Khartoum, and in 1886 he was appointed
Governor of Suakin. This
 96 THE BIVEE WAR post, always one of responsibility and
danger, did not satisfy Kitchener, whose ambition was now taking
definite form. Eager for more responsibility and more danger, he
harried and raided the surrounding tribes ; he restricted and almost
destroyed the slender trade which was again springing up, and in
consequence of his measures the neighbourhood of Suakin was soon
in even greater ferment than usual. This culminated at the end of
1887 in the re-appearance and advance of Osman Digna. The
movements of the Dervishes were, however, uncertain. The defences
of the town had been greatly strengthened and improved by the skill
and activity of its new Governor.* Osman Digna retreated. The '
friendlies ' were incited to follow, and Kitchener, although he had
been instructed not to employ British officers or Egyptian regulars in
offensive operations, went out in support. At Handub on the morning
of the 17th of January, 1888, the friendlies attacked the camp of
Osman Digna. They were at first successful ; but while they
dispersed to plunder the enemy rallied and, returning, drove them
back with loss. Kitchener arrived on the field with the support, to
find a defeat instead of a victory awaiting him. He bravely
endeavoured to cover the retreat of the friendlies, and in so doing
was severely — as it first seemed dangerously — wounded in the
jaw. The loss among the friendlies and the support amounted to
twenty men killed and two British officers and twenty-eight men
wounded. The Governor returned in great pain and some
discomfiture to Suakin. In spite of his wound and his reverse he was
impatient to renew the conflict, but this was definitely forbidden by
the British Government. Colonel Kitchener's military conduct was
praised, but his policy was prevented. ' The policy which it is
desirable to follow ... in the Eastern Soudan,' wrote Sir Evelyn Baring
on the 17th of March, in measured rebuke, * should consist in
standing purely on the defensive against any hostile movement or
combination of the Arab tribes, in avoiding any * See despatch from
Major-General Dormer to War OflSce, Cairo, April 22, 1888 : ' With
regard to the military works and defences of the town, I was much
struck with the great improvement that has been effected by Colonel
Kitchener since my last visit to Suakin in the autumn of 1884.'
 THE YEAES OF PEEPAEATION 97 course of action which
might involve the ultimate necessity of offensive action, and in
encouraging legitimate trade by every means in our power.' * The
Governor could scarcely be expected to carry out a policy so much at
variance with his views and inclinations, and in the summer of 1888
he was transferred to a purely military appointment and became
Adjutant-General of the Egyptian army. For the next four years he
worked busily in the War Of&ce at Cairo, effecting many useful
reforms and hard economies, and revealing powers of organisation
which, although not yet appreciated by his comrades in the
Eg5rptian service, were noticed by one vigilant eye. In 1892 Sir F.
Grenfell resigned the post of Sirdar, and the chief command of the
Egyptian army was vacant. Two men stood out prominently as
candidates — Colonel Wodehouse, who held the command of the
Haifa Field Force, and the Adjutant-General. Colonel Wodehouse had
undoubtedly the greater claims. He had been for several years in
command of a large force in continual contact with the enemy. He
had won the action of Argin, and was known throughout the Soudan
as * the conqueror of Wad-el-Nejumi.' He had conducted the civil
administration of the frontier province with conspicuous success, and
he was popular with all ranks of the Egyptian army. Kitchener had
little to set against this. He had shown himself a brave and active
soldier. He was known to be a good official. But he had not been in
accord with the Government in his civil administration, and was,
moreover, little known to his brother officers. Sir Evelyn Baring's
influence, however, turned the scale. Somewhat, therefore, to the
astonishment of the Egyptian army, Kitchener was promoted Sirdar.
Lord Cromer had found the military officer whom he considered
capable of reconquering the Soudan when the opportunity should
come. The years of preparation, wasted by no one in Egypt, were
employed by no department better than by the Intelligence Branch.
The greatest disadvantage from which Lord Wolseley had suffered
was the general ignorance of the Soudan and its peoples. The British
soldiers had had to learn * Sir E. Baring to Consul Cameron, Maroh
14, 1888. H
 98 THE EIVEE WAE the details of Dervish fighting by bitter
experience. But the experience, once gained, was carefully
preserved. The Intelligence Branch of the Egyptian army rose under
the direction of Colonel (now Sir Eeginald) Wingate to an
extraordinary efficiency. For ten years the history, climate,
geography, and inhabitants of the Soudan were the objects of a
ceaseless scrutiny. The sharp line between civilisation and savagery
was drawn at Wady Haifa ; but beyond that line, up the great river,
within the great wall of Omdurman, into the arsenal, into the
treasury, into the mosque, into the Khalifa's house itself, the spies
and secret agents of the Government — disguised as traders, as
warriors, or as women — worked their stealthy way. Sometimes the
road by the Nile was blocked, and the messengers must toil across
the deserts to Darfur, and so by a tremendous journey creep into
Omdurman. At others a trader might work his way from Suakin or
from the Italian settlements. But by whatever route it came,
information — whispered at Haifa, catalogued at Cairo — steadily
accumulated, and the diaries of the Intelligence Department grew in
weight and number, until at last every important Emir was watched
and located, every garrison estimated, and even the endless
intrigues and brawls in Omdurman were carefully recorded. The
reports of the spies were at length confirmed and amplified by two
most important witnesses. At the end of 1891 Father Ohrwalder
made his escape from Omdurman and reached the Egyptian
territory. Besides giving the Intelligence Department much valuable
information, he published a thrilling account of his captivity,* which
created a wide and profound impression in England. In 1895 a still
more welcome fugitive reached Assuan. Early on the 16th of March a
weary, travel-stained Arab, in a tattered jihha and mounted on a
lame and emaciated camel, presented himself to the Commandant.
He was received with delighted wonder, and forthwith conducted to
the best bath-room available. Two hours later a little Austrian
gentleman stepped forth, and the telegraph hastened to tell the
news that Slatin, sometime Governor of Darfur, had escaped from *
Ten Years' Captivity, Father Ohrwalder.
 THE YEAES OF PKEPAEATION 99 the Klialifa's clutches.
Here at last was a man who knew everything that concerned the
Dervish Empire — Slatin, the KhaHfa's trusted and confidential
servant, almost his friend, who had lived with him, who was even
permitted to dine with him alone, who had heard all his counsels,
who knew all his Emirs, and moreover Slatin, the soldier and
administrator, who could appreciate all he had learned, was added
with the rank of Pasha to the Staff of the Intelligence Department.
While his accurate knowledge confirmed the belief of the Egyptian
authorities that the Dervish power was declining, his tale of * Fire
and Sword in the Soudan ' increased the horror and anger of
thoughtful people in England at the cruelties of the Khalifa. Public
opinion began to veer towards the policy of re-conquest. The year
1895 brought in a Conservative and Unionist Administration. A
Government came into office supported by a majority which was so
strong that there seemed little reason to expect a transference of
power for five or six years. Ministers were likely to be able to carry
to a definite conclusion any projects they might devise. They
belonged chiefly to that party in the State which had consistently
assailed Mr. Gladstone's Egjrptian policy. Here was an opportunity of
repairing the damage done by their opponents. The comparisons
that would follow such an accomplishment were self-evident and
agreeable even to anticipate. The idea of re-conquering the Soudan
presented itself indefinitely, but not unpleasingly, alike to the
Government and the people of Great Britain. The unforeseen course
of events crystallised the idea into a policy. On the 1st of March,
1896, the battle of Adowa was fought, and Italy at the hands of
Abyssinia sustained a crushing defeat. Two results followed which
affected other nations. First, a great blow had been struck at
European prestige in North Africa. It seemed probable that the
Abyssinian success would encourage the Dervishes to attack the
Italians at Kassala. It was possible that they might also attack the
Egyptians at Suakin or on the Wady Haifa frontier. Secondly, the
value of Italy as a factor in European politics was depreciated. The
fact that her defeat had been H 2
 100 THE EIVEE WAE assisted by the arms and munitions of
war which had been supplied to the Abyssinians from French and
Eussian sources complicated the situation. The Triple Alliance was
concerned. The third partner had been weakened. The balance
might be restored if Great Britain would make some open sign of
sympathy. Moreover, the expectations of the Egyptian military
authorities were soon fulfilled. The Dervishes threatened Kassala as
soon as the news of Adowa reached them, and indeed there were
signs of increased activity in Omdurman itself. In these
circumstances the British Government determined to assist Italy by
making a demonstration on the Wady Haifa frontier. They turned to
Egypt. It had always been recognised that the recovery of the lost
provinces was a natural and legitimate aspiration. ' The doubtful
point was to decide the time when the military and financial
resources of the country were sufficiently developed to justify an
assumption of the offensive.' * From a purely Egyptian point of view
the best possible moment had not yet arrived. A few more years of
recuperation were needed. The country would fight the Soudan
campaigns more easily if first refreshed by the great reservoirs which
were projected. For more than two years both projects had been
pressed upon the Government of his Highness the Elhedive — or, to
write definitely, upon Lord Cromer. At regular intervals Sir Herbert
Kitchener and Sir "William Garstin would successively visit the British
Agency (it would be treason to call it ' Government House ') — the
one to urge the case for a war, the other to plead for a reservoir. The
reservoir had won. Only a few weeks before the advance to Dongola
was ordered Garstin met Kitchener returning from the Agency. The
engineer inquired the result of the General's interview. ' I'm beaten,'
said Kitchener abruptly ; * you've got your dam ' — and Garstin
went on his way rejoicing. The decision of the British Government
came therefore as a complete surprise to the Cairene authorities.
The season of the year was unfavourable to military operations. The
* Lord Cromer's Keports : Egypt, No. 2, 1896.
 THE YEARS OF PEEPAEATION 101 hot weather was at
hand. The Nile was low. Lord Cromer's report, which had been
published in the early days of March, had in no wise foreshadowed
the event. The frontier was tranquil. With the exception of a small
raid on a village in the Wady Haifa district and an insignificant
incursion into the Tokar Delta the Dervish forces had during the year
maintained ' a strictly defensive attitude.' * Lord Cromer, however,
realised that while the case for the reservoirs would always claim
attention, the re-conquest of the Soudan might not receive the
support of a Liberal Government. The increasing possibility of French
intrigues upon the Upper Nile had also to be considered. All politics
are series of compromises and bargains, and while the historian may
easily mark what would have been the best possible moment for any
great undertaking, a good moment must content the administrator.
Those who guarded the interests of Egypt could hardly consent to
an empty demonstration on the Wady Haifa frontier at her expense,
and the original intention of the British Government was at once
extended to the re-conquest of the Dongola province — a definite
and justifiable enterprise which must in any case be the first step
towards the recovery of the Soudan. It will be convenient, before
embarking upon the actual chronicle of the military operations, to
explain how the money was obtained to pay for the war. I desire to
avoid the intricate though fascinating tangles of Egyptian finance.
Yet even when the subject is treated in the most general way the
difficulties which harass and impede the British administrators and
insult the sovereign power of Egypt — the mischievous interference
of a vindictive nation, the galling and almost intolerable financial
fetters in which a prosperous country is bound — may arouse in the
sympathetic reader a flush of annoyance, or at any rate a smile of
pitying wonder. About half the revenue of Egypt is devoted to the
development and government of the country, and the other half to
the pajnnent of the interest on the debt and other * Egypt, No. 1,
1896.
 102 THE EIVEE WAE external charges; and, with a view to
preventing in the future the extravagance of the past, the London
Convention in 1885 prescribed that the annual expenditure of Egypt
shall not exceed a certain sum. When the expenditure exceeds this
amount, for every pound that is spent on the government or
development of Egypt another pound must be paid to the
Commissioners of the Debt ; so that, after the limit is reached, for
every pound that is required to promote Egyptian interests two
pounds must be raised by taxation from an already heavily taxed
community. But the working of this law was found to be so severe
that, like all laws which exceed the human conception of justice, it
has been somewhat modified. By an arrangement which was
effected in 1888, the Caisse de la Dette are empowered, instead of
devoting their surplus pound to the sinking fund, to pay it into a
general reserve fund, from which the Commissioners may make
grants to meet * extraordinary expenses ' ; those expenses, that is
to say, which may be considered * once for all ' (capital) expenditure
and not ordinary annual charges. The Dongola expedition was
begun, as has been said, without reference to the immediate
internal condition of Egypt. The moment was a good one, but not
the best. It was obviously impossible for Egypt to provide for the
extraordinary expenses of the military operations out of revenue.
The Ministry of Finance therefore appealed to the Caisse de la Dette
for a grant from the general reserve fund. Here was an obvious case
of * extraordinary expenses.' The Egyptian Government asked for
£E500,000. The Caisse met in council. Six Commissioners —
representing England, France, Eussia, Germany, Austria, and Italy —
duly discussed the application. Four Commissioners considered that
the grant should be made. Two Commissioners, those representing
France and Eussia, voted against it. The majority decided. The grant
was made. The money was handed to the Egyptian Government and
devoted to the prosecution of the war. Egypt as a sovereign power
had already humbly begged to be allowed to devote part of the
surplus of her own revenues to her own objects. A greater
humiliation remained.
 THE YEAES OP PEEPAEATION 103 The Commissioners of
France and Kussia, who had been out-voted, brought an action
against their colleagues on the grounds that the grant was ultra vires
; and against the Egyptian Government for the return of the money
thus wrongly obtained. Other actions were brought at French
instigation by various people purporting to represent the
bondholders, who declared that their interests were threatened. The
case was tried before the Mixed Tribunals, an institution which exists
in Egypt superior to and independent of the sovereign rights of that
country. On the part of the Egyptian Government and the four
Commissioners it was contended that the Mixed Tribunals had no
competency to try the case ; that the attacking parties had no right
of action ; that the Egyptian Government had, in applying, done all
that the law of liquidation required ; and that the act of sovereignty
was complete as soon as the Caisse, which was the legal
representative of the bondholding interest, had pronounced its
decision. The argument was a strong one ; but had it been ten times
as strong, the result would have been the same. The Mixed
Tribunals, an international institution, delivered its judgment on
strictly political grounds, the judges taking their orders from the
different countries they represented. It was solemnly pronounced
that war expenses were not * extraordinary expenses.' The
proximate destruction of the Khalifa's power was treated quite as a
matter of everyday occurrence. A state of war was apparently
regarded as usual in Egypt. On this wise and sensible ground the
Egyptian Government were condemned to pay back £E500,000,
together with interest and costs. After a momentary hesitation as to
whether the hour had not come to join issue on the whole subject of
the financial restrictions of Egypt, it was decided to bow to this
iniquitous decision. The money had now to be refunded. It had
already been spent. More than that, other sums were needed for the
carrying on of the war. The army was by then occupying Dongola,
and was in actual expectation of a Dervish counter-attack, and it was
evident that the military operations could not be suspended or
arrested. It was impossible to stop ; yet vsdthout
 104 THE EIVEE WAE money it seemed impossible to go on
; and, besides, it appeared that Egypt would be unable to repay the
£E500,000 which she had been granted, and of which she was now
deprived. Such was the painful and difficult situation which a friendly
nation, in the utmost exercise of her wit and the extreme compass
of her legal rights, had succeeded in producing in a country for
whose welfare she had always professed an exaggerated regard.
Such was the effect of French diplomacy. But there is a Nemesis that
waits on international malpractices, however cunning. Now, as
before and since, the very astuteness of the French Ministers and
agents was to strike a terrible blow at French interests and French
influence in Egypt. At this period France still exercised a considerable
force on Egyptian politics. One Egyptian party, the weaker, but still
by no means insignificant, looked towards her for support. The news
of the French success cheered their hearts and raised their spirits.
Orientals appreciate results. The result was a distinct reverse to the
British. The conclusion to the native mind was obvious. Great Britain
had been weighed in the European balances and found wanting. In
all Eastern countries a large proportion of the population fluctuates
uncertainly, eager only to be on the winning side. All this volume of
agitation and opinion began to glide and flow towards the stronger
Power, and when the Egyptian Government found their appeal from
the decision of the Court of First Instance of the Mixed Tribunals to
the International Court of Appeal at Alexandria quashed, and the
original decision confirmed, the defeat of the British was no less
complete than the triumph of the French. But meanwhile the Consul
-General acted. On the 2nd of December he telegraphed to Lord
Salisbury, reporting the judgment of the Court of Appeal and asking
that he might be ' authorised to state directly that her Majesty's
Government will be prepared to advance the money on conditions to
be hereafter arranged.' The reply was prompt, though guarded. '
You are authorised,' said Lord Salisbury, * by the Chancellor of the
Exchequer to state that though of course the primary liability for the
payment of the £E500,000
 THE YEAES OF PEEPARATION 105 rests with the Egyptian
Government, her Majesty's Government will hold themselves
prepared to advance, on conditions to be decided hereafter, such a
sum as they feel satisfied that the Egyptian Treasury is powerless to
provide.' * This obvious development does not seem to have been
foreseen by the French diplomatists, and when, on the 3rd of
December, it was rumoured in Cairo that Great Britain was prepared
to pay the money, a great feeling of astonishment and of
uncertainty- was created. But the chances of the French interference
proving effective still seemed good. It was believed that the English
Government would not be in a position to make an advance to the
Egyptian Government until funds had been voted by Parliament for
the purpose. It was also thought that Egypt would be utterly unable
to find the money immediately. In the meantime the position was
humiliating. France conceived herself mistress of the situation. A
complete disillusionment, however, awaited the French Government.
The taxes in Egypt, as in other countries, are not collected evenly
over the whole year. During some months there is a large cash
balance in the Exchequer. In others the money drains in slowly. It
happened at this period of the year, after the cotton crop had been
gathered, that a considerable balance had accumulated in the
Treasury, and on the guarantee of the English Government being
received, to the effect that they would ultimately assist Egypt with
regard to the expenses of the expedition, Lord Cromer determined
to repay the money at once. The event was foreshadowed. On the
5th of December the Egyptian Council of Ministers, presided over by
the Khedive in person, decided on their own initiative to despatch an
official letter expressing in warm terms their gratitude for the
financial help offered them by her Majesty's Government. ' I am
desired,' said Boutros Pasha, ' to beg your lordship to be good
enough to convey to his lordship the Marquess of Salisbury the
expression of the lively gratitude * The original £500,000 was
afterwards increased to £800,000 ; which sum was paid by the
British Exchequer to the Egyptian Government, at first as a loan, and
later as a gift.
 106 THE EIVEE WAE of the Khedive and the Egyptian
Government for the great kindness v^hich her Majesty's
Government has shown to them on this occasion.' * On the 6th of
December seE500,000, together v^ith £E15,600 interest and costs,
in gold, was conveyed in boxes in a cart from the Egyptian Treasury
to the offices of the Caisse de la Dette. The effect was tremendous.
All Cairo knew of the difficulty. All Cairo witnessed the manner in
which it had been overcome. The lesson was too plain to be lost on
the native mind. The reverse of the French diplomacy was far
greater even than its success had appeared. Eor many years French
influence in Egypt had not received so heavy a blow ; yet even in
the short space of time which this story covers it was to receive a
still more terrible wound. * Egypt, No. 1, 1897.
 107 CHAPTEK V THE BEGINNING OF THE WAR Shortly
before midnight on the 12th of March, 1896, the Sirdar received
instructions from Lord Cromer authorising a,n expedition into the
Dongola province and directing him to occupy Akasha.* The next
morning the news was published in the Times, ostensibly as coming
from its correspondent in Cairo : and the Egyptian Cabinet was
convened to give a formal assent by voting the decree. On the 14th
the reserves were called out. On the 15th the Khedive reviewed the
Cairo garrison ; and at the termination of the parade Sir H. Kitchener
informed him that the earliest battalions would start for the front
that night. The Egyptian frontier force had always been kept in a
condition of immediate readiness by the restless activity of the
enemy. The beginning of the long-expected advance was hailed with
delight by the British officers sweltering at Wady Haifa and Sarras.
On Sunday, the 15th of March, three days after the Sirdar had
received his orders, and before the first reinforcements had started
from Cairo, Colonel Hunter, who commanded on the frontier, formed
a small column of all arms to seize and hold Akasha. At dawn on the
18th the column started, and the actual invasion of the territory
which for ten years had been abandoned to the Dervishes began.
The route lay through a wild and rocky country — the debatable
ground, desolated by years of war — and the troops straggled into a
long procession, and had several times for more than an hour to
move in single file over passes and through narrow defiles strewn
vdth the innumerable boulders from which the ' Belly of Stones ' *
Map, ' The Advance to Akasha,' p. 127.
 108 THE EIVEE WAB has derived its name. The right of
their line of march was protected by the Nile, and although it was
occasionally necessary to leave the bank, to avoid difficult ground,
the column camped each night by the river. The cavalry and the
Camel Corps searched the country to the south and east ; for it was
expected that the Dervishes would resist the advance. Creeping
along the bank, and prepared at a moment's notice to stand at bay
at the water's edge, the small force proceeded on its way. Wady
Atira was reached on the 18th, Tanjore on the 19th, and on the 20th
the column marched into Akasha. The huts of the mud village were
crumbling back into the desert sand. The old British fort and a
number of storehouses — relics of the Gordon Belief Expedition —
were in ruins. The railway from Sarras had been pulled to pieces.
Most of the sleepers had disappeared, but the rails lay scattered
along the track. All was deserted : yet one grim object proclaimed
the Dervish occupation. Beyond the old station and near the river a
single rail had been fixed nearly upright in the ground. From one of
the holes for the fishplate bolts there dangled a rotten cord, and on
the sand beneath this improvised yet apparently effective gallows lay
a human skull and bones, quite white and beautifully polished by the
action of sun and wind. Half-a-dozen friendly Arabs, who had taken
refuge on the island below the cataract, were the only inhabitants of
the district. The troops began to place themselves in a defensive
position without delay. On the 22nd the cavalry and Camel Corps
returned with the empty convoy to Sarras to escort to the front a
second and larger column, under the command of Major MacDonald,
and consisting of the Xlth and Xllth Soudanese, one company of the
3rd Egyptians (dropped as a garrison at Ambigole Wells), and a
heavy convoy of stores numbering six hundred camels. Starting from
Sarras on the 24th, the column, after four days' marching, arrived
without accident or attack, and MacDonald assumed command of
the whole advanced force. Akasha was now converted into a strong
entrenched camp, in which an advanced base was formed. Its
garrison
 THE BEGINNING OF THE WAE 109 of three battalions, a
battery, and the mounted troops, drew their supplies by camel
transport from Sarras. The country to the south and east was
continually patrolled, to guard against a turning movement, and the
communications were further strengthened by the establishment of
fortified posts at Semna, Wady Atira, and Tanjore. The friendly Arab
tribes — Bedouin, Kabbabish, and Foggara — ranged still more
widely in the deserts and occupied the scattered wells, AJl this time
the Dervishes watched supinely from their position at Firket, and
although they were within a single march of Akasha they remained
inactive and made no 'attempt to disturb the operations. Meanwhile
the concentration of the Egyptian army on the frontier was
proceeding.* The reservists obeyed the summons to the colours of
their own free will and with gratifying promptness, instead of being
tardily dragged from their homes in chains as in the days of Ismail.
AJl the battalions of the army were brought up to war strength. Two
new battalions of reservists were formed, the 15th and 16th. The
15th was placed at Assuan and Korosko on the line of
communications. The 16th was despatched to Suakin to release the
two battalions in garrison there for service on the Nile. The 1st
Battalion of the North Staffordshire Eegiment was moved up the
river from Cairo to take the place of the "Wady Haifa garrison of six
battalions, which had moved on to Sarras and Akasha. A Maxim
battery of four guns was formed from the machine-gun sections of
the Staffordshires and Connaught Eangers and hurried south. The
2nd, 4th, 5th, and 6th Egyptian Battahons from Cairo were passed in
a continual succession along the railway and river to the front. In all
this busy and complicated movement of troops the Egyptian War
Office worked smoothly, and clearly showed the ability with which it
was organised. The line of communications from Cairo, the
permanent base, to the advanced post at Akasha was 825 miles in
length. But of this distance only the section lying south of Assuan
could be considered as within the theatre of war. The ordinary
broad-gauge railway ran from Cairo to Balliana, * Map, ' The Nile
from Cairo to Wady Haifa,' p. 111.
 110 THE EIVEE WAE where a river base was established.
From BaUiana to Assuan reinforcements and supplies were
forwarded by Messrs. Cook's fleet of steamers, by barges towed by
small tugs, and by a number of native sailing craft. A stretch of
seven miles of railway avoids the First Cataract, and joins Assuan
and Shellal. Above Shellal a second flotilla of gunboats, steamers,
barges, and Nile boats was collected to ply between Shellal and
Haifa. The military railway ran from Haifa to Sarras. South of Sarras
supplies were forwarded by camels. To meet the increased demands
of transport, 4,500 camels were purchased in Egypt and forwarded
in boats to Assuan, whence they marched via Korosko to the front.
The British Government had authorised the reconstruction of the
military railway to Akasha, and a special railway battalion was
collected at Assuan, through which place sleepers and other material
at once began to pass to Sarras. The strategic railway construction
will, however, form the subject of a later chapter, which I shall not
anticipate. By the 1st of April, less than three weeks from the
commencement of the advance, the whole line of communications
had been organised and was working efficiently, although still
crowded with the concentrating troops. As soon as the 16th
Battalion of reservists arrived at Suakin, the IXth Soudanese were
conveyed by transports to Kossier, and marched thence across the
desert to Kena, The distance was 120 miles, and the fact that in
spite of two heavy thunderstorms — rare phenomena in Egypt — it
was covered in four days is a notable example of the marching
powers of the black soldiers. It had been determined that the Xth
Soudanese should follow at once, but circumstances occurred which
detained them on the Eed Sea littoral and must draw the attention of
the reader thither.* The aspect and history of the town and port of
Suakin might afford a useful instance to a cynical politician. Most of
the houses stand on a small barren island which is connected with
the mainland by a narrow causeway. At a distance the tall buildings
of white coral, often five storeys high, present an imposing
appearance, and the prominent * Map, ' Around Suakin,' page 121.
The text on this page is estimated to be only 19.05%
accurate

THE BEGINNING OF THE WAE 111 Statute Miles MAP OF

THE NILE from CAIRO TOWADYHALFA OJ'htiifi i Sai. ^rieetSt-
Landan.
 112 THE EIVEE WAR chimneys of the condensing
machinery — for there is scarcely any fresh water — seem to
suggest manufacturing activity. But a nearer view reveals the
melancholy squalor of the scene. A large part of the town is
deserted. The narrow streets wind among tumbled-down and
neglected houses The quaintly carved projecting windows of the
fa9ades are boarded up. The soil exhales an odour of stagnation and
decay. The atmosphere is rank with memories of waste and failure.
The scenes that meet the eye intensify these impressions. The
traveller who lands on Quarantine Island is first confronted with the
debris of the projected SuakinBerber Eailway. Two or three
locomotives that have neither felt the pressure of steam nor tasted
oil for a decade lie rusting in the ruined workshops. Huge piles of
railway material rot, unguarded and neglected, on the shore. Eolling
stock of all kinds — carriages, trucks, vans, and ballast waggons —
are strewn or heaped near the sheds. The Christian cemetery alone
shows a decided progress, and the long lines of white crosses which
mark the graves of British soldiers and sailors who lost their lives in
action or by disease during the various campaigns, no less than the
large and newly enclosed areas to meet future demands, increase
the depression of the visitor. The numerous graves of Greek traders
— a study of whose epitaphs may conveniently refresh a classical
education— protest that the climate of the island is pestilential. The
high loopholed walls declare that the desolate scrub of the mainland
is inhabited only by fierce and valiant savages who love their liberty.
For eleven years all trade had been practically stopped, and the only
merchants remaining were those who carried on an illicit traffic with
the Arabs or, with Eastern apathy, were content to wait for better
days. Being utterly unproductive, Suakin had been wisely starved by
the Egyptian Government, and the gloom of the situation was
matched by the poverty of its inhabitants. The island on which the
town stands is joined to the mainland by a causeway, at the further
end of which is an arched gateway of curious design called ' the
Gate of the Soudan.' Upon the mainland stands the crescent-shaped
 THE BEGINNING OF THE WAR 113 suburb of El Kaff. It
comprises a few mean coral-built houses, a larj^e area covered with
mud huts inhabited by Arabs and fishermen, and all the barracks
and military buildings. The whole is surrounded by a strong wall a
mile and a half long, fifteen feet high, six feet thick, with a parapet
pierced for musketry and strengthened at intervals by bastions
armed with Krupp guns. Three strong detached posts complete the
defences of Suakin. Ten miles to the northward, on the scene of Sir
H. Kitchener's unfortunate enterprise, is the fort of Handub. Tambuk
is twenty-five miles inland and among the hills. Situate upon a high
rock, and consisting only of a store, a formidable blockhouse, and a
lookout tower, this place is safe from any enemy unprovided with
artillery. Both Handub and Tambuk were at the outset of the
campaign provisioned for four months. The third post, Tokar Fort,
lies fifty miles along the coast to the south. Its function is to deprive
the Arabs of a base in the fertile delta of the Tokar river. The fort is
strong, defended by artillery, and requires for its garrison an entire
battalion of infantry. No description of Suakin would be complete
without some allusion to the man to whom it owes its fame. Osman
Digna had been for many years a most successful and enterprising
Arab slave dealer. The attempted suppression of his trade by the
Egyptian Government drove him naturally into opposition. He joined
in the revolt of the Mahdi, and by his influence roused the whole of
the Hadendoa and other powerful tribes of the Bed Sea shore. The
rest is upon record. Year after year, at a horrid sacrifice of men and
money, the Imperial Government and the old slaver fought like
wolves over the dry bone of Suakin. Baker's Teb, El Teb, Tamai,
Tofrek, Hashin, Handub, Gemaiza, Afafit — such were the fights of
Osman Digna, and through all he passed unscathed. Often defeated,
but never crushed, the wily Arab might justly boast to have run
further and fought more than any Emir in the Dervish armies. It had
scarcely seemed possible that the advance on Dongola could
influence the situation around Kassala, yet the course of events
encouraged the belief that the British. I
 114 THE EIVEE WAE diversion in favour of Italy had been
effective ; for at the end of March — as soon, that is to say, as the
news of the occupation of Akasha reached him — Osman Digna
separated himself from the army threatening Kassala, and marched
with 300 cavalry, 70 camelry, and 2,500 foot towards his old base in
the Tokar Delta, On the first rumour of his advance the orders of the
Xth Soudanese to move via Kossier and Kena to the Nile were
cancelled, and they remained in garrison at Tokar. At home the War
Office, touched in a tender spot, quivered apprehensively, and began
forthwith to make plans to strengthen the Suakin garrison with
powerful forces. The state of affairs in the Eastern Soudan has
always been turbulent. The authority of the Governor of the Eed Sea
Littoral was not at this time respected beyond the extreme range of
the guns of Suakin. The Hadendoa and other tribes who lived under
the walls of the town professed loyalty to the Egyptian Government,
not from any conviction that their rule was preferable to that of
Osman Digna, but simply for the sake of a quiet life. As their
distance from Suakin increased, the loyalty of the tribesmen became
even less pronounced, and at a radius of twenty miles all the
Sheikhs oscillated alternately between Osman Digna and the
Egyptian Government, and tried to avoid open hostilities with either.
Omar Tita, Sheikh of the district round about Erkowit, found himself
situated on this fringe of intriguing neutrality. Although he was
known to have dealings with Osman, it was believed that if he had
the power to choose he would side with the Egyptian Government.
Early in April Omar Tita reported that Osman Digna was in the
neighbourhood of Erkowit with a small force, and that he, the
faithful ally of the Government, had on the 3rd of the month
defeated him with a loss of four camels. He also said that if the
Egyptian Government would send up a force to fight Osman, he, the
aforesaid ally, would keep him in play until it arrived. After a few
days of hesitation and telegraphic communication with the Sirdar,
Colonel Lloyd, the Governor of Suakin, who was then in very bad
health, decided that he had not enough troops to justify him in
taking the risk of
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