The Marine in Saint Domingue

While reading "Taking Haiti" I realized the marine's response to the rebels is significant to the history of Haiti. Landing in Saint Domingue after being pumped with racist and wildy innacurate comics, products, live shows, etc., the marines were probably expecting an island of wild beasts. I wish I could crawl into the mind of Overley and see things as he saw them. I'd like to think he did some serious rethinking of America's occupation there and his personal stake in it. After meditating on "The White Man's Burden," I don't know how I feel about the U.S. in this "big brother" role. I don't know how I feel about referring to other inhabitants of this earth as a burden. It's a fine line that we're constantly straddling. I think the "world police" notion is built on good intentions but I think sometimes we forget that culture is subjective. Pushing your beliefs on others has rarely been successful and is the perfect recipe for resentment and, moreover, the violence and angry action resentment can breed. It seems to me Haiti might as well have been Mars in the eyes of the American marines. Confused and frightened at every sound of the revolutionary conch, I don't think they knew what they had been sent to Saint Domingue to do.