The United States, in its administration of Haiti from 1915 to 1934 effectively exported pre-existing ideas about the inferiority of non-white peoples to the island republic. The American occupation failed to create a functional democratic republic because the administrators focused upon material and infrastructure improvements while not implementing social, civic, and institutional changes conducive to democracy. The intervention was prompted by financial motivations and fear of a German takeover of Haiti, but the protracted military occupation and administration of the island quickly grew into a colonization project never fully supported by either the Haitian or American ruling classes and vociferously resisted by the Haitian commoners. Once Haiti was under American control, the Marines engaged in five years of guerrilla warfare against the cacos, or bandit-soldiers. News of war crimes committed by the Marines prompted an inquiry by the United States Senate which resulted in the appointment of Marine Corps Commandant John Russell as High Commissioner. The 1920s saw the High Commissioner act as a military dictator, ruling through the Haitian president as a client and only answering to the American Secretary of State. The Commissioner focused upon physical infrastructure improvement and an educational system focused upon vocational training and manual labor rather than the liberal-arts curriculum favored by the Haitian ruling class. The educational system was not designed for a nation prepared for self-government but a nation being groomed for perpetual dependency upon the United States. The educational system imposed by the United States led to nationwide riots and a massacre of protesters by Marines in Aux Cayes in 1929. The shock and scandal of the violence led the U.S. President to appoint a commission led by Cameron Forbes to organize the withdrawal of the United States and R.R. Moton to oversee the reorganization of the Haitian education system. Upon withdrawal of U.S. troops in 1934, Haiti was left with no significant lasting institutions except the Haitian gendarmerie, which furnished the power base for the post-Occupation dictatorships. Haiti remains an unstable country in the twenty-first century, dependent upon foreign aid for survival. The fragility of Haiti's democracy and its dependence upon foreigners are legacies of the Occupation period
