THIS BOOK HAS BEEN SOLD
CANNIBAL COUSINS
John H. Craige
Minton, Balch & Company,
NY, 1934. VG/VG-. First Edition in scarce dust jacket. In mylar
protector. Bibliography, 304 pp. Dust jacket summary (circa 1934): Cannibal
Cousins is more than an intimately personal history of Haiti. It is
full of the same colorful material which led Marquis James to call Black
Bagdad 'The finest narrative of personal adventure written by an American
within the memory of the generation now living.' In it Captain Craige tells
more of his fascinating stories of the superstitions of Haitian peasants
and the poetic and passionate villainies of the Haitian politicos: of the
Prime Minister who sank the biggest ship in the Haitian navy to get a half
million deficit off his books; of the cast-iron Pantheon, ordered by mail
from France; of the way Smedley Butler got the Haitian-American Treaty
signed; of the Customs official who was considered a model because he scrupulously
sent one third of all customs receipts to the National treasury.
Then there was the Marine Occupation. Was it right or wrong? The author,
without personal bias, analyzes Haitian temperament and Haitians with common
sense, logic, irony and humor. He explains the sociological, financial
and political reasons for their seemingly inexplicable actions and revolutions.
He tells how these revolutions were managed, lays bare the workings of
the minds of the sophisticated and highly educated political class, dicusses
the color question and its vital bearing on Haitian life." Concerning Captain
Craige: "Two cauliflower ears, a broken nose and a Mexican bullet in his
hip are silent testimony to the fact that Captain Craige has been a man
of action. Scion of a well-known Philadelphia family, at fourteen he ran
away to sea. Since then he has been cowboy, muleskinner, Latin American
revolutionist, gold miner, professional gambler, heavyweight boxing champion
of France-- and a newspaperman. He has served under the flags of Mexico,
Guatemala, Nicaragua, Honduras and the U.S.A. As a captain of the U.S.
Marines, he served for a number of years in Haiti, first as a white officer
of black troops in the interior and subsequently as Chief of Police in
Port au Prince. He has already written one fine book, Black Bagdad,
about his experiences there. He has mastered the Haitian diaects, on which
he is an authority; he possesses the finest library of old Haitian books
& writings to be found off the island; it is doubtful whether any other
white man has learned so much of Haiti's inside history." Out of Print.
$65.00
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