François Duvalier (14 April 190721 April 1971), also known as Papa Doc, was a Haitian politician and physician who served as president of Haiti from 1957 until his death in 1971.
Duvalier completed a degree in medicine from the University of Haiti in 1934 and spent a year at the University of Michigan studying public health. In 1943 he became active in a campaign to control the spread of contagious tropical diseases in Haiti. His patients affectionately called him "Papa Doc," a moniker that he used throughout his life. Duvalier served as Minister for Public Health and Labor under the administration of Dumarsais Estimé.
Duvalier was elected president in the 1957 general election on a populist and black nationalist platform. After thwarting a military coup d'état in July 1958, his regime rapidly became more autocratic. Duvalier was unanimously "re-elected" in a 1961 presidential election in which he was the only candidate. Afterwards, he consolidated his power step by step, culminating in 1964 when he declared himself president for life after another sham referendum and election.
An undercover government death squad, the Tonton Macoute (), indiscriminately tortured or killed Duvalier's opponents; the Tonton Macoute was thought to be so pervasive that Haitians became highly fearful of expressing any form of dissent, even in private. The Tonton Macoute eventually came to number 300,000 and more than half of the government budget was allocated to the group as well as the Presidential Guard. whose family came from Martinique, and His aunt, Madame Florestal, raised him as a child. and served as staff physician at several local hospitals. He spent a year at the University of Michigan studying public health
The racism and violence that occurred during the United States occupation of Haiti, which began in 1915, inspired black nationalism among Haitians and left a powerful impression on the young Duvalier. He was also aware of the latent political power of the poor black majority and their resentment against the small mulatto elite. Duvalier supported Pan-African ideals, and became involved in the ' movement of Haitian author , both of which led to his advocacy of Haitian Vodou, an ethnological study of which later paid enormous political dividends for him. In 1938, Duvalier co-founded the journal Les Griots. On 27 December 1939, he married Simone Ovide, a mulatto nurse's aide. They had four children: Marie‑Denise, Nicole, Simone, and Jean‑Claude.
Political rise
In 1946, Duvalier aligned himself with President Dumarsais Estimé and was appointed Director General of the National Public Health Service. In 1949, he served as Minister of Health and Labor, but when Duvalier opposed Paul Magloire's 1950 coup d'état, he left the government and resumed practicing medicine. His practice included taking part in campaigns to prevent yaws and other diseases. In 1954, Duvalier abandoned medicine, hiding out in Haiti's countryside from the Magloire regime. In 1956, the Magloire government was failing, and although still in hiding, Duvalier announced his candidacy to replace him as president. and on 12 December 1956, Magloire conceded defeat.
François Duvalier was elected president on 22 September 1957. Duvalier received 679,884 votes to Déjoie's 266,992. Even in this election, however, there are multiple first-hand accounts of voter fraud and voter
Presidency
Consolidation of power
After being elected president in 1957, Duvalier exiled most of the major supporters of Déjoie. Although the army and its leaders had quashed the coup attempt, the incident deepened Duvalier's distrust of the army, an important Haitian institution over which he did not have firm control. He replaced the chief-of-staff with a more reliable officer and then proceeded to create his own power base within the army by turning the Presidential Guard into an elite corps aimed at maintaining his power. After this, Duvalier dismissed the entire general staff and replaced it with officers who owed their positions, and their loyalty, to him.
In 1959, Duvalier created a rural militia, the ' (, )—commonly referred to as the after a bogeyman—to extend and bolster support for the regime in the countryside. The Macoute, which by 1961 was twice as big as the army, never developed into a real military force but was more than just a secret police.
In the early years of his rule, Duvalier was able to take advantage of the strategic weaknesses of his powerful opponents, mostly from the mulatto elite. These weaknesses included their inability to coordinate their actions against the regime, whose power had grown increasingly strong.
In the name of nationalism, Duvalier expelled almost all of Haiti's foreign-born bishops, an act that earned him excommunication from the Catholic Church. Duvalier now exercised more power in Haiti than ever.
Heart attack and Barbot affair
On 24 May 1959, Duvalier suffered a massive heart attack, possibly due to an insulin overdose; he had been a diabetic since early adulthood and also suffered from heart disease and associated circulatory problems. During the heart attack, he was comatose for