However, the country was saddled with a huge debt burden to its former colonial power, which significantly crippled its economic progress as the young country had to pay huge sums to France every year (Butler, 1935). Immediately after its independence, the country was labeled a failed nation by Western powers who could not believe that a black country could govern itself effectively, a notion that was further spread by America before the occupation (Butler, 1935). This idea was also circulated in the media in order to gain support for the occupation and to allow US forces to garner support at home for their occupation of Haiti, which was based on the need to provide governance structures effective in the country (Philogene, 2015). Although this was the ostensible mission of the occupation, the real function performed by the occupying forces was to protect American interests at home. However, the idea that America occupied Haiti in order to provide real solutions to a country plagued by ineffective self-governance was the primary reason given to the public and used to gain public support for the American occupation of Haiti.