At the time of the massacre, the United States had invaded Haiti over fourteen years earlier in 1915, with the USMC occupying the Caribbean nation through a military regime on behalf of American business interests.

When the caco rebel-supported Rosalvo Bobo emerged as the next president of Haiti, the United States government decided to act quickly to preserve its economic dominance.

Josephus Daniels, the Secretary of the Navy, instructed the invasion commander, rear admiral William Banks Caperton, to "protect American and foreign" interests.

[3] To avoid public criticism, Wilson claimed the occupation was a mission to "re-establish peace and order ... [and] has nothing to do with any diplomatic negotiations of the past or the future," as disclosed by Rear Admiral Caperton.

[7][9] Such actions involved the censorship, concentration camps, forced labor, racial segregation, religious persecution of Haitian Vodou practitioners and torture.

[12][14] On 6 December 1929, about one thousand five hundred of Haitians in Les Cayes peacefully demonstrated against economic conditions, high taxes and the arrest of three protest leaders, chanting "À bas la misère" or "Down with misery".