François Duvalier (1907-1971) was Haitian president for life. Trained as a physician and known to his people as "Papa Doc," Duvalier dominated his country and its institutions as no other Haitian chief executive.

Little is known of the origins of François Duvalier. Though some of his ancestors came from Martinique, his parents were Haitians, and he was born in Petit-Goâve in southern Haiti. An early Haitian Africanist, he was one of the founders of the Haitian intellectual Griot movement of the 1930s, and he built a reputation as a scholar, ethnologist, and folklorist.

Duvalier graduated in 1934 from the Haitian National University Medical School. He was active in the U.S. Army--directed sanitary programs initiated in Haiti during World War II. In 1944-1945 he studied at the University of Michigan. After returning to Haiti, Duvalier became minister of health and labor in President...