Madame Max Adolphe (née Rosalie Bosquet, also known as Max Rosalie Auguste) (born September 10, 1925)[1][2] was the right hand woman of former Haitian president François Duvalier, who used the nickname "PapaDoc". In 1961 she and Aviole Paul-Blanc were elected to Parliament, becoming the first female MPs in Haiti.[3] She was born in Mirebalais, Haiti.
Biography
Adolphe, then known as Rosalie Bosquet, came to the attention of Duvalier during an attempt on his life. While she was a low ranking officer in the Tonton Macoute, her courage impressed the president so much that he promoted her to the position of warden at Fort Dimanche. At the prison, Adolphe continued her strong support of the government and was known for her violent interrogations of political prisoners. She was not viewed as a political threat to the President because of her sex.[4] After marrying Health Minister Max Adolphe, she assumed his full name.
Daily killings, torture, and beatings were typical at the prison during her tenure. She developed a "gruesome reputation for herself as she designed inventive sexual tortures" in Fort Dimanche.[5] She was later promoted to the Supreme Head of the Fillettes Laleau, the female branch of the Tonton Macoutes.[6] She also collected a monthly rent check from US Special Forces for the use of her compound.[7] She was reported to have supervised the torture of children and elderly, and to have kept video tapes of the horrors. She liked to arm herself with an Uzisubmachine gun.[8]
Disappearance
When Papa Doc died in 1971, and his son, Jean-Claude Duvalier, succeeded him, he had Adolphe removed from her post as head of Fort Dimanche. By May 1972 she had been appointed mayor of Port-au-Prince,[9] which brought her attention to the city's sewage disposal.[10] Prior to the end of the Duvalier dynasty in 1986, when the Duvaliers fled the capital, she said "[i]t seems Jean-Claude is leaving the country soon. All militia members will be in danger. Much blood will be shed". Vengeful Haitians killed scores, if not hundreds of former militiamen who used to report to Madame Max.[11] On 10 February 1986 a soldier guarding her vacant house from looters reported that she was being held prisoner in an army barracks next to the national palace.[12] By February 1986 she left the country,[13] but her current whereabouts are unknown.
^Girard, Philippe R. (2008). "François Duvalier". In Juang, Richard M.; Morrissette, Noelle (eds.). Africa and the Americas: Culture, Politics, and History: A Multidisciplinary Encyclopedia. Transatlantic Relations Series. Vol. 1. Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO. p. 392. ISBN978-1-85109-446-2. LCCN2007035154. OCLC168716701.
^Coughlin, Dan (1999). "Haitian Lament: Killing Me Softly". The Nation. Archived from the original on 19 October 2015. Madame Max Adolphe, for instance, the sadistic head of the Tonton Macoutes under 'Papa Doc' Duvalier, collected a monthly rent check from US Special Forces for the use of her compound. As one young militant put it,'The pot of rice gets cooked in the name of the children, but it's the adults who eat'.
^"'You Cannot Kill the Truth': The Case against Jean-Claude Duvalier"(PDF). London: Amnesty International. 2011. p. 31. OCLC776890444. AMR 36/007/2011. Archived(PDF) from the original on 28 October 2015. Max Rosalie Auguste, also known as 'Max Adolphe', for example, commander of the [Tonton Macoutes] militia and Fort Dimanche prison under François Duvalier, was removed from her roles at the end of 1971. However, by May 1972 she had been appointed mayor of Port-au-Prince.
^"Dynastic republicanism in Haiti". The Political Quarterly. 44 (1). Wiley: 83. 1973. doi:10.1111/j.1467-923X.1973.tb02078.x. ISSN0032-3179. Peasants stoned the house of Zacharie Delva, and Eloise Maître has returned to his bakery in the Grande Rue, while the formidable Madame Max Adolphe (at one time commandant of Fort Dimanche, where most important political prisoners were incarcerated or eliminated) has transferred her matronly attentions, as Mayor of [Port-au-Prince], to the problems of urban sewage disposal.