These two words have to be combined because they’re linguistically inseparable in Haitian lexicon.
An Entry in the Glossary of Duvalierist Haiti. Stop speculating based on the tidbits of info from the internet, Michel-Rolph Trouillot’s “Haiti: State Against nation. The Origins & Legacy of Duvalierism, should be required reading.
Tonton-Makout
Nowhere was the genius of practical coercion more vividly illustrated than in the creation of this shadowy yet omnipresent force. Originating from the crude assemblage of ruffians who secured François “Papa Doc” Duvalier’s rise to power, the Tonton-Makout emerged as a sinister hybrid of secret police and unofficial enforcers. Cloaked in anonymity, they operated under the veil of darkness, their faces concealed by cagoules (ski-masks), a chilling homage to the clandestine methods of European fascist movements of the 1930s.
By 1958-59, the cagoules gave way to dark glasses as the regime’s confidence grew, with its agents no longer lurking in the shadows but enforcing their will openly. The term “Tonton-Makout,” drawn from Haitian folklore—a bogeyman who spirited away disobedient children in his sack—became synonymous with state-sanctioned terror. Their ranks, initially composed of urban middle-class professionals and small landowners, extended to nurses, clergy, teachers, and even military officers. Yet, their loyalty to the Duvalier regime was marked by more than class; it was an ideological and practical allegiance, symbolizing the brutal apparatus of repression.
Volontaires de la Sécurité Nationale (VSN)
In 1962, Duvalier sought to institutionalize this terror, creating the civil militia known as the VSN. Officially an extension of state power, the VSN incorporated many Tonton-Makout, but not all members of this clandestine network joined. The militia drew from lower social strata, and its uniformed presence was designed to inspire fear, though it failed to completely absorb the aura of secrecy and terror that characterized the original Tonton-Makout.
The distinction persisted, both in function and perception: in Haitian Creole, the term Tonton-Makout connoted an active participant in the regime’s repressive apparatus, an enforcer of terror. In contrast, a milisyen—a member of the VSN—implied mere membership in the militia, often without the same level of personal investment or brutality.
Thus, the duality of these forces, one veiled in secrecy, the other paraded in public, became a testament to Duvalier’s ability to intertwine the visible and invisible machinery of tyranny.