François Duvalier, known as "Papa Doc," was the brutal dictator who ruled Haiti for fourteen years through terror, superstition, and a sinister personality cult, becoming one of the most notorious tyrants of the twentieth century. Trained as a physician, he earned his nickname through early work as a country doctor combating disease among the poor, which gave him a reputation as a man of the people.
Elected president in 1957 with rural and Black nationalist support, Duvalier quickly transformed his office into an absolute dictatorship. He crushed all opposition with the help of a private militia, the Tontons Macoutes — secret-police thugs named for a folkloric bogeyman — who terrorized, robbed, and murdered with impunity, killing tens of thousands of Haitians during his rule.
Duvalier cloaked his regime in the imagery of Vodou, cultivating an aura of mystical menace and presenting himself as a near-divine figure. He emptied the impoverished country's treasury, drove much of its educated class into exile, and in 1964 declared himself president for life.
Despite his cruelty, his fierce anti-communism won him a measure of tolerance from the United States during the Cold War. When he died in 1971, power passed to his teenage son, Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier, perpetuating one of the Western Hemisphere's most repressive dynasties until its overthrow in 1986.