 The Marines and "Gendarmerie" initiated an extensive road-building program to enhance their military effectiveness and open the country to US investment.Lacking any source of adequate funds, they revived an 1864 Haitian law, discovered by Butler, requiring peasants to perform labor on local roads in lieu of paying a road tax.This system, known as the corvée, originated in the unpaid labor that French peasants provided to their feudal lords.