Synopsis of Haitian History
Located in the Caribbean, between Cuba, Puerto Rico
and Jamaica, the island of Haiti is inhabited by two
independent nations: the Republic of Haiti and the Dominican
Republic. When Christopher Columbus made his first landing
in the northern part of what is now the Republic of
Haiti in 1492, he referred to the people he met on the
island as Indians, thinking that he had reached India
in South Asia. These people, however, preferred to be
called Tainos meaning "men of the good".
They lived throughout the greater islands of Cuba, Haiti
and Puerto Rico and had migrated from South America
centuries before Columbus. The Tainos are said to have
been gentle, calm and very hospitable. Those in the
island of Haiti were known as having been the most advanced
of the Tainos, having developed a flourishing civilization
way before Columbus's voyage to the Americas.
The Spanish Period
Quickly, the Spanish occupied the island of Haiti, and
renamed it Española (written in English
as Hispaniola) meaning "little Spain". They
exploited its gold mines and reduced the Tainos to slavery.
According to early Spanish historian observers, there
were as many as 3,000,000 to 4,000,000 Tainos on the island
in 1492. Around fifty years after the arrival of Columbus
in the Americas, most of the Tainos in Haiti were wiped
out through the hardship of their condition as slaves,
organized massacres or diseases they contracted from the
Spaniards. The genocide of the Tainos in Haiti was one
of the most brutal and the annihilation committed on the
Indians of the New World by Columbus and his men, one
of the most complete in History. Later on, Bartolomew
Las Casas, a Spanish priest, revolted against the massacre
of the Indians and demanded the cessation of the injustices
committed every day against these people in Hispaniola.
He advocated for the importation of Blacks from Africa
to work on the mines as a mean of ending Indian slavery
in the island. Thus, in 1503, the first blacks landed
on the island. These blacks, however, came from Spain
and not from Africa. Years later, the Spanish would leave
Hispaniola for the richest lands of South America where
the gold mines were still fresh and rich of the precious
metal.
Here Come the French!
In 1625, the first French adventurers landed on the island
of La Tortue (Tortuga Island) in the northern part of
what is today the Republic of Haiti. Later, they began
exploring and settling on the main land to eventually
displace the Spanish from the western part of the Hispaniola
through warfare. Tired of their attack, and also because
of the results of war in Europe, Spain signed with France
the Treaty of Ryswick in 1697, ceding to the latter
the western part of the island. The French renamed their
possession St Domingue, a translation of Santo Domingo,
the Spanish denomination of the eastern part of the island.
The French then developed St Domingue into the richest
colony in the world. To build this wealth, France imported
thousands of slaves from Africa who were submitted to
virtually the same abuses and mistreatments imposed on
the Indians only on a larger scale. Thus, the wealth of
St Domingue was achieved on the work of slaves and only
a minority of the island’s population was enjoying this
wealth, the whites. The importation of the blacks in large
numbers would change the demographic face of St Domingue.
The Haitian Revolution.
St Domingue's population was divided into three main groups,
the whites or "Blancs", the "Affranchis",
a group composed of free blacks and mulattos and the great
masses of the slaves. By 1789, the colony’s population
comprised between 400,000 and 500,000 blacks, compared
to 25,000 whites and 40,000 mulattos. A great number of
mulattos are offspring of the rape of slave mothers by
colonists. They inturn adopted these children and provided
them with the necessities of life. These children would
sometimes inherit the wealth of their fathers and by the
end of the 18th century, the mulattos would own around
25% of the colony’s plantations and wealth, while most
of them went to France to get a higher education.
However, despite their wealth and their education,
the mulattos, because of their color, were considered
inferior to the white by law and were discriminated
against. They could not practice certain professions,
wear European clothes, sit among the whites in church,
among other things. Struggle would ensue between the
Affranchis and the Whites throughout the 18th century
with the former claiming civil and political equality
with the latter who want to maintain the status quo.
At the same time, the whites were demanding to France
the right to participation in the running of the colony.
They wanted to make of St Domingue, a country that would
be autonomous from France. Both groups would voice their
grievances at the time of the French revolution in 1789,
which proclaimed the principles of Liberty, Equality
and Fraternity.
In the meantime, the slaves manifested their rejection
of their condition through different forms of resistance.
Some poisoned their masters; others killed their own
children to save them from the hellish conditions of
slavery. There were also other forms of protests like
the collective suicides of the Ibos particularly.
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| As History goes, Mackandal's followers
believed that he was unvulnerable. He was caught
in 1758, and he was to be publicly executed. However,
he somehow managed to escape from the flames thereby
perpetuating the legend. nevertheless he was caught
later on and this time the French managed to execute
him. |
The most successful and persistent form of the slaves'
protest was the "marronage". Marronage
consisted of slaves running away from the plantation to
hide in the mountains of the island or in its forests.
From their retreat, the maroons conducted raids on the
plantations and often would come at night to poison or
kill their masters. One of the most famous Haitian maroons
was a man named François Mackandal. He was also
a houngan, or voodoo priest, from Guinea. At night, he
would attack the plantations, burning them and killing
their owners. During his six-year rebellion, he and his
followers poisoned and killed as many as 6000 whites.
In 1758, however, the French finally caught him and publicly
executed him on the public square of Cap Francais (today
Cap Haitien).
In 1791, as the whites and the "Affranchis"
continued on their war for greater participation in
the running of the colony and for equality, the Blacks
entered into a full-fledge rebellion that would ultimately
result in the creation of the State of Haiti and the
abolition of slavery in the land.
 A
man named Boukman, another houngan, organized
on August 14, 1791, a meeting with the slaves in the
mountains of the North. This meeting took the form of
a Voodoo ceremony in the Bois Caiman in the northern
mountains of the island. It was raining and the sky
was raging with clouds; the slaves then started confessing
their resentment of their condition. A woman started
dancing languorously in the crowd, taken by the spirits
of the loas. With a knife in her hand, she cut the throat
of a pig and distributed the blood to all the participants
of the meeting who swore to kill all the whites on the
island. On August 22, 1791, the blacks of the North
entered into a rebellion, killing all the whites they
met and setting the plantations of the colony on fire.
However, the French quickly captured the leader of the
slaves, Boukman, and beheaded him, bringing the
rebellion under control. Just like Mackandal, Boukman
had managed to instill in the blacks the idea that he
was invincible. Thus, the French exposed his head on
Cap’s square to convince the slaves that their leader
was really dead.
However, the ideas of the revolution, the ideas of
Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, had already enflamed
the mind of the slaves. The death of Boukman although
it had temporarily stopped the rebellion of the North
failed to restrain the rest of the blacks from revolting
against their condition. The Revolution that would give
birth to the Republic of Haiti was under way and nothing
could stop it. Toussaint Louverture was the great
leader who emerged out of the mass of the revolted.
He proved to be a military genius and a formidable leader.
He organized the masses of the slaves into an organized
army. With political manipulation, and military campaigns,
he would gain more and more notoriety in the colony.
During the period of 1791, to 1800, Toussaint used the
French, the Spaniards and the English against one another.
He managed to eliminate all his enemies until he was
the only power left in St Domingue (Haiti). By 1801,
he was governing the whole island by himself and proclaimed
himself governor of the colony. A constitution was soon
drawn that same year declaring St Domingue an autonomous
French possession where slavery was abolished.
Napoleon wary of Toussaint's great power in the colony
sent 82,000 of his battle proven troops commanded by
his own brother-in-law seconded by able generals, a
fleet of warships, canons, munitions and dogs in order
to bring St Domingue under control. Two years of war
ended in a stalemate. However, the French treacherously
arrested Toussaint Louverture during a meeting in June
1802. He was exiled to France and died in the Fortress
of the Joux high in the cold Alpine mountains of Jura
in April 1803. Toussaint though had left capable generals
who could carry on the struggle. With the arrest of
Toussaint, Dessalines emerged as the new leader of the
Haitian Revolution, bringing it to its ultimate level.
Other leaders of that period would be Alexandre Petion,
François Capois named "La Mort", Henri Christophe,
and Boironds Tonnerre.
The birth of a new nation
Haiti thus emerged into the world as the first black independent
republic on January 1st, 1804. It’s revolution against
colonialism and slavery was the first successful black
movement resulting into an independent state headed by
blacks, . On January 1, 1804, the heroes of the Independence,
to honor the memory of the Indians who had been massacred
by the Spanish renamed the island under its original Taino
name, Haiti. Haiti in Taino means "High land",
"high ground" or "mountainous land".
To complete his plan of freeing the country from any
white domination and a possible return of the French,
Dessalines ordered the killing of all Frenchmen remaining
on the island. Internationally, the country was ostracized.
Haiti did not have any diplomatic relations with the
nations of Europe, or the United States. The French
government, at first did not recognize the republic
as an independent state and would later require the
payment of 150 million Francs as indemnity from the
new nation. Other Countries such as England and the
US viewed Haiti as a threat to their colonies.
This perception of Haiti as a threat would be intensified
when Haiti began helping other countries in South America
to set themselves free from the yoke of Spain. Haiti
is still living in isolation, while in the press and
in many minds, it gets a bad name...
Growing Pains
In the aftermath of the revolution, the animosity and
divergence of interests that had existed between the mulattos
and the blacks reemerged following the elimination of
the white element of Haitian society. The mulattos whom
sought equality with the whites before 1804 claimed the
remaining plantations as their possession inherited from
their colonist father. Some had papers supporting their
claim, but most did not. This second category wanted to
appropriate the wealth left by the whites with nothing
to the blacks. All of this resulted into a nation divided
in two groups: the mulatto, very minimal in number and
the majority black. Dessalines wanted a united nation.
Most mulattos did not approve of the emperor mostly for
racial reasons. Dessalines tried to govern the nation
by using the only organizational experience he had acquired
through war. He used harsh measures in trying to restore
agricultural productivity through the plantation system.
Measures were taken to bound laborers to their assigned
work places and imposed severe punishment on runaways.
 The
black majority felt that there was little improvement
to their situations. Dessalines failed to please both
sides as he continued to rely on iron-fist control.
On October 17 1806, Dessalines got shot and his body
was hacked to pieces while he was entering Port-au-Prince.
After the assassination of the emperor, the country
was divided in two republics with Henry Christophe dominating
the northern part of the country and Petion the south.
Henry Christophe soon crowned himself king in
the north while Petionproclaimed himself president
for life in the west. When Petion died in 1818, Christophe
tried to reunite the country under a single rule but
failed. Jean Pierre Boyer succeeded to Petion in the
West. In 1820, Christophe became paralyzed as he watched
his opponent get stronger and stronger and his grip
on the army getting weaker. He committed suicide in
October 20, 1820 for fear of falling into the hands
of his enemies. On October 26 of that same year Boyer
claimed the northern part of the country. Haiti became
a single nation again under Boyer. In 1822, he invaded
the eastern part of the island, abolished slavery there
and unified the entire island to the Republic of Haiti
for 22 years until 1844.
Boyer considered France’s refusal to recognize the
new nation as an independent country to be the worst
threat to the country’s integrity. In 1825, he signed
the French ordinance requiring the payment of a 150
million Francs in recognition of the independence. Boyer’s
submission to that ordinance not only emptied the treasury
but also mortgaged the country’s future to the French.
In 1844 a revolution overthrew Boyer from the presidency.
Instability
After Boyer, the country went through decades of political
instability lasting into the US Occupation of 1915. As
Leyburn summarizes the situation:
"Of the twenty-two heads of state
between 1843 and 1915 only one served out his president
term in office, three died while serving, one was blown
up with his palace, one presumably poisoned, one hacked
to pieces by a mob, one resigned. The other fourteen
were deposed by revolution after incumbencies ranging
in length from three months to twelve years."
(Dominican Republic and Haiti: Country Studies)
Meanwhile, British and French claimed interest in the
country. The Germans, particularly, were well in control
of the country’s commerce internationally. The US did
not worry much about the French nor the British but did
about the Germans. The US viewed the economic presence
of the Germans in the republic as a threat to their interests
and their hegemony in the region. They first tried to
take over the Mole St Nicholas but Haitians would not
concede the territory to the Americans. It was written
in the Constitution that foreigners could not own land
in the country.
Send in the Marines!
The United States was more and more interested in the
Caribbean. The US wanted to secure naval stations throughout
the region as the prospect of a war in Europe loomed closer
and closer by the early 1900’s. Words had reached Washington
that Berlin was considering setting up a coal station
in Mole St Nicholas to serve the German naval Fleet. The
United States used the Monroe Doctrine, a policy
that opposed European intervention in the Western Hemisphere,
and the Roosevelt Corollary whereby the US assured
the responsibility for direct intervention in Latin America
in order to check the influence of European powers, to
invade Haiti in 1915. When in 1915 Haitian president Vilbrun
Guillaume Sam executed 167 political prisoners, the US
invaded the country using the event as an excuse.
The United States Occupation of Haiti lasted 19 years
from 1915 to 1934. They supervised all governmental
decisions in the country. They rewrote the constitution
revoking the article forbidding foreign ownership of
land in the Republic. The US created the Army of
Haiti (Forces Armées d’Haiti) whose purpose
will be to maintain calm and stability. Over the decades
to follow, whoever controlled the Army functionning
as police would control the definitions of clam and
stability, and how they were to be preserved. In 1934,
the last contingent of marines leave the country after
a formal transfer of authority to the "Garde Nationale".
Send in the Clowns!
When the American left they bequeathed the presidency
to Stenio Vincent. When Vincent showed every intention
to stay in power for a third time, the US made it known
that they opposed such an idea and power was transmitted
to Elie Lescot. Lescot resigned from the presidency on
January 11, 1946 after different strikes from all sectors
of the country mounted against him. Following Lescot’s
overthrow, the Army formed a junta known as the Military
Executive Committee. The junta was composed of three members
and elected a national assembly on May 1946. The assembly
set a date when the president would be selected and legislators
elected Estime, a civilian and an anti-mulatto
to the presidency. He later suggested that the Vaudou
religion must be considered equal to Catholicism, he raised
the salaries of civil servants, increased the representations
of the black masses in the public sector. However, grievances
grew around the Elite against Estime and an army escort
sent him to exile.
Haiti announced its first direct elections under the
junta command. Paul Eugene Magloire, an Army colonel,
resigned from the junta to be a canditate for the presidency
and won. Magloire made the mistake of many before him
by discussing a prolongation of his stay in office.
Strikes around the country forced him to fly to Jamaica
leaving it up to the Army to restore order. A chaotic
period follows the fall of Magloire. There were three
provisional presidents during the interval. Then, in
1957 François Duvalier was elected president
of Haiti through an election guided by the military.
The Duvalier Dynasty
 François
Duvalier produced a new constitution to strengthen his
power. As a tradition he later declared himself president
for life in 1964. Through the experience of other president
of the country he learned that he would need his own guard
to protect him from a coup from the military. He thus
created the "Tonton Makouts", a paramilitary
group, which came to have more power than the army. His
authoritarian rule style disturbed the US. The US acted
upon allegations that he misused funds received and cancelled
US aid in mid 1962. Duvalier refused to follow the strict
measures demanded by the US as a condition to renew aid.
Under Duvalier's rule thousands of Haitians fled the country
for overseas. Duvalier stayed in power until his death
in 1971. Shortly before his death, Duvalier had designated
his son Jean Claude Duvalier as his heir at the
head of the country.
Jean Claude Duvalier was very young, nineteen years
old, when he became president. He never expressed interest
in Haitian Politics and was raised in an isolated environment.
The public as well as foreign officials and observers
displayed more affection toward Jean Claude. Under the
"New Regime" the US restored its aid program
in 1971. Jean Claude failed the peasants when pressured
by the US to slaughter all Haitian pigs and replace
them with others sent by US international agencies.
The United States feared that the African Swine Fever
(ASF) disease that plagued pigs in the Dominican Republic
in mid 1978 would reach northern America. For the peasants,
the pigs represented some type of savings account and
required less care than those supplied by the US. By
giving up to US pressures thus, Jean Claude destroyed
the peasants’ economy and already the events that would
culminate in his overthrow in 1986 were in place.
The Duvalier Legacy
On February 7, 1986, Jean Claude resigned and left the
country under internal as well as US pressure. All Haitians
celebrated his departure and the end of the Duvalier regime
in the country. The country was under the command of a
National Council of Government (CNG). In the aftermath
of the departure of Jean Claude Duvalier the country went
through a series of political instability moving from
one military government to another. From 1986 to 1991
the country experienced as many as four military coups.
An election was organized on November 1987 to choose a
new president. Thousands of Haitians lost their lives
as they tried to vote and the election was ultimately
cancelled. A second election was arranged but few citizens
went to the poll. Leslie Manigat got elected through this
election only to be thrown out of the presidency three
months later by a military coup.
After many more military governments, Jean Bertrand
Aristide, a young priest who already had a strong ascendancy
on the people, agreed to apply for the presidency. As
a tradition he was overthrown by a military coup in
September 1991, seven months after he had taken office.
He came to the US so he can be restored to power. Meanwhile,
the Haitian in the Diaspora, mainly in New York, accused
the US government of instigating the coup and demanded
reparations and the return of Aristide in Haiti. They
protested in the streets of New York and every night
in front the UN to have their demands granted. In Haiti,
Raoul Cedras, the official author of the coup, nominated
civilians to the presidency while Aristide negotiated
his return in the US. With the election of Bill Clinton
the winds were favorable for a return of Aristide to
power.
Winds of Change
 Another
free election was held after Aristide left office, and
his former Prime Minister René Préval
was elected to the presidency. With Preval's governement,
there was some degree of political stability, but he
was under a lot of pressure both from his opponents
and other international powers.
On February 7th, 2001 Aristide became the first democratically
re-elected president of Haiti. With the return of a
democratic climate, now seems to be the best chance
for progress the country has ever had in many years.
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