History

Spanish Establishment and Colonization (1492-1697)

Christopher Columbus arrived on the island of Hispaniola during his first voyage to the New World in 1492. He established a makeshift settlement on the north coast, near the site of present-day Cap Haïtien, and named the island Hispaniola, in honor of the king of Spain who was financing the expedition.

The island’s native inhabitants, the semi-sedentary Taïnos Indians (or Arawaks), referred to the island as Ayti, meaning “land of high mountains.” Though the exact size of the island's indigenous population in 1492 is uncertain, it was probably in the order of several hundreds of thousands. The Taino responded violently to the intolerance and abuse displayed by the Spaniards, and when Columbus returned to Hispaniola on his second voyage a year later, he found that his settlement had been razed.

Not to be so easily deterred, Columbus established a second settlement farther to the east, Isabela. Hispaniola, or Santo Domingo, as it became known under Spanish dominion, soon became the first outpost of the Spanish Empire, despite the fact that the initial expectations of plentiful gold reserves proved unfounded. Forced labor, abuse, diseases against which the Indians had no immunity, and the growth of a mixed European and Indian population all contributed to the elimination of the Taino. By 1550, less than 60 years after Columbus’ arrival, Haiti’s Tainos population had dwindled to around 150.

By the late 16^th century, Santo Domingo had lost its position as the preeminent Spanish colony, in part because its lack of mineral riches condemned it to neglect by the mother country.

French Colony (1697-1804)

In the mid 17^th century, French pirates established in the neighbouring Ile de la Tortue off the coast of Hispaniola steadily encroached upon the northwest region of the island. They took advantage of the area's relative remoteness from the Spanish capital city of Santo Domingo and of the fact that much of the area had been vacated by the Spanish due to its lack of precious minerals. By 1697, the French had gained so much territory that they were in a position to negotiate a partition of the land with Spain, which relinquished sovereignty over the western third of the island. This area, present day Haiti, became known as Saint-Domingue under French rule.

By the mid-eighteenth century, Saint-Domingue had become the richest and most coveted colony in the Western Hemisphere and played a pivotal role in the French economy. It produced about 60 percent of the world's coffee and about 40 percent of the sugar imported by France and Britain. This incredibly lucrative system was based on slavery: by 1791, the slave population totaled at least 500,000, and perhaps as many as 700,000.

The slaveholding system established under French rule is at the root of modern Haitian society. The system divided the population into three groups: white colonists; free blacks and mulattos (a Spanish term referring to individuals of mixed European and African ancestry); and slaves. These racial lines would remain long after the end of French rule, dividing Haitian society into a small, mainly mulatto elite and an impoverished black majority, thus setting the grounds for the racially tinged conflicts that have marked Haitian history. Slavery also explains much about contemporary Haitian culture. In particular, voodoo, Haiti’s predominant religion, was brought by slaves from Africa. 

The Haitian Revolution (1791-1804)

Conflict permeated the society of Saint Domingue. Mulattos resented being discriminated against by the white ruling class, which did not allow them to take up certain professions, marry whites, wear European clothing, etc. At the same time, because mulattos were allowed to purchase of land, some eventually accumulated substantial holdings, while others became rich by lending money to white landowners. Mulatto discontent turned into outright rebellion in 1790 after the colonial government refused to obey the National Assembly in Paris’ decision to grant suffrage to Saint-Domingue’s landed and tax-paying mulattos. Though the rebellion failed, it marked the end of the tacit alliance between whites and mulattos against slaves, which had endured until then.

Colonial authorities also faced increasing resistance from the slave population. Bands of runaway slaves, known as maroons, carried out a guerrilla warfare against white-owned plantations. These attacks, though they lacked centralized leadership and were repelled by colonial authorities, set the ground for the Slave Rebellion of 1791, which marked the beginning of the Haitian Revolution.

The 1791 slave rebellion, which was orchestrated by several black leaders, was brutal.  Whites were slaughtered and their properties and fields sacked by bands of slaves. Reprisals by colonial authorities were swift and just as brutal. The rebellion failed, leaving an estimated 10,000 blacks and 2,000 whites dead and more than 1,000 plantations razed.

Saint-Domingue was now in the midst of a civil war between royalist white colonists who refused to abolish slavery and grant suffrage to mulattos, and French republican forces allied with the mulattos and some black leaders, including Toussaint Louverture, Haiti’s most revered national figure.

Toussaint, a former slave who had previously served as a house-servant, was one of the few literate black revolutionary leaders. After joining the slave uprising, his intelligence, strategic skills and innate leadership ability brought him quickly to prominence. The French republican forces appointed Toussaint lieutenant governor of Saint-Domingue, and then commander in chief of all French forces. Toussaint, however, distrusted both the French republicans and the mulattos, and believed that only black leadership could assure an autonomous and slave-free Saint-Domingue. He therefore set out to establish an autonomous state under black rule.

Although Toussaint never severed the formal bond with France, his de facto independence was an affront to French leaders. In 1802, French forces were dispatched to Saint-Domingue, and with the help of white colonists and mulatto forces, defeated the black army. Toussaint surrendered a few months after the invasion. The French assured Toussaint that he would be allowed to retire quietly, but a month later, they seized him and transported him to France, where he died of neglect in prison within a year.

Despite fierce repression, mulattos and blacks waged a renewed resistance against the French occupiers, under the leadership of Dessalines, a former slave and one of Toussaint's principal lieutenants. Their cause was greatly helped by two factors. By 1803 war had resumed between France and Britain, and France once again concentrated its energies on the struggle in Europe. That same year, France sold French Louisiana to the United States, thus ending French ambitions in the Western Hemisphere. Combined, these two events meant that France lost interest in maintaining its hold on Saint-Domingue, and stopped supplying it with troops and equipment. In November 1803, the last remaining French troops fled to Jamaica.

Independent Haiti (1804-1915)

On January 1, 1804, Haiti proclaimed its independence, becoming the second independent state in the Western Hemisphere and the first free black republic in the world. Dessalines, who had commanded the black and the mulatto forces during the final phase of the revolution, became the leader of the new country, which he renamed "Haiti" after the indigenous name.

Thought it was now an independent country, Haiti’s troubles were far from over. Devastated by years of war, the country was in shambles. The agriculture sector, which had been the basis of the economy under French rule, was destroyed; commerce was virtually nonexistent; and the population was uneducated and largely unskilled.

Dessalines took advantage of the country’s chaos to institute an authoritarian regime. In 1805, he named himself emperor for life and declared Haiti an all-black nation. Whites were routinely killed and were prohibited from owning land. Meanwhile, blacks witnessed little improvement in the quality of their lives. Dessalines demanded that all blacks work either as soldiers to protect the nation or as laborers on the plantations to restart the agricultural economy. He re-established the plantation system through a model that came to be known as agrarian militarism. Laborers were bound to their assigned work places, and harsh penalties were imposed on runaways.

Dessalines governed Haiti through the military, thus setting a pattern for direct involvement of the army in politics that continued for more than 150 years. He quickly became deeply unpopular within most sectors of Haitian society. The mulattos resented him mostly because he was a black former slave, but also for the rampant corruption of his regime. He also lost the support of the army, as his ruling clique left little in the treasury for military salaries. Dessalines was assassinated in 1806.

The two main conspirators behind Dessalines’ assassination, Pétion (a mulatto) and Christophe (a former slave), divided the country in two rival regimes. Christophe created the authoritarian State of Haiti in the north, while Pétion establish the more permissive Republic of Haiti in the south. Christophe maintained a strict system of labor and agricultural production akin to the former plantations. He gave ownership of the bulk of the land to the state and leased large tracts to estate managers. Pétion, by contrast, broke up the former colonial estates and distributed state-owned land to individuals in small parcels. Pétion’s land polices, though well-meaning, had unforeseen adverse effects on the Haitian economy: smallholder farmers had little incentive to produce export crops instead of subsistence crops, since they produced too little to make exporting profitable. By 1822, Haiti, which had been the biggest producers of sugar worldwide under French colonial rule, no longer exported sugar.

In 1820, after the deaths of both Pétion and Christopher, Haiti was united again as a single country, under the leadership of Pétion’s successor, Boyer. In 1822, Haiti took advantage of internal conflict in Santo Domingo to invade and annex the Spanish part of Hispaniola. However, this sparked a Dominican uprising, and in 1944 Santo Domingo parted again, giving birth to the Dominican Republic.

When Boyer came to power, France still refused to recognize Haiti’s sovereignty and- along with Britain and the United States- maintained a crippling embargo on Haiti. In 1825, Boyer agreed to France’s demand for a fee of 150 million gold francs, in exchange for the recognition of Haiti’s sovereignty and the lifting of the embargo. This fee, demanded as retribution for the "lost property” (slaves, land, equipment etc) of the former colonialists, was later reduced to 90 million. In order to pay this fee, Haiti had to take out high interest loans, which emptied the treasury and mortgaged the country's future to French banks. The debt was not repaid in full until 1947.

Boyer’s ousting during the Revolution of 1843 was followed by seven decades of political instability. Between 1843 and 1915, twenty two heads of State succeeded each other. Escalating instability in Haiti - along with the American commercial interests in the region and its eagerness to contain European ambitions over Haiti- paved the way for an American intervention.

American Occupation (1915-1934)

Using a particularly violent street protest in Port-au-Prince as a pretext, American troops landed in Port-au-Prince in 1915. For the next nineteen years, Haiti was governed by the United States.

The first measure taken by the U.S was to take control of Haitian customs houses, thus allowing it to control and profit from Haiti’s trade. In the political sphere, the U.S. wielded veto power over all governmental decisions, although local institutions continued to be run by Haitians. The U.S assumed complete control of Haiti's finances and took charge of appointing advisers. It also assumed responsibility for establishing and running public-health and public-works programs.

Resistance to the occupation began immediately, led by rebels nicknamed cacos by the Americans. This culminated in 1918, when a rebellion, when of up to 40,000 cacos and others was put down by the Haitian and American governments, resulting in 2,000 Haitian deaths.

Though American rule was characterized by deep-seated racial prejudices and a disdain for Haitian self-determination, it imposed order after decades of often violent instability. Infrastructure greatly improved during this period. Roads were expanded, although the fact that almost all roads led to Port-au-Prince led to the gradual concentration of economic activity in the capital. Bridges, telephone lines, water systems, schools and hospitals all went up.

The occupation of Haiti continued after World War I, but caused increasing embarrassment and worry to the Unites States. In 1929, American President H. Hoover appointed a commission to assess the situation. Increasingly concerned about the occupation’s negative effects on the U.S’ image and weakened by the 1929 crisis, the U.S started to withdraw in 1932, and completely left the island in 1934.

The Duvalier Era (1957-1986)

Following the U.S withdrawal, Haiti struggled to establish a democratic regime. Particularly challenging was the fact that the Haitian military was the only cohesive and effective institution left, all other institutions having been controlled and managed by the Americans. In 1946, the military junta, known as the Garde, staged a coup. During the years that followed, Haitian politics were effectively controlled by the military, even though presidential elections were officially held. In 1957, Francois Duvalier, the candidate backed by the Garde, was elected president.

Duvalier, whose background as a medical doctor earned him the nickname "Papa Doc," swiftly installed a dictatorship, appointing himself president for life and violating the constitution he had himself promulgated. He weakened the established military- which he perceived as a threat- by creating his own rural militia, commonly known as the tontons makouts.  He also set out to create his own elite, using corruption to enrich his closest supporters and intimidation to subdue the old elite, which was gradually eliminated or emigrated. Under Duvalier’s rule, the harsh political and social conditions (an estimated 30,000 Haitians were killed for political reasons during his tenure), combined with bleak economic conditions, pushed many Haitians to emigrate.

Before his death in 1971, Duvalier appointed his son Jean-Claude to succeed him as President for life. When he took office, Jean-Claude, or “baby Doc,” was a 19 year old who showed little interest in Haitian politics. His rule was even more corrupt that that of his father, and through his kleptocratic ways and neglect for Haiti’s affairs, Baby Doc squandered a considerable amount of domestic and foreign goodwill. The regime’s corruption, coupled with increased political repression and worsening economic conditions, led to deep popular discontent.

Revolt, encouraged by the Catholic Church, began in the mid-eighties in the city of Gonaïves, and soon spread to other cities.  The unrest in Haiti alarmed the Reagan administration in the U.S, which began to pressure Duvalier to step down. When he refused, the U.S announced a cutback in aid to Haiti. This not only distanced Washington from the Duvalier regime, it also denied the regime a significant source of income. Having lost all support, both at home and abroad, Duvalier and his family were finally forced to flee in 1986.

Haiti after 1986

Although the end of the Duvalier era provoked much popular rejoicing, the years following the end of the dictatorship were tumultuous, with several military coups and massacres of civilians taking place.  The Duvaliers had left behind them a country that was economically ravaged, bereft of functional political institutions and devoid of any tradition of peaceful self-rule.

In 1990, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a populist Roman Catholic was elected president in a largely free and fair election. However, a year later, Aristide was overthrown by a military coup and forced into exile. Thousands of Haitians were killed and thousands more fled the United States during the 3-year military rule that followed. In 1994, pressured by United Nations-imposed sanctions and embargoes and threats of military intervention by the U.S, military leaders agreed to step down and allow Aristide to return. Free elections were organized, and René Préval, a prominent Aristide political ally, was elected president.

A year later, Aristide broke with Préval to form a new political party, and was elected President for a second term in 2000. In 2004, anti-Aristide protests broke out in Port-au-Prince, and the rebellion soon spread to other cities. Though Aristide was forced into exile in 2006, the violence continued. In response, the United Nations established MINUSTAH (United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti), a 7000-strong peacekeeping force led by Brazil.

In 2006, René Préval was elected President for a second term. The elections recently held in late November 2010 will determine Haiti’s next president.

Sources

Haggerty, Richard, ed. (1989). Haiti: A Country Study. Washington: GPO for the Library of Congress.

Heinl, Robert (1996) Written in Blood: The History of the Haitian People. University Press of America: Lantham, Md.

James, Cyril (1963) The Black Jacobins.Vintage Books: New York.

Schmidt, Hans (1995). United States occupation of Haiti (1915-1934). Rutgers University Press.