A Brief History of Haiti: From Discovery to Independence
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The Discovery:
On December 5th, 1492, Christopher Columbus
landed on Ayiti, which is an island inhabited by the Arawak people with about
50 of his men on the Niña, the Pinta and the Santa Maria. Ayiti also means Mountainous Country in the
language of the natives. Upon landing in
what is today Môle Saint Nicholas, Columbus claimed the island for Spain, and
named it after her, Hispañiola, which means Little Spain, and he named its
inhabitants Indians because he thought he had landed in Asia. Hispañiola became the first settlement in the
Americas for the Spaniards, who quickly set up camp in a fortress they called
La Navidad.
Columbus was impressed with the fact that the natives would
bear him gold as gifts and he wanted more.
As they did, he took a couple of them back to Spain with his new found
bounty as proof to the Spanish royalty he had found a new way to India going
West. He also left about 30 of his men
in La Navidad.
The Disappearance:
Columbus wanted more gold and so he would
kidnap the natives to force them to work to look for it. They had a quota to meet and if they didn't, they would be mutilated by having their arms cut off for example. Some of the natives were also forced onto ships
and sold as slaves back in Europe.
The natives would run away and try to mount a
resistance. But they soon found
themselves at a disadvantage trying to fight the Spaniards who had better
weapons than them. The Spaniards would
hang or burn alive the ones who were caught.
Soon, the natives started to commit suicide, and some would kill their
infants, rather than be caught by the Spaniards and be enslaved. By 1500, nearly 250,000 Indians were dead,
and within a few more years nearly another 1 million had been killed due to
enslavements.
In 1518, the first recorded epidemic occurred on
Hispañiola. Small pox killed nearly 90%
of the remaining natives who had no immunity toward the disease. By 1550, there were under a thousand of the
original inhabitants that were left. One
hundred years later, records show there were no Arawaks left on the island.
The Slave Trade:
In 1697, the Spanish ceded the western part of the island to the French under the Treaty of Ryswick. The French
wanted to use the new colony, now named Saint Domingue, to grow crops such as
sugar and coffee, and for that they needed a work force to do the jobs. Soon thereafter, the beginning of the
importation of African slaves started.
Starting in the 1730s, close to 50% of the world’s sugar and close to 60% of
the world’s coffee came from Saint Domingue.
The slaves continued to be brought in to work the plantations, and by 1780,
it is estimated there were about 800,00 slaves that were imported into Haiti
which accounts for about a third of the entire Atlantic slave trade.
Slavery in Saint Domingue:
The slaves were worked so hard by the French that half would
die within a few years of arriving in Saint Domingue. The death rate of the African slaves were the
highest in any colonies in the Americas.
If they were lucky enough to make it through the Middle Passage, some
would killed themselves thinking their spirits would carry them back to
Africa.
In 1685, Louis XIV, passed Le Code Noir to sanction any
punishments the masters saw fit to control the slaves.
Because the slaves mostly came from different tribes in West
Africa, the only thing they truly had in common was religion. They all practiced vodou. The slave owners tried their best to christianized
the slaves as a form of control. The
slaves in their attempt to hide their true religious belief from the slaves
masters would incorporate traditional Catholic symbols into their vodou
practices.
The plantation owners would also teach the slaves who didn’t
speak the same languages for the most part, a broken down version of French,
which would give rise of the Creole language.
The owners would also routinely rape the female slave
owners, which created a new class of Les gens de couleur or free people of color who had some rights but not as much
rights as a white person. Some were
wealthy and even owned slaves themselves.
Many slaves would run away and became known as the maroons,
and they would raid the plantations on occasions for food.
The Revolution:
In 1789, events in the Metropole in Paris would have
profound effect on the colonies. The
French people revolted against the kingdom of Louis XVI and with chants like Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité, voted to
pass the Declarations of the Rights of Men and of the Citizen. The revolution had only given full rights to
the free people of color and not to the slaves in the colonies.
In 1791, the slaves had a secret vodou ceremony in a place
called Bois Caïman where they decided right there and then to fight for their
freedom. Although the vodou priest,
Dutty Boukman, who resided over this ceremony was captured and brutally killed
soon after, that didn’t stop the revolution from spreading. Toussaint Louverture would emerged as a
leader of the slave revolt who would fight for full emancipation of the slaves
in Saint Domingue.
Toussaint would become an intelligent fighter who would ally
himself with the enemies of France (i.e. Spain, England) to achieve the
ultimate goal of freedom for the slaves.
France, fearing they would lose their richest colony to England
decided to give into the blacks’ demand to accommodate Toussaint Louverture and
the slaves. Slavery was in fact
abolished on the colony in 1801 and Toussaint would become Governor General of
Saint Domingue. Saint Domingue would
become somewhat autonomous from France which risked losing its most profitable
colony.
In 1799, Napoleon Bonaparte had gained power in France through a coup
d’état. By 1802, Napolean had
re-established slavery in the colonies where it had been banned but kept it
quiet from Toussaint. Bonaparte send his
brother-in-law Charles Leclerc along with 86 ships with 22,000 soldiers to
Haiti to negotiate a settlement with Toussaint where France would regain full
control of the colony with full rights granted to the slaves. This was a ruse however to capture Toussaint
Louverture, and to bring him in exile in France. When he was captured, Toussaint would
proclaimed these words:
« En me renversant on a abattu à Saint-Domingue que le tronc de
l’arbre de la liberté des Noirs, il repoussera par les racines car elles sont
profondes et nombreuses. » Toussaint Louverture, 7 juin 1802 --
“In overthrowing me, you have done no more than
cut down the trunk of the tree of black liberty in St .Domingue. It will spring
back from the roots, for they are numerous and deep.”
Toussaint Louverture died of pneumonia at Fort de Joux in
1803.
Independence of Haiti:
Toussaint’s general, Jean Jacques Dessalines, would picked
up the fight during the revolution, but this time he wanted full independence
for Saint Domingue. Outnumbered and
outgunned, the slaves were able to defeat the French at the last major battle of Vertières on November 18, 1803. A Few
months later, this successful slave revolt would lead to the First Black
Republic of the world, Haiti, on January 1st 1804.
Because of the treachery that was involved with the kidnapping of Toussaint Louverture, and also probably because of the brutality of slavery, Dessalines didn't trust the remaining whites on the island. In February 1804, he ordered the massacre of most of the remaining whites in Haiti. Some fled to New Orleans and took their black servants with them. Today, because of the shared Creole culture, New Orleans and Haiti are considered long lost relatives.
The act of removing the whites from Haiti is symbolized in the Haitian flag where Dessalines removed the white color from the French flag to create the Haitian flag.
A small community of Poles were allowed to stay in Haiti because they were tricked by the French into thinking they were coming to Saint Domingue to liberate people in 1801 and not to enslave them. Because they refused to fight the slaves, they were allowed to stay in Haiti. Today, the remmants of this Polish community are found in Cazale, Haiti.
The act of removing the whites from Haiti is symbolized in the Haitian flag where Dessalines removed the white color from the French flag to create the Haitian flag.
A small community of Poles were allowed to stay in Haiti because they were tricked by the French into thinking they were coming to Saint Domingue to liberate people in 1801 and not to enslave them. Because they refused to fight the slaves, they were allowed to stay in Haiti. Today, the remmants of this Polish community are found in Cazale, Haiti.
Struggles after Independence:
Many of the powers at the time didn’t want news of the slave
revolt to spread to their own territories where slavery was still used to drive
their economy. An embargo was imposed on
the new country to prevent the slave revolt from spreading to the other
colonies. That didn’t stop some freedom
fighters however from reaching Haiti to gain support for their own movements.
The Republic of Haiti had become a beacon for Freedom in the
Americas. Many Latin American freedom
fighters went to Haiti looking for support.
One such leader was Simón Bolívar, who obtained weapons and soldiers
from Haiti with the promise he would abolished slavery wherever he liberated in
Latin America. In fact, the flag of
Venezuela (but at the time Gran Colombia: i.e. Venezuela, Colombia, and Ecuador) was designed in Jacmel, Haiti, in 1806, with many saying it comes
from the Haitian flag.
France never fully gave up on regaining the colony. Haiti was under constant threat of a French
invasion, which led the slaves to create a system of fortresses on top of the
mountainous country to fight off the potential invaders. One such fortress is the Citadelle LaFérière, which is believed to be the biggest fortress in all of the
Americas.
In 1825, under yet another threat of an invasion with
warships at the harbors, France demanded that Haiti repay her for the loss
revenues of the colony from the sugar industry, and for the lost revenue of the
slaves themselves. The amount the French
came up with was 150 millions Francs, which is the equivalent of about $26 Billion in
today’s currency. In exchange, France
would recognized Haiti as a sovereign republic and would no longer threaten to
invade the former colony. More
surprisingly, the Haitian governments at the time agreed.
To put things into perspective, France ended up selling to
the United States government in 1803, all of its territories west of the
Mississippi, in what is known as the Louisiana Purchase, for $15 million back
then. When adjusted to inflation, the
amount comes out to be about $234 million, or roughly 42 cent per acre. The New Orleans Super Dome itself cost about
$250 million.
(Click here for a short video clip of the Louisiana Purchase by Shmoop.)
Coincidently, the U.S. would not have been in position to
get such a great deal from France and by doubling in size had it not been for the Haitian Revolution where
Napolean needed to reassign its manpower and energy into regaining its most
profitable colony.
Over the years, many Haitian governments had to closed down
school for example to pay off this debt.
And by the beginning of the 20th Century, the country was
officially broke having paid most of the debt claimed by France.
The force repayment or reparation to France continue to be a source of contention between Haiti and France today, especially because it is a direct cause of Haiti's lack of economic development over the years. Recently this issue has been gaining international recognition because of the 2010 earthquake that happened in Haiti. This tragedy killed many people and destroyed most of the capital, Port-Au-Prince. That same year an international organization called Committee for the Repayment of the Indemnity Money Expropriated from Haiti or C.R.I.M.E. for short perpetrated one of the most elaborate hoax against the French government where they claimed France would repay this debt to Haiti.
In 2013, a group named The Representative Council of Black Associations (C.R.A.N.) filed a lawsuit (for more on lawsuit click here) against a state-owned bank that was involved in the slave trade of Haiti. Other international human rights organizations are also preparing lawsuits to correct this injustice they feel that was done toward the Haitian people.
