A Brief History of Haiti: From Discovery to Independence

A Brief History of Haiti: From Discovery to Independence

The Discovery: 

On December 5^th, 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 1^st 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.

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 20^th 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.