Origins

Haitians come from the oldest independent republic in the world established by blacks. Haiti occupies the western third of the island of Hispaniola, located in the Caribbean Sea between Cuba and Puerto Rico. With its 6.5 million inhabitants (1992) living on a territory of less than 28,000 square kilometres, Haiti has one of the highest population densities in the world. Approximately 71 percent of the populace lives in the countryside, and, in the absence of large-scale industry, Haiti is one of the world’s poorest countries.

During his first voyage in 1492, Christopher Columbus landed on Haitian soil, claimed it for Spain, and called the entire island Hispaniola. The discovery of gold led to a frenzied influx of Spanish adventurers who enslaved the Arawak, Taino, and Carib peoples living on the island and forced them to work under harsh conditions in primitive mines. Those who tried to flee were killed and many others died from European diseases, so that within a few decades there were only a few hundred of the indigenous peoples left.

To assure a labour supply, the Spanish began as early as 1510 to import African slaves from the west coast of Africa to work in the mines and on the few plantations that gradually came into being. In 1625 the French landed on Hispaniola, renamed it Saint Domingue, and fought with the Spanish for control of the island. In 1697 Spain ceded the western part of Hispaniola – present-day Haiti – to France. Throughout the eighteenth century, France developed cotton, sugarcane, and coffee plantations in its new colony, and to work these plantations it brought tens of thousands of slaves from Africa. By the time of the French Revolution in 1789, there were an estimated 450,000 slaves and 30,000 freepersons (mostly mulattos) who were dominated in the political, economic, and social spheres by about 40,000 European whites and their locally born descendants (Creoles).

In the wake of the French Revolution and its call for liberty and equality, a Haitian revolution broke out in 1792. During the next decade, Haitian forces led by Toussaint L’Ouverture and other ex-slave military leaders drove out the French and set up their own government. Finally, in 1804, independence was declared and the new country, which functioned as a kingdom, was named Haiti, harking back to Quisqueya (body of land), the name the indigenous peoples called the island before the arrival of the Spanish.

During its first decade and a half of existence, Haiti was plunged into political anarchy, and before long the country was divided between an empire in the north and a republic in the south. In 1820 Haiti was reunited, although political and economic instability prevailed as the country’s governments alternated between republican rule, frequently under dictators, and a short-lived effort to restore the imperial monarchy.

By the end of the nineteenth century, the ongoing political corruption and economic backwardness had turned Haiti into a bankrupt country deeply indebted to foreign powers. In 1915 the United States, prompted by its financial interests in Haiti, sent in troops, and this military occupation continued for the next two decades. Haitians resented the occupation and tried in vain through guerrilla resistance movements to drive out the Americans.

After U.S. troops left in 1934, Haiti was ruled by civilian dictators or by its military, and, despite efforts at reform, the economic status of the country did not improve. In 1957 François Duvalier was elected president, and for the next three decades Haiti was to be ruled by “Papa Doc,” as he came to be known, and his successor and son, Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier.

The Duvaliers exploited for themselves and their supporters whatever wealth the country had, and to stay in power they enforced a reign of terror carried out by the feared secret police known as the Tontons-Macoutes. The fate of the impoverished masses became desperate, and it was during the Duvalier regimes that thousands of Haitians began to flee abroad.

Following a popular uprising and the ouster of “Baby Doc” in 1986, efforts were undertaken to hold free elections. These finally occurred in late 1990. The winner, Reverend Jean-Bertrand Aristide, was ousted within a year, however, and anarchy reigned throughout the country until he was restored with United States assistance in October 1994. Subsequent elections, held while U.S. troops maintained order, resulted in the victory of Aristide’s handpicked successor. Today, with the troops having left, the country remains politically unstable and economically depressed.

The Haitian population is 95 percent black, composed of descendants of slaves brought from various regions of Africa. The remaining 5 percent are represented by a variety of groups: mulattos (the offspring of blacks and Europeans, particularly French); former slaves from the United States granted Haitian nationality in the 1860s; blacks and mulattos from the neighbouring Dominican Republic and Jamaica; European immigrants from Lebanon and Italy; and German Jewish and Chinese refugees from the 1930s and World War II era.

Although 80 percent of the population is Roman Catholic and about 10 percent Protestant, it seems that a high percentage of Haitians also practise Voodoo, a form of worship brought from Africa by slaves who later borrowed elements of Roman Catholic ritual. Voodoo is not only widespread in the rural countryside, it is also practised among the working and middle classes in urban areas.

The main language of Haiti is Creole, which functions both as a means of expressing Haitian culture and as an instrument of day-to-day communication. The small minority of Haitians who speak French also speak Creole. Some experts have estimated that the Haitian Creole language is an amalgam of approximately 60 percent French and 20 percent English, with the remaining 20 percent made up, in varying proportions, of west African languages (especially the syntactic structure), aboriginal languages spoken in pre-Columbian America, and Spanish. In 1979 Haiti’s minister of education declared Creole to be the country’s “compulsory official language,” a status that until then had been reserved for French. This meant that Creole had to be used in a large number of official texts, in speeches by political leaders, and throughout the school system. The reform was greeted with vigorous criticism and protest, however, and a short time later the order was rescinded and the teaching of Creole was restricted to the first four years of primary school.