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Haiti, officially the Republic of Haiti, is a country on the island of Hispaniola in the Caribbean Sea, east of Cuba and Jamaica, and south of The Bahamas. It occupies the western three-eighths of the island which it shares with the Dominican Republic.
- United States Occupation of Haiti
The United States occupation of Haiti began on July 28,...
- Demographics of Haiti
Population of Haiti. According to the 2022 revision of the...
- Haitian French
Haitian French (French: français haïtien, Haitian Creole:...
- Dominican Republic
Haiti is the neighboring nation to the Dominican Republic...
- National Assembly
The National Assembly (French: Assemblée nationale, Haitian...
- History of Haiti
History of Haiti; Pre-Columbian Haiti (before 1492)...
- Update
We would like to show you a description here but the site...
- White
White Haitians (French: Blancs haïtiens, [blɑ̃ (s)aisjɛ̃];...
- Foreign Relations of Haiti
Haiti was one of the original members of the League of...
- Chamber of Deputies
The Chamber of Deputies (French: Chambre des députés;...
- United States Occupation of Haiti
- Overview
- Early period
- Plantations and enslaved people
- The Haitian Revolution
- Trials of a young nation
- U.S. occupation
- Military regimes and the Duvaliers
- Democratic aspirations
- Haiti in the 21st century
history of Haiti, a survey of the important events and people in the history of Haiti from the time of European settlement. For treatment of earlier history and the country in its regional context, see West Indies.
The island that now includes Haiti and the Dominican Republic was first inhabited about 5000 bce, and farming villages were established about 300 bce. The Arawak and other Indigenous peoples later developed large communities there. The Taino, an Arawak group, became dominant; also prominent were the Ciboney. In the 15th century between 100,000 and several million Taino and Ciboney lived on the island, which the Taino called Quisqueya. They based their economies on cassava (manioc) farming, fishing, and inter-island trade that included gold jewelry, pottery, and other goods.
Italian navigator Christopher Columbus sighted Quisqueya on December 6, 1492, and named it La Isla Española (“The Spanish Island”), later Anglicized as Hispaniola. Over the next few decades, the Spanish enslaved vast numbers of Taino and Ciboney to mine for gold. European diseases and brutal working conditions devastated the Indigenous population, which had fallen to about 30,000 by 1514; by the end of the 16th century that population had virtually vanished. Thousands of enslaved people imported from other Caribbean islands met the same fate. The Spanish altered the landscape by introducing cattle, pigs, and horses, which multiplied into large herds. Spanish settlement was mostly restricted to the eastern end of the island, and many Spaniards left Hispaniola after the main gold mines were exhausted.
The Treaty of Rijswijk (1697) formally ceded the western third of Hispaniola from Spain to France, which renamed it Saint-Domingue. The colony’s population and economic output grew rapidly during the 18th century, and Saint-Domingue became France’s most prosperous New World possession, exporting sugar and smaller amounts of coffee, cacao, indigo, and cotton. By the 1780s nearly two-thirds of France’s foreign investments were being sunk into Saint-Domingue, and the number of stopovers by oceangoing vessels sometimes exceeded 700 per year.
The development of plantation agriculture profoundly affected the island’s ecology. Enslaved Africans toiled ceaselessly to clear forests for sugar fields, and massive erosion ensued, particularly on the steep marginal slopes that had been allocated to enslaved people for their subsistence crops. Soil productivity declined markedly in many areas, and formerly bountiful streams dried up. However, European investors and landowners remained unconcerned about or unaware of the long-term consequences of their actions, believing instead that an overpopulation of enslaved people was the key to wringing more profits from the region.
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The Haitian Revolution was actually a series of conflicts during the period 1791–1804 that involved shifting alliances of enslaved Haitians, affranchis, biracial people, and colonists, as well as British and French army troops. Several factors precipitated the event, including the affranchis’ frustrations with a racist society, the French Revolution, nationalistic rhetoric expressed during Vodou ceremonies, the continuing brutality of slave owners, and wars between European powers. Vincent Ogé, a biracial man who had lobbied the Parisian assembly for colonial reforms, led an uprising in late 1790 but was captured, tortured, and executed. In May 1791 the French revolutionary government granted citizenship to the wealthier affranchis, but Haiti’s European population refused to comply with the law. Within two months isolated fighting broke out between Europeans and affranchis, and in August thousands of enslaved people rose in rebellion. The Europeans attempted to appease the biracial people in order to quell the revolt, and the French assembly granted citizenship to all affranchis in April 1792. Saint-Domingue was torn by rival factions, some of which were supported by Spanish colonists in Santo Domingo (on the eastern side of the island, which later became the Dominican Republic) or by British troops from Jamaica. In 1793 Léger Félicité Sonthonax, who was sent from France to maintain order, offered freedom to enslaved people who joined his army; he soon abolished slavery altogether, and the following year the French government confirmed his decision. Spain ceded the rest of the island to France in the Treaty of Basel (1795), but war in Europe precluded the actual transfer of possession.
In the late 1790s Toussaint Louverture, a military leader and former enslaved man, gained control of several areas and earned the initial support of French agents. He gave nominal allegiance to France while pursuing his own political and military designs, which included negotiating with the British, and in May 1801 he had himself named “governor-general for life.” Napoleon Bonaparte (later Napoleon I), wishing to maintain control of the island, attempted to restore the old regime (and European rule) by sending his brother-in-law, Gen. Charles Leclerc, with an experienced force from Saint-Domingue that included several exiled biracial officers. Toussaint struggled for several months against Leclerc’s forces before agreeing to an armistice in May 1802; however, the French broke the agreement and imprisoned him in France. He died on April 7, 1803.
On January 1, 1804, the entire island was declared independent under the Arawak-derived name of Haiti. The young country had a shaky start: the war had devastated many plantations and towns, and Haiti was plagued with civil unrest, economic uncertainties, and a lack of skilled planners, craftspeople, and administrators. Many European powers and their Caribbean surrogates ostracized Haiti, fearing the spread of slave revolts. Reaction in the United States was mixed: slave-owning states did all they could to suppress news of the rebellion, but merchants in the free states hoped to trade with Haiti rather than with European powers. More important, nearly the entire population of Haiti was utterly destitute—a legacy of slavery that has continued to have a profound impact on Haitian history.
In October 1804 Dessalines assumed the title of Emperor Jacques I, but in October 1806 he was killed while trying to suppress a biracial revolt, and Henry Christophe took control of the country from his capital in the north. Civil war then broke out between Christophe and Alexandre Sabès Pétion, who was based at Port-au-Prince in the south. As the civil war raged, the Spanish, with British help, restored their rule in Santo Domingo in 1809. Christophe, who declared himself King Henry I in 1811, managed to improve the country’s economy but at the cost of forcing formerly enslaved people to return to work on the plantations. He built a spectacular palace (Sans Souci) as well as an imposing fortress (La Citadelle Laferrière) in the hills to the south of the city of Cap-Haïtien, where, with mutinous soldiers almost at his door, he committed suicide in 1820.
Jean-Pierre Boyer, who had succeeded to the presidency of the biracial-led south on Pétion’s death in 1818, became president of the entire country after Christophe’s death. In 1822 he invaded and conquered Santo Domingo, which had declared itself independent from Spain the previous year and was then engaged in fighting the Spaniards. Boyer did abolish slavery there, but the Haitians monopolized government power and confiscated church property, foodstuffs, and other supplies. It was not until 1844 that the Haitians were expelled by a popular uprising. The occupation created a tradition of distrust between the two countries, and subsequent generations of Dominicans regarded the period as marked by cruelty and barbarism.
France recognized Haitian independence in 1825, in return for a large indemnity (nearly 100 million francs) that was to be paid at an annual rate until 1887. Britain recognized the state in 1833, followed by the United States in 1862 after the secession of Southern slave states.
Boyer was overthrown in 1843. Between then and 1915 a succession of 20 rulers followed, 16 of whom were overthrown by revolution or were assassinated. Faustin-Élie Soulouque (Faustin I), a formerly enslaved Black man, became president in 1847 and designated himself “emperor for life” in 1849. He turned on his biracial sponsors and became particularly repressive; however, his regime was in some ways a return to power for Blacks. He tried unsuccessfully to annex the Dominican Republic, and in 1859 one of his generals, Fabre Geffrard, overthrew him. Geffrard encouraged educated biracial people to join his government and established Haitian respectability abroad.
Throughout the 19th century a huge gulf developed between the small urban elite, who were mostly light-skinned and French-speaking, and the vast majority of Black, Creole-speaking peasants. Social services and communications were almost nonexistent in the countryside, while Port-au-Prince was the centre of culture, business, and political intrigue.
From 1915 to 1934 Haiti was occupied by U.S. Marines. The United States claimed that its action was justified under the Monroe Doctrine (the right of the United States to prevent European intervention in the Western Hemisphere) as well as on humanitarian grounds. However, many Haitians believed that the Marines had really been sent to protect U.S. investments and to establish a base to protect the approaches to the Panama Canal. Haiti signed a treaty with the United States—originally for 10 years but later extended—establishing U.S. financial and political domination. In 1918, in an election supervised by the Marines, a new constitution was introduced that permitted foreigners to own land in Haiti.
One effect of the Marine occupation was the nominal reestablishment of the biracial elite’s control of the government. Black Haitians, in contrast, felt that they were excluded from public office and subjected to racist indignities at the hands of the Marines, including the corvée (statute labour, or forced labour for public works); in response, peasant cacos (guerrillas) carried out a series of attacks. The Marines’ public works program included building new health clinics and sewerage systems, but most Haitians felt that the Marines’ efforts were inadequate.
In October 1937, troops and police from the Dominican Republic massacred thousands of Haitian labourers living near the border. The Dominican government agreed to compensate the slain workers’ relatives the following year, but only part of the promised amount was actually paid. The enmity between the two countries had long historical roots and racist underpinnings: Dominicans, with their Spanish culture and largely European ancestry, looked disdainfully upon Black Haitian labourers; however, the Dominican economy depended on cheap Haitian labour.
In 1946 Haitian workers and students held strikes and violent demonstrations in opposition to the president, Élie Lescot, who had succeeded Vincent in 1941. Three military officers seized power, and, under their supervision, Dumarsais Estimé was elected president. In 1950, after Estimé had attempted to extend his term, the military took control. In October Col. Paul E. Magloire was elected president in a plebiscite.
Magloire was forced to resign in 1956, and considerable unrest and several provisional presidents followed until François Duvalier—called “Papa Doc,” he was a physician with an interest in Vodou—was elected president in September 1957. Duvalier promised to end domination by the biracial elite and to extend political and economic power to the Black masses. Violence continued, however, and there was an unsuccessful attempt to overthrow Duvalier in July 1958. In response, Duvalier organized a paramilitary group—the so-called Tontons Macoutes (“Bogeymen”)—to terrorize the population. In 1964 Duvalier, by then firmly in control, had himself elected president for life. Haiti under Duvalier was, in effect, a police state.
During Duvalier’s time in power, Haiti experienced increasing international isolation, renewed friction with the Dominican Republic, and a marked exodus of Haitian professionals. The regime was characterized by corruption and human rights abuses, but a personality cult developed around Duvalier himself, and some sectors of society strongly supported him, including a small upwardly mobile Black middle class.
Near the end of his life, Duvalier faced a contracting economy, withdrawal of most U.S. aid, and a decline in tourism. In response, he relaxed some of the severe repression and terror that had characterized his early regime. Before his death in 1971, he designated his son, Jean-Claude, aged 19 and nicknamed “Baby Doc” by the foreign media, to succeed him as president for life. The regime of Jean-Claude Duvalier sought international respectability. Repression diminished, and tourism, U.S. aid, and the economy revived somewhat. Opponents, however, saw little change in the regime’s basic nature.
By the mid-1980s the ranks of the Tontons Macoutes had swelled to some 15,000 men, but they failed to silence a series of countrywide demonstrations against high unemployment, poor living conditions, and the lack of political freedom. In February 1986 Duvalier fled Haiti, with U.S. assistance, for France.
After Duvalier’s departure, a five-member civilian-military council led by Lieut. Gen. Henri Namphy took charge, promising free elections and democratic reforms. The first attempt at elections, in November 1987, ended when some three dozen voters were killed. In January 1988 Leslie Manigat won elections that were widely considered fraudulent, and Namphy overthrew him in June. A few months later Lieut. Gen. Prosper Avril took power, but his unstable regime ended in March 1990.
On December 16, 1990, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a leftist Roman Catholic priest, won the presidency by a landslide in what were widely reported to be the first free elections in Haiti’s history. Legislative elections in January 1991 gave Aristide supporters a plurality in Haiti’s parliament. However, Aristide’s reformist policies alienated the wealthy elite, and, after he had been in office less than eight months, Brig. Gen. Raoul Cédras deposed him and began to repress political opposition. The United States and other nations imposed a trade embargo, but it was partly circumvented by smuggling through the Dominican Republic. Tens of thousands of Haitians attempted to flee their country in small boats bound for the U.S. state of Florida, but the vast majority were returned to Haiti.
In September 1994 the de facto government agreed to step down and allow some 20,000 U.S. troops to occupy the country. Aristide returned the following month, whereas Cédras and other coup leaders went into exile. Aristide dismantled the Haitian military—an act that would have been impossible without the presence of the U.S. military—and, under pressure from the United States and other countries, pressed for free-market reforms. Haiti benefited economically from a large influx of international aid and loans, but many of its farmers (the largest component of its workforce) struggled to compete with cheaper imported foodstuffs. The United States and the United Nations (UN) began forming a new Haitian police force, but the bulk of U.S. forces were soon withdrawn. The Haitian police were thrust into their duties with inadequate preparation and were soon criticized for high incidences of corruption and unwarranted violence.
Elections in 1995 brought about the first peaceful transfer of power between elected presidents in Haiti’s history when René Préval, an associate of Aristide, was chosen to succeed him. Préval, faced with political infighting among the groups that had supported Aristide, dissolved the parliament in 1999. The following year, in allegedly fraudulent elections, Préval’s supporters took control of the legislature, and Aristide was reelected president.
Aristide faced serious economic and political problems on his return to power in 2001. International aid sanctions, imposed after the 2000 elections, helped fuel a downward economic spiral that further impoverished an already desperate population. Instances of disease (including HIV/AIDS) rose sharply, as did levels of lawlessness and violence. Aristide’s second term was marked by accusations of corruption, and open opposition to his rule broke out in 2003. The bicentennial observance of Haiti’s independence, on January 1, 2004, was muted and was marked by street demonstrations. By late February Aristide had fled the country in the face of a rebel insurgency and the loss of U.S. and French support. Assistance from abroad slowed, and Haiti’s main source of income now came from remittances from Haitians overseas.
Aristide’s departure left a polarized country, and conflicts between his supporters and his rivals escalated, leading to hundreds of deaths and international accusations of human rights abuses. Concurrently, U.S.-led armed forces under the authority of the UN Security Council were sent to Port-au-Prince to stabilize the situation and to oversee the installation of an interim government.
The United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH [French: Mission des Nations Unies pour la stabilisation en Haïti]) assumed authority over the international intervention in June 2004 with a mandate to maintain security, help stabilize the political process, and monitor and promote human rights. MINUSTAH personnel included thousands of Brazilian-led troops, police, and volunteers from countries around the world. However, various human rights organizations accused MINUSTAH and the UN- and U.S.-trained Haitian National Police force of having committed atrocities against political demonstrators and other citizens. In December 2004, at hearings in Brazil, the MINUSTAH commander testified that the mission had been strongly pressured by the international community to use violence. Most of the force was directed against groups in the slum areas of Port-au-Prince that held strong allegiance to former president Aristide; those groups were often termed “gangs” by MINUSTAH and the media.
The interim government, planning to hold presidential elections by the end of 2005, had registered about three-fourths of eligible voters, but crime, kidnappings, and gang activity delayed the election process. On February 7, 2006, 63 percent of Haitian voters went to the polls, and Préval claimed the presidency, earning 51 percent of the vote with the overwhelming support of Haiti’s poor. A sense of optimism prevailed throughout that year, but increasing food and fuel prices during his term led to protests. Moreover, government instability—the parliament rejected Préval’s nominations for prime minister several times—impeded social progress.
Violent riots against high costs of living broke out in April 2008, and much of the anger was directed toward the government and MINUSTAH. Several people were killed and dozens injured. As a result, the Haitian Senate dismissed the prime minister, Jacques-Édouard Alexis, but his replacement, Michèle Pierre-Louis, did not take office until September. Pierre-Louis was Haiti’s first female prime minister, and her selection seemed to offer promise that a new generation, including women, was taking the reins of power, even though the personnel still came exclusively from the urban elite. However, in October 2009, Pierre-Louis was ousted by the Senate, which criticized her for having done little to improve the country’s living standards. She was replaced by Jean-Max Bellerive, who had served as minister of planning in her cabinet.
Meanwhile, the country was subject to two major natural disasters within a year and a half. In August and September 2008 a series of hurricanes ravaged the country, killing nearly 800 Haitians and displacing hundreds of thousands. Flooding destroyed crops, and the country had to rely on international relief efforts. Rebuilding was hampered by a lack of government action and continued violence both from Haitians and from MINUSTAH. Disaster struck again on January 12, 2010, when a devastating earthquake southwest of Port-au-Prince resulted in massive damage and considerable loss of life in the capital and surrounding region. The quake caused the collapse of homes as well as public buildings, such as hospitals, schools, and almost all the important national government buildings—including the National Palace (which was ultimately condemned and torn down in September 2012), the parliament building, the main post office, a number of ministries, and the city hall. The day-to-day operation of the government was effectively halted for a time. It was estimated that some three million people were affected by the quake—nearly one-third of the country’s total population. In addition to a death toll of 316,000, more than one million Haitians were left homeless. An international effort was mounted by multinational organizations and countries around the world to provide aid to the country.
1 day ago · Geographical and historical treatment of Haiti, including maps and statistics as well as a survey of its people, economy, and government. Haiti was the second country in the Americas, after the United States, to free itself from colonial rule. Its capital is Port-au-Prince.
Haiti (Haitian Creole: Ayiti; French: Haïti), officially the Republic of Haiti (Haitian Creole: Repiblik d Ayiti; French: République d'Haïti) is a country on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola. The other country on the island is the Dominican Republic.
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Haiti, officially the Republic of Haiti, is a country on the island of Hispaniola in the Caribbean Sea, east of Cuba and Jamaica, and south of The Bahamas. It occupies the western three-eighths of the island which it shares with the Dominican Republic.
Haiti is positioned east of the neighboring island of Cuba, between the Caribbean Sea and the North Atlantic Ocean. Haiti's total area is 27,560 square kilometres (10,641 sq mi), of which 27,560 square kilometres (10,641 sq mi) is land and 190 square kilometres (73 sq mi) is water.
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