History of Haiti

The recorded history of Haïti began when the island of Hispaniola was discovered by Christopher Columbus in December 1492. It was at that time inhabited by the Arawak (or Taíno), a Native American people, who called the island Haiti. Columbus established a small settlement near Cap-Haïtien, but, when he returned in 1493, the settlers had disappeared, presumably killed. He claimed the whole island for Spain, and left his brother Bartholomew Columbus to find a new settlement.

Following the arrival of Europeans, Haïti's indigenous population suffered near-extinction, in possibly the worst case of depopulation in the Americas. The high mortality in Haïti can be attributed at least in part to murder, forced labour and repression, but experience elsewhere suggests that the loss was largely the result of the introduction of Old World diseases, to which the inhabitants had no resistance.

Spanish interest in Hispaniola began to wane in the 1520s, as more lucrative gold and silver deposits were found in Mexico and South America. Thereafter the population of Spanish Hispaniola grew slowly. Fearful of pirate attacks, the king of Spain in 1606 ordered all colonists on Hispaniola to move closer to the capital city, Santo Domingo. This backfired, as British, Dutch and French pirates then established bases on the island's abandoned northern and western coasts.

French settlement of the island began in 1625, and, in 1664, France formally claimed control of the western portion of the island. By the 1697 Treaty of Ryswick, Spain officially ceded the western third of Hispaniola to France. France named its new colony Saint-Domingue.

Colonial Saint-Domingue

French planters established numerous sugar and coffee plantations, making Saint-Domingue the "Pearl of the Antilles" – one of the richest colonies in the 18th century French empire. By the 1780s, Saint-Domingue produced about 40 percent of all the sugar and 60 percent of all the coffee consumed in Europe. This single colony, roughly the size of Maryland or Belgium, produced more sugar and coffee than all of Britain's West Indian colonies combined.

During this period, an estimated 790,000 African slaves were brought to work on sugarcane and coffee plantations (accounting in 1783-1791 for a third of the entire Atlantic slave trade), though inability to maintain slave numbers without constant resupply from Africa meant that at its end the population numbered only about 500,000, ruled by some 32,000 Whites. At all times, a majority of slaves in the colony were African-born, as the brutal conditions of slavery prevented the population from experiencing growth through natural increase^*. African culture thus remained strong among slaves to the end of French rule.

Saint-Domingue also had the largest and wealthiest free population of color in the Caribbean, a group also known as the gens de couleur. The royal census of 1789 counted roughly 25,000 such persons. Typically they were the descendants of the enslaved women that French colonists took as mistresses. Though many free people of color were former slaves, most members of this class appear not to have been free Africans, but rather people of mixed European and African ancestry, or mulattoes.

The Revolutionary Period

Main article: Haïtian Revolution

The outbreak of revolution in France in the summer of 1789 had a powerful effect on the colony. While the French settlers debated how new revolutionary laws would apply to Saint-Domingue, outright civil war broke out in 1790 when the free men of color claimed they too were French citizens under the terms of the Declaration of the Rights of Man.

On August 22, 1791, slaves in the northern region of the colony staged a revolt that began the Haïtian Revolution. Tradition marks the beginning of the revolution at a vodou ceremony at Bois Caïman (Alligator Woods) near Cap-Français (now Cap-Haïtien). The call to arms was issued by a Houngan (Vodou priest) named Boukman. Within hours the northern plantations were in flames. The rebellion spread through the entire colony. Boukman was captured and executed, but the rebellion continued to rapidly spread.

In 1792, Léger-Félicité Sonthonax was sent to the colony by the French Legislative Assembly as part of the Revolutionary Commission. His main goal was to maintain French control of Saint-Domingue, stabalize the colony, and enforce the social equality recently granted to free people of color by the National Convention of France.

On August 29, 1793, Sonthonax took the radical step of proclaiming the freedom of the slaves in the north province (with severe limits on their freedom). In September and October, emancipation was extended throughout the colony. On February 4, 1794 the French National Convention ratified this act, applying it to all French colonies.

The slaves did not immediately flock to Sonthonax's banner, however. White colonists continued to fight Sonthonax, with assistance from the British. They were joined by many of the free men of color who opposed the abolition of slavery. It was not until word of France's ratification of emancipation arrived back in the colony that Toussaint L'Ouverture and his corps of well-disciplined, battle-hardened former slaves came over to the French Republican side in early May 1794. A change in the political winds in France caused Sonthonax to be recalled in 1796, but not before taking the step of arming the former slaves.

With the colony facing a full-scale invasion by Britain, the rebel slaves emerged as a powerful military force, under the leadership of Toussaint L'Ouverture, Jean-Jacques Dessalines and Henri Christophe. L'Ouverture successfully drove back the British and by 1798 was the defacto ruler of the colony. By 1800, he was in control of nearly the whole island. He did not, however, proclaim full independence for the country, nor did he seek reprisals against the country's former white slaveholders.

In 1802, Napoleon Bonaparte sent a massive invasion force under his brother-in-law Charles Leclerc. For a time, LeClerc met with some success. With a large expedition that eventually included 40,000 European troops, the French won several victories after severe fighting. At this point, he invited Toussaint to negotiate a settlement. But it was a deception; Toussaint was seized and deported to France, where he died in captivity in 1803. Intent on reconquest and reinslavement of the colony's black population, the war became a bloody struggle of atrocity and attrition. LeClerc, along with many of his troops, died of yellow fever during the campaign; he was then replaced by Donatien-Marie-Joseph de Vimeur, vicomte de Rochambeau. Rochembeau's brutal tactics helped unite black and mulatto soldiers against the French.

The tide of the war turned toward the former slaves. The indigenous army, now led by Dessalines, devastated Rochembeau and the French army at the Battle of Vertieres on November 18th, 1803. On January 1, 1804 Dessalines then declared independence, reclaiming the indigenous name of Haiti for the new nation.

Most of the remaining French colonists fled ahead of the defeated French army, many migrating to Louisiana. Unlike Toussaint, Dessalines felt little equanimity toward whites. In a final act of retribution, the remaining French were slaughtered by Haitian military forces.

One exception was a military force of Poles from the Polish Legions that had fought in Napoleon's army. Some of them refused to fight against blacks, supporting the principles of liberty; also, a few Poles (around 100) actually joined the rebels. (One of the Polish generals--Wladyslaw Franciszek Jablonowski--was, in fact, partly of African ancestry.) Therefore, Poles were allowed to stay and were spared the fate of other whites (About 400 of the 5280 Poles chose this option. Of the remainder, 700 returned to France and many were--after capitulation--forced to serve in British units.) 160 Poles were later given permission to leave Haiti and were sent to France at Haitian expense. Today, descendants of those Poles who stayed are living in Casale and Fond Des Blancs.

Upon assuming power, General Dessalines authorized the Constitution of 1804. This constitution, in terms of social freedoms, called for:

1. Freedom of Religion (Under Toussaint Catholicism had been declared the official state religion);

2. All citizens of Haïti, regardless of skin color, to be known as "Black." (This was an attempt to eliminate the multi-tiered racial hierarchy which had developed in Haïti, with full-blooded Europeans at the top, various levels of light to brown skin in the middle, and dark skinned "Kongo" from Africa at the bottom). Despite guarantees of their safety, however, those French settlers who stayed in Haïti after independence were slaughtered on Dessalines' orders.

Haiti is the world's oldest Black republic and the second-oldest republic in the Western Hemisphere, after the United States. Although Haiti actively assisted the independence movements of many Latin American countries, the independent nation of former slaves was excluded from the hemisphere's first regional meeting of independent nations, in Panama in 1826, and did not receive U.S. diplomatic recognition until 1862.

In January 1804, Dessalines, emulating Napoleon, proclaimed himself Emperor Jacques I, but his increasingly oppressive rule provoked his assassination in 1806, and the country was divided between the rival regimes of Christophe in the north and Alexandre Pétion in the south. In 1811, Christophe proclaimed himself King Henri I, but after his suicide in 1820 Haiti was reunited under Pétion's successor, Jean Pierre Boyer, who ruled as president until his overthrow in 1843. He was forced to pay a huge indemnity to France for the loss of French property during the revolution. To pay this, he had to float loans in France, putting Haïti into a state of debt from which it has seldom escaped.

Meanwhile, in 1809, Spain reoccupied the eastern two-thirds of the island. When the Spanish settlers declared independence in 1821, Haiti invaded the country and annexed it. The entire island remained under Haitian rule until 1844, when the eastern portion revolted and became the Dominican Republic.

Political struggles

In 1843, a revolt, led by Charles Rivière-Hérard, overthrew Boyer and established a brief parliamentary rule under the Constitution of 1843. Revolts soon broke out and the country descended into near anarchy, with a series of transient presidents until March 1847, when General Faustin Soulouque, a former slave who had fought in the rebellion of 1791, became President. In 1849, taking advantage of his popularity, he proclaimed himself Emperor Faustin I. His iron rule succeeded in uniting Haiti for a time, but rule came to an abrupt end in 1858 when he was deposed by General Fabre Geffrard, styled the Duke of Tabara.

Geffrard's military government held office until 1867, and he encouraged a policy of national reconciliation that worked surprisingly well. In 1860 he reached an agreement with the Vatican, reintroducing official Roman Catholic institutions, including schools, to the nation. In 1867 an attempt was made to establish constitutional government, but successive presidents Sylvain Salnave and Nissage Saget were overthrown in 1869 and 1874 respectively. A more workable constitution was introduced under Michel Domingue in 1874, leading to a long period of democratic peace and development for Haiti. The debt to France was finally repaid in 1879, and Michel Domingue's government peacefully transferred power to Lysius Salomon, one of Haïti's abler leaders. Monetary reform and a cultural renaissance ensued with a flowering of Haïtian art.

The last two decades of the 19th century were also marked by the development of a Haïtian intellectual culture. Major works of history were published in 1847 and 1865. Haïtian intellectuals, led by Louis-Joseph Janvier and Antenor Firmin, engaged in a war of letters against a tide of racism and social Darwinism that emerged during this period.

The Constitution of 1867 saw peaceful and progressive transitions in government that did much to improve the economy and stability of the Haïtian nation and the condition of its people. Constitutional government restored the faith of the Haïtian people in legal institutions. The development of industrial sugar and rum industries near Port-au-Prince made Haïti, for a while, a model for economic growth in Latin American countries.

Foreign intervention

This period of relative stability and prosperity ended in 1911 when revolution broke out and the country slid once again into disorder and debt. In February 1915, Guillaume Sam established a dictatorship, but in July, he was lynched by a mob in Port-au-Prince. Shortly afterwards, the United States, responding to complaints to President Woodrow Wilson from American banks to which Haïti was deeply in debt, occupied the country. The occupation of Haïti lasted until 1934. Although the U.S. occupation was oppressive and sometimes brutal, reforms were carried out. The currency was reformed and the debt stabilised. Corruption was reduced, although never eradicated. Public health, education and agricultural development were greatly improved.

Although the U.S. remained the effective ruler of Haiti until 1934, a facade of constitutional government was restored, after Franklin D. Roosevelt, Under-Secretary for the Navy in the Wilson Administration, personally wrote a new constitution. Philippe Dartiguenave, Louis Borno and Sténio Vincent successively served as President. All these rulers came from the country's small mulatto minority, whom the Americans considered more "civilised," while the black majority was kept in subordination. The U.S. began to withdraw its forces in 1930, and the withdrawal was completed by Roosevelt, as President, in 1934, under his "Good Neighbor policy". The U.S. retained control of Haiti's external finances until 1947.

Renewed dictatorship

Sténio Vincent was succeeded as President in 1941 by Élie Lescot, but in 1946 increasing economic difficulties led to a military coup. The military junta handed over power to Dumarsais Estimé, a black Haïtian, who introduced major reforms in labor and social policy, and greatly expanded civil and political liberties for the black majority. In 1949 Lescot tried to change the constitution to allow for his own re-election, but in 1950 this triggered another coup. General Paul Magloire then established a dictatorship which lasted until December 1956, when he was forced to resign by a general strike. After a period of disorder, elections were held in September 1957, which saw Dr François Duvalier elected President.

Duvalier (known as "Papa Doc") soon established another dictatorship. His regime is regarded as one of the most repressive and corrupt of modern times, combining violence against political opponents with exploitation of the traditional voudon religion to instil fear in the majority of the population. Duvalier's paramilitary police, the Tonton Macoute, so named after a Voudon monster, carried out political murders, beatings, and intimidation. Duvalier's policies led to massive emigration of educated people, deepening Haïti's economic and social problems. But Duvalier appealed to the black middle class of which he was a member by introducing public works into middle class neighborhoods which previously had been unable to have paved roads, running water, or modern sewage systems. In 1964, Duvalier proclaimed himself "President for Life."

In 1971 Papa Doc entered into 99-year contract with Don Pierson representing Dupont Caribbean Inc. of Texas for a free port project on the old buccaneer stronghold of Tortuga island located some 10 miles off the north coast of the main Haitian island of Hispaniola.

On Duvalier's death in April 1971, power passed to his 19-year-old son Jean-Claude Duvalier (known as "Baby Doc"). Under Jean-Claude Duvalier Haïti's economic and political condition continued to decline, although some of the more fearsome elements of his father's regime were abolished. In 1974 Baby Doc expropriated the Freeport Tortuga project and this caused the venture to collapse. Attempts by successive U.S. administrations to prod Haïti towards democratic reforms failed, but the economic crisis brought on by the appearance of AIDS in Haïti in 1983 finally provoked a rebellion, and in February 1986, after months of disorder, the army forced Duvalier to resign and go into exile.

The Aristide era

From 1986 to 1990, Haiti was ruled by a series of provisional governments. In 1987, a new constitution was ratified, providing for an elected bicameral parliament, an elected president, and a prime minister, cabinet, ministers, and supreme court appointed by the president with parliament's consent. The Constitution also provided for political decentralization through the election of mayors and administrative bodies responsible for local government. At the first elections under the new constitution, in December 1990, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a charismatic Roman Catholic priest, won 67% of the vote in elections that international observers deemed largely free and fair.

Aristide's radical populist policies alarmed many of the country's elite, and, in September 1991, he was overthrown in a violent coup that brought General Raoul Cédras to power. There was violent resistance to the coup, in which hundreds were killed, and Aristide was forced into exile. An estimated 3,000-5,000 Haitians were killed during the period of military rule. The coup created a large-scale exodus of refugees to the U.S. The U.S. Coast Guard rescued a total of 41,342 Haïtians during 1991 and 1992. Most were denied entry to the United States and repatriated back to Haiti.

The military regime governed Haïti until 1993. Various initiatives to end the political crisis through the peaceful restoration of the constitutionally elected government failed. In July 1994, as repression mounted in Haïti and a civilian human rights monitoring mission was expelled from the country, the UN Security Council adopted UN Security Council Resolution 940, which authorized member states to use all necessary means to facilitate the departure of Haiti's military leadership and to restore Haïti's constitutionally elected government to power.

In mid-September, with U.S. troops prepared to enter Haïti by force, President Bill Clinton dispatched a negotiating team led by former President Jimmy Carter to persuade the authorities to step aside and allow for the return of constitutional rule. With intervening troops already airborne, Cédras and other top leaders agreed to step down. In October Aristide was able to return. Elections were held in June 1995. Aristide's coalition, the Lavalas (Waterfall) Political Organization, had a sweeping victory. When Aristide's term ended in February 1996, René Préval, a prominent Aristide political ally, was elected President with 88% of the vote: this was Haïti's first ever transition between two democratically elected presidents.

In late 1996, Aristide broke with Préval and formed a new political party, the Lavalas Family (Fanmi Lavalas, FL), which won elections in April 1997 for one-third of the Senate and local assemblies, but these results were not accepted by the government. The split between Aristide and Préval produced a dangerous political deadlock, and the government was unable to organize the local and parliamentary elections due in late 1998. In January 1999, Préval dismissed legislators whose terms had expired – the entire Chamber of Deputies and all but nine members of the Senate, and Préval then ruled by decree.

Elections for the Chamber of Deputies and two-thirds of the Senate took place in May 2000. The election drew a voter turnout of more than 60%, and the FL won a virtual sweep. But the elections were flawed by irregularities and fraud, and the opposition parties, regrouped in the Democratic Convergence (Convergence Democratique, CD), demanded that the elections be annulled, that Préval stand down and be replaced by a provisional government. In the meantime, the opposition announced it would boycott the November presidential and senatorial elections. Haïti's main aid donors threatened to cut off aid.

As a result of this impasse, the November 2000 elections were boycotted by the opposition, and Aristide was again elected president, with more than 90% of the vote, on a very low turnout. The opposition refused to accept the result or to recognise Aristide as president. Major disorders were prevented by the continuing presence of U.S. and other foreign forces, under U.N. auspices. The initial 21,000-strong force became a U.N. peacekeeping force of 6,000 troops in 1995, and was scaled back progressively over the next four years as a series of UN technical missions succeeded the peacekeeping force. In January 2000, the last U.S. troops departed.

The continuing political deadlock between Aristide and the opposition prevented legislative elections being held as scheduled in late 2003, and consequently the terms of most legislators expired in January, forcing Aristide to rule by decree. In December 2003, under increasing pressure, Aristide promised new elections within six months. He refused demands from the opposition that he step down immediately. Anti-Aristide protests in January 2004 led to violent clashes in Port-au-Prince, causing several deaths. In February, a revolt broke out in the city of Gonaïves, which was soon under rebel control. (See the article 2004 Haiti Rebellion.) The rebellion then began to spread, and Cap-Haïtien, Haïti's second-largest city, was captured. A mediation team of diplomats presented a plan to reduce Aristide's power, while allowing him to remain in office until the constitutional end of his term. Although Aristide accepted the plan, it was rejected by the opposition.

As rebels began marching towards Port-au-Prince, Aristide departed from Haïti on February 29. There is controversy over whether or not he was forced by the U.S. to leave the country; Aristide claims that he was essentially kidnapped by the U.S., while the U.S. maintains that he resigned. The government was taken over by supreme court chief Boniface Alexandre. Many political organizations and writers, as well as Aristide himself, have suggested that the rebellion was in fact a foreign controlled coup d'état. Caricom, which had been backing the peace deal, accused the United States, France, and the International community of failing in Haïti because they allowed a democratically elected leader to be violently forced out of office. The U.S. claimed that the crisis was of Aristide's making and that he was not acting in the best interests of his country. They have argued that his removal was necessary for future stability in the island nation.

After Aristide's overthrow, the violence in Haïti continued, despite the presence of peacekeepers. Clashes between police and Fanmi Lavalas supporters were common, and peacekeeping forces were accused of conducting a massacre against the residents of Cité Soleil in July 2005. Many protests were organized to demand the return of Aristide. Several of the protests resulted in violence and deaths. In the midst of the ongoing controversy and violence, however, the interim government planned legislative and executive elections. After being postponed several times, these were held in February 2006.

References

Bob Corbett's 1995 on-line course on Haïtian history
Article by Naomi Klein in The Nation
Article by Aaron Mate from Z-Net
Haiti-news list - news and information about current events in Haïti
The Louverture Project - A Haïtian History Wiki