The Highway to Haiti

Nighttime – December 25th, 1492: The Santa Maria runs aground in the shallow waters off the north coast of modern-day Haiti. After a friendly encounter with the Taino natives, Christopher Columbus orders the ship disassembled and a fort at La Navidad becomes home to the 39 crewmen—left with instructions to search for gold! Columbus continues his expedition, vowing to return.

Less than a year later, Columbus returns to La Navidad and finds the bodies of his sailors—dead. Fort Navidad is burned to the ground. Columbus demands explanation from local chieftain, Guacanagari. Historians vary in their explanations of what exactly happened, but one thing is for certain: Spanish colonization of the island of Hispanola had only begun. Over the next 100 years, the Taino people of Hispanola (it is reasonable to believe there were as many as several million) are exterminated by the Spanish colonists—through genocide and non-native disease.

Fearing attack, Spain ordered a consolidation of its colonists to the town of Santo Domingo in 1609—the modern-day capital of the Dominican Republic. The move, however, left the north and western shores of Hispanola susceptible to British, Dutch and French expeditions.

In 1625, French settlements began to appear in western Hispanola, and within forty years, the western third of Hispanola was formally claimed by the French. Among the terms in the 1697 Treaty of Ryswick, Spain ceded the western third of Hispanola to France. This French colony was called Saint-Domingue. While the Spanish colony was failing, the French colony became the richest colony in the western hemisphere, due to the massive production of coffee, sugar, indigo, cacao and cotton. But Saint-Domingue’s wealth came at no small cost. By 1790, West African-born slaves numbered more than 400,000. Slaves outnumbered the French-governing and mulatto class 10 to 1.

In the next decade, the French Revolution ushered in enlightened thinking that preferred democracy and citizenship over monarchy and aristocracy, and lead to civil upheaval in France. Inspired by this, slaves rebelled against their masters in Saint-Domingue, and under the leadership of Toussaint L’Ouverture, a revolution followed. Napoleon Bonaparte quickly sent reinforcement to his prized colony to extinguish the flare-up. This action prompted Jean-Jacques Dessalines and Henri Christophe to clash with the ruthless French Commander Charles Leclerc and General Rochambeau. The brutality and terrorism employed by the French only drew more people into the rebel armies. Dessalines’ men delivered the fatal blow to Rochambeau’s army at the Battle of Vertieres on November 18th, 1803.

There is interesting overlap in the development of both Haiti and the United States. While slaves in Saint-Domingue (now Haiti) were fighting for their independence, American slave-owners feared that similar uprisings would result in the United States. Conversely, as Napoleon saw his prospects in the New World slip through his fingers, Thomas Jefferson used this opportunity to initiate the greatest real-estate acquisition in United States history. Jefferson had been watching France’s military activities closely. With French armies fighting battles in Europe, and suffering losses in Saint-Domingue (Haiti), Jefferson readied a delegation to offer a cash-strapped Bonaparte $10,000,000 to purchase the port of New Orleans—the gateway of the Mississippi River. Figuring his ambitions in the western hemisphere would be suspended indefinitely, Napoleon offered the entire Louisiana Territory to a shocked American delegation for about $15,000,000 (less than 3 cents/acre) in 1803.

On January 1st, 1804, Dessalines proclaimed the new nation’s independence, becoming the second independent country in the western hemisphere and the only successful slave rebellion in history. They named their new country Haiti, but modeled their new government after the same one that had enslaved them for 200 years. Haitian elite wished to live as their French masters did and employed a Haitian-yet-French social order. To this day, there are over a quarter-million “restaveks” in Haiti—a form of modern-day child slavery.

Lord Acton, a British historian, once said, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Unfortunately for this infant nation, checks and balances were not in place to prevent what had happened to them externally from beginning to germinate internally. Furthermore, Dessalines called for the massacre of any remaining French. Two years later, Haiti’s first ruler and Emperor for Life, Jean-Jacques Dessalines, was murdered by fellow freedom fighters. The nation divided in two, with the northern kingdom ruled by Henri Christophe, and the southern republic governed by Alexandre Petion. After Christophe’s death, the republic reunited.

During the next 200 years, Haiti would have over 50 presidential and provisional leaders. But accountability and integrity never became woven into the fabric of Haitian government; this is illustrated by the fact 23 presidents have been overthrown, 7 died in office, two were assassinated, one committed suicide and one was executed. Only 10 Haitian presidents have served full terms.

In 1937, Rafael Trujillo, dictator of the Dominican Republic, began what became known as the Parsley Massacre. In pursuit of blanquismo (whitening), Dominican troops were ordered to kill Haitian sugar cane workers living in the Dominican Republic. Haitian workers were identified and murdered if they could not pronounce the letter “r” in perejil, the Spanish word for parsley. Twenty thousand were left dead, and the Rio Massacre became the established border between the two countries.

In recent decades, father and son duo and Presidents-for-Life, Francois and Jean-Claude Duvalier ruled Haiti consecutively from 1957 to 1986. Their reign was marked by corruption, coercion and embezzlement of hundreds of millions of dollars in misappropriated funds. Under Francois Duvalier, a secret police organization known as the Ton Ton Macoutes was formed to terrorize opponents.

In 1983, Pope John Paul II visited Haiti and ended a rousing speech with the angered exclamation, “Things must change here!” This marked the beginning of the end of the Duvalier era. In 1991, former Catholic priest and champion for the poor, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, was elected president. Aristide was overthrown shortly thereafter; re-elected, and removed again in 2004, when U.S. Marines assisted in his controversial departure.

Today, Haiti’s population of 9,000,000 is similar to that of Sweden or Switzerland. Haiti’s land area is about the same as Israel or Taiwan. Almost $1 billion dollars are sent to Haiti annually by Haitians living in the United States. This form of benefactorism accounts for 25% of Haiti’s Gross Domestic Product. Average income is a little more than $1/day. Rene Preval is the president.

(Creole, French, and Spanish words used in this essay have been spelled without accents and non-English characters)