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The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2001. |
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Haiti |
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(h |
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Land and People |
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The country is mostly
mountainous, but about one third of the land is arable. Once covered by
forest, the country has been heavily logged for wood and fuel and to clear
land for farming, and is now largely deforested. Haiti is divided into nine
administrative departments. In addition to the capital, other important
cities include Cap-Haïtien
and Gonaïves. Haiti
is the most densely populated country in Latin America and has the lowest per
capita income, with about half the people unemployed and three quarters
living in the severest poverty. Prolonged economic inequality, political
instability and repression, and a near total lack of medical care continue to
be serious problems. The economic and political situation have caused
numerous Haitians to emigrate, especially to the United States. |
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About 95% of the inhabitants
are descendants of African slaves who still follow West African cultural
patterns. Since the mid-19th cent., however, Haiti has been dominated by the
mulatto minority, which clings to the French cultural tradition. French is
the official languages of Haiti, although the vast majority of the people speak
Haitian Creole, a French dialect. Roman Catholicism is the predominant
religion, but African nature gods are still worshiped, and vodun
(voodoo) rites are practiced and are an officially recognized religion. |
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Economy |
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Agriculture is the principal
economic activity in Haiti. Subsistence crops include cassava, rice,
sugarcane, sorghum, yams, corn, and plantains. Most Haitians own and farm
tiny plots of land, and great population density has caused rural poverty and
is also a factor in the country’s extensive deforestation, which has
contributed to the degradation of agricultural land. Haiti’s major exports
are light manufactures and coffee; other exports include cotton, sugar,
sisal, bauxite, and essences. The United States is the country’s leading
trading partner. Industry in Haiti consists largely of light manufacturing;
products include refined sugar and other foodstuffs, textiles, cement,
liquors, essential oils, leather goods, soap, and footwear. Some bauxite and
copper are mined, but other mineral deposits have barely been tapped.
Economic sanctions imposed by the United States and others to force a
military regime to return power to the elected government, and again later
because of the government’s inability to meet aid conditions, further damaged
the impoverished economy during the 1990s and early 2000s. |
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History |
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Early History to
Independence |
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The island of Hispaniola was
inhabited by the Arawaks prior to the arrival of Columbus in 1492. Disease,
ill treatment, and execution by the Spaniards decimated the Arawaks, who gave
Haiti (“land of mountains”) its name. While establishing plantations in E
Hispaniola (now the Dominican Republic), however, the Spanish largely ignored
the western part of the island, which by the 17th cent. became a base for
French and English buccaneers. Gradually French colonists, importing African
slaves, developed sugar plantations on the northern coast. Unable to support
its claim to the region, Spain ceded Haiti (then called Saint-Dominque) to
France in 1697. |
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Haiti became France’s most
prosperous colony in the Americas and one of the world’s chief coffee and
sugar producers. The pattern of settlement took the French south in the 18th
cent. and society became stratified into Frenchmen, Creoles, freed blacks,
and black slaves. Between the blacks and the French and Creoles were the
mulattoes, whose social status was indeterminate. When French-descended
Creole planters sought to prevent mulatto representation in the French
National Assembly and in local assemblies in Saint-Dominque, the mulattoes
revolted under the leadership of Vincent Ogé. This rebellion
destroyed the rigid structure of Haitian society. The blacks formed guerrilla
bands led by Toussaint
L’Ouverture, a former slave who had been made an officer of the French
forces on Hispaniola. |
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When the English invaded Haiti
in 1793 during the Napoleonic Wars, Toussaint maintained an uneasy alliance
with the mulatto André Rigaud
and cooperated with the remnant of French governmental authority. In 1795, Spain
ceded its part of the island to France, and in 1801 Toussaint conquered it,
abolished slavery, and proclaimed himself governor-general of an autonomous
government over all Hispaniola. Napoleon sent his brother-in-law, Gen.
Charles Leclerc,
with a huge punitive force to restore order in 1802, but he was unable to
conquer the interior. |
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A peace was negotiated, and
Toussaint, taken by trickery, died in a French prison; but the revolt continued
and forced the French troops, already ravaged by yellow fever, to withdraw.
The rebels received unexpected aid from U.S. President Thomas Jefferson, who
feared that Napoleon would use Saint-Dominque as a base to invade Louisiana.
In 1804, Haiti became the second nation in the Western Hemisphere, after the
United States, to win complete independence. |
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The Struggles of
Nationhood |
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After independence the
remaining French and Creoles were expelled, and Jean-Jacques Dessalines, an
ex-slave, proclaimed himself emperor. His assassination (1806) led to the
division of Haiti into a black-controlled north under Emperor Henri Christophe and a
mulatto-ruled south under President Alexandre Pétion. After their
deaths Haiti was unified by Jean Pierre Boyer, who also
brought (1822–44) Santo Domingo under Haitian control. Seeking to indemnify
French planters, Boyer brought financial ruin to Haiti; he was exiled in
1843. Haiti’s last emperor (1847–59) was Faustin Soulouque. Since the
end of his reign, the country has been a republic. Political and social
conflict persisted, intensified by the mulatto-black hostility, and Haiti’s
economy, which had never recovered from the violent struggle for
independence, declined further. |
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After the dictator Guillaume
Sam was killed in a popular uprising in 1915, the United States, troubled
over its property and investments in the country and fearing Germany might
seize Haiti, took the opportunity to invade Port-au-Prince. The Haitian
congress was forced to accept an agreement permitting U.S. control over
customs receipts; two years later the resident American naval commander
dissolved the congress and dictated a new constitution. Although financial
and general material progress advanced under American military occupation,
Haiti protested against U.S. violation of its sovereignty, and a U.S. Senate
investigation in 1921 found that the avowed purpose of preparing Haiti for
responsible self-government had been ignored. In 1930 a U.S. presidential
commission recommended that Haiti be allowed to elect a legislature that
would, in turn, name a president. Sténio Vincent, a vocal opponent of U.S.
military occupation, was chosen by the legislators. The marines were finally
withdrawn in 1934, although U.S. fiscal control was maintained until 1947. |
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Political instability
persisted in Haiti after World War II, and the country’s future was clouded
by rising turbulence in the Dominican Republic and by the emergence of a
Communist Cuba. François (“Papa Doc”) Duvalier, who was
elected president in 1957, suppressed opposition through the creation of his
paramilitary secret police, the tonton macoutes. In 1964 he proclaimed
himself president for life. Upon his death in 1971 he was succeeded by his
19-year-old son, Jean-Claude (“Baby Doc”), who also became president for
life. After 15 additional years of corruption, repression, and inequality
under the younger Duvalier, popular discontent became great enough to induce
him to flee the country in 1986. |
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Starting in 1986 there were
several brief attempts at civilian democracy, each terminated by a military
coup. In Sept., 1991, Jean-Bertrand Aristide was forced
to flee the country only nine months after becoming the first freely elected
president in Haiti’s history. The United States and the Organization of
American States responded with a trade embargo, and in 1993 a UN-sponsored
oil embargo was imposed. An accord in 1993 providing for Aristide’s return
was repudiated by the army, which used terrorist violence to maintain power. |
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In 1994 the United Nations
approved a nearly total trade embargo, and later authorized the use of force
to restore democratic rule. On Sept. 18, 1994, as U.S. forces were poised to
invade the island, an accord was negotiated. Haiti’s military leaders
relinquished power under an amnesty, and U.S. forces landed to oversee the
transition. Aristide returned on Oct. 15 as president; U.S. troops were
largely replaced by UN peacekeepers in Mar., 1995. In the Dec. presidential
election that year, René Préval was elected to succeed Aristide. In Apr.,
1996, the last U.S. troops left, except for a few hundred in the capital who
remained until Jan., 2000; meanwhile, after a wave of political killings, the
United States suspended aid to Haiti. |
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In Jan., 1999, following a
series of disagreements with Haitian legislators, Préval declared that their
terms had expired, and he began ruling by decree. Parliamentary elections
were finally held in May–June, 2000. They gave Aristide’s Lavalas Family
party an overwhelming majority in both houses, but the method of counting the
votes, in which only those won by the four leading candidates were tallied
and candidates thus did not need to win an actual absolute majority, was widely
criticized. |
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In Nov., 2000, Aristide was
again elected president, winning nearly 92% of the votes cast, but turnout
for the election was light. The following year Amnesty International said
that human rights and the rule of law had diminished in Haiti, citing
harassment of opposition politicians and attacks on journalists. There was an
apparent coup attempt against Aristide in Dec., 2001, although it was unclear
who was behind it. The political stalemate with the opposition led to the
freezing of foreign aid and ongoing economic hardship in Haiti. |
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Violence between supporters
and opponents of the president increased in 2003, and several of Aristide’s
cabinet ministers resigned bu the end of the year. Parliamentary elections
failed to be held, resulting in the dissolution of parliament in Jan., 2004,
leaving Aristide to rule by decree and sparking recurring anti-Aristide
opposition demonstrations in the streets. In February an armed uprising began
in Gonaïves, and by the end of the month armed rebels consisting of
disaffected gangs formerly allied with the government, former soldiers,
paramilitaries, and police, and others, were on the verge of entering the
capital. |
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Under pressure from the United
States and France, Aristide resigned and went into exile, subsequently
accusing U.S. and French officials variously of duping, coercing, or
kidnapping him. U.S., French, Canadian, and Chilean forces arrived to
maintain order, and an interim government headed by Gérard Latortue, a former
foreign minister, was established. The Caribbean Community, however, refused
to recognize Prime Minister Latortue, and called for a UN investigation into
Aristide’s resignation. In April Latortue announced that general elections
for a new government would be held in 2005. A UN peacekeeping force led by
Brazil began replacing U.S., Canadian, and French forces in June. |
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Flooding from heavy rains in
May killed some 1,700 in the south near the Dominican Republic, and in
September Tropical Storm Jeanne caused additional deadly flooding, especially
in the area around Gonaïves, where some 2,500 died. The September flooding
also caused significant agricultural damage. Lawlessness, on the part of
Aristide supporters and opponents as well as those left destitute by
flooding, was a problem in the country, despite the presence of foreign
peacekeepers. |
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Bibliography |
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See H. Courlander and R.
Bastien, Religion and Politics in Haiti (1966); R. W. Logan, Haiti
and the Dominican Republic (1968); H. Schmidt, The United States
Occupation of Haiti, 1915–1934 (1971); T. O. Ott, The Haitian
Revolution, 1789–1804 (1973); R. D. Heinl, Written in Blood: The Story
of the Haitian People, 1492–1971 (1978); B. Weinstein and A. Segal, Haiti:
Political Failures, Cultural Successes (1984); J. Ferguson, Papa Doc,
Baby Doc: Haiti and the Duvaliers (1987). |
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