Haiti - hāˈtē, Fr. Haïtiäētēˈ, officially Republic of Haiti, republic (1995 est. pop. 6,540,000), 10,700 sq mi (27,713 sq km), West Indies, on the western third of the island of Hispaniola. It is bounded on the north by the Atlantic Ocean, on the south by the Caribbean Sea, and on the east by the Dominican Republic. Jamaica lies to the west and Cuba to the northwest. The offshore islands of Tortuga and Gonâve also belong to Haiti. The capital and largest city is
Port-au-Prince.
Land and People 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. 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. Economy 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 later the government's inability to meet aid conditions, further damaged the impoverished economy during and after the 1990s. History Early History to Independence 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. 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. 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. 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. The Struggles of Nationhood 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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 |
