"White Hell in Black Haiti": An Excursion to Haiti Wherein the Question is Asked, "What Happened?"
Ah, the Caribbean! Turquoise water, miles of sandy beaches, tropical climate. Island paradises mostly, large and small. The Bahamas. Jamaica. Also, Cuba, but that's another story. Vibrant, ancient cultures with unique resources and vast potential. Perfect destinations for adventure or a relaxing getaway.
And then there's Haiti. Haiti shares in all the exquisite qualities of those other intoxicating places except for a few key amenities. National security, for one. A functioning government. Potable water. Public health. Reliable electricity.
Haiti desperately needs the world's attention—multinational peacekeeping forces and an arms embargo, especially. But still, all that sunshine and oceanfront just a few hours by air from Miami. It was good enough for Christopher Columbus back in 1492 when he appropriated it for Spain as Española (Hispaniola). What will it take to get you onto this plane today?
By the printing of the map reproduced above, most of the native Taino people had been wiped out by Spanish enslavement, conflict, and disease. Things haven't improved much since then. Haiti is not alone in suffering the ravages of colonialism in this region, but it does appear singularly unable to regain its equilibrium. What happened for Haiti to warrant its persistent candidacy as a failed state?
There's a lot of ground to cover here so we'll have to be selective. To the detriment of its people and resources, Haiti was a colonial project from the moment Columbus's expedition made landfall.
La Navidad
The Spanish had first visited Cuba in search of gold and referred to Haiti as a place where that metal was more readily available. They reached Haiti around December 6, 1492, and went ashore.
The circumstances presented an extraordinary case of misperception: the expedition members thought they were in India; the Taino natives thought the Spanish explorers were gods. The English translation below appears with the Latin facsimile.
Columbus omitted an important detail in this particular letter: he lost his flagship the Santa Maria when it went aground on Christmas Eve through the carelessness of the crew. He still had the Niña, but the Pinta had not yet caught up with him from Cuba.
Although he was able to salvage much of his cargo he faced a dilemma. The two remaining ships were not large enough to support their crews plus that of the Santa Maria, so the return voyage to Spain would need to be done in two stages. Some would need to stay behind.
Columbus enlisted the help of the Taino in constructing a small fort on the Bay of Acul about ten miles west of present-day Cap-Haitien. He named this place La Navidad as he had landed there on Christmas Day. He then chose thirty-eight of his men to remain there while he returned to Spain.
The narrative below comes from a 1784 history of America. "Guacanahari" is the name of the Taino chief of that locale.
After giving such impressions both of the beneficence and power of the Spaniards, as might have rendered it easy to preserve an ascendant over the minds of the natives, Columbus appointed thirty-eight of his people to remain in the island. He entrusted the command of these to Diego de Arada, a gentleman of Cordova, investing him with the same powers which he himself had received from Ferdinand and Isabella; and furnished him with every thing requisite for the subsistence or defence of this infant colony. He strictly enjoined them to maintain concord among themselves, to yield an unreserved obedience to their commander, to avoid giving offense to the natives by any violence or exaction, to cultivate the friendship of Guacanahari, but not to put themselves in his power by straggling in small parties, or marching too far from the fort.
When Columbus returned as an admiral and a hero with seventeen ships late in 1493, the fort was gone:
The familiar intercourse of the Indians with the Spaniards tended gradually to diminish the superstitious veneration with which their first appearance had inspired that simple people. By their own indiscretion and ill conduct, the Spaniards speedily effaced those favorable impressions, and soon convinced the natives, that they had all the wants, and weaknesses, and passions of men. As soon as the powerful restraint which the presence and authority of Columbus imposed was withdrawn, the garrison threw off all regard for the officer whom he had invested with command. Regardless of the prudent instructions which he had given them, every man became independent, and gratified his desires without controul. The gold, the women, the provisions of the natives, were all the prey of those licentious oppressors. They roamed in small parties over the island, extending their rapacity and insolence to every corner of it. Gentle and timid as the people were, those unprovoked injuries at length exhausted their patience, and rouzed their courage. The cazique of Cibao, whose country the Spaniards chiefly infested on account of the gold which it contained, surprised and cut off several of them, while they straggled in as perfect security as if their conduct had been altogether inoffensive. He then assembled his subjects, and surrounded the fort, set it on fire. Some of the Spaniards were killed in defending it, the rest perished in attempting to make their escape by crossing an arm of the sea.
The pattern of colonial overreach, native resistance, and imperialist retaliation would more or less continue through successive waves of colonization by the Spanish, the British, the French, and finally the Americans.
From Hispaniola to Haiti
The distinction between Haiti and the Dominican Republic came about when France had a falling out with Spain around 1520. Spain had depleted the mineral wealth of Hispaniola and shifted its attention to Mexico and Peru, leaving an opening for French privateers to locate first on the island of Tortuga on the north coast of Haiti, and subsequently on the western portion of the mainland.
The page below is taken from a U.S. Congressional Serial Set handbook on Haiti published in 1892 by the International Bureau of the American Republics.
France had about a century to exploit what it called Saint-Domingue for its coffee, sugar, cocoa, and cotton. As before, slavery figured largely in the island's economy.
In 1789, however, France underwent a revolution.
About that time a self-emancipated slave by the name of Toussaint L‘Ouverture rose to lead the natives first against British interlopers and eventually against the French themselves. His promulgation of a separatist constitution put him at odds with Napoleon Bonaparte.
L'Ouverture was kidnapped and taken to France where he died in 1803. But his successor, Jean-Jacques Dessalines, defeated the French troops and proclaimed Haiti's independence in 1804. Its independence was not recognized in Europe or the United States because of the threat that would be introduced to the institution of slavery.
The negroes being now in peaceable possession of a considerable part of the Island, their Chiefs turned their thoughts upon the best method of establishing a government. A convention of all the Chiefs and great men was held, who declared themselves and their subjects independent of the French from the first day of January 1804. Previous to this time, although they had been for many years at war with the French, they never had declared off.
The name of the island was changed from Hispaniola to Haiti, which was its original name when discovered by Columbus in 1492.
They abolished the French calendar and substituted that of ours; they swore eternal enmity to the French, and that they would die rather than again submit to their government.
They struck out the word Francois from Cape Francois, and renewed the name of Port-au-Prince, which had been for several years called Port Republican by the French.
They created Dessalines Governor of the island with the power of nominating his successor.
They divided the island into five departments each of which to be governed by an officer stiled a General of Division. The smaller sections and towns again of these divisions were to be governed by Generals of Brigade and other inferior officers.
The French would have their revenge, however. In 1825, Charles X, King of France, sent an emissary and a fleet to Haiti with the offer of official recognition of Haitian independence.
But it came at a steep price: five installments of 150,000,000 francs intended to compensate former slaveholders in Haiti who were dispossessed of their property, and a 50% reduction of customs duties for French traders.
An editorial in Baltimore's American and Commercial Daily Advertiser points out the arrogance of such a naked exercise of gunboat diplomacy by the French.
The French monarch begins by an exercise of royal power such as not been exercised in Hayti for the space of thirty five years: "We ordain that the ports of St. Domingo are opened to all nations"—phraseology that every Haytian should have spurned at with indignation. In short, the document is an assertion of royal power, and no recognition of Haytian independence whatever. A recognition should, if made, be made plain, palpable and direct; subject to no inuendoes—liable to no equivocations—susceptible of but one construction. France was under no compulsory power to recognize Hayti; but having claimed 150 millions as the price of recognition, she was bound in good faith to recognize. The French editors are quite pleased with this low specimen of double dealing, and exultingly mention the transaction as if it redounded to the glory of their monarch. But the common sense and common justice of mankind will give a very different name to this action. They will see in it nothing but another base evidence of royal intrigue and low cunning, a fair proof of how little estimation is legitimate monarchy in the minds of the enlightened and honest.
Think about this: the slaves who won their freedom on the battlefield were now compensating their former slaveholders for the expense of liberating the latter's "property." It's only justice to remark that the French went from privateering to profiteering with this extortionate transaction.
Perhaps Haitian President Jean-Pierre Boyer should have rejected this offer even at the risk of another war, but it is very much to the credit of Haiti that it paid this promissory note in full though it took 122 years to do it.
Today there is a mounting call for France to repay the Haitian state for this shameful indemnity. One can only wonder how much more settled Haiti's affairs might be today if its citizens had not shouldered this heavy financial burden for more than a century.
We've seen how the Spanish misbehaved from Day One of Colombus's expropriation of "Hispaniola" from its indigenous population, and how the French succeeded the Spanish in plundering Saint-Domingue for centuries. Now we turn to the Americans.
An Outrage of International Law
This article is from the Washington Bee (Washington DC) in 1920. Things were bad enough when Haiti wasn't recognized by the United States due to the fear that would lead to the wholesale insurrection of American slaves. Recognition (and military occupation) was hardly a shining moment for the Monroe Doctrine though.
Fearing intervention, the United States itself intervened in the affairs of its sovereign neighbor. This episode started in 1915 courtesy of U.S. President Woodrow Wilson, an acknowledged racist. In that year America forced a treaty on Haiti every bit as unjust and punitive as the French "recognition" agreement of 1824.
Here's some text to go with that alarming headline. The writer proceeded to demolish the criteria given as a rationale for American intervention. "Christophe" refers to Henri Christophe, Haiti's former president and only king, who allegedly shot himself with a silver bullet in 1820. We'll have more to say about him and his works later.
Haiti is ruled today by martial law dispensed by Americans. There are nearly three thousand American Marines in Haiti, and American control is maintained by their bayonets. In the five years of American occupation more than three thousand innocent Haitians have been slaughtered.
It is a people of Negro blood, who have produced a Christophe and Dessalines, who have given to the world one of its greatest statesman, Toussaint L'Ouverture, who have behind them a history of which they have every right to be proud, that are now threatened with the loss of their independence; that have now fallen not only under American political domination, but under the domination of American prejudice.
There are three grounds on which the attempt is made to justify American intervention and the military occupation of Haiti. The first is that such a state of anarchy and bloodshed had been reached as could no longer be tolerated by the civilized world; the second, that the Haitians have demonstrated absolute unfitness to govern themselves; and the third, that great benefits have been brought to Haiti by American control.
Here's another forceful headline, from the Cleveland Gazette in 1924. Apparently, the administration of Calvin Coolidge didn't improve on Wilson's initiative. It would take until 1934 for America's occupation of Haiti to end, and until 1947 for America to stop micromanaging Haiti's finances.
The above cases of rapacious intervention document over four hundred years of extenuating circumstances in Haiti's political and economic development but are by no means intended to excuse the abuse of power by natives of that country.
"I am the Haitian people"
The man who rose to power in 1957, Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier, was both a medical doctor and "Papa" to Jean Claude, the teenage boy who would succeed him as "president for life" upon his father's death in 1971.
The dynasty of Papa Doc and "Baby Doc" would haunt Haiti as would their dreaded paramilitary force, the Tonton Macoute, that terrorized any who dared stand against them. Tonton Macoute translates roughly to "Bogeyman" in Creole. Certainly that, but much, much worse.
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti—As the black presidential limousine sped along Dessalines avenue, the silver-haired Negro in the rear seat tossed fistfuls of currency from its open windows.
"Papa! Papa Doc!" cried an old woman hobbling forward on stumps of legs amputated at mid-thigh, while hundreds of other Haitians streamed past her from cluttered, unpaved side streets to scrounge the rewards of one of President Francois Duvalier's recent excursions outside his National Palace.
Another woman was more fortunate. She grabbed one of the 50-gourde notes without stepping from the gutter in which she and three children were doing their laundry.
The note she grabbed was the equivalent of $10 and represented two months' income for the average Haitian.
For Duvalier, the monthly ritual of scattering money from his car along the capital's principal thoroughfare manifests his self-conceived—and constitutionally supported—destiny as president for life over the 4.5 million inhabitants of this Negro republic in the Caribbean.
"I know the Haitian people because I am the Haitian people," Duvalier said in an interview after his latest such outing.
The United States supported Papa Doc because he was vocally anti-communist. True to his statement, "I am the Haitian people," Papa Doc epitomized the tortured history of his nation. However, if economic development and benevolence devolve to throwing money out of the windows of your limousine, you might not be the real savior of your republic.
As his chosen successor, Baby Doc Duvalier practiced despotism on his father's model albeit without the latter's medical credentials and scholarly devotion to voodoo arcana. In 1986 he was deposed in a military coup and fled with his wife to France.
With the military in control at last, surely there would be stability in the land, yes? Sadly, no.
In 1990, the charismatic Roman Catholic priest Jean-Bertrand Aristide gained the presidency with about two-thirds of the popular vote in the country's first democratic election.
He was deposed by the military and elites in 1991. His supporters brought him back in 1994 and he was reelected in 2001, but by 2004 he was forced into exile in South Africa.
His embrace of Liberation Theology and allegations of election fraud rendered him unpalatable to rebel factions within the country and to the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush. As recently as 2022 there were calls from Aristide's supporters for his return to power.
The following article was syndicated from The Haitian Times and appeared in a Texas newspaper.
Hundreds of supporters of former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide marched to his residence in Port-au-Prince June 26, beseeching him to return to power and lead Haiti as the country reaches yet another political impasse.
Demonstrators kicked off a procession at the intersection of Route de Delmas and Airport Road and ended it about 4 miles away in front of Aristide's private residence in Tabbare.
Protesters have called on the former president, head of the Fanmi Lavalas party, to get involved in finding a solution to the political chaos and apparent anarchy that have engulfed the nation, worsening in the years since Haiti's last president, Jovenel Moïse, was assassinated in his home.
"Aristide, it is you we want in the national palace. Come and get us out of this misery," said a protester to local journalists. "Titid, we need a good police force. We have nothing to eat. We have no access to health."
Wearing white caps and white T-shirts with slogans such as "restitution and reparation" and "Nap tann ou prezidan Titid," many of the demonstrators said they have no hope with the deterioration of Haiti's socioeconomic situation. They also asked Aristide to take over the reins of the country.
"The people who had chosen you Aristide since the 90s are ready to sacrifice themselves for you," said another protester.
Demonstrators walked along rara street bands and a sound truck as they voiced their frustration and anger. They carried photos, posters, flyers with pictures of the former president some called their ‘savior.'
This demonstration came a few days after Prime Minister Ariel Henry visited Aristide at his Tabarre home, one of the many meetings Henry has been holding with political leaders and groups. During the Aristide visit, Henry called on the civil society to work together to restore security in the country. Two weeks prior on June 8, Aristide also hosted Helen La Lime, the Special Representative of the United Nations Integrated Office, BINUH, at his home. No one at Fanmi Lavalas would say what the two discussed.
Two weeks before then, Aristide's name came back into the news after a series of New York Times articles titled "The Ransom" linked the coup d'etat that ousted the former head of state partially to his insistence that France pay back 150 million francs it had forced Haiti to pay after Haiti declared independence.
After the story's publication, some Fanmi Lavalas supporters and sympathizers began talking about the possibility of Aristide returning to power and requesting the return of this money paid to France by Haiti's President Jean Pierre Boyer.
More pro-Aristide talks and support appeared following the June 2 visit of Fabrice Mauriès, ambassador of France in Haiti, to Aristide's university and its newly built hospital.
Contacted by The Haitian Times, Fanmi Lavalas officials declined to say if the march was organized by the political party nor discuss the timing of the protest and La Lime's visit to Aristide residence.
Aristide was ousted twice during his first and second terms. The first bloody coup occurred in September 1991 and the second was carried out in February 2004, three years after the start of his second term.
"Aristide knew how to talk to people. They could have silenced the gang leaders," said another protester, whose name was not revealed, to news media.
Today Haiti is riven by gang warfare. The country's dire economic and humanitarian crisis was exacerbated by a 7.0 magnitude earthquake in 2010 and by Hurricane Matthew in 2016.
Haitians have so often been subject to military authority under France, Spain, Great Britain, and the United States. Is it any wonder then that Haiti's presumptive leaders so often reach for military solutions to political and economic problems?
Glorious Ruins
We began this narrative with the promise of an "excursion" and the invitation to travel. Now let's go on a virtual field trip.
In another browser window, go ahead and open your favorite online map application. Your first search will be for the "Sans-Souci Palace" in the administrative commune of Milot, Haiti.
Feast your eyes on this glorious ruin, the domicile of King Henri Christophe I (1767-1820). Engineering, ambition, aesthetics, finance, and logistics all came together to create this building although corvée labor (i.e., public labor owed to a feudal lord) also played a role.
Is it the equal of the palaces in the countries that colonized Haiti?
This writer would argue that it's certainly in the same neighborhood. The Sans-Souci Palace is orders of magnitude removed from the rude huts that Columbus disparaged. But wait, there's more…
Now navigate 6.3 kilometers southwest along the ridgeline to the Laferrière Citadel.
What you're looking at is the largest stone fortress in the Western Hemisphere, also the brainchild of King Henri Christophe I. This fort was erected for protection against the French. The walls are ten feet thick. It took fifteen years to build and was finished in 1820. It was never used.
Had this been on the coast, the French fleet would have exhausted itself in trying to breach it in 1825. But that fleet would have been reduced to splinters long before the fortress ran through its shells.
The Haitians tore down the fort at La Navidad and raised the Laferrière Citadel, a much more sophisticated structure than Columbus's modest outpost.
If the beauty of the Sans-Souci Palace is not enough to convince the reader that the Haitian people are capable of great things, well, there's also this expression of raw power. Both edifices are UNESCO World Heritage sites.
The Haitians have come a long way from the sharpened sticks they wielded when they first met the Spanish. Not only are Haitians capable of greatness, but history shows that they honor their debts, even those exacted on unequal terms.
Surely the dominant powers of the twenty-first century can be similarly magnanimous and find a seat at the table for Haiti despite the turmoil that slavery, war, extortion, earthquakes, and hurricanes have precipitated.
Start your own in-depth research on the complicated history of Haiti and other Caribbean nations in Readex collections like Black Life in America, Early American Newspapers, 1690-1922, and the U.S. Congressional Serial Set, 1817-1994.
