They served as a type of savings account for the Haitian peasant: sold or slaughtered to pay for marriages, medical emergencies, schooling, seeds for crops, or Voodoo ceremonies.

The dark black pigs are known for their boisterous nature and have been incorporated into elements of vodou folklore and the oral history of the Haitian Revolution.

In the late 1970s an outbreak of African swine fever hit the neighboring Dominican Republic and spread to Haiti.

The United States Agency for International Development, USAID, and the Haitian government led a campaign, known by the French acronym PEPPADEP (French: Programme pour l’éradication de la peste porcine africaine et pour le développement de l'élevage porcin), to exterminate Haiti's pigs.

[citation needed] Farmers who were compensated received pigs imported from the United States that were far more vulnerable to Haiti's environment and expensive to keep.