The island of Hispaniola, of which Haiti occupies the western three-eighths,[18][19] has been inhabited since around 6,000 years ago by Native Americans who are thought to have arrived from Central or northern South America.

At the time of European contact, the island of Hispaniola was divided among five 'caciquedoms': the Magua in the northeast, the Marien in the northwest, the Jaragua in the southwest, the Maguana in the central regions of Cibao, and the Higüey in the southeast.

[67] Saint-Domingue has been described as one of the most brutally efficient slave colonies; at the end of the eighteenth century it was supplying two-thirds of Europe's tropical produce while one-third of newly imported Africans died within a few years.

However, an insurgency against French rule broke out in the east, and in the west there was fighting between Louverture's forces and the free people of color led by André Rigaud in the War of the Knives (1799–1800).

[81] After Louverture created a separatist constitution and proclaimed himself governor-general for life, Napoléon Bonaparte in 1802 sent an expedition of 20,000 soldiers and as many sailors[82] under the command of his brother-in-law, Charles Leclerc, to reassert French control.

[68][85] The enslaved persons, along with free gens de couleur and allies, continued their fight for independence, led by generals Jean-Jacques Dessalines, Alexandre Pétion and Henry Christophe.

[86] Under the overall command of Dessalines, the Haitian armies avoided open battle, and instead conducted a successful guerrilla campaign against the Napoleonic forces, working with diseases such as yellow fever to reduce the numbers of French soldiers.

[101] In 1809, 9,000 refugees from Saint-Domingue, both white planters and people of color, settled en masse in New Orleans, doubling the city's population, having been expelled from their initial refuge in Cuba by Spanish authorities.

[110] Meanwhile, the French, who had managed to maintain a precarious control of eastern Hispaniola, were defeated by insurgents led by Juan Sánchez Ramírez, with the area returning to Spanish rule in 1809 following the Battle of Palo Hincado.

[134][135] The German influence prompted anxieties in the United States, who had also invested heavily in the country, and whose government defended their right to oppose foreign interference in the Americas under the Monroe Doctrine.

[135][137] Fearing possible foreign intervention, or the emergence of a new government led by the anti-American Haitian politician Rosalvo Bobo, President Woodrow Wilson sent U.S. Marines into Haiti in July 1915.

The constitution (written by future US President Franklin D. Roosevelt) included a clause that allowed, for the first time, foreign ownership of land in Haiti, which was bitterly opposed by the Haitian legislature and citizenry.

[135] 1700 km of roads were made usable, 189 bridges were built, many irrigation canals were rehabilitated, hospitals, schools, and public buildings were constructed, and drinking water was brought to the main cities.

[139][incomplete short citation] However, many infrastructure projects were built using the corvée system that allowed the government/occupying forces to take people from their homes and farms, at gunpoint if necessary, to build roads, bridges etc.

[52][160] Not trusting the army, despite his frequent purges of officers deemed disloyal, Duvalier created a private militia known as Tontons Macoutes ("Bogeymen"), which maintained order by terrorizing the populace and political opponents.

[159][161] In 1964 Duvalier proclaimed himself 'President for Life'; an uprising against his rule that year in Jérémie was violently suppressed, with the ringleaders publicly executed and hundreds of mixed-raced citizens in the town killed.

[52][171] Another coup followed in September 1988, after the St. Jean Bosco massacre in which approximately 13 to 50 people attending a mass led by prominent government critic and Catholic priest Jean-Bertrand Aristide were killed.

[200] The situation was exacerbated by a subsequent massive cholera outbreak that was triggered when cholera-infected waste from a United Nations peacekeeping station contaminated the country's main river, the Artibonite.

[189][201][202] In 2017, it was reported that roughly 10,000 Haitians had died and nearly a million had been made ill. After years of denial, the United Nations apologized in 2016, but as of 2017[update], they have refused to acknowledge fault, thus avoiding financial responsibility.

[281][282][283][284] In 2012 and 2013, 150 HNP officers received specialized training funded by the US government, which also contributed to the infrastructure and communications support by upgrading radio capacity and constructing new police stations from the most violent-prone neighborhoods of Cité Soleil and Grande Ravine in Port-au-Prince to the new northern industrial park at Caracol.

[294] In September 2009, Haiti met the conditions set out by the IMF and World Bank's Heavily Indebted Poor Countries program to qualify for cancellation of its external debt.

[300] Neighboring Dominican Republic has also provided extensive humanitarian aid to Haiti, including the funding and construction of a public university,[301] human capital, free healthcare services in the border region, and logistical support after the 2010 earthquake.

[305] In addition, local agricultural products include maize, beans, cassava, sweet potato, peanuts, pistachios, bananas, millet, pigeon peas, sugarcane, rice, sorghum, and wood.

[334][335] South Korean clothing manufacturer Sae-A Trading Co. Ltd, the park's only major tenant, created 5,000 permanent jobs out of the 20,000 it had projected and promised to build 5,000 houses yet only 750 homes had been built near Caracol by 2014.

[338] Toussaint Louverture International Airport, located ten kilometers (six miles) north-northeast of Port-au-Prince proper in the commune of Tabarre, is the primary hub for entry and exit into the country.

During this time, the enslaved persons and the affranchis were given limited opportunities toward education, income, and occupations, but even after gaining independence, the social structure remains a legacy today as the disparity between the upper and lower classes have not been reformed significantly since the colonial days.

[356] Religion in Haiti according to the Pew Research Center (2010)[357] The 2018 CIA World Factbook reported that 55% of Haitians were Catholics and 29% were Protestants (Baptist 15.4%, Pentecostal 7.9%, Seventh-day Adventist 3%, Methodist 1.5%, other 0.7%).

This reflect Vodou's colonial origins, when enslaved persons were obliged to disguise their traditional loa (lwa), or spirits, as Catholic saints, as part of a process called syncretism.

As such, it is difficult to estimate the number of Vodouists in Haiti,[362][363] especially given the legacy of historic persecution and misrepresentation in popular media and culture, as well as modern stigmatization among segments of the growing Protestant population.

[402] Some notable artists of more recent times include Edouard Duval-Carrié, Frantz Zéphirin, Leroy Exil, Prosper Pierre Louis and Louisiane Saint Fleurant.