History of Haiti

There is still heated debate over the population of Taíno people on the island of Hispaniola in 1492 just prior to European arrival, but estimates range from no more than a few tens of thousands, according to a 2020 genetic analysis,[4][5] to upwards of 750,000.

The largest concentration of gens de couleur was in the southern peninsula, the last region of the colony to be settled, owing to its distance from Atlantic shipping lanes and its formidable terrain, with the highest mountain range in the Caribbean.

Through the efforts of a group called Société d'Amis des Noirs, of which Raimond and Ogé were prominent leaders, in March 1790 the National Assembly granted full civic rights to the gens de couleur.

However, the mulatto rebels refused to arm or free their slaves, or to challenge the status of slavery, and their attack was defeated by a force of white militia and black volunteers (including Henri Christophe).

Sonthonax's main goal was to maintain French control of Saint-Domingue, stabilize the colony, and enforce the social equality recently granted to free people of color by the National Convention of France.

The country inhabitated mostly by former slaves remained excluded from the hemisphere's first regional meeting of independent states, held in Panama in 1826, largely due to the atrocities of the 1804 Haitian Genocide which targeted European men, women and children who resided in Haiti, including those who were favorable to the revolution.

Although, strictly speaking, he did not establish slavery, he imposed a semi-feudal system, fumage, in which every able man was required to work in plantations (similar to Spanish latifundios) to produce goods for the fledgling country.

In this period, the eastern part of the island rose against the new powers, following general Juan Sánchez Ramírez's claims of independence from France, which broke the Treaties of Bâle attacking Spain[further explanation needed] and prohibited commerce with Haiti.

[79] Advocating for economic reform, the reduction of military influence in politics, the broader inclusion of civilian participation in governance, and a third-way that transcended the traditional Liberal and National divide,[79] Firminism quickly gained momentum.

One from 1910 accused Simon of “selling the country whole to the Americans” and forewarning that under U.S. domination, “independent Haitians would return to being slaves.”[83] In 1911, General Cincinnatus Leconte capitalized on border tensions with the Dominican Republic to lead a rebellion and launch his own bid for power, managing to rally some of Firmin's supporters towards his cause.

[84] While Simon and his ministers focused on quelling the rebellion, generals remaining in Port-au-Prince seized the opportunity to exact revenge on their political enemies and settle scores, with supporters of Firmin being summarily executed on charges of conspiracy.

[86] The revolutionary armies were formed by cacos, peasant brigands from the mountains of the north, along the porous Dominican border, who were enlisted by rival political factions with promises of money to be paid after a successful revolution and an opportunity to plunder.

Germans controlled about 80% of the country's international commerce; they also owned and operated utilities in Cap Haïtien and Port-au-Prince, the main wharf and a tramway in the capital, and a railroad serving the Plaine de Cul-du-Sac.

[92] However, efforts to develop commercial agriculture had limited success, in part because much of Haiti's labor force was employed at seasonal work in the more established sugar industries of Cuba and the Dominican Republic.

This led Herbert Hoover to appoint two commissions, including one headed by a former US governor of the Philippines William Cameron Forbes, which criticized the exclusion of Haitians from positions of authority in the government and constabulary, now known as the Garde d'Haïti.

At the same time, many in the growing black professional classes departed from the traditional veneration of Haiti's French cultural heritage and emphasized the nation's African roots, most notably ethnologist Jean Price-Mars and the journal Les Griots, edited by Dr. François Duvalier.

Not only had he largely excluded them from the often lucrative levers of government, but he also enacted the country's first income tax, fostered the growth of labor unions, and suggested that vodou be considered as a religion equivalent to Roman Catholicism—a notion that the Europeanized elite abhorred.

By Haitian standards, Magloire's rule was firm, but not harsh: he jailed political opponents, including Fignolé, and shut down their presses when their protests grew too strident, but he allowed labor unions to function, although they were not permitted to strike.

Most political actors perceived Duvalier—a medical doctor who had served as a rural administrator of a United States-funded anti-yaws campaign before entering the cabinet under Estimé—as an honest and fairly unassuming leader without a strong ideological motivation or program.

Duvalier's paramilitary police, officially the Volunteers for National Security (Volontaires de la Sécurité Nationale – VSN) but more commonly known as the Tonton Macoutes, named for a Vodou monster, carried out political murders, beatings, and intimidation.

However, Duvalier appealed to the black middle class of which he was a member by introducing public works into middle-class neighborhoods that previously had been unable to have paved roads, running water, or modern sewage systems.

He ordered the Presidential Guard to occupy the Dominican chancery in Pétion-Ville to apprehend an officer involved in a plot to kidnap his children, leading Bosch to publicly threaten to invade Haiti.

Baby Doc's kleptocracy left the regime vulnerable to unanticipated crises, exacerbated by endemic poverty, most notably the epidemic of African swine fever virus—which, at the insistence of USAID officials, led to the slaughter of the creole pigs, the principal source of income for most Haitians; and the widely publicized outbreak of AIDS in the early 1980s.

Widespread discontent in Haiti began in 1983, when Pope John Paul II condemned the regime during a visit, finally provoking a rebellion, and in February 1986, after months of disorder, the army forced Duvalier to resign and go into exile.

Aristide's radical populist policies and the violence of his bands of supporters alarmed many of the country's elite, and, in September 1991, he was overthrown in the 1991 Haitian coup d'état, which brought General Raoul Cédras to power.

Caricom, which had been backing the peace deal, accused the United States, France, and the International community of failing in Haiti because they allegedly allowed a controversially elected leader to be violently forced out of office.

On 1 June 2004, the peacekeeping mission was passed to MINUSTAH and comprised a 7,000 strength force led by Brazil and backed by Argentina, Chile, Jordan, Morocco, Nepal, Peru, Philippines, Spain, Sri Lanka, and Uruguay.

"[136] The United States supervised the elections and spent upwards of $33 million on them, spending which has been criticized for its inefficiency, with high overhead costs but little done to stop the widespread fraud, violence, and voter suppression present.

Released in November 2017, a Senate probe of the period 2008–2016 (concerning the René Préval and Michel Martelly administrations, as well as the chief of staff of then-sitting President Jovenel Moïse) revealed significant corruption had been funded with Venezuelan loans through the Petrocaribe program.

This was a part of a wave of attacks that the gangs carried out while prime minister Henry traveled to Kenya to finalize an agreement under which that country would send 1,000 police officers to help restore order to Haiti.