That Good Old-Fashioned Voodoo

The more I keep reading about the History of Haiti, the more I can't help but feel sorry for that country. They have the absolute worst luck I think compared to their neighbours like the Dominican Republic, Cuba etc.

Haiti was the first independant nation in Latin America. The second independant nation in the Americas right after the United States of America. The first Black republic created by former slaves. Finally, it spread revolution to other Latin American nations and inspired leaders like Simon Bolivar. The Haiti we know today pales in comparison to its glorious past. Constant political dysfunction, environmental degradation (there are very few trees left in Haiti. Trees!) which cause mudslides due to their being no roots to support soil, AIDS is a major killer and so is famine (people are forced to eat mud on the worst occasions and they share with their neighbours) and finally pretty bad tropical storms. It is the poorest country in its hemisphere. The history of Haiti has always been gruesome though.

Before the arrival of Christopher Columbus, the Arawak Aboriginals lived there. Basically having a chill time living life on a Carribbean island until Columbus raped them, gave them Old World diseases, enslaved them etc. By the end of the century, there were very few Arawaks left. Not to worry, a new source of slaves was found. Though it was very far away, the slaves were numerous and were hardy. These slaves were West Africans of course. Millions of them were shipped to the Carribbean and hundreds of thousands were constantly shipped to Haiti because they were worked so hard the slaves couldn't sustain their population due to mortality rates. Haiti went from being Spanish, to being French as just as terrible.

European powers were heavily interested in the Carribbean at this time because of the commodity of sugar. It made Europeans fatter, more energetic and it helped their teeth rot faster with or without the aid of the breads they already consumed. Also, it made their puddings a bit sweeter and their bellies even more distended. France was willing to trade the colony of New France (modern day Quebec) to keep Guadeloupe. Sugar was money. All that money *ahem* sugar needed people to grow it. It's not easy to cut sugar cane, the shaft is tough. Extremely hard to break, you need a machete to cut it easily and this is well before Industrialization. Haitians didn't have it as tough as the Zanj or East African slaves in Southern Iraq but what they had to deal with was pretty bad nonetheless.

From sunrise to sundown, while getting verbally abused and beaten. Surviving on maize, beans and whatever scraps of meat they were able to find. This was the life of the Carribbean slave. Insurrections were common and escaped slaves would form maroon colonies in the hills of mountainous Haiti yet Haiti or Saint-Dominigue as it was called by the French produced most of the world's sugar and coffee by the mid 18th century.

Compared to the other slave colonies in the Carribbean such as Jamaica, Barbados etc. The Haitians managed to keep a form of African religion chiefly from Benin called Vodou or Voodoo. Because of the nature of slavery, most Haitians slaves were born in Africa so they managed to keep their religion alive contrasted with the natural increase of English slaves in the Carribbean. Also, the English separated slaves who spoke the same language to stop insurrection. Another interesting aspect of Haiti was the population of mixed-race inhabitants. The English abhorred such a practise and besides English ladies were more willing to relocate in the Carribbean and US South but French, Spanish and Portuguese ladies were not. They became the middling class because they were able to own land and were born free.

The French Revolution changed the lives of Haiti's 500,000 blacks and 30,000 whites forever for a lot of reasons. Some of the most important reasons are that the Declaration of the Rights of Man also applied to the free mixed-race people of Haiti and free blacks too. The slaves were the biggest pawn in this game and they chose to act first by rebelling on masse, setting fire to plantations, killing slave-owners, forming armed militias under leaders like Toussaint L'Ouverture and Jean-Jacques Dessalines. Britain soon invaded to attempt to seize the rich colony (although 90% of its people were dirt poor). The British army of 60,000 were soon defeated.

Things in France rapidly changed as the Jacobins who endorsed freedom were replaced by Napoleon who wished to keep the status quo. His troops were defeated not without the loss of the supreme Haitiian leader Toussaint. Though Haiti would not be prosperous ever again, it's former riches were being hounded by the French who demanded reparations for the right to be independant and their eyes. Also, sugar plantations could not be re-instated without near-slavery conditions and Haiti was a republic founded upon liberty. Dessalines declared himself the First Emperor of Haiti. The first leader of a tropical republic which was quickly losing economic status as rich whites fled the country. Another leader tried to introduce feudalism to keep the plantations running but that failed. Haiti was unstable ever after having too many Emperors for the Black half of Hispaniola.

Today, Haiti is nearly the same. Of course it's former Emperors like Papa Doc Duvalier would never call themselves that but that's what they were. Who knows if Haiti has a chance. I doubt it. Of course I like to be the optimist but Haiti's people need too many things to have a shot at development. Starting with a political system that actually functions for one thing. But when one really looks at the history of Haiti. They never had a shot in the first place. Their agricultural system was going to never allow them to transition easily to the Industrial period. They had only one commodity resource unlike Brazil and they had destroyed their political and moneyed elites (Whites). It's a 19th Century Zimbabwe and a 21st Century tragedy.