The 7.0 earthquake that devastated Haiti last week is just the last in an almost unbroken string of catastrophes that have visited the island since it was “discovered” by Columbus.
Christopher Columbus and his fellow invaders came across an island that was called variously Ayiti, Bohio, or Kiskeya by its Taíno inhabitants, who were an Arawakan people. As was the custom of the Europeans, Columbus claimed the island for Spain and renamed it La Isla Española (The Spanish Island) or Hispañola.
Since the initial invasion by Europeans, the indigenous inhabitants (the Taino) were almost completely wiped out through murder, enslavement and disease. The European invaders were initially the Spanish but eventually included the French, Dutch and British. Spain had moved its people closer to the part of the island they named as the capital Santo Domingo, leaving the western and northern coasts undefended. Besides, the Spanish, more interested in gold and silver, turned its attention to Mexico and South America.
The French had initially established a settlement on Tortuga, an island on the northern coast. Soon they had formally claimed control of the western third of the island which it name Saint-Domingue. In1697 Spain officially ceded the western third of the island to France. By then planters were growing tobacco, indigo, cotton, and cacao. Of course, as was also the custom of the European, they had no intention of doing this farming themselves. Thus began the importation of Africans who had been captured and enslaved in various ways.
As the economy began to flourish, sugar and later coffee were added as crops to be exported. Saint-Domingue became the envy of Europe at the expense of over three-quarters of a million Africans, accounting for one third of the entire Atlantic slave trade.
The French instituted a horrifically brutal form of slavery, so much so that they were in constant need of re-supply. Thousands of Africans fled into the mountains and formed communities of maroons. These maroon bands often raided isolated plantations, striking fear into the hearts of plantation owners. Mackandal, one such maroon, was responsible for the killing of about 6,000 settlers before he was captured and burned alive at the public square in Cap-Francais.
Another common European custom was eventually instituted. That custom is the age old custom of divide and rule. The mulatto offspring of the French slave-owners and their African concubines were treated slightly better than their unmixed African brothers and sisters. Although they were not allowed to take up certain professions, marry whites, carry weapons, or attend social functions where whites were present, they were allowed to purchase land. In fact it was on the marginal hillside plots they were allowed to purchase, that coffee thrived and became an important export. These same mulattos, who often kept slaves themselves, feeling they were now French citizens, went to France in 1790 to demand civil rights. These rights were granted in France (on paper) but when they came back to Saint-Domingue, the royal governor there refused their demands. Sound familiar? These mulatto-turned rebels, now incensed at the slight, attempted to attack Cap-Francais (now Cap-Haitien) but they chose not to arm or free their slaves; or even challenge the status of slavery. White militia and black volunteers defeated their attack.
These mulatto revolts however were the first challenge against French rule and their slaveholding system. In August of 1791 slaves in the northern region organized the first black rebellion on the island. Some of the rebellion’s leaders include Boukman, Biassou, Toussaint, Jeannot, Francois, Dessalines, and Cristophe. These men would help to guide the Revolution down its torturous, bloody road to complete success, although it would take over twelve years and cost hundreds of thousands of lives. Many of those leaders themselves would fall along the way, but the force of unity against slavery bound the blacks together sustaining the revolution.
One of the better known leaders of the revolt was Toussaint Louverture, who with his corps of battle hardened fighters beat back the French and British who had come to assist them. He did not, however, proclaim full independence for the country, nor did he seek reprisals against the country’s former white slaveholders, convinced that the French would not restore slavery. After much back and forth fighting including an invasion of 40,000 European troops initiated by Napolean Bonaparte, the indigenous army, now led by Jean Jacques Dessalines finally prevailed. Dessalines then declared independence, reclaiming the indigenous Taino name Haiti (Ayiti). The Haitian revolution would go on to serve as a model for those affected by slavery throughout the world; a source of perturbation in the minds of slavers. The entire island remained under Haitian rule until 1844 when a nationalist group in the east called La Trinitaria led a revolt that helped convert the eastern half of the island into the Dominican Republic.
The nineteenth century in Haiti was fraught with revolts, upheavals and depositions. Undoubtedly, much had to do with the fact that Haiti was paying reparations to France! That’s right; in 1825, France demanded that Haiti pay the French government 150 million gold francs to “compensate” French plantation slave-owners for their “financial losses” and in exchange for France’s recognition of Haiti’s independence. Years later, the amount was reduced to 90 million gold francs. The Haitian elite who had gained control of the country following independence, caved in to the pressure, seeing this ransom as an inevitable and necessary financial obligation if the country were to be allowed to live in peace and freedom and resume trade with its former colonizers. It took Haiti close to 100 years to pay off this debt and the debt was paid, not out of the money made by the elite through the export of raw goods, but rather on the backs of the Haitian people who continued to work the land. All the public schools in Haiti were closed in order to make the first payment, the first example of the imposition of a structural adjustment program.
The last two decades of the nineteenth century marked the development of Haitian intellectual culture. The Constitution of 1867 saw peaceful and progressive transitions in government that did much to improve the economy and stability of the Haitian nation and the condition of its people.
Constitutional government restored the faith of the Haitian people in legal institutions. This lasted until around 1911 when Haiti once again slid into disorder and debt. By this time, a German community in Haiti controlled about 80 percent of the nation’s commerce. They also served as the principal financiers of the nation’s innumerable revolutions, providing innumerable loans-at high interest rates-to competing political factions. In an effort to limit German influence, the U.S. State Department backed a consortium of American investors, assembled by the National City Bank of New York in acquiring control of the Banque National d’Haïti, the nation’s only commercial bank and the government treasury. The U.S., under President Woodrow Wilson then invaded Haiti occupying it until 1934. During this occupation, which was often brutal, Haitians were forced to work in labor gangs building roads and whatever else the occupiers wanted done.
Having lost control of their own finances Haiti was at the beck and call of the people who were in control. Haiti’s labor force essentially became seasonal workers for the more established sugar industries of Cuba and the Dominican Republic. Although the U.S. withdrew its forces in 1934, it retained control of Haiti’s external finances until 1947. By that time, enough lackeys were groomed to do the bidding of their white masters.
From then until now there has been a succession of self- absorbed thieves in power whose only interest was to use Haiti as their own private piggy bank. The longest lasting of the bunch were the Duvaliers, who through fear and brutality kept Haiti under their thumbs for almost 20 years. Questionable elections, coup d’états and foreign interventions have rendered Haiti’s government totally ineffective.
In light of the destruction of Haiti’s economic, political and social structure, its people are totally unprepared for any natural emergency that might befall them. Desperately poor people have destroyed the countryside by chopping down trees to make charcoal that the rich still use for dry cleaning and for heating. When the rains come however, the floodwaters rush down the hillsides carrying the topsoil out to sea. Two major hurricanes have caused much damage and misery in the last couple of years.
This earthquake, as terrible as it would have been anyway, was all the more devastating because of the poorly constructed buildings so close together in the densely populated capital of Port au Prince, the epicenter of the quake. The quake destroyed what was already a poorly maintained infrastructure. Now 9 million of its inhabitants are totally at the mercy of whatever outside assistance they can get. The total devastation however, has been a long time in the making.
For Information About Seedpod Empowerment Institute, call Mr. Gaynor at 769-798-5247 or E-Mail us: alimgaynor@yahoo.com
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