Haitian history: Slavery & rebellion
Christopher Columbus' account of the discovery
of the island Hispaniola in 1492 is the first record of the country we now know
as Haiti. Arawak Native Americans originally lived on the island but were wiped
out by the Spanish.
In the 17th century the French, Dutch and
British started to take over parts of the island. The French and Spanish split
the island into two territories in the 18th century: The French half was called
Saint Dominique (now Haiti) and the Spanish half was called Santo Domingo (now
the Dominican Republic).
During the 17th and 18th centuries, hundreds
of thousands of slaves arrived in Haiti from Africa and were put to work on
European sugar and coffee plantations. The French used the labour of slaves to
cultivate the area’s natural resources and develop Haiti into the richest
colony in the new world.
Maroons
There were four categories of people in Haiti during the
17th and 18th centuries: white colonists, free blacks (often mixed-race), black
slaves (usually African-born) and runaway slaves (known as Maroons). The Maroon
community was steadily growing in hiding—living deep in the forests, forming
organized groups and raiding plantations.
Their first real leader was François Mackandal, who led a
revolt against slavery from 1751 to 1757. In 1758, he was captured by the
French and burned at the stake. That same year, white landowners began passing
laws that restricted the rights of people of other colours and classes. A rigid
caste system (a set of rules defining which class or racial groups are entitled
to specific rights and liberties) was defined and strictly controlled.
At around this time the French revolution was in progress
and the motto of "Liberty, Equality,
Brotherhood” was changing the way French people thought about equality. This
shift in attitude had a major impact in Haiti, where the ideals of liberty and
equality were almost non-existent. In 1791 the new revolutionary government in
France declared that all black people born to free parents should have the same
political rights as whites.
The Maroon population saw this conflict as an
opportunity to gain power. They led a revolt that spread across the whole of
Haiti. Slaves massacred the French slave-owners, whom they outnumbered ten to
one, burning the plantations where they were forced to work.
The most famous commander was Toussaint
L’Ouverture, a self-educated former domestic slave. L’Ouverture was an
excellent military leader, and under his command the slaves gained the upper
hand. He took over leadership of the country, ruling it as an independent
nation.
In 1794, slavery in France and the French
colonies was outlawed. However, when Napoleon came to power (1799) he tried to
retake Haiti and reintroduce the practice of slavery. This reignited the
fighting. The French soon regained control of the country from the former slaves, capturing
L’Ouverture in 1802 and imprisoning him in France, where he later died.
Independence
After years of fighting, the French forces
were finally defeated at the Battle of Vertières in November 1803. On January
1, 1804, Haiti was declared a free republic. Haiti's was the largest and only
successful slave revolt in the Atlantic. The revolt created the first black
republic and the first independent country in Latin America.
Haiti’s independence brought new challenges. The country had been
weakened by years of war: agriculture was devastated, trade was almost
non-existent, and the people were uneducated and mostly unskilled. The new
country was forced to pay 90 million gold francs (worth $12 billion today) of
reparations to French slave-owners in 1825, and also had to pay France for its
independence for the next 100 years. Many historians believe that these
payments contributed significantly to the poverty and social problems faced by
Haiti today.