History UsefulNotes / Haiti

* Jean Baptiste Point du Sable, the person regarded as the founder of the US city of UsefulNotes/{{Chicago}}, as well as its first non-native settler. Some sources claim that he originated from the French colony of Hispaniola (what is today's Haiti), and while the authenticity of these are disputed, what is certain about him is that he was black and he came from a French colony.

* Creator/GarcelleBeauvais grew up in Haiti, before moving to the US when she was seven.

* Creator/JamieHector is of Haitian descent, and raised money to support the victims of the 2010 earthquake.

* Creator/EricAndre, of ''Series/TheEricAndreShow'' fame, is of American Jewish and Haitian descent, and identifies as Black Jewish.

* Music/JasonDerulo (real name Jason Joel Desrouleaux) was born in Florida to Haitian parents, and grew up speaking Haitian Creole as his first language. His last name is nigh-unreadable to Anglophones, so he simply respelled it based on how it is actually pronounced: Derulo.

Since then the country has undergone a succession of coups, repeated occupation by the USA, the rule of the father-and-son despots known as "Papa Doc" and "Baby Doc" Duvalier (the latter rising to power at ''19''), and a struggle to establish a democratic system following the Duvaliers. [[HopeSpot Things were finally settling down politically]], just in time for a horrific earthquake to hit in the January of 2010, and the country has yet to fully recover from the loss of infrastructure. In July of 2021, president Jovenel Moïse was killed by assassins and found with a gouged eye and 12 bullet wounds inside his home. Ariel Henry (whom many suspect played a part in the assassination) became acting president and prime minister, the legislative assembly was dissolved, and the country's rule of law and order collapsed as gangs took over. Eventually, Henry was pressured to resign and leave the country. In April 2024, the nine-member Transitional Federal Council was sworn in to lead Haiti until 2026 or the next presidential election.

Since then the country has undergone a succession of coups, repeated occupation by the USA, the rule of the father-and-son despots known as "Papa Doc" and "Baby Doc" Duvalier (the latter rising to power at ''19''), and a struggle to establish a democratic system following the Duvaliers. [[HopeSpot Things were finally settling down politically]], just in time for a horrific earthquake to hit in the January of 2010, and the country has yet to fully recover from the loss of infrastructure. In July of 2021, president Jovenel Moïse was killed by assassins and found with a gouged eye and 12 bullet wounds inside his home. Since Moïse's assassination, the country has had no president, prime minister, or even a legislative assembly, with Ariel Henry (whom many suspect played a part in the assassination) serving as ''de facto'' leader. Henry resigned in April 2024, replaced by "Transitional Presidential Council", as further collapse of law and order ensued with the gang war.

** President: - (vacant)
** Prime minister: Michel Patrick Boisvert (acting)

* Unitary semi-presidential republic

** President and Prime Minister: - (vacant)

Since then the country has undergone a succession of coups, repeated occupation by the USA, the rule of the father-and-son despots known as "Papa Doc" and "Baby Doc" Duvalier (the latter rising to power at ''19''), and a struggle to establish a democratic system following the Duvaliers. [[HopeSpot Things were finally settling down politically]], just in time for a horrific earthquake to hit in the January of 2010, and the country has yet to fully recover from the loss of infrastructure. In July of 2021, president Jovenel Moïse was killed by assassins and found with a gouged eye and 12 bullet wounds inside his home. Since Moïse's assassination, the country has had no president, prime minister, or even a legislative assembly, with Ariel Henry (whom many suspect played a part in the assassination) serving as ''de facto'' leader. Henry resigned in April 2024, as further collapse of law and order ensued with the gang war.

Since then the country has undergone a succession of coups, repeated occupation by the USA, the rule of the father-and-son despots known as "Papa Doc" and "Baby Doc" Duvalier (the latter rising to power at ''19''), and a struggle to establish a democratic system following the Duvaliers. [[HopeSpot Things were finally settling down politically]], just in time for a horrific earthquake to hit in the January of 2010, and the country has yet to fully recover from the loss of infrastructure. In July of 2021, president Jovenel Moïse was killed by assassins and found with a gouged eye and 12 bullet wounds inside his home. Since Moïse's assassination, the country has had no president, prime minister, or even a legislative assembly, with Ariel Henry (whom many suspect played a part in the assassination) serving as ''de facto'' leader. Henry resigned in March 2024, and further collapse of law and order ensued with the gang war.

** President and Prime Minister: Ariel Henry (acting)

Since then the country has undergone a succession of coups, repeated occupation by the USA, the rule of the father-and-son despots known as "Papa Doc" and "Baby Doc" Duvalier (the latter rising to power at ''19''), and a struggle to establish a democratic system following the Duvaliers. [[HopeSpot Things were finally settling down politically]], just in time for a horrific earthquake to hit in the January of 2010, and the country has yet to fully recover from the loss of infrastructure. In July of 2021, president Jovenel Moïse was killed by assassins and found with a [[EyeScream gouged eye]] and 12 bullet wounds inside his home. Since Moïse's assassination, the country has had no president, prime minister, or even a legislative assembly, with Ariel Henry (whom many suspect played a part in the assassination) serving as ''de facto'' leader.

Life for a slave was a good bit less bad on the coffee plantations of the southern mountains; coffee production doesn't require a lot of machinery for processing, and harvesting coffee is less backbreaking and more tedious and eyewateringly boring. Also, coffee grew in the mountains, which were cooler than the plains where cane grew and thus had less risk of nasty tropical diseases. Moreover, coffee plantations tended to be smaller affairs run by a resident owner rather than the massive, almost-corporate canefields run by the French trading houses for the production of sugar, so punishments tended not to be ''quite'' as horrible. Still, slavery is slavery; the punishments were still pretty brutal, and the loss of dignity is enough to offend anyone (also, somewhere in between sugar and coffee in terms of brutality and danger to the slaves were the indigo plantations that dotted the mountain foothills0).

The Republic of Haiti ('''French''': ''République d'Haïti'', '''Haitian Creole''': ''Repiblik Ayiti'') occupies a little more than a third of the island of Hispaniola (now there's a famous name), with the UsefulNotes/DominicanRepublic taking the remainder. It is the most populous state in UsefulNotes/TheCaribbean, and, alongside UsefulNotes/{{Canada}}, one of the only two officially Francophone countries in the Americas.

The country was originally colonized by literal [[UsefulNotes/TheGoldenAgeOfPiracy Buccaneers]] (so named because they used to sell beef jerky[[note]]Made from the semi-feral cattle who'd been running around the island ever since the Spanish arrived[[/note]] made on wooden racks called ''bucannes'' before realizing that piracy paid better). But as ship raids grew more difficult to pull off, most of these scallywags settled down to become plantation owners, mainly growing sugarcane and coffee (via slave labor). The business rapidly became incredibly profitable, and the colony dealt with this by importing hundreds of thousands of African slaves to increase production. By the 1780s, Saint-Domingue--what the French called the territory--was supplying something like three quarters of the world's supply of sugar and coffee, which France could sell at high margins to make Saint-Domingue the single most profitable European colony by a country mile. (Yes, even more profitable than [[UsefulNotes/TheRaj India]].)

Life for a slave was a good bit less bad on the coffee plantations of the southern mountains; coffee production doesn't require a lot of machinery for processing, and harvesting coffee is less backbreaking and more tedious and eyewateringly boring. Also, coffee grew in the mountains, which were cooler than the plains where cane grew and thus had less risk of nasty tropical diseases. Moreover, coffee plantations tended to be smaller affairs run by a resident owner rather than the massive, almost-corporate canefields run by the French trading houses for the production of sugar, so punishments tended not to be ''quite'' as horrible. Still, slavery is slavery; the punishments were still pretty brutal, and the loss of dignity is enough to offend anyone. (Also, somewhere in between sugar and coffee in terms of brutality and danger to the slaves were the indigo plantations that dotted the mountain foothills.)

Despite this, Louverture was actually quite proud to be French and would have been content leaving Haiti an internally autonomous French colony. "Papa Toussaint" drafted a constitution for Saint-Domingue that first and foremost declared the island's loyalty to France. It then proceeded to outline the "Louverturian state", a system of what amounted to enlightened absolutism, with all power given to the Governor-General--Toussaint himself--and managed by the one functioning institution in the region--the army. But the system Toussaint envisioned was also rigorously legalistic, defined by strict codes that applied to everyone (except the Governor-General, of course) and enforced the legal equality of the races. However, "cultivators"--that is, the old plantation field slaves--were still required to work on the plantation, as for all that Toussaint--himself a Black ex-slave--truly believed in equality of the races, he could not see any viable economic model for the colony other than plantation agriculture selling cash crops to the world.

Toussaint hoped this would be enough to keep the French metropole from interfering further in the island's affairs. After all, "rigorously legalistic enlightened absolutism" is a fair description of the state UsefulNotes/NapoleonBonaparte was building for himself back in France. However, Napoleon attempted to reintroduce slavery and sent over an army to enforce the edict. Yellow fever and the seasoned Haitian army made short work of the French and Haiti became independent in 1804, the first state in recorded history to undergo a successful slave revolution and the second state in the Americas to achieve independence after the [[UsefulNotes/TheAmericanRevolution United States]].[[note]]Despite this, the US had a complicated-at-best relationship with the Hatian revolutionaries. On the one hand, the Southern planter aristocracy feared that Haiti's example would [[DoubleStandard inspire a Black slave rebellion at home]]. On the other hand, an independent Saint-Domingue/Haiti would be outside the closed mercantilist economy of the French colonial empire and therefore free to trade with the United States, attracting Northern merchants to the potential profits. During Toussaint's reign, the Northern interests won out, with Saint-Domingue being explicitly exempted from the general embargo of the French Empire. However, the endless wars in Haiti cut deeply into the potential profits, lessening Northern interest in supporting independence. The final blow was UsefulNotes/ThomasJefferson and his Democratic-Republican Party's victory over UsefulNotes/JohnAdams and his Federalists in the election of 1800, which brought to power a U.S. government dominated by Southern slaveholders (not least Jefferson himself). The United States maintained a stubborn position of nonrecognition towards independent Haiti until 1862, after the Southern slaveholding interests removed themselves from the equation by [[UsefulNotes/TheAmericanCivilWar revolting against the United States]].[[/note]] However, Louverture--who, interestingly, never once declared formal independence during his time as leader of the country--was captured by the French, who were using the FalseReassurance of a parley. He died in a French jail in 1803.

The parents of former Creator/{{Nintendo}} of America president Reggie Fils-Aime left for UsefulNotes/TheUnitedStates after their own parents (i.e. Reggie's grandparents, on both sides of the family) started having harsh political disputes among each other.

'''In fiction:'''

Since then the country has undergone a succession of coups, repeated occupation by the USA, the rule of the father-and-son despots known as "Papa Doc" and "Baby Doc" Duvalier (the latter rising to power at ''19''), and a struggle to establish a democratic system following the Duvaliers. [[HopeSpot Things were finally settling down politically]], just in time for a horrific earthquake to hit in the January of 2010, and the country has yet to fully recover from the loss of infrastructure. In July of 2021, president Jovenel Moïse was killed by assassins and found with a [[EyeScream gouged eye]] and 12 bullet wounds inside his home.

* '''Area:''' 27,750 km
(10,710 sq mi) (143rd)

In the end, Boyer swallowed his pride and accepted the deal. France did indeed recognize Haitian independence, and the rest of UsefulNotes/{{Europe}}[[note]]Though, pointedly, ''not'' the United States, at least not until [[UsefulNotes/AmericanCivilWar the rebellion of most of the Southern slave states]] meant that there was no longer a significant lobby worried about the prospect of spreading slave revolution[[/note]] followed suit. But alas for Haiti, recognition did not bring prosperity. Haiti was forced to take out gigantic high-interest loans from French banks to pay the indemnity. While Haiti managed to pay off the French government in the mid-19th century, they didn't fully pay back the banks until '''1947'''.

* ''Literature/TheMoonlitVine'': In this YA novel, Anacaona, a Taino chieftain from Ayiti, before being executed by the Spaniards in 1503 passes sacred artifacts to her daughter Higüamota. In turn Higüamota escapes to Amoná (now Mona Island) and passes these along to her own daughter. The artifacts eventually make their their way down to the novel's 14-year-old modern-day protagonist.

** President of the Senate: Joseph Lambert
** President of the Chamber of Deputies: Gary Bodeau

* '''Area:''' 27,750 km
(10,710 sq mi) (143rd)

Haiti is mostly known for voodoo (despite being 95% Christian), specifically the [[HollywoodVoodoo Hollywood portrayal of it]]. While [[UsefulNotes/{{Voudoun}} Vodou]] is a part of Haitian tradition (even among Christians, Vodou practitioners are often seen as having supernatural powers), the perception of the faith situation in Haiti is almost certainly due to the influence of the Duvalier family; Papa Doc used the religion as a weapon of terror against the populace.

Meanwhile, Boyer's regime was facing trouble in the Spanish-speaking of the eastern part of the island due to their incompetent rule. They fought against Haitian rule and won their independence as the Dominican Republic in 1844. The new Dominican Republic, beset by economic troubles, in turn asked to be re-colonized by the Spanish (the only place ever to be colonized three times by the same European power), but the move was highly unpopular, and this time Haiti actually [[EnemyMine lent aid]] to the Dominican independence movement they once fought against. The Spanish were force to withdraw in 1865, the year in which the UsefulNotes/AmericanCivilWar ended. With it ended any hope of going against the Monroe Doctrine unchallenged.

Meanwhile, Boyer's regime was facing trouble in the Spanish-speaking of the eastern part of the island due to their incompetent rule. They fought against Haitian rule and won their independence as the Dominican Republic in 1844. The new Dominican Republic, beset by economic troubles, in turn asked to be re-colonized by the Spanish (the only place ever to be colonized three times by the same European power), but the move was highly unpopular, and this time Haiti actually [[EnemyMine lent aid]] to the Dominican independence movement they once fought against. The Spanish were force to withdraw in 1865, the year in which the UsefulNotes/AmericanCivilWar ended and thus any hope of going against the Monroe Doctrine unchallenged.

In the end, Boyer swallowed his pride and accepted the deal. France did indeed recognize Haitian independence, and the rest of Europe[[note]]Though, pointedly, ''not'' the United States, at least not until [[UsefulNotes/AmericanCivilWar the rebellion of most of the Southern slave states]] meant that there was no longer a significant lobby worried about the prospect of spreading slave revolution[[/note]] followed suit. But alas for Haiti, recognition did not bring prosperity. Haiti was forced to take out gigantic high-interest loans from French banks to pay the indemnity. While Haiti managed to pay off the French government in the mid-19th century, they didn't fully pay back the banks until '''1947'''.

Toussaint hoped this would be enough to keep the French metropole from interfering further in the island's affairs. After all, "rigorously legalistic enlightened absolutism" is a fair description of the state UsefulNotes/NapoleonBonaparte was building for himself back in France. However, Napoleon attempted to reintroduce slavery and sent over an army to enforce the edict. Yellow fever and the seasoned Haitian army made short work of the French and Haiti became independent in 1804, the first state in recorded history to undergo a successful slave revolution and the second state in the Americas to achieve independence after the [[UsefulNotes/TheAmericanRevolution United States]].[[note]]Despite this, the US had a complicated-at-best relationship with the Hatian revolutionaries. On the one hand, the Southern planter aristocracy feared that Haiti's example would [[DoubleStandard inspire a Black slave rebellion at home]]. On the other hand, an independent Saint-Domingue/Haiti would be outside the closed mercantilist economy of the French colonial empire and therefore free to trade with the United States, attracting Northern merchants to the potential profits. During Toussaint's reign, the Northern interests won out, with Saint-Domingue being explicitly exempted from the general embargo of the French Empire. However, the endless wars in Haiti cut deeply into the potential profits, lessening Northern interest in supporting independence. The final blow was UsefulNotes/ThomasJefferson and his Democratic-Republican Party's victory over UsefulNotes/JohnAdams and his Federalists in the election of 1800, which brought to power a U.S. government dominated by Southern slaveholders (not least Jefferson himself). The United States maintained a stubborn position of nonrecognition towards independent Haiti until 1862, after the Southern slaveholding interests removed themselves from the equation by [[UsefulNotes/TheAmericanCivilWar revolting against the United States]].[[/note]] However, Louverture--who, interestingly, never once declared formal independence during his time as leader of the country--was captured by French using the FalseReassurance of a parley, and died in a French jail in 1803.

This all changed in 1791, inspired by the egalitarian sentiments of the French Revolution, and the fact that they outnumbered the whites 10-to-1, the slaves (aided by black freemen and mixed-race mulattos plus a shamefully small smattering of high-minded whites) revolted. Despite the heavy resistance ([[CrazyPrepared the slavemasters had been preparing for such revolt all their lives]]), the rebellion, led by the self-taught military genius Toussaint Louverture[[labelnote:*]]last name sometimes rendered as L'Ouverture[[/labelnote]], quickly swept over the entire island, forcing the French [[ThePoliticalOfficer Commissioner]] Léger-Félicité Sonthonax to emancipate all of the slaves in 1794.