About Haiti History
Timeline for Haiti:
1592: Spanish governor executes Queen Anacaona, the last Taino chief.
1659: First official settlement on Tortuga (off the coast of Haiti) by French buccaneers who hunt wild cattle and by pirates who attack ships sailing from South America to Europe.
1664: French West India Co. takes control of western third of the island and names it Saint-Domingue.
1670: First French settlement on the main island, named Cap Francois, later Cap-Français and now Cap-Haitien, the second largest city in Haiti. Settlers grow cacao, coffee, tobacco and indigo and begin importing slaves as labor.
1685: Louis XIV enacts the Code Noir, which regulates the treatment of slaves and sets obligations for owners. Corporal punishment is allowed, sanctioning brutal treatment.
1697: Spain formally cedes the western third of the island to France via the Treaty of Ryswick.
1749: Port-au-Prince is founded.
1758: Rebel leader Mackandal, born in Guinea, is captured and burned alive in Cap-Francois after seven years leading an insurrection.
1777: French officers lead a regiment of 750 free blacks from Saint-Domingue to help the fledgling U.S. fight British troops at Savannah, Ga. The unit includes several future leaders of Haiti.
1780: Saint-Domingue is France's richest colony, producing 40 percent of all sugar and 60 percent of all coffee consumed in Europe.
1789: When the French Revolution starts, the colony has 500,000 slaves, 32,000 whites and 25,000 people of color (mixed race), many of whom have inherited wealth and slaves from their white fathers.
1791: Aug. 22, slave revolt begins. Tradition says it starts with a voodoo ceremony led by Dutty Boukman. He is captured and executed, but revolt spreads and plantations are torched.
1794: Feb. 4, French Assembly abolishes slavery in all its colonies, ratifying what is already reality in Saint-Domingue.
1801: Toussaint L'Ouverture defeats British and Spanish troops that invaded Santo Domingo and controls the entire island.
1806: Dessalines is assassinated and Haiti splits into two states, a northern state led by an emperor, Henri Christophe, and a southern republic led by president Alexandre Pétion.
1820: After the deaths of Pétion and Christophe, Jean-Pierre Boyer unifies Haiti into one nation and takes control of Santo Domingo as well.
1825: France's King Charles X recognizes Haiti's independence but demands 150 million francs in indemnity, backing his conditions with a fleet of warships.
1844: Dominican Republic declares its independence from Haiti.
1863: U.S. President Abraham Lincoln recognizes Haiti and allows trade for the first time.
1904: Haiti celebrates 100 years of independence.
1915: U.S. forces occupy Haiti; they will stay until 1934.
1930: First full democratic elections in Haiti; Stenio Vincent elected.
1937: Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo orders the expulsion of Haitians working in his country. Between 17,000 and 35,000 are killed.
1957: Francois Duvalier, a doctor, is elected president. "Papa Doc" establishes one of the most brutal dictatorships in Haitian history. His rule is enforced by a militia commonly known as Tonton Macoutes.
1971: Duvalier dies; his son takes power and is proclaimed president for life, like his father.
1974: The Haitian national soccer team participates in the World Cup.
1986: Unrest leads the military to oust "Baby Doc" and his kleptocratic clan.
1990: Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a former Catholic priest, is elected with 67 percent of the vote.
1991: Aristide is ousted in a coup that many Haitians believe was financed by the business elite.
1994: Backed by a U.N. resolution, the Clinton administration restores Aristide to power.
1996: René Préval is elected president; he is seen as a stand-in for Aristide.
2000: Aristide elected president again after much-disputed parliamentary elections.
2004: Aristide leaves under pressure of an armed rebellion; he claims that the U.S. kidnapped him and shipped him out.
2006: Préval is elected again. A U.N. peacekeeping force in Haiti since 2003 grows to 9,000 troops.
2008: Unrest erupts as Haitians riot against high food prices.
2010: Jan. 12, an earthquake with a magnitude of 7.0 devastates Port-au-Prince and damages much of Haiti.
2010: March 25, President Obama asks Congress for a $2.8 billion special appropriation to pay for rescue costs and to help rebuild Haiti.
2010: Nov. 28, Haiti holds general elections to select a new president, 10 senators and 99 lower-house deputies. The process is immediately challenged as fraudulent, setting off violence and widespread protests.
2011: Jan. 12, one year after the earthquake, Haiti's future remains uncertain. Just a fraction of the promised aid has arrived, little reconstruction has begun and the next step in the political process remains unclear.
Haiti's fight for and gain of Independence:
Toussaint Louverture
François-Dominique Toussaint Louverture ( 9 May 1743 – 7 April 1803), also known as Toussaint L'Ouverture or Toussaint Bréda, was the best-known leader of the Haitian Revolution. His military and political acumen saved the gains of the first Black insurrection in November 1791. He first fought for the Spanish against the French; then for France against Spain and Great Britain; and finally, for Saint-Domingue against Napoleonic France. He then helped transform the insurgency into a revolutionary movement, which by 1800 had turned Saint-Domingue, the most prosperous slave colony of the time, into the first free colonial society to have explicitly rejected race as the basis of social ranking.
Though Louverture did not sever ties with France, his actions in 1800 constituted a de facto autonomous colony. The colony's constitution proclaimed him governor for life even against Napoleon Bonaparte's wishes.He died betrayed before the final and most violent stage of the armed conflict. However, his achievements set the grounds for the Black army's absolute victory and for Jean-Jacques Dessalines to declare the sovereign state of Haiti in January 1804. Louverture's prominent role in the Haitian success over colonialism and slavery had earned him the admiration of friends and detractors alike.
Dutty Boukman
Dutty Boukman (Also known as "Boukman Dutty") (died 7 November 1791) was an early leader of the Haitian Revolution, enslaved in Jamaica and later in Haiti. He is considered to have been both a leader of maroons and vodou hougan (priest).
According to some contemporary accounts Boukman alongside Cécile Fatiman, a Vodou mambo, presided over the religious ceremony at Bois Caïman, in August 1791, that served as the catalyst to the 1791 slave revolt which is usually considered the beginning of the Haitian Revolution.
Boukman was a key leader of the slave revolt in the Le Cap‑Français region in the north of the colony. He was killed by the French planters and colonial troops in 7 November 1791, just a few months after the beginning of the uprising. The French then publicly displayed Boukman's head in an attempt to dispel the aura of invincibility that Boukman had cultivated.The fact that French authorities had to do this illustrates the impact Boukman made on the views of Haitian people during this time.
Parsley Massacre
Rafael Trujillo, a proponent of anti-Haitianism, made his intentions towards the Haitian community clear in a short speech he gave 2 October 1937 at a dance in his honor in Dajabón.
Trujillo reportedly was acting in response to reports of Haitians stealing cattle and crops from Dominican borderland residents. According to some sources, the massacre killed an estimated 20,000 Haitians living in the northern frontier—clearly at Trujillo's direct order. However, the exact number is impossible to calculate for many reasons. Among them is the fact that, although the Dominican Army murdered many of the victims in public view, they carried out most of the slayings en masse in isolated areas, leaving either no witnesses or just a few survivors. Another reason why the number of victims is unknown is that an untold but very great number of their bodies ended up either in the sea, where sharks consumed their remains, or in mass graves, where acidic soil degraded them, leaving nothing for forensic investigators to exhume.
Trujillo Molina
Trujillo Molina ( 24 October 1891 – 30 May 1961), The Chief or The Boss), was a Dominican politician, soldier and dictator, who ruled the Dominican Republic from February 1930 until his assassination in May 1961. He served as president from 1930 to 1938 and again from 1942 to 1952, ruling for the rest of the time as an unelected military strongman under figurehead presidents. His 31 years in power, to Dominicans known as the Trujillo Era, are considered one of the bloodiest eras ever in the Americas, as well as a time of a personality cult, when monuments to Trujillo were in abundance. Trujillo and his regime were responsible for many deaths, including between 1,000 and 30,000 in the infamous Parsley massacre.
Vodou
Vodou, a traditional Afro-Haitian religion, is a worldview encompassing philosophy, medicine, justice, and religion. Its fundamental principle is that everything is spirit. Humans are spirits who inhabit the visible world. The unseen world is populated by lwa (spirits), mystè (mysteries), anvizib (the invisibles), zanj (angels), and the spirits of ancestors and the recently deceased. All these spirits are believed to live in a mythic land called Ginen, a cosmic “Africa.” The God of the Christian Bible is understood to be the creator of both the universe and the spirits; the spirits were made by God to help him govern humanity and the natural world.
The primary goal and activity of Vodou is to sevi lwa (“serve the spirits”)—to offer prayers and perform various devotional rites directed at God and particular spirits in return for health, protection, and favour. Spirit possession plays an important role in Afro-Haitian religion, as it does in many other world religions. During religious rites, believers sometimes enter a trancelike state in which the devotee may eat and drink, perform stylized dances, give supernaturally inspired advice to people, or perform medical cures or special physical feats; these acts exhibit the incarnate presence of the lwa within the entranced devotee. Vodou ritual activity (e.g., prayer, song, dance, and gesture) is aimed at refining and restoring balance and energy in relationships between people and between people and the spirits of the unseen world.
Vodou is an oral tradition practiced by extended families that inherit familial spirits, along with the necessary devotional practices, from their elders. In the cities, local hierarchies of priestesses or priests (manbo and oungan), “children of the spirits” (ounsi), and ritual drummers (ountògi) comprise more formal “societies” or “congregations” (sosyete). In these congregations, knowledge is passed on through a ritual of initiation (kanzo) in which the body becomes the site of spiritual transformation.
François Duvalier (14 April 1907 – 21 April 1971), also known as Papa Doc, was the President of Haiti from 1957 to 1971.[3] He was elected president in 1957 on a populist and black nationalist platform. After thwarting a military coup d'état in 1958, his regime rapidly became totalitarian. An undercover death squad, the Tonton Macoute, killed indiscriminately and was thought to be so pervasive that Haitians became fearful of expressing dissent even in private. Duvalier further solidified his rule by incorporating elements of Haitian mythology into a personality cult.
Prior to his rule, Duvalier was a physician by profession. His profession and expertise in the field acquired him the nickname "Papa Doc". He was unanimously "re-elected" in a 1961 referendum in which he was the only candidate. Afterwards, he consolidated his power step by step, culminating in 1964 when he became President for Life after another faulty election, and remained in power until he died in 1971. He was succeeded by his son, Jean‑Claude, who was nicknamed "Baby Doc"
Tonton Macoute
After the July 1958 Haitian coup d'état attempt against President François Duvalier, he purged the army and law enforcement agencies in Haiti and executed numerous officers as he perceived them as a threat to his regime. To counteract this threat, he created a military force that bore several names. In 1959, his paramilitary force was called the Cagoulards ("Hooded Men").They were then renamed to Milice Civile (Civilian Militia), and after 1962, Volontaires de la Sécurité Nationale (Volunteers of the National Security, or VSN).They began to be called the Tonton Macoute when people started to disappear for no apparent reason.This group answered to him only.
Duvalier authorized the Tontons Macoutes to commit systematic violence and human rights abuses to suppress political opposition. They were responsible for unknown numbers of murders and rapes in Haiti. Political opponents often disappeared overnight, or were sometimes attacked in broad daylight. Tontons Macoutes stoned and burned people alive. Many times they put the corpses of their victims on display, often hung in trees for everyone to see and take as warnings against opposition. Family members who tried to remove the bodies for proper burial often disappeared themselves. Anyone who challenged the VSN risked assassination. Their unrestrained state terrorism was accompanied by corruption, extortion and personal aggrandizement among the leadership. The victims of Tontons Macoutes could range from a woman in the poorest of neighborhoods who had previously supported an opposing politician to a businessman who refused to comply with extortion threats (ostensibly as donations for public works, but which were in fact the source of profit for corrupt officials and even President Duvalier). The Tontons Macoutes murdered between 30,000 and 60,000 Haitians.
Jean-Claude Duvalier
Jean-Claude Duvalier nicknamed “Baby Doc”3 July 1951 – 4 October 2014), was the President of Haiti from 1971 until he was overthrown by a popular uprising in 1986. He succeeded his father François "Papa Doc" Duvalier as the ruler of Haiti after his death in 1971. After assuming power, he introduced cosmetic changes to his father's regime and delegated much authority to his advisors. Thousands of Haitians were killed or tortured, and hundreds of thousands fled the country during his presidency. He maintained a notoriously lavish lifestyle (including a state-sponsored US$ 3 million wedding in 1980) while poverty among his people remained the most widespread of any country in the Western Hemisphere.
Relations with the United States improved after Duvalier's ascension to the presidency, and later deteriorated under the Carter administration, only to again improve under Ronald Reagan due to the strong anti-communist stance of the Duvaliers. Rebellion against the Duvalier regime broke out in 1985 and Baby Doc fled to France in 1986 on a U.S. Air Force flight.
Duvalier unexpectedly returned to Haiti on 16 January 2011, after two decades in self-imposed exile in France. The following day, he was arrested by Haitian police, facing possible charges for embezzlement.[3] On 18 January, Duvalier was charged with corruption. On 28 February 2013, Duvalier pleaded not guilty to charges of corruption and human rights abuse. He died of a heart attack on 4 October 2014, at the age of 63.
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