All about Haiti

The name Haiti comes from the Taíno word Aytí, which means “Mountainous Land” and referred to the entire island later called Hispaniola. The French staked their claim on the entire island based on settlement of Tortuga and Gonâve islands by French pirates in the 16th century. France officially incorporated the colony in the early 1600s. In 1697, with the signing of the Treaty of Ryswick with Spain, the French took the western third of the island, naming their colony Saint-Domingue. The Spanish kept control of Santo Domingo, the eastern two-thirds of the island. Following the revolution and Saint-Domingue’s declaration of independence from France on 1 January 1804, leader Jean-Jacques Dessalines, of African descent, restored the original Taíno name of Haiti as an ode of honor to the Amerindian predecessors and as a demonstration of defiance against France.

The French Revolution contributed to social upheavals in Saint-Domingue and the French and West Indies. Most important was the revolution of the slaves in Saint-Domingue, starting on the northern plains in 1791. In 1792 the French government sent three commissioners with troops to try to reestablish control. They began to build an alliance with gens de couleur, who were looking for their rights. In 1793, France and Great Britain went to war, and British troops invaded Saint-Domingue. The execution of Louis XVI heightened tensions in the colony. To build an alliance with the gens de couleur and slaves, the French commissioners Sonthonax and Polverel abolished slavery in the colony. Six months later, the national Convention endorsed abolition and extended it to all of the French colonies.

Toussaint Louverture, a former slave and leader in the slave revolt who rose in importance as a military commander because of his many skills, achieved peace in Saint-Domingue after years of war against both external invaders and internal dissension. He had established a disciplined, flexible army and driven out both the Spaniards and the English invaders who threatened the colony. He restored stability and prosperity by daring measures, including inviting the return of planters and insisting that freedmen work on plantations to renew revenues for the island. He also renewed trading ties with Great Britain and the United States. Finally France appointed him Governor.

The French government changes and the legislature began to rethink its decisions on slavery in the colonies. After Toussaint Louverture created a separatist constitution, Napoleon Bonaparte sent an expedition of 30,000 men under the command of his brother-in-law, General Charles Leclerc, to retake the island. Bonaparte was influenced by Creole planters and traders. Leclerc’s mission was to oust Louverture and restore slavery. The French achieved some victories. In addition, Leclerc kidnapped Toussaint Louverture and sent him to France, where he was imprisoned at Fort Le Joux. He died there of malnutrition and pneumonia.

The native leader Jean-Jacques Dessalines, long an ally of Toussaint Louverture, defeated the French troops led by Donatien-Marie-Joseph de Vimeur, vicomte de Rochambeau at the Battle of Vertières. At the end of the double battle for emancipation and independence, former slaves proclaimed the independence of Saint-Domingue on 1 January 1804, declaring the new nation as Haiti, honoring the original indigenous Taíno name for the island. Haiti was consequently the first country in the Western Hemisphere to abolish slavery.

Dessalines was proclaimed governor for life by his troops. He exiled the remaining whites and ruled as a despot. He was assassinated on 17 October 1806. The country was divided then between a kingdom in the north directed by Henri Christophe, and a republic in the south directed by a gens de couleur Alexandre Pétion. President Jean Pierre Boyer, also a gens de couleur, managed to reunify these two parts and extend control again over the eastern part of the island.

In July 1825, the king of France Charles X sent a fleet of fourteen vessels and troops to reconquer the island. To maintain independence, President Boyer agreed to a treaty by which France recognized the independence of the country in exchange for a payment of 150 million francs (the sum was reduced in 1838 to 90 million francs).

A long succession of coups followed the departure of Jean-Pierre Boyer. National authority was disputed by factions of the army, the elite class and the growing commercial class, now made up of numerous immigrants: Germans, Americans, French and English.