E PISODE O NE : H ISTORY OF H AITI
Intro
Djalóki: We have a Haitian proverb. Listen to it well. This proverb contains wisdom. There are thousands of years of wisdom contained in it. You will never finish knowing one proverb. You’ll study it until you’re a white haired old person, and you’ll still be learning a little more each time. The proverb says: the one who makes the hit forgets, the one carries the scar remembers.
Haiti before Colombus
Taino inhabit what is today called Haiti
The Tainos inhabited Haiti and Puerto Rico and were considered to be the most populous and most advanced culturally among other inhabitants of the Caribbean islands. An estimated 500,000 Tainos lived on Hispanola when Italian adventurer Christopher Columbus got off the ship to greet them. In fifty years the Taino population was virtually decimated. . Except for archaeological remains and some artwork, there is practically no clear trace of Taino descent in Haiti. Their contributions to the world - barbecue, tobacco, canoe and hammock are all Taino words - live on.Haiti in Taino means high ground, mountainous land.
Spanish Period
1492: Christopher Columbus lands on the island and claims it for Spain, calling it Hispañola, or “Little
Spain”.
On December 5, 1492 Christopher Columbus arrive at the island of Haiti that he renamed Hispañola. He
and his men were welcomed by the Tainos. Columbus documented the encounter in his diary saying:
"They...brought us parrots and balls of cotton and spears and many other things... They would make fine servants... With fifty men
we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want.”
Djalóki: Each time we say the history of Haiti, remember it’s the history of the world we’re speaking of. The history is not separated from the history of the US. It’s not separated from the history of Canada. It’s not separated from the history of France. It’s not separate from the history of Turkey. Maybe you don’t see it directly. But remember, why did they send Christopher Columbus 1 to look for gold here? Because the Pope, at that time was the only power and Europe lost a lot of wealth and riches in the crusades against the orient, so they needed to re-establish their economic system. We have to say this because they don’t talk about this in the children’s history books. They needed to continue their commerce and trade with China that had silk and spices, but the Arabs were blocking them through what they were using, so they had to continue to get around the world all for a matter of wealth. So this is how they washed up here in Haiti. So, China is a part of all of this. So the history of Haiti crystallises, encapsulates the history of the whole world. (01:56)
1492- 1542, Taino population decimated
The Spanish obsession with gold translated into a harsh existence for the Tainos who were forced to pay tributes of gold and made to work for the Spanish under brutal conditions. Villages that didn’t pay the quarterly “tax” in gold were burned to the ground. Fifty years after the arrival of Columbus virtually all the
Tainos were wiped out through the hardship of their condition as slaves, organized massacres or diseases they contracted from the Spaniards. The genocide of the Tainos was one of the most brutal and complete in
History.

1697 Spanish control over the colony ends and the island is divided into St. Domingue (France) and
Santo Domingo. (Spanish)
In 1625, French pirates landed in Northern Haiti and began exploring, engaging in petty crime and eventually displaced the Spanish from the western part of Hispaniola through warfare. Tired of attacks, and due to the strain of war in Europe, Spain signed with France the Treaty of Ryswick in 1697, ceding the western part of the island, which the French renamed Saint Domingue.
French Colonization
1697-1804 French Colonization
St. Domingue under the French became known as the "Pearl of the Antilles" and was the richest colony in the
French empire. To build this wealth, France imported approximately 700,000 enslaved Africans to work on plantations primarily of sugar, but also indigo, coffee, cacao, and cotton. Slaves were submitted to virtually the same abuses and mistreatments imposed on the Indians only on a larger scale.. St-Domingue played a pivotal role in the French economy, accounting for almost two-thirds of French commercial interests abroad and about 40 percent of foreign trade, wealth that was achieved through the sacrifice of slaves.
Pere Michel: It was a fierce colonisation, never before seen in all of the Americas. St. Domingue represented for France the Pearl of Antilles because it brought back a lot of wealth for France. It was the cherished child of
France because of the wealth it provided. To gather these riches, they brought the blacks into slavery. They brought Africans to Haiti, chained up 2 . (01:03)
The heritage [of independence] is the solidarity that existed between slaves. It was this solidarity that brought us to independence. It was this solidarity that united them to chase the French. The situation was so unsupportable, the slaves had to flee and take refuge in the mountains. The situation was untenable, infernal.
They took refuge in the mountains and waited to fight against the French, against the slavery of the blacks of
St. Domingue.
They fought and forced the French out. It was “coupe tet, bwoule kay”, cut off their heads and burn down their houses.
3 Those who were put into fierce slavery fought against slavery just as fiercely. It was hard, but it needed to be done because a situation like that couldn’t be accepted. (00:32)
Haiti was one of the colonised countries that took its independence, in 1804. It was the first black country in the world that rose against slavery in America. The US took its independence in 1776. We were the second country in the Americas to take our independence.
Slavery
Ari: In our history, in our culture, we say that nothing happens by accident. You know that they took us from different tribes and then they separated us. So, when they separated us and brought us here, we had difficulty communicating between ourselves. You know we had different cultures, even though we were all from Africa, we had our different ways. Our religion, our way of life was different. At first, each tribe was trying to free themselves, for themselves. Their goal was to free themselves to go back to Africa.
Aricia: My name is Aricia Fleurinot. I have eight children, four girls, four boys. I have six in school, two not in school yet. We used to work better. Our way of living was better. We could make more money. We used to be

able to buy a marmite of peas of 15 or 20 centimes, and now it’s a million times more. And they had better harvests and knew more than we do.
I’m told it’s a series of blan that came to Haiti and built them. It’s Haitians themselves that built these forts and houses. There was a lot of misery in carrying these rocks. There were places where the rocks they wanted were too big for a hundred people to carry, and they wanted one man to carry it for them to build the fort here 4 .
That is to say, they brought a lot of misery down there. Another series of people who had more experience who knew how to make some little magic, and they removed the blan from Haiti. My grandparents, they came from another place, Africa.
Julienne: Haitians went through a lot of misery. There were blan who were maltreating them, making them carry enormous loads, go days without eating, beat them. The leader of them, Toussaint Louverture and
Dessalines, decided to give their lives for the sake of the country. If this happened again, would there be people to do this again? These were brave men who accepted to give their lives to save their country. The people who saved our country were brave, valiant people.
Alious: Long ago, they worked from 6 in the morning to 6 at night. Haitians had to haul huge loads that were very heavy and they weren’t able to say no. They had to work very hard. It’s because of this, when they (we) were working like this (6 am to 6 pm) that we made those forts. It was these people that made this fort. It was us that made them. Even now, it’s us who made those forts 5 . There were French there that didn’t want to see
Haitians. But, after 1804 there was revolution. Haitians were raised up against the French. They won the battle and became what we call independent. But independence… we’re not yet completely independent. To be completely independent we have to be able to go to school, we have to have housing, we must be able to eat three times a day. There are people who can’t eat. They can eat once in the morning and then not again all day.
The children are like this too. It’s like this every day. We’re not under slavery, but it’s a form of slavery.
Haitian Revolution
Late 1700s – uprising begins
Violent conflicts between white colonists and black slaves were common in St. Domingue. Bands of runaway slaves, known as mawon (marrons) would hide and set up secret camps in the mountains and forests. As their numbers grew, they began to carry out hit-and-run attacks throughout the colony.
Dja: We have a situation where we have slaves who are very rebellious; and a lot of them were trained in the art of warfare and they lived in the mountains where they better understood how to live than the whites; and there were in greater number. When they began fighting, there was no other option than to win.
1791- Ceremony at Bois Caiman marks beginning of Haitian revolution
The guerrilla warfare of the runaway slaves lacked organization until a slave leader named Boukman rallied the slaves the night of on August 22, 1791 as part of a secret religious ceremony, sparking the Haitian revolution.
Ari: But it was the arrival of Boukman in the north of Haiti. He had been a slave in Jamaica who had escaped.
There are stories that say he was a spy for the British because he was in Jamaica and then came here. But, whatever… He came to Haiti, and sat with the leaders of the tribes that were in the North of Haiti. He sat with them, and he said “you each are fighting to free yourselves and your own tribes. This isn’t really the right way.

What would be best is to sit together, bring a unity to ourselves, and spiritually, all the spirits that we have would also come together. So in this way, while we are fighting physically, the spirits will also come together and be united and they will help us and fight with us too.” This was where voodoo was born. This really did happen. There were several meetings and encounters that happened. In these meetings, there was only one condition: we must all leave the power and the domination of the slave owners.
1791 A great slave uprising plunged the country into a complex, many-sided civil war.
The slave rebellion began on the plantations in the north and spread across most of the colony. Slaves burnt the plantations where they had been forced to work, and killed master masters and overseers. One of the most successful black commanders was Toussaint L’Ouverture, a former domestic servant. Toussaint rallied an army that overcame a succession of local rivals, defeated invading British forces and later even the Spanish in neighboring Santo Domingo, freeing the slaves there by 1801.
In this same year, Toussaint issued a constitution for Saint-Domingue which provided for independence. In retaliation, Napolean sent soldiers to the island to restore French rule. After being deceived, Toussaint was seized and shipped off to France where he died two years later while imprisoned. Jean-Jacques Dessalines, also a former slave went on to lead the rebellion until its completion when the French forces were finally defeated in 1803. On January 1 st , 1804, Dessalines declared Haiti a free republic.
Pierre Richard: Mawonaj isn’t just people who are hiding. The strategy of mawonaj, in my humble opinion, is a strategy of making a system function without being seen. Women played a very significant, strong role in the history of Haiti, even if they weren’t always the ones armed in battle. You see, mawonaj isn’t just the act of going to hide in the mountains, in grottoes, in holes. Mawonj is to install, in the middle of a colony, a working system of information. Where advice and communication can pass without the foreigners and colonists detecting the slightest thing.
I’ll give you a story. Dessalines found himself in a trap at Petite Riviere de L’Artibonite. There was a conspiracy, and he had to stop it, for Toussaint L’Ouverture. Remember, generally the colonials had servants.
There was a woman serving coffee to Dessalines. In serving him coffee, there was a message, and Dessalines fled. There was a message in the look. It’s extraordinary. We don’t need to talk. That’s mawonaj. Or, we talk and seem to say nothing, but information is passed. There were so many passwords, tools of communication.
The colonials couldn’t control it.
There is also voodoo. Voodoo is a religion that used many, many strategies. It was a way of resistance. It was also a strategy – because the drum speaks. The instruments speak. The gestures, the dance, speak. The dance speaks. We want to communicate, we can say many things, in dancing. Each rhythm, each dance, has its own significance. Each ritual has its own significance. For example, we can play the drum to gather people or warn them to flee. It depends on how we play. We can play to pass on a message – to say, now we will fight. We can also play to motivate people to fight. We can say, “yes, it’s hard, but it needs to be done.” We must fight. There are dances for this. There are dances for joy, to express contentment. And the slaves understood all that.
1838, France recognises Haitian independence in exchange for a payment of 150 million francs
The world shunned Haiti for almost 40 years, fearful that it’s example could stir unrest in the US and in other slaveholding countries. France only agree to acknowledge Haiti’s independence if they paid “reparations” to
French, in the amount of 150 million gold francs which today would be about $21 billion today. Haiti took out almost 70 million in loans to pay for their freedom.
Dja: There is not any past that is finished and over with and so what we call the history of Haiti or the history of the world is not contained in a book. It’s in our food, in our money, in our suffering, in our hope and dreams, in our relationships with other people, in our politics, in agriculture, in the climate, in education, in the way we speak, the way we think, what makes us afraid. The history of Haiti is present and living in each molecule in the land, in the earth. I told you I was raised as a Haitian. I was born in 1961. But I remember the very pain of the whip on the back, I remember as if it was my own flesh. The spit that the slave masters threw

on my face, it’s within me. And the middle passage where I had to curl into my own vomit, I still live that. All of the blows since the first encounter with Christopher Columbus, the first 24 hours, all of the blows that my people have taken and suffered, to this year 2002 are still and currently alive in me.
US Occupation
1915-1934 U.S. Marines occupy Haiti. Unrest in Haiti in 1915 threatened American business interests on the island. In response, American President Woodrow Wilson sent 330 marines to Port-au-Prince with the order to "protect American and foreign" interests. Within six weeks, representatives from the United States controlled Haitian customs houses and administrative institutions. For the next nineteen years, the US governed the country. Opposition to the Occupation began right after the Marines entered Haiti in 1915. The rebels tried to resist American control of Haiti, at the estimated cost of 2,000 Haitian lives. Thirteen Marines died during the occupation.
The occupation by the United States had several effects on Haiti. The occupation improved some of Haiti's infrastructure. Roads were improved and expanded through the use of forced-labour gangs. This violent form chain-gangs and armed guards permitted to shoot anyone who fled compulsory service, was widely regarded as a form of slavery.
The occupation continued after World War I, up to 1934 when political priorities changes in the US. As in other countries occupied by the United States in the early twentieth century, the local (U.S.-trained) military was often the only institution left in the wake of withdrawal. This sowed the seeds for a sequence of military-backed dictatorships, all attached to American patronage, which would define the next 50 years of Haiti's history.
Narrator: Winning independence in 1804 didn’t mean the end of foreign involvement in Haiti, be it in the best interest of Haiti or otherwise. In 1843, a revolution led by the Santa Domingo Creoles divided the island of
Hispaniola into two definite, independent states: The Dominican Republic and Haiti.
6 In 1915, after a period of civil war and economic and political instability, the US began an occupation that lasted until 1934.
Pere Michel: We must understand, when speaking of the occupation, be it the colonials or be it the Americans, an occupation remains an occupation. It’s with ferocity. They treated their compatriots like they weren’t humans. The way they treated our brothers and sisters like animals. The spirit of the coloniser, be it the French colonial period or the American occupation, it’s the spirit of the coloniser that we must understand, the spirit of interference and the spirit of contempt that they held for the people in the era of the occupation. There is no sympathy or humanity in the occupation. My impression is that when they came, it wasn’t really to help us. It was to regulate our affairs. They came to impose their politics, be it economically or politically, not to help.
And that’s what they continue to do, not just in Haiti but around the world.
Duvalier Dictatorship

1957, Military-controlled elections lead to victory for Dr. François Duvalier The American occupation set a trend of “strong government and weak state.” That political tradition continued in the
Duvalier dictatorship. (1957-1986) François Duvalier, also known as "Papa Doc," became president in 1957, once a well respected country doctor. In 1964 he declared himself President for Life in 1964, and his regime soon grew to be one of the most repressive in the hemisphere. Papa Doc used both political murder and expulsion to suppress his opponents; estimates of those killed are as high as 40,000. His son, Jean-Claude
Duvalier or Baby Doc took over at the age of 19. He misappropriated hundreds of millions of dollars over the years and as popular discontent with his government increased, so did political repression.
Pere Michel: The situation began to deteriorate with Duvalier. Haiti lived in a situation of fierce dictatorship.
Some say that it’s the first time we lived through that misery, the politics of Duvalier, the way Duvalier managed the country. To safeguard his power, Duvalier managed the country… he’s one of the biggest dictators in America.
All the people who did conscientizing work, who tried to light the lantern of clarity, all these were enemies of
Duvalier. The means he used to eliminate them was expulsion from Haiti or physically eliminating them. It was in this context that we lived for the 15 years he was in power. 15 years under fierce dictatorship.
Narrator: By the time ‘Baby Doc’ fled Haiti for exile in France in 1985, his regime had been estimated to be responsible for 40, 000 murders. In the years between his departure and the democratic elections in 1991, there were seven presidents or governing councils in Haiti. In 1991, with a new constitution in place, Jean Bertrand
Aristide, a popular liberation theology priest, was elected president. Because of a cup d’atat 8 months after he was elected, Aristide fled to the US His Parties dubious re-election in 2001 has led to the Haiti’s current isolation by the international community.
Modern Day Haiti, 1986-present day
1981, Mismanaged pig eradication program shatters rural economy
Alarmed that an outbreak of African swine fever in the Dominican Republic might threaten the American pork industry, the US led an effort to destroy all the Creole pigs in Haiti. Creole pigs were kept by farmers as a bank account, invested in over time and sold for cash when necessary. The plan to replace them with pigs was a failure, the American pigs required special feed and housing and didn’t thrive. Peasants were never properly reimbursed for the 1.7m pigs slaughtered and Haitians were left very distrustful of international “assistance”.
1990, Jean-Betrand Aristide is elected president in Haiti’s first democratic elections, only to be ousted
8 months later by the military
Aristide, a popular parish priest in Port-au-Prince slums was elected President with 67 percent of the vote.
During his first 8 months he made significant reforms as well as enemies. He established a minimum wage, made changes to land reform laws that exploited rural people, and replaced the Ministry of Tourism with a government desk to address land claim disputes. His politics clearly favoured Haiti’s poor which threatened the elite and after only 8 month a military coup forced him into exile. During the 3 years of military rule, approx 30,000 Lavalas supporters were killed or disappeared, approx. 50,000 Haitian boat people fled political repression. [fact check numbers]
Aristide is returned to Haiti as part of a US intervention, but under strict conditions
The US negotiated their support to return him, but on condition that he accept certain economic conditions which would make it impossible for him to enact the kind of social and economic reforms promised to the people. Though Haitians celebrated his return, it became apparent that the new economic conditions and restraints would serious limit his power.

2000 Aristide is re-elected amid controversy, social unrest
Aristide won the election with 91.8% of the vote, but the opposition contested it. Though international observers report the elections free and fair the majority of Western governments claim it was rigged. The US and the European Union block a $500 million in aid, fearing that Aristide's government was corrupt, a move that cripples the already vulnerable economy.
April 2004, Aristide goes into exile, an interim government takes over and UN peacekeepers are sent to Haiti.
Despite hopes to the contrary, Aristide was unable to fuse the disparate forces that were tearing the country apart. A rebellion during independence celebrations in early 2004 (that seemed to enjoy the tacit support of key members of the international community) forced him into exile.
FINAL THOUGHT
Pere Michel: Haiti is a story. We can’t explain the current situation without looking back to history.
Narrator: How is it we learn the lessons of our past? For it is in repeating the stories of our past that we come to know who we are. It is our past that defines us and gives shape to who we become. Every yesterday becomes the clay of our tomorrow.