Inspector General's Agenda: January 2010

Understanding Haiti

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As I sit watching, for the third day, footage of our Haitian sisters and brothers in the aftermath of the Earthquake that devastated their country I feel like crying for them. Yet, I dare not. To do so would be disrespectful. Of course they need our help. We must help them in every way possible. Yet, to shed a tear for these strong people would do them no good. Even if not one dime of aid, not one person from outside of Haiti lend a hand to help rescue & recover these strong people would do it on their own. They would rescue the living & recover the dead and eventually pull themselves together to rise once again. They are just built like that is all I can offer you!
Once upon a time, during a not so humane era in our history much if not all of the Caribbean and so called West Indies were controlled by the Portuguese, the Spanish Conquistadors, the Dutch, the French & the English. When they transported Africans from the motherland to the Americas they bought the majority of them to these Islands. Each Island has its own rich history & mixtures of Natives (so-call Indians) & Africans.

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With the following data I have compiled it is my attempt to portray Haiti in a realistic light. I am not Haitian and am in no way going to say that what I write here is exactly the way others see Haiti. I will try to be objective while not meaning to offend!
Although slavery started out as an means of economic advancement & not so much a tool of racism does not make it right. The racism came later on when many sought to make slavery permanent by institutionalizing it & giving life to many lies concerning BLACKS (e.g. Africans are partial humans, not able to learn, inferior to whites, 3/5ths human, & more).
Make no mistake either as to the proper way to gain true freedom. There are no proper ways! You just get it, take it by any means possible! As a bright man once said, "When a person places the proper value on freedom, there is nothing under the sun that he will not do to acquire that freedom. Whenever you hear a man saying he wants freedom, but in the next breath he is going to tell you what he won't do to get it, or what he doesn't believe in doing in order to get it, he doesn't believe in freedom. A man who believes in freedom will do anything under the sun to acquire . . . or preserve his (or her) freedom." ~ Malcolm X

What separates Haiti from all the rest is the Haitian Revolution which occurred between 1791–1803. This was the period of violent conflict in the French colony of Saint-Domingue, leading to the elimination of slavery and the establishment of Haiti as the first republic ruled by people of African ancestry. Although hundreds of rebellions occurred in the New World during the centuries of slavery, only the revolt on Saint-Domingue, which began in 1791, was successful in achieving permanent freedom. The Haitian Revolution is regarded as a defining moment in the history of Africans in the new world.
Although an independent government was created in Haiti, its society continued to be deeply affected by the patterns established under French colonial rule. The French established a system of minority rule over the illiterate poor by using violence and threats. The racial prejudice created by colonialism and slavery outlived them both. The post-rebellion racial elite (referred to as mulattoes) were descended from both Africans and white planters. Some had received an education, served in the French military, and even acquired land and wealth. Lighter complected than most Haitians, who were descendants only of enslaved Africans, the mulattoes dominated politics and economics.
Historians traditionally identify the catalyst for revolution as a Vodou ceremony in August 1791 performed at Bois Caïman by Dutty Boukman, a Voudo priest.

In the 1730s, French engineers constructed complex irrigation systems to increase sugarcane production. By the 1740s Saint-Domingue (Haiti), together with Jamaica, had become the main supplier of the world's sugar. Sugar production depended on extensive manual labor provided by enslaved Africans in the harsh Saint-Domingue colonial plantation economy. The white planters whos wealth came from the sale of sugar knew they were outnumbered by slaves by a factor of more than ten and lived in fear of slave rebellion.
In 1758, the white landowners began passing legislation that set restrictions on the rights of other groups of people until a rigid caste system was defined. Most historians have classified the people of the era into three groups. One was the white colonists, or blancs. A second was the free blacks (usually mixed-race, known as mulattoes or gens de couleur, free people of color). These tended to be educated, literate and often served in the army or as administrators on plantations. Many were children of white planters and slave mothers. The males often received education or artisan training, sometimes received property from their fathers, and freedom. The third group, outnumbering the others by a ratio of ten to one, was made up of mostly African-born slaves. A high rate of mortality among them meant that new slaves were being continually imported. They spoke a patois of French and West African languages known as Creole, which was also used by native mulattoes and whites for communication with the workers.
White colonists and black slaves frequently had violent conflicts. Gangs of runaway slaves, known as maroons, lived in the woods away from control. They often conducted violent raids on the island's sugar and coffee plantations. The success of these attacks established a black Haitian martial tradition of violence and brutality to effect political ends. Although the numbers in these bands grew large (sometimes into the thousands), they generally lacked the leadership and strategy to accomplish large-scale objectives. The first effective maroon leader to emerge was the charismatic François Mackandal, who succeeded in unifying the black resistance. A Vodou priest, Mackandal inspired his people by drawing on African traditions and religions. He united the maroon bands and also established a network of secret organizations among plantation slaves, leading a rebellion from 1751 through 1757. Although Mackandal was captured by the French and burned at the stake in 1758, large armed maroon bands persisted in raids and harassment after his death.
In 1789 Saint-Domingue, producer of 40 percent of the world's sugar, was the most profitable colony the French owned and in fact the wealthiest and most flourishing of the slave colonies in the Caribbean. The lowest class of society was enslaved blacks, who outnumbered whites and people of color by eight to one. The slave population on the island totaled almost half of the one million slaves in the Caribbean by 1789. They were mostly African-born. The death rate in the Caribbean exceeded the birth rate, so imports of enslaved Africans continued. The slave population declined at an annual rate of two to five percent, due to overwork; inadequate food, shelter, clothing and medical care; and an imbalance between the sexes, with more men than women. Some slaves were of a creole elite class of urban slaves and domestics, who worked as cooks, personal servants and artisans around the plantation house. This relatively privileged class was chiefly born in the Americas, while the under-class born in Africa labored hard under abusive conditions.
The Plaine du Nord on the northern shore of Saint-Domingue was the most fertile area with the largest sugar plantations. It was the area of most economic importance. Here enslaved Africans lived in large groups of workers in relative isolation, separated from the rest of the colony by the high mountain range known as the Massif. This area was the seat of power of the grand blancs, the rich white colonists who wanted greater autonomy for the colony, especially economically.
Among Saint-Domingue’s 40,000 white colonials in 1789, European-born Frenchmen monopolized administrative posts. The sugar planters, the grand blancs, were chiefly minor aristocrats. Most returned to France as soon as possible, hoping to avoid the dreaded yellow fever, which regularly swept the colony. The lower class whites, petit blancs, included artisans, shopkeepers, slave dealers, overseers, and day laborers. Saint-Domingue’s free people of color, the gens de couleur, numbered more than 28,000 by 1789. Many of them were also artisans and overseers, or domestic servants in the big houses.
In addition to class and racial tension between whites, free people of color, and enslaved blacks, the country was polarized by regional rivalries between the North, South, and West. There were also conflicts between proponents of independence, those loyal to France, allies of Spain, and allies of Great Britain - who coveted control of the valuable colony.

Impact of French Revolution

In France, the majority of the Estates General, an advisory body to the King, constituted itself as the National Assembly, made radical changes in French laws, and on 26 August 1789, published the Declaration of the Rights of Man, declaring all men free and equal. The French Revolution shaped the course of the conflict in Saint-Dominque and was at first widely welcomed in the island. So many were the twists and turns in the leadership in France, and so complex were events in Saint-Domingue, that various classes and parties changed their alignments many times.
The African population on the island began to hear of the agitation for independence by the rich European planters, the grands blancs, who had resented France's limitations on the island's foreign trade. The Africans mostly allied with the royalists and the British, as they understood that if Saint-Domingue's independence were to be led by white slave masters, it would probably mean even harsher treatment and increased injustice for the African population as the plantation owners would be free to inflict slavery as they pleased without even minimal accountability to their French peers.
Saint-Dominque's free people of color, most notably Julien Raimond, had been actively appealing to France for full civil equality with whites since the 1780s. Raimond used the French Revolution to make this the major colonial issue before the French National Assembly. In October 1790, Vincent Ogé, another wealthy free man of color from the colony, returned home from Paris, where he had been working with Raimond. Convinced that a law passed by the French Constituent Assembly gave full civil rights to wealthy men of color, Ogé demanded the right to vote. When the colonial governor refused, Ogé led a brief insurgency in the area around Cap Francais. He was captured in early 1791, and brutally executed by being broken on the wheel. Ogé was not fighting against slavery, but his treatment was cited by later slave rebels as one of the factors in their decision to rise up in August 1791 and resist treaties with the colonists. The conflict up to this point was between factions of whites, and between whites and free coloreds. Enslaved blacks watched from the sidelines.
Leading French writer Count Mirabeau had once said the Saint-Domingue whites "slept at the foot of Vesuvius", an indication of the grave threat they faced should the majority of slaves launch a sustained major uprising.

1791 slave rebellion

Guillaume Raynal attacked slavery in the 1780 edition of his history of European colonization. He also predicted a general slave revolt in the colonies, saying that there were signs of “the impending storm”. One such sign was the action of the French Revolutionary government to grant citizenship to wealthy, free people of color in May of 1791. However, white plantation owners refused to comply with this decision and within two months isolated fighting broke out between former slaves and the whites. This contributed to the tense climate between slaves and grands blancs.
Raynal’s prediction came true on 22 August 1791, when the slaves of Saint Domingue rose in revolt and plunged the colony into civil war. The signal to begin the revolt was given by Dutty Boukman, a high priest of vodou and leader of the Maroon slaves, during a nocturnal religious ceremony at Bois Caïman. Within the next ten days, slaves had taken control of the entire Northern Province in an unprecedented slave revolt that left the whites in control of only a few isolated, fortified camps. The slaves sought revenge on their masters through “pillage, rape, torture, mutilation, and death”. Because the plantation owners long feared a revolt like this, they were well armed and prepared to defend themselves. They retaliated by massacring black prisoners as they were being escorted back to town by soldiers. Within weeks, the number of slaves that joined the revolt was approximately 100,000, and within the next two months, as the violence escalated, the slaves killed 2,000 whites and burned or destroyed 180 sugar plantations and hundreds of coffee and indigo plantations.
By 1792, slaves controlled a third of the island. The success of the slave rebellion caused the newly elected Legislative Assembly in France to realize it was facing an ominous situation. In order to protect France’s economic interests, the Legislative Assembly needed to grant civil and political rights to free men of color in the colonies. In March 1792, the Legislative Assembly did just that. Countries throughout Europe as well as the United States were shocked by the decision of the Legislative Assembly. Members of the Assembly were determined to stop the revolt, so apart from granting these rights, they dispatched 6,000 Frenchmen to the island. Meanwhile, in 1793, France declared war on Great Britain. The white planters and slave owners in Saint Domingue made agreements with Great Britain to declare British sovereignty over the islands. Spain, who controlled the rest of the island of Hispaniola, would also join the conflict and fight with Great Britain against France. The Spanish forces invaded Saint Domingue and were joined by the slave forces. By August 1793, there were only 3,500 French soldiers on the island. To prevent military disaster, a French commissioner freed the slaves in his jurisdiction. The decision was confirmed and extended by the National Convention in 1794 when they formally abolished slavery and granted civil and political rights to all black men in the colonies. It is estimated that the slave rebellion resulted in the death of 100,000 blacks and 24,000 whites.
The author Thomas Carlyle described these events dramatically:

"[describes disorders and shortages in France] ... not so much as Sugar can be had; for good reasons ... With factions, suspicions, want of bread and sugar, it is verily what they call déchiré, torn asunder this poor country: France and all that is French. For, over seas too come bad news. In black Saint-Domingo, before that variegated Glitter in the Champs Elysées was lit for an Accepted Constitution, there had risen, and was burning contemporary with it, quite another variegated Glitter and nocturnal Fulgor, had we known it: of molasses and ardent-spirits; of sugar-boileries, plantations, furniture, cattle and men: skyhigh; the Plain of Cap Français one huge whirl of smoke and flame! What a change here, in these two years; since that first 'Box of Tricolor Cockades' got through the Custom-house, and atrabiliar Creoles too rejoiced that there was a levelling of Bastilles! Levelling is comfortable, as we often say: levelling, yet only down to oneself. Your pale-white Creoles, have their grievances: — and your yellow Quarteroons? And your dark-yellow Mulattoes? And your Slaves soot-black? Quarteroon Ogé, Friend of our Parisian Brissotin Friends of the Blacks, felt, for his share too, that Insurrection was the most sacred of duties. So the tricolor Cockades had fluttered and swashed only some three months on the Creole hat, when Ogé's signal-conflagrations went aloft; with the voice of rage and terror. Repressed, doomed to die, he took black powder or seedgrains in the hollow of his hand, this Ogé; sprinkled a film of white ones on the top, and said to his Judges, "Behold they are white;" — then shook his hand, and said "Where are the Whites, Ou sont les Blancs?" ... Before the fire was an insurrection by the oppressed mixed-race minority. So now, in the Autumn of 1791, looking from the sky-windows of Cap Français, thick clouds of smoke girdle our horizon, smoke in the day, in the night fire; preceded by fugitive shrieking white women, by Terror and Rumour. ..."

Leadership of Toussaint

The great hero of the Haitian Revolution and a man considered one of the great revolutionaries and generals in his own time throughout America and Europe, was François Dominique Toussaint L'Ouverture. This man, whom all his European contemporaries compared to George Washington and later to Napolean Bonaparte, was not even part of the original revolution. When the war of independence broke out in August, Toussaint was fifty years old. Having spent his life in slavery, he was entering old age as a carriage driver. Like so many other slaves, though, the revolution fired his passion and he discovered within himself a greatness that fired the imagination of both his contemporaries and distant Europeans.
Toussaint L'Ouverture was one of the most successful black commanders, a self-educated former domestic slave. Like Jean François and Biassou, he initially fought for the Spanish crown. After the British had invaded Saint-Domingue, he decided to fight for the French if they would agree to free all the slaves. Sonthonax had proclaimed an end to slavery on 29 August 1793. Toussaint L'Ouverture worked with a French general, Étienne Laveaux, to ensure all slaves would be freed. He brought his forces over to the French side in May 1794 and began to fight for the French Republic. Many enslaved Africans were attracted to Toussaint's forces. He insisted on discipline and restricted wholesale slaughter.
Under the military leadership of Toussaint, the forces made up mostly of former slaves succeeded in winning concessions from the English and expelling the Spanish forces. In the end, he essentially restored control of Saint-Domingue to France. Having made himself master of the island, however, Toussaint did not wish to surrender too much power to France. He began to rule the country effectively as an autonomous entity. L'Ouverture overcame a succession of local rivals (including the Commissioner Sonthonax, André Rigaud, who fought to keep control of the South, and Comte d'Hédouville). Hédouville forced a fatal wedge between Rigaud and Toussaint before he escaped back to France. Toussaint defeated a British expeditionary force in 1798, and even led an invasion of neighboring Santo Domingo, freeing the slaves there by 1801.
In 1801, L'Ouverture issued a constitution for Saint-Domingue which provided for autonomy and decreed that he would be governor-for-life. In retaliation, Napoleon Bonaparte dispatched a large expeditionary force of French soldiers and warships to the island, led by Bonaparte's brother-in-law Charles Leclerc, to restore French rule, and under secret instructions to later restore slavery [needs citation]. The numerous French soldiers were accompanied by mulatto troops led by Alexandre Pétion and André Rigaud, mulatto leaders who had been defeated by Toussaint three years earlier. During the struggles, some of Toussaint's closest allies, including Jean-Jacques Dessalines, defected to Leclerc.
L'Ouverture was promised his freedom, if he agreed to integrate his remaining troops into the French Army. L'Ouverture agreed to this in May 1802 but was later deceived, seized, and shipped off to France. He died months later while imprisoned at Fort-de-Joux in the Jura region.
With the death of Toussaint, the revolution was carried on by Jean-Jacques Dessalines. Unlike Toussaint, he was angry over his treatment as a slave and was determined not to allow its return. The war fought between Leclerc and Dessalines was, on both sides, one of the most horrifying struggles in history. Both resorted to atrocities. Leclerc was desperate, for his men were dying of yellow fever and the guerilla attacks took a surprising toll. So he decided to simply execute blacks whenever and wherever he found them. The slaughter that he perpetrated on non-combatants would not really be equalled until World War II; Leclerc's successor, Jean-Baptiste Rochambeau, simply continued this policy. Dessalines responded that every atrocity committed by the French would be revisited on the French. Such was how the war was waged. As the fighting wore on, Dessalines ordered the summary execution of all Europeans that opposed the new revolutionary government. During this time, Napolean's government did little to help the harried French troops.
Finally, on November 28, 1803, Rochambeau surrendered and Dessalines declared Haiti to be a republic. He took the French three-colored flag and removed the white from the flag to produce the bi-colored flag of Haiti, the second republic of the Western hemisphere.

Jean Jacques Dessalines

Resistance to slavery

For a few months the island was quiet under Napoleonic rule. But when it became apparent that the French intended to re-establish slavery (because they did so on Guadeloupe), Dessalines and Pétion switched sides again, in October 1802, and fought against the French. In November, Leclerc died of yellow fever, like much of his army, and his successor, the Vicomte de Rochambeau, fought an even more brutal campaign. His atrocities helped rally many former French loyalists to the rebel cause. The French were further weakened by a British naval blockade, and by the unwillingness of Napoleon to send the requested massive reinforcements. Napoleon had sold the Louisiana Territory to the United States in April 1803, and had begun to lose interest in his ventures in the Western Hemisphere. Dessalines led the rebellion until its completion when the French forces were finally defeated in 1803.
The last battle of the Haitian Revolution, the Battle of Vertières, occurred on 18 November 1803, near Cap-Haitien and was fought between Haitian rebels led by Jean-Jacques Dessalines and the French colonial army under the Viscount of Rochambeau. On 1 January 1804, from the city of Gonaïves, Dessalines officially declared the former colony's independence, renaming it "Haiti" after the indigenous Arawak name. This major loss was a decisive blow to France and its colonial empire.

Free republic

On 1 January 1804, Dessalines, the new leader under the dictatorial 1801 constitution, declared Haiti a free republic. Haiti was the first independent nation in Latin America, the first post-colonial independent black-led nation in the world, and the only nation whose independence was gained as part of a successful slave rebellion. The country was crippled by years of war, its agriculture devastated, its formal commerce nonexistent, and the people uneducated and mostly unskilled.
Haiti agreed to make reparations to French slaveholders in 1825 in the amount of 150 million francs, reduced in 1838 to 60 million francs, in exchange for French recognition of its independence and to achieve freedom from French aggression. This indemnity bankrupted the Haitian treasury and mortgaged Haiti's future to the French banks providing the funds for the large first installment, permanently affecting Haiti's ability to be prosperous.
The end of the Haitian Revolution in 1804 marked the end of colonialism in Haiti, but the social conflict cultivated under slavery continued to affect the population. The revolution left in power an affranchi élite as well as the formidable Haitian army. France continued the slavery system in Martinique and Guadeloupe. Great Britain was able to abolish its slave trade in 1807 and in 1833 abolished slavery completely in the British West Indies. France formally recognized Haiti as an independent nation in 1834, as did the United States in 1862.

Impact

The Haitian Revolution was influential in slave rebellions in America and British colonies. The loss of a major source of western revenue shook Napoleon's faith in the promise of the western world, encouraging him to unload other French assets in the region including the territory known as Louisiana. In the early 1800s, many refugees, including free people of color and white planters, of whom some in both categories had owned slaves, settled in New Orleans, adding many new members to both its French-speaking mixed-race population and African population.
The response in North America was immediate. The Haitian Revolution suddenly changed the equation that had been operating in the North. Believing themselves to be kind and paternal and the slaves to be child-like and grateful, white slave owners suddenly became aware of the tinderbox that they were sitting on. Although slave owners would publicly declare that slaves were, in fact, happy being slaves, in reality they knew otherwise. All throughout the southern United States, white slave owners began to build "slave shelters" to hide in should the slaves revolt. Many of them regularly occupied these shelters whenever they feared a slave revolt. Guns became bedside companions and fear became the rule of the day.

In order to understand why Haiti did not have the best of fortune after its revolution we must examine the United States of America's reaction to the Haitian revolution.
The Haitian Revolution provoked mixed reactions in the United States. Southern Slaveholders feared that the slave revolution might spread from the island of Hispaniola to the slave plantations of the Southern United States. American merchants conducted a substantial trade with the plantations on Hispaniola (aka the French colony of Saint Domingue or Haiti). But there were antislavery advocates in northern cities who believed that consistency with the principles of the American Revolution—life, liberty and equality for all—demanded that the U.S. support the slave insurgents.

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WHY IS HAITI SO POOR?

The story of Haiti is- heavy and depressing. Yet I see hope too. To know the causes of Haitian poverty is to clarify the problem. It helps people like us to know where to focus our energies, our work and our wealth in attempting to lessen this misery.
Not only is this a difficult issue, but a controversial topic as well. I've tried to reflect the various thrusts of the argument as I've encountered them. But, ultimately I've had to decide where the evidence seemed strongest. I'm sure some will disagree and do so with vehemence. I urge you to reply. One of my central aims is dialogue, because it is in dialogue that we grow.

I. Root, but Less Visible Causes of Haitian Misery

The ultimate causes of Haiti's misery are human. They are rooted in greed and power. Both the international community and Haiti's rulers have continuously assured the destruction of Haiti's colonial wealth and the creation and continuance of her misery.

The international community's role.
1. French colonial contribution.
2. The international boycott of the new nation of 1804.
3. The French debt of 1838.
4. The United States Occupation, 1915-1934.
5. Post World War II United States domination.
The role of Haiti's rulers.
1. Slave-like labor systems in the early republic.
2. The elite's protection of its wealth.
3. Haitian corruption.
4. Human rights violations as a tool of oppression.

II. Secondary, but Immediate Causes of Haitian Misery

The international and national political climate of Haiti has assured her misery. But, little by little these forces have caused other factors to emerge that assure the continuance of Haitian misery even if Haiti were to secure good local government free from international intervention. (An unlikely prospect in either instance!) Some of the most noticeable secondary causes of Haiti's poverty are:

Language as an oppressor.
Ignorance and illiteracy.
The system of education (or miseducation).
Soil erosion.
Export crops vs. local food crops.
The lack of a social infrastructure: inadequate roads, water systems, sewerage, medical services, schools.
Unemployment and underemployment.
Underdevelopment in an age of international economic competition.
Haitian self-image.

III. A MYTH AND TWO PUZZLES

As well as arguing why Haiti is so poor, I address two factors which are often claimed to be causes of Haitian poverty. One category I will call MYTH. The contention that the Voodoo religion is a serious factor in causing the misery of Haiti is a myth, and an exceptionally pernicious myth at that.
The second category I term PUZZLES. These are areas which are not clear to me. They may or may not be causes of misery. In this section I will try to point out the complexities of two cases: foreign investment in manufacturing and overpopulation.

HAITI: THE JEWEL OF THE ANTILLES

Haiti, once called The Jewel of the Antilles, was the richest colony in the entire world. Economists estimate that in the 1750s Haiti provided as much as 50% of the Gross National Product of France. The French imported sugar, coffee, cocoa, tobacco, cotton, the dye indigo and other exotic products. In France they were refined, packaged and sold all over Europe. Incredible fortunes were made from this tiny colony on the island of Hispaniola.
How could Haiti have once been the source of such wealth and today be the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere? How could this land that was once so productive today be semi-barren? How did "The Jewel of the Antilles" become the Caribbean's hell-hole?

ROOT CAUSES: A. INTERNATIONAL FORCES

THE FRENCH COLONIAL CONTRIBUTION. One of the primary reasons that Haiti was such a productively rich land was because of slave labor. When people are willing to put productivity above all other values, then productivity is likely to soar. Not only did the slaves work long days under tremendously unsafe conditions, with little or no technology beyond hand labor, but Haiti's slave system was the most brutal in the Caribbean. Many documents of Western slavery explain that the ultimate threat to a recalcitrant slave was that he or she would be sold to Haiti.
Unfortunately for the masses of Haitians, slavery did not die with French rule. Rather, the basic concept of forced cheap labor was passed on to the emerging native Haitian elite. The French system allowed for some slaves to earn their freedom by exceptional work. This system worked well to get more productivity from the slaves, and the system was tough enough that very few slaves were able to earn their freedom. Thus slave owners got increased productivity with little loss of slaves through freedom.
A second group of slaves who became free were the mulattos, the children of white masters and slave women. These children were in a middle ground, uncomfortable to both slaves and whites. The slaves never knew how the white man would respond to his child, but often the slave owner didn't want to be reminded of his paternity. Thus mulattos were not welcomed in either community. Many mulattos received their freedom and formed a special middle class in the colonial period.
A special class of freed slaves emerged. About 1/2 of them were freed black slaves and about 1/2 of them were mulattos. They could receive some education, operate businesses, own property and in general imitate the French.
This imitation of the French became the hallmark of these freedmen. They wanted a clear separation from their slave backgrounds. Thus they imitated the whites. They adopted their religion, language, dress, culture, education and ways. But, most importantly for this story, they learned the value of slave labor. The colonial French heritage carried on in the Haitian elite's imitation of the French labor system. This is an important factor in Haiti's later misery.
INTERNATIONAL BOYCOTT OF THE NEW HAITI. After the revolution which concluded in January, 1804, Haiti became the second free country in the Western World (after the United States), and the first black republic. However, the United States was still a slave nation, as was England. While France had freed the Haitian slaves during the revolution, France and other European nations had slaves in Africa and Asia. The international community decided that Haiti's model of a nation of freed slaves was a dangerous precedent. An international boycott of Haitian goods and commerce plunged the Haitian economy into chaos.
It is difficult to measure the exact impact of this international conspiracy. Here was a nation of ex-slaves trying to rise to democratic self-rule, rising to run an economy in which the masses had only served as slaves before. The international boycott of Haitian products at this time was devastating for Haiti's long-term economic development.
THE FRENCH DEBT OF 1838. The Haitian governments were extremely anxious to be recognized by France and the Europeans. But France would not recognize Haiti unless indemnities were paid for lands of former slave owners taken over after the revolution. Finally, in 1838 President Boyer of Haiti accepted a 150 million franc debt to pay this indemnity. This debt plagued the economy of Haiti for over 80 years and was not finally paid until 1922. In the meantime Haiti paid many times over 150 million francs in interest on this debt. It is difficult to measure the incredible harm which this did to the Haitian economy, but by the most conservative measures it was extremely significant.
THE UNITED STATES OCCUPATION OF 1915-1938. Perhaps the most serious blow Haiti ever had to her independence and self-image was the occupation of the United States Marines in 1915. The marines took over control of the collection of revenues, the banks, and forced through a new "Haitian" constitution which repealed the 1804 provision that foreigners could never own land in Haiti. The U.S. decided who would and would not be government servants. The only factor of Haitian life which seemed to escape U.S. domination was education. The elite's identification with French culture was too strong for even the marines to overcome and the schools remained French in language and structure.
POST WORLD WAR II UNITED STATES DOMINATION. The occupation ended in 1934. However, the U.S. presence in both the economy and internal government affairs was well established. Ever since the occupation and increasingly since 1946, the United States, through the power of its aid packages, has played a central role in Haitian politics. In this way the U.S. has contributed to the misery of Haiti since it has given oppressive governments comfortable aid packages which kept these rulers in power. The United States was not interested in furthering Haitian misery itself, rather this is the price the U.S. has had to pay to keep friendly governments in power so that American military, propaganda and economic interests could be served. The result may well have served the interests of U.S. control in the region, but the issue here is the cause of Haitian misery. U.S. backed governments have certainly been a major factor in this suffering.

ROOT CAUSES: B. HAITIAN ELITE

The international community has done and continues to do its share in causing Haitian misery. But the contribution of the Haitian elite and Haitian governments has been and continues to be a root cause of suffering.

SLAVE-LIKE LABOR SYSTEMS IN THE EARLY REPUBLIC. After the French left there was a scramble for power and control in Haiti. The elite emerged as the dominant power. Given their superior educations, and experience in running businesses and other affairs, their control was not at all surprising. But, a pattern arose because the only model they knew for successful agriculture was the slave system. It was impossible to return the masses to slavery, but Jean-Jacques Dessalines, the first president, tried to enforce a system of labor on the peasants which resembled medieval serfdom, i.e., tying the peasants to particular plantations owned by the elite. This system failed miserably and in the process created a labor system which has been instrumental in the developing misery of Haiti.
What happened in the 1804-1820 period set the tone for Haiti's future and is directly responsible for much of her misery. The former slaves ran away from the lowlands, the plantations, away from the cruel rulers who would have effectively enslaved them again. They ran to the mountains where they would be safe from the soldiers and police of the realm. And here they have in large measure remained. This pattern of relocation has defined several aspects of Haitian life which undermine the development of a healthy economy.
1. The price the Haitian masses have paid for their freedom has been to live at or below subsistence, remaining in their tiny huts and non-fertile mountain regions in order to have peace and freedom from oppression.
2. For nearly two centuries they have sub-divided their small plots among their generations of descendants until the plots of land are very tiny and relatively unproductive.
3. A widespread attitude has developed holding that no government could ever be good government. Folk wisdom seems to demand that one retreat ever further from government and eke out an existence outside the mainstream of society. All of these factors contribute greatly to the misery the Haitian people suffer, and they are a direct legacy of Haitian politics and government. These evils are brought to the Haitian people by the greed of the elite.
4. THE ELITE'S PROTECTION OF ITS WEALTH. For the most part the 3% of the people who constitute the Haitian elite are descendants of those same families who were free prior to the independence of 1804. There is an elite which is mainly black and an elite which is mainly mulatto. These two groups have their own fights and battles, but in the few cases when the masses have attempted to rise up and assert the rights and needs of the people as a whole, the elite has rallied together using its wealth and power to crush the masses.
  The Duvalier family's rise to power was just another in a series of such moves. The present government of General Namphy continues the pattern even today. There has been no revolution in Haiti, just a change of government.
5. HAITIAN CORRUPTION. Corruption is common in all governments, especially prominent in highly authoritarian regimes, and practiced beyond measure in Haiti. The elite have used their positions in government ever since 1804 to gather the wealth and power of Haiti for themselves. What little wealth the country had has been manipulated into the hands of this elite. Foreign governments and humanitarian and religious organizations have often attempted to aid the suffering people of Haiti. Time and again, over and over in the 182 years of so-called freedom, the Haitian elite and government officials have sidetracked much of this wealth for their own purposes. Haiti faces the incredibly difficult task of dealing with corruption that is so established, so all-persuasive as to be an accepted social practice.
6. HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS AS A TOOL OF OPPRESSION. One would never expect that the Haitian masses would have sat placidly by and allowed such a tiny elite to inflict the conditions of misery on them. Indeed, the people did not sit willingly by. The history of Haiti from early colonial days until the present is one of constant resistance, constant rebellion. But the elite have been equal to the challenge. For 182 years the Haitian rulers have used terror, killings, beatings, illegal arrests and detentions, forced exile and other such measures to keep the masses in line.
  Even recently when it seemed that the overthrow of the Duvalier dynasty would end the dreaded Tonton Macoute and ease the pressure against resisters, we are reading of the activities of the Leopards. This is a crack military organization which has been implicated by Amnesty International in recent attacks on literacy workers and others aiding the masses in attempting to non-violently break out of two centuries of oppression of the Haitian elite.
SUMMARY OF THE ROOTS CAUSES
The poverty and misery in Haiti are human created. The root causes are the political and economic systems which have dominated Haiti for the whole of her 182 years. These oppressive factors have come from the international community, especially France and the United States. However, the Haitian elite, comprising only 3% of the Haitian people has also been a major factor in creating and continuing these oppressive conditions.

The causal roots are generally not very visible. Rather, they are the basis of the more visible and immediate factors which I will explain in the next section. Even the overt human rights abuses are not mainly visible on a daily basis. However, the Duvalier years were especially bad. Tens of thousands of people died or disappeared. Hundreds of thousands more felt forced to flee their homeland and seek a safer life elsewhere. Nearly everyone in the country felt the terror of the Duvaliers and their Tonton Macoute.

SECONDARY, BUT MORE IMMEDIATE CAUSES OF HAITI'S POVERTY

LANGUAGE AS AN OPPRESSOR Perhaps the oddest cause of poverty anywhere in the world is the fact of language in Haiti. In a word, the imposition of French on the country is an immediate cause of Haiti's misery.
French is the official language of the country. All state business is carried on in French, the schools educate mainly in French. Social prestige is related to the ability to speak French. Yet only about 10% of the people can even get along in French, with less than 5% knowing the language fluently. Creole is the language of the masses. 100% of the Haitians speak and understand Creole as their mother tongue.
The road to social, economic and intellectual development is reserved to the speakers of French, while the masses are kept in their misery because their language is not recognized nor allowed as an official language.
Creole is not a patois or dialect of French. It is a recognized language in its own right, with its own syntax which is significantly different from French. The Creole grammar is rooted in Central African languages, though most of its vocabulary is influenced by French.
IGNORANCE AND ILLITERACY. One of the results of this oppression of language is a national illiteracy rate which is very close to 90% in the cities, and higher in rural areas. It is hard to calculate the suffering tied to illiteracy and the ignorance of alternatives which comes with illiteracy and lack of education. When a whole people cannot read, they are cut off from advances in knowledge.
Thus they are condemned to repeat the forms of life they have developed whether or not those practices have negative aspects. Haitian life has many disastrous practices and these account for much of her misery. These will be detailed below. The point here is to note that the immediate cause of many negative practices is rooted in ignorance of the alternatives. It is ignorance that allows traditional practices in agriculture or education, health care or house-hold hygiene. Some of these practices are killing Haitians unnecessarily and destroying the agricultural base of this agricultural land. This harmful ignorance is the direct result of the illiteracy which defines the nation.
THE SYSTEM OF EDUCATION (OR, MORE PROPERLY, MIS-EDUCATION.) Legally, education is free and open to all. Actually, state-sponsored education is limited and most secondary or university education goes to the children of the elite. Only about 30% of Haitian children ever begin school, and of the 30%, only 2% stay in school beyond the 5th grade.
There are many factors which contribute to the lack of education, among them are:
1. Education is mainly in French, a foreign tongue to the masses of Haitians. In the past 6 years Creole has begun to creep into the school as part of a reform movement. However, books are still primarily in French, and after the 5th year in school, even classroom instruction reverts to French. More importantly is the indoctrination that only French is the language of intelligent and well educated people. Thus peasants, who speak only Creole, despise their own real language and demand that their children be educated in French, thereby assuring that their children will not succeed in school.
2. After the fifth year students must pass a difficult examination, the "sertifica" in order to continue. This examination is in French. Few children of the peasant masses pass this examination.
3. Teachers are very poorly prepared. Materials are totally inadequate. In the rural schools it is common that only the teachers have books. Rote learning is the most common form of instruction, even in schools in the capital. Students are taught to parrot the teacher. They learn little beyond the immediate textbook.
4. Schools are terribly overcrowded. Teachers have many too many children in each class and discipline is a problem. Of course, the fact that class centers around a language the children do not know does not help discipline either. The response to serious discipline problems is a harsh punishment system which relies on beating and serious physical assaults on misbehaving children.
In a word, the school system is in shambles. It does very little to help Haiti out of her massive ignorance and illiteracy. If anything, it helps to continue the reliance on French, a primary controlling tool of the Haitian state.
SOIL EROSION. Nearly everyone has heard about Haiti's disastrous soil erosion. Haiti is a mountainous country. For the past 200 years people have been cutting the trees on their mountains without replanting. Now, when the rainy season comes with its four or five months of daily pounding rains, one can see the brown rivers torrent down the mountain sides and watch, helplessly, as Haiti's little remaining soil flows out into the Caribbean Sea. How has this terrible situation come about?
There are four primary reasons for the soil erosion:
1. The need for fuel.
2. The need to earn a living.
3. Ignorance.
4. Lack of motivation to reform.
1. Haiti has no fuel except wood. People cook with charcoal. This requires massive amounts of wood to provide fuel for 6 million people. Thus the demand on wood as a crop is the immediate cause of the denuding of the mountains of Haiti.
2. The immediate motivation of much of the cutting is economic. Peasants are hungry. They have little available work. But wood is in constant demand as charcoal, or to sell to others to make charcoal. Peasant wood-cutters who do understand the soil erosion problem will argue that they have no alternative. They either cut and sell wood or they starve. Mainly they are right. Haiti suffers massive unemployment and most peasants have inadequate access to farm lands.
3. Because of the problems of illiteracy and lack of education detailed above, Haitian wood cutters do not really understand the extent of damage their cutting does. These uneducated peasants have little sense of history. In their generation Haiti has always looked denuded like it does today. Thus to convince them that they are contributing to Haiti's misery by cutting the few trees which any one of them cuts, is not a very convincing argument. When compared with the alternatives of hunger or even starvation facing the wood sellers, the argument fundamentally makes no sense.
4. There is little motivation for wood cutters to replant more trees. Mainly they do not own the land. They cut here or there as sharecroppers or renters, then move on to other lands. The land owners are often city people or more wealthy village folks and they do not keep a close watch on their lands. Were they to replant, it is likely that the neighbors' animals would eat the seedling trees since there is little forage left in Haiti. The land tenure system--the way land is owned and used in Haiti--provides little motivation to anyone to replant the trees. Of course, it is in the interest of the nation as a whole to replant trees. But, no individuals who own, share-crop or rent lands are personally motivated to do this costly and troublesome, and non-economic work.
EXPORT CROPS VS. LOCAL FOOD PRODUCTION. The largest portions of Haiti's best lands produce crops for export. Sugar cane is the dominant export crop, but tropical fruit and other crops are grown as well. With most of the very best land out of production for local food crops (beans, rice and corn), the masses of people do not have access to land to grow food for eating or selling on the local market. Ironically, Haiti, a primarily agricultural land, is a net importer of food. At first one might think that this is not such a bad thing. After all, by selling crops on the international market income is generated for Haiti, jobs are produced and money circulates. Unfortunately none of this happens in any positive way for the great masses of people. First, these lands which produce the export crops are controlled by the elite of Haiti. Most of the imported cash goes to these owner/controllers of the land and most of it is not spent in Haiti, but in the more interesting markets of the United States and Europe. Not even a trickle down effect is felt from this flow of cash. Further, the farm wages are among the lowest in Haiti. Cane cutters spend an entire day in back-breaking work to cut a ton of sugar cane. For this long day one can expect $1.00 a day OR LESS! When one compares this with the high prices of imported food, one can see the contribution to Haiti's difficulties from this concentration on export crops.
THE LACK OF SOCIAL INFRASTRUCTURE. Haiti does not have the basic social infrastructure to allow a viable economy. There are inadequate roads in the rural areas. Thus shipping goods to the market in Port-au-Prince is expensive and risky. Travel by workers is difficult and extremely time consuming because of bad roads. During the rainy season many areas cannot be reached at all by motor vehicles.
Water presents difficulties for the people as well. Only the houses of the wealthy in Port-au-Prince and the major regional towns have running water. The masses do not have access to potable water and the death and disease related to water is critical. It is said that 80% of all disease in Haiti is water borne. Sewerage systems are limited to the homes of Port-au-Prince's elite. The rest of the people make do with outhouses or worse, just use the outdoors. This presents a terrible medical problem in the crowded slums of the capital.
Electricity is not available except for a tiny percent of the populace. I've already written about the deplorable conditions of schools and the inadequate health care facilities. Haiti simply doesn't provide the basic infrastructure which allows a healthy people in a healthy economy.
Haitian governments plead that the country is too poor to provide such services. There is some truth to this claim. However, millions and millions of dollars donated by foreign governments and charitable groups for infrastructure projects have been stolen by government officials. Cheating and corruption in dealing with these funds are widespread. Lastly, the economy is run for the benefit of the rich elite. There are too few just taxes to provide the needed income for the basic infrastructure which makes a decent life possible.
UNEMPLOYMENT AND UNDEREMPLOYMENT. Masses of people have no work, or work for pay which cannot come close to providing a living wage a one's family. Because of the soil erosion and structure of agriculture, thousands pour into Port-au-Prince looking for work.
Most of them have heard of a friend's friend or an uncle's cousin said to have found work in the tourist industry, or manufacturing sector. But there are few jobs to be had, and the slums grow. These unemployed masses put increasing pressure on the already inadequate city infrastructure.
The problems of unemployment and underemployment are caused in large measure by the lack of an adequate infrastructure and the domination of all wealth by the few. The political instability of the present moment does not help. Members of the Haitian elite and foreign investors are leery of investing in Haiti since no one knows where the government will move.
UNDERDEVELOPMENT IN AN AGE OF INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC COMPETITION. Today's world economy is international. Competition is bitter and severe. We are all familiar with this competition between the United States, Western Europe and Japan. But this is a competition of the strong fighting the strong for a piece of the market. Haiti is in a terribly disadvantageous position. Haiti is an undeveloped country. It is not even a developing nation. The economic structure of Haiti has in large measure deteriorated in the 29 years of Duvalier rule. Haiti cannot compete. It's a case of being hopelessly behind in a long distance race of superstars. Instead of catching up, Haiti falls farther and farther behind each day.
HAITIAN SELF-IMAGE My own experience has been that large masses of Haitian people suffer from a self-defeating image of themselves. They know they are poor in a rich world. They have heard that they are ignorant and illiterate. They speak Creole and are told that this is not a "real" language, but a bastard tongue. They experience their own powerlessness and are told it is their own fault. Such a self-image creates its own cycle of misery. The victim, the masses of Haitian people, blame themselves for their own suffering.

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

I have painted a grim picture. Haiti is a devastatingly poor country. The causes of this misery are many and varied. Most of them are stubbornly resistant to change or amelioration. Many of the woes of Haiti are beyond Haiti's capacity to cure even if a just government and economic order were to appear, which, of course, is highly unlikely.

THE MYTH THAT THE VOODOO RELIGION CAUSES HAITI'S MISERY

Haiti suffers many many ills which I've tried to catalogue above. Ironically, one often hears that Voodoo is the major cause of Haiti's misery. I want to address this claim because I believe it is a complete myth. That is, I hold that Voodoo in no serious way causes Haiti's misery. But, the concentration on this non-cause dissipates much energy from more useful tasks.
Christian missionaries claim that the Voodoo religion is some sort of satanic worship and thus Haiti's suffering is caused by a combination of divine punishment and the ineptness of the satanic powers.
I will not comment one the supernatural part of it. But, the factual claim that Voodoo is a satanic worship is flatly mistaken. Voodoo is an African family-spirit religion. The spirits (not gods, but spirits--sort of like angels in Christianity) are invoked for moral advice and help with daily affairs. Additionally, Voodoo is a healing religion. Much of this healing is effective for local health problems. In general my strong impression is that people are very pragmatic about their healing. If a houngon or mambo (priest or priestess) heals, then people will use them again, otherwise not.
I don't want to paint a romanticized picture. There is widespread use of healing practices which go beyond the houngon and mambo's abilities. Wherever this occurs it should be combated as poor healing practice. Similarly, the Haitians have added a new rite to African Voodoo. This is the petro rite, a black magic rite which includes such exotic and socially damaging practices as death curses and the creation of zombis. There is no question that these practices are harmful. But, the observers of the Haitian scene whose evidence I find most plausible, maintain that these petro services probably account for no more than 5% of Voodoo practice.
I have no personal stake in defending Voodoo. But, it is factually wrong to blame Voodoo's excesses for seriously contributing to Haiti's misery. The reason that this is such an important issue is tied to the question of Haitian self-image and the rights of the Haitian people to their own culture. The problem is not Voodoo, but some excesses and superstitions in an otherwise legitimate religion. More importantly, it is the religion of Haiti's people.
My suspicion is that the criticism of Voodoo is not really because of its alleged harmful practices, but simply because it is not the religion that Western missionaries would prefer the Haitian people to follow.
A second version of the myth is to claim that Voodoo is filled with harmful medical practices and superstitions and must be erradicated. Again, I believe the extent of this harm is greatly exaggerated, but I do agree that there are indeed harmful medical practices and superstitions in Voodoo's present form.
However, when I balance these factors against the importance of Haitians having their own culture, their own ways; when I balance these negative factors against the poor self-image that Haitians already have of their culture, it seems more important that critics of Voodoo concentrate their criticisms not on the religion as a whole, but on the harmful practices themselves.
If we look back in Western culture to the Middle Ages we find a Christianity riddled with superstition. The process that won the day in that struggle is precisely what I advocate for Voodoo. Medieval Christianity was purged of its worst superstitions and the religion survived. This is the need in Voodoo.

TWO PUZZLES

PUZZLE #1: FOREIGN INVESTMENT IN MANUFACTURING

Haiti needs jobs. Hundred of thousands of people are unemployed in Port-au-Prince, or can only find part-time work. Thus, at first glance it would seem that the arrival of American manufacturing operations in the 1970s would be a boon to Haiti. Well, are they really? The case is not so clear.
On the positive side, some 350,000 jobs now exist in the manufacturing sector which did not exist 15 years ago. 350,000 people have full-time employment; people who were unemployed before.
However, the national minimum wage is $2.60 daily. Most companies evade even this pittance by shifting their pay system to piece work and then making it so that the typical wage is closer to $2.00 than the minimum wage.
Until the fall of Duvalier, labor unions and labor activity were illegal. Even now few people know what a labor union is and the government continues to harass any labor activity. Additionally, the press of the hundreds of thousands who have no work, and who would very much like even these $2.00 a day jobs, keeps workers disciplined not to rock the boat.
The $2.00 a day actual wage is nearly double the $1.00 typically earned in the agricultural sector. However, the American firms who own and run these plants earn fantastic rates of return on capital, profits entirely generated by the labor of the Haitians. Any sense of justice one can muster calls for a fairer distribution of the wealth created in these plants.
Are these plants a way out of Haitian poverty? Yes and no. Immediately, they do employ the unemployed and that is a positive factor. But, the non-living wage which is paid insures that people will not rise out of their squalor and misery, but will remain at subsistence level.
This situation is quite like the early Industrial Revolution in the United States and England. Most of us are familiar with the hard and long battles which labor had to fight to get a fairer portion of the wealth their own labor created. The Haitian fight is hampered by many factors which were not as limiting in the United States--the high level of illiteracy, more severe levels of government oppression than existed here, more competition for jobs, etc.
So, I find this new development in Haiti to be a puzzle. Does it help or hinder Haitians? I just don't know. With just reforms this manufacturing sector could profit both Haiti and foreign investors. At present some Haitians do survive because of these jobs, and fortunes are made by the investors.

PUZZLE #2: OVERPOPULATION

Haiti is a small country, about the size of Maryland. It has between 6 and 6.5 million people. The soil erosion, inability to compete in the international economy, backward agricultural technology and many other factors combine to make this population of 6 to 6.5 million one which Haiti cannot easily support.
The overwhelming portions of the best Haitian lands are used to grow export crops for North America and Europe. This production benefits only a handful of the Haitian elite. Thus, if only the land were returned to the Haitian people and used for local food crops, Haiti would have no difficulty in providing a sound diet for all her people.
Even minimal improvements in agricultural technology (wider use of oxen and plow, for example), or improved understanding of agricultural problems (stronger national help in fighting soil erosion) and the land that is in production of local food crops could be much more productive.
Since hunger is caused by the present social system, it would seem that it is not overpopulation which causes the crisis in Haiti. But this view is shortsighted. A reformed use and understanding of agriculture (both highly unlikely) would make it possible for Haiti to feed its present population and even the expected population into the next century. But, eventually, Haiti will face a population crisis. Certainly by 2025, only 38 years from now, Haiti's present 2.2% growth rate will make Haiti incapable of feeding her people in the best of circumstances.
There are population control programs throughout Haiti. But they simply don't work. Much research shows that moral preaching, sex education, available contraceptive measures and even force do little to reduce populations in very poor nations. This is because people NEED lots of children. They need them for 4 reasons:

As workers in the farm fields.
As old age insurance for parents who have no other security.
Because in a life of low material gratification, raising children is among the few joys and delights one can have.
Because they suffer high children mortality rates, people must have many children so that enough will survive to accomplish 1-2-3.

Sociologists know that only economic development can effectively lower the birthrate, and that economic development--providing old age security, and some level of material comfort, almost invariably lead people to voluntarily limit birth rates. Such a rise in material standard is also accompanied by higher levels of education, which further contributes to voluntary birthrate limits.
Is it really overpopulation which causes Haiti's misery, or is the overpopulation another result of Haiti's misery? It's not a clear case at all. With more humane social planning, Haiti could provide for its people NOW. But what about in a few years? Population is a puzzle.

SUMMARY AND SOME HOPE

This paper has tried to explain Haiti's terrible situation. Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere because of her history, her present social structures which grew out of her history and because she is caught in the impossible competition of modern economics.
Haiti needs the help of goodwilled people everywhere. She needs you. The HAITI PROJECT can provide the avenue for you to make worthwhile contribution to the work of your choice. We offer you options for donating money, goods, or work.
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http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-na-obama-bush-clinton17-2010jan17,0,4373688.story

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