Haiti’s heartbreaking story

Haiti became the world’s first black-led republic and the first independent Caribbean state when it threw off French colonial control and slavery in the early 19^th Century.

But independence came at a crippling cost. It had to pay reparations to France, which demanded compensation for former slave owners. The 19^th Century “independence debt” was not paid off until 1947. The have been recent calls for France to repay the money.

Chronic instability, dictator ships and natural disasters in recent decades have left it as the poorest nation in the Americas.

An earthquake in 2010 killed 200,000 people and caused extensive damage to infrastructure and the economy. (The infrastructure has never recovered.)

A UN peacekeeping force was put in place in 2004 to help stabilize the country, and only withdrew in 2017.

In July 2021, President Jovenel Moise was assassinated by unidentified gunmen in the capital, Port-au-Princ. Amid political stalemate the country continues to be wracked by unrest and gang violence.

Key dates in Haiti’s history

1496 – Spain establishes first European settlement in western hemisphere at Santo Domingo, now capital of Dominican Republic.

1667 – Spain cedes western part of Hispaniola to France, and this becomes Haiti

1801 – A former black slave who became a guerrilla leader, Toussaint Louverture, conquers Haiti, abolishing slavery and proclaiming himself governor-general of an autonomous government over all Hispaniola.

1804 – General Jean Jacques Dessalines proclaims the independent black republic of Haiti after rebel slaves defeat Franch troops dispatched by Napoleon Bonaparte. Haiti is the first nation ever to sucessfully gain independence through a slave revolt.

1915 – US invades following unrest that it thought endangered its property and investments in the country.

1934 – US withdraws troops from Haiti but maintains fiscal control until 1947.

1957 – Francois “Papa Doc” Duvalier wins elections. He eventually turned his administration into a brutal dictatorship.

1971 – Papa Doc dies and is replaced by his son Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier.

1986 – President Duvalier is forced into exile by an uprising, ending a 29-year family dictatorship.

1990 – Populist priest Father Jean-Bertrand Aristide is the landslide winner in a presidential election, Haiti’s first free and peaceful polls.

1991 – President Aristide is overthrown by the military.

1994 – 20,000 US troops arrive to restore democracy. Jean-Bertrand Aristide returns.

2004 – President Aristide leaves Haiti again amid a rebellion. US Marines arrive to restore order.

2004 – A UN stabilization force is put in place.

2010 – More than 200,000 people are killed when a magnitude 7.0 earthquake hits the capital Port-au-Prince and its wider region – the worst in Haiti for 200 years.

2016 – Hurricane Matthew, the strongest to hit the region in a decade, kills hundreds in Haiti and destroys thousands of homes.

2021 – Unidentified gunmen attack the home of President Jovenel Moise in the capital, Port-au-Prince, killing him.

2021 – Gangs and criminal elements take over the country.

2023 – Kenya’s Cabinet approved the deployment of 1,000 police to lead a multinational peacekeeping mission to Haiti to combat gang violence. Kenya’s parliament must now sign off on the resolution. (Oct. 2023)

(Information taken from BBC.com and apnews)

Want to know more about why Haiti has never thrived in the twentieth or twenty-first centuries? Read this informative and heartbreaking series of NY Times reports.

nytimes.com/haiti-debt