Hayti; or, The black republic.

by Sir Spenser St. John

Agriculture.

M. Eugène Nau, in his pamphlet on the influence of agriculture on civilisation, endeavoured to bring his countrymen to look with favour on the principal source of prosperity in all tropical countries; but the seed he sowed fell on revolutionary soil, and agriculture is more neglected than ever.

And yet in all the wide world there is not a country more suited to agriculture than Hayti; not one where the returns for labour are more magnificent; a rich, well-watered soil, with a sun which actually appears to draw vegetation towards itself with such energetic force that the growth of plants, though not actually visible to the eye, may be almost daily measured.

The system of cultivation varies greatly. In the north an effort was made by King Christophe to keep up large estates, whilst in the west and south President Pétion encouraged the division of the land among peasant proprietors. Large estates still remain, however, in these provinces, which are cultivated under different arrangements, to which I will hereafter refer. The general rule is that large estates obtain mostly in the plains, whilst in the mountains the land is practically in the hands of the peasantry, though many large estates exist nominally.

In 1877 a law was passed for regulating the management of the State domains, for selling them or leasing them for nine years. A longer lease would require a special authorisation of the Legislature. This last clause is principally aimed at foreigners, whom the Haytians desire to keep away from all interest in land.

The national estates lie in different parts of the country, and the extent of them in the aggregate is but imperfectly known, owing to careless administration. According to an official return published in 1877, there were under lease 2105 farms of national land, containing about 230,000 acres, let on an average at the rate of two shillings per acre.

The laws on the tenure of real estate are, with some modifications, the same as the agrarian laws that were framed by the French during their possession of the country, and are remarkable for that minute accuracy and definition of right which characterise French laws in general.

For the better elucidation of the subject a few retrospective notices are necessary.

Going back to 1804, the year of independence, one of the first acts of Dessalines was to create a national domain out of the following elements:—

All the real estate which constituted the State domains during the French period.

All the real estates of the whites which had not been legally transferred.

All land without owners.

Confiscated lands.

In furtherance of his project to get the best part of the land into the hands of Government, Dessalines is accused of resorting to every kind of arbitrary and cruel act, and did not even disdain to encourage forgery in order to dispossess those proprietors who stood firm to their rights. This attack on private property was one of the main causes of the successful plot against his life.

Of the national estate thus formed a great part was subsequently parcelled out by Pétion in donations to those who had deserved well in the war of independence, whilst other lots were sold in fee-simple.

Of the class of large proprietors created under the republic of Pétion, but few undertook the cultivation of their own lands. The usage at once came into favour of letting them out in small lots to working men on the Metayer system, the landlord to receive half the produce, on the condition of furnishing, on sugar-cane estates, the mill and the other necessary appliances. With regard to produce, there are two classes recognised and kept distinct by law, namely, “la grande culture” (large farming) and “la petite culture” (small farming). The first consists in the cultivation of sugar-cane and similar articles; the second in the cultivation of provisions for the market. As in the “grande culture” half went to the proprietor, the tendency has been for some years to encroach with the “petite culture” on the lands reserved for the former. Each peasant is allowed a patch of ground near his portion of the cane-field on which to grow vegetables, and it has been found that his attention is more directed to this than formerly. As long as the sugar-cane is reserved for the manufacture of cheap rum to keep the population in a continued state of intoxication, the falling off in its culture is not to be regretted. In fact, the “great” and “little” culture did very well when anything exportable was cultivated, but now are of little practical importance, as they do not so much affect the great stay of the country, the coffee crop.[22]

I may repeat that the first thing in point of importance in Haytian agriculture is the coffee-tree, which grows almost wild in every mountainous part of the country and around the cottages of the peasantry at elevations of from 500 to 7000 feet above the level of the sea—wild in the sense that the plants appear to spring from the seeds that have fallen from the parent trees, though occasionally I have seen them carefully planted round the cottages.

There is a notion in Hayti that the coffee crop will come to an end by the old trees dying out. I was told this twenty years ago, and the story is still repeated; but any one who observantly travels in the interior would find the old trees surrounded by younger ones that spring from the teeming soil from seeds scattered by the wind or rain. The idea, also prevalent among many foreigners in Hayti, that the coffee collected now is taken from the original trees planted by the French, is untenable. As soon as the civil war caused by King Christophe’s assumption of power ceased (1820), a marked progress took place in the production of coffee. There is another fact which is also forgotten; coffee-plants in wet tropical countries generally bear from twenty to twenty-five years; therefore their age may be taken at about thirty years. If this statement be correct, the trees must have been renewed three times since the old colonial days. Most of the coffee plantations I saw in Hayti contained shrubs that have seldom exceeded from seven to ten feet in height, though on the way to Kenskoff I noticed many from twelve to fifteen feet. At Furcy and at La Selle we saw some very good plants, properly cleaned and attended to, and kept at a suitable height for picking the berries. Mackenzie noticed, in 1827, whole sides of mountains covered with coffee-trees of spontaneous growth, two-thirds of the produce being lost for want of hands to gather it. So prolific, he says, were the bushes, that many which were carefully tended produced from five to six lbs. and some were known to give nine lbs.

I have never noticed the peasantry use more than the mauchette, a sort of chopper almost as long as a sword, whilst cleaning their coffee plantations. They simply cut down the weeds and creepers, but never stir the soil around the roots with a hoe. The use of manure is unknown.

The only preventable cause for any decline in the coffee crop would be the neglect following the withdrawal of the peasantry to take part in civil wars and revolutions, and the lazy habits engendered by camp life. When riding through coffee plantations after the civil wars of 1868 and 1869, I noticed a marked deterioration from 1864. Creepers of every description were suffered to grow over and almost choke the plants, and poor crops were sometimes the result. In Geffrard’s time, though the cultivation was slovenly, efforts were made to keep the plants clean, and during the quiet four years of Nissage-Saget’s presidency the peasantry returned to their old habits.

Notwithstanding this occasional neglect, there appears no progressive falling off in the crops; they vary as before, but on the whole keep up to the average.

The quality of Haytian coffee is excellent, but its price in the market is low, from various causes. Sometimes the crop is gathered hastily, and ripe and unripe seeds are mixed; and then it is dried on the bare ground, regardless of the state of the weather; and when swept up into heaps, it is too often intermingled with small stones, leaves, and dirt; and fraudulent cultivators or middle-men add other substances to increase the weight. I have known carefully-selected parcels sent to France marked Mocha, and there realising full prices. Nowhere is coffee made better than in Hayti; it is roasted to a rich brown, ground and prepared with a sufficient allowance of the material, all on the same day, and the result is perfect.

As with other crops in the world, there are good years and bad years; but with neglected plants, the bad come oftener than they would if due attention were paid to their cultivation.

In 1789, when the French possessed the island, the amount produced greatly exceeded anything seen since, with the exceptions of 1863, 1875, and 1876. In those years above 71,000,000 lbs. passed through the custom-house, and it is calculated that about 15,000,000 lbs. were smuggled.

The variations have been as follows:—

	Lbs.
1789	88,360,502
1818	20,280,589
1824	46,000,000
1835	48,352,371
1845	41,002,571
1860	60,514,289
1861	45,660,889
1863	71,712,345
1864	45,168,764
1873	64,786,690
1874	54,677,854
1875	72,637,716
1876	72,289,504
1877	52,991,861
1878	63,255,545
1879	47,941,506
1880	55,562,897

This striking increase in the amount of coffee produced since the great war would appear somewhat to contradict the theory of the degeneracy and idleness of the Haytians, but it must be remembered that the women and children are very hard-working; that the women are in a majority, and that the work is mostly done by Nature; the men, also, are not very light-handed taskmasters. If a space be cleared round the bushes with a mauchette—easy work that a child can do—the increase in a plantation will continue, as I have remarked, by the beneficent hand of Nature; the heavy rains knock off the ripe berries and scatter them down the mountain-sides, and give rise to those matted undergrowths of coffee-bushes whose fecundity often surprises the traveller. It is not likely that the produce of the coffee-plants will decrease.

During the French colonial days the principal product was sugar, and in the year 1789 they exported 54,000,000 lbs. of white sugar and 107,000,000 lbs. of brown. As the slaves left the estates, so production decreased, and was fast disappearing when Christophe in the north forced the people by severe measures to resume its manufacture. He gave the great estates of the old colonists to his generals and courtiers, with an order that they should produce a certain amount of sugar under pain of forfeiture. As they had the population under their command, and an unrestrained use of the stick, they succeeded fairly; but as soon as this pressure was removed, the manufacture of sugar ceased, and it is no longer found in the list of exports, except as a fancy article to obtain bounties.

In 1818 the export of sugar had fallen from 161,000,000 to 1,900,000 lbs., and in 1821 to 600,000 lbs., then to disappear from the custom-house lists.

The prejudice against sugar-making is still strong, though, could the owners of estates prove to their people that large profits would accrue to them from its manufacture, it is very probable that the prejudice would die out. A friend of mine tried to persuade one of his cultivators to aid him in a sugar-making project, but the man answered sulkily, “Moué pas esclave” (“I’m not a slave”), and walked away. The negroes do not like a bell to be used to ring them to work, as it reminds them of colonial days, but some bold innovators have introduced and continued the practice, without producing any other effect than occasional grumbling.

Sugar-cane, however, is still very extensively cultivated, and succeeds admirably, the soil appearing peculiarly adapted to it. The cane is now grown for making tafia or white rum, and for molasses, which the people use instead of sugar. Most of the factories built by the French were destroyed, and inferior buildings have been erected in their stead. Watermills are generally used, as being economical, and the never-failing streams from the hills afford abundant power. A few proprietors have put up extensive machinery for sugar-making, but their success has been so doubtful as not to encourage others. A Haytian knows that during a revolution his property would not be respected, and, if a defeated partisan, would be either confiscated or destroyed: so no encouragement is held out to agricultural enterprise; and, what adds to his difficulties, a dangerous spirit of communism has spread among the people, and in many districts the peasantry begin to regard the estates as their own.

Of cotton 8,400,000 lbs. were exported in 1789. This amount, however, soon decreased under independent rule:—

In	1835	there were exported	1,649,717	lbs.
”	1842	”	880,517	”
”	1853	”	557,480	”
”	1859	”	938,056	”
”	1860	”	688,735	”

to rise, on the outbreak of the civil war in the United States, to—

In	1861	1,139,439	lbs.
”	1862	1,473,853	”

increasing until 1865, when the crop was over 4,000,000 pounds; but the fall of prices, occasioned by the collapse of the civil war in the States, from 2s. 6d. to 11d. in the course of a few months, discouraged the agriculturists, and cotton was again neglected. In the last commercial reports the amount of cotton exported from the whole republic is not given.

During the Great Exhibition held in London in 1862, the report on the cotton exhibited there by Hayti mentioned very favourably the two bales which were sent as specimens, and it remarked that England required at least 2,000,000 bales of each of the qualities exhibited. It has been calculated that there is sufficient suitable land in Hayti to furnish half the quantity required. This, however, appears to me an over-estimate.

President Geffrard was fully aware of the importance of taking advantage of the opportunity offered by the civil war in the United States, and supported two measures to encourage cotton cultivation. The first was the immigration of free blacks from America, and the next the offer of bounties.

The immigration was badly managed, as blacks from the North were sent, instead of Southern cultivators. Most of those who arrived, being unfitted for field-labour in a tropical climate, added but little to the production of cotton. A few kept to the work, but many died, and most of the others either migrated to the towns or left the country. As might have been expected, the Haytian arrangements were as bad as they could be. Settlers were given ground without any water, but were told that a canal should some day be cut; food and money were distributed irregularly, and malversation added to the other difficulties.

Bounties were scarcely required, as the price rose from 4d. in 1859 to 1s., 1s. 2d., and 1s. 5d. in 1863, and 2s. 6d. in 1864; and many Haytians tried to do something in order to win a portion of this harvest. Field-hands, however, were scarce, and in order to get in their crops the proprietors had to offer half the amount to those who would come and gather it for them. One peasant proprietor, in 1863, managed with his family to secure 8000 lbs. of cotton, which he sold for £500, a sum to which he was wholly unaccustomed. The comparative large amounts to be received would have had a very great effect on the prosperity of the country had there been the necessary hands ready to take advantage of the opportunity offered. The industrious, however, were few, and many proprietors had to leave a portion of their crop to rot on the plants.

When the prices rose to three or four times the former value, the Government abolished the system of bounties, and imposed a tax of one penny a pound, but had to abolish it in 1865 on the sudden fall in prices. The cultivation is now again neglected, as Haytian cotton has returned to its old level in price, and the land must be more valuable for provision crops. With the uncertainty which characterises the supply of labour in Hayti, it is not likely that cotton will again become an important export.

The French appear to have paid but little attention to the cultivation of the cacao-tree, and in 1789 only exported 600,000 lbs. Even this small quantity decreased, and the amount that passed through the custom-house in 1821 fell to 264,792 lbs. The crops have since much varied, but the export rose gradually, until, in 1863, the amount was 2,217,769 lbs. As far as I have been able to ascertain, no subsequent year has produced so abundant a crop.

Cacao is principally grown near the farthest point of the peninsula, west of Jérémie, amid a population rarely visited, and reported as among the most barbarous of the island.

Tobacco is not mentioned in the list of exports during the French period, and only appears in those returns which were published when the Dominican end of the island formed part of the Haytian republic. A little has been occasionally grown for home consumption, as at the Fonds-aux-Nègres.

Logwood is found in all parts of the country, and is a very important article of export.

There is nothing else grown in Hayti which can be called an article of commerce, but the peasantry cultivate large amounts of garden produce, and some rice and Indian-corn, but they do not do so in sufficient quantities to supply the market. Bananas for cooking purposes are a valuable crop, as they take the place of bread in the daily consumption of the people. Fruit-trees abound, particularly mangoes, sour oranges, and the avocado (alligator pear). The last fruit comes to great perfection, whilst the mango is inferior except in a few localities, and is not to be compared to the “number elevens” grown in Jamaica.

The markets of the capital are well supplied with European vegetables, which are grown in the mountains at the back of La Coupe, the old summer resort of the people of the capital. When staying there, I have often walked to the gardens at the foot of Fort Jaques, where not only vegetables may be found, but many orchards full of peach-trees—sadly neglected, however—with their branches covered with long moss, to the exclusion of leaf and fruit. A few apples and chestnuts are occasionally brought to market. Fort Jaques is situated about 6000 feet above the level of the sea. I may notice that the peaches are usually picked before they ripen, on account of the pilfering habits of the people.

There is little to be said about the domestic animals. The horses are generally small, but strong and full of endurance, and are of Spanish breed. Mules and donkeys are plentiful, as no person is satisfied unless he possesses some beast of burden. The cattle are supplied from the Dominican part of the island, and are much used for traction. Good beef may often be found in the markets. Sheep and goats are plentiful, but of inferior breeds, whilst pigs wander about untended, and are generally so lean that they warrant the reproach that the Haytians cannot even fatten a pig. Poultry are thought to be getting scarcer than formerly: they are generally of an inferior kind.