Haiti: Its dawn of progress after years in a night of revolution

by John Dryden Kuser

[III]

EVERY MAN'S LAND—A BIT OF HISTORY

The Republic of Haiti consists of the western part of the island of Santo Domingo, while the eastern end constitutes the country of Santo Domingo. The latter, while it has three times the territory, claims but one-third the population of Haiti, which is to-day estimated at 2,500,000. Columbus' estimate of the combined population of what is now Haiti and Santo Domingo was as high as 2,000,000, but during the four intervening centuries the change in race has been complete. Scarcely a strain of aboriginal blood is left; and no ancestor of the present natives then even knew of the "new world." Ownership of Haiti has changed hands four times in this period, and revolution, crime and barbarism have left indelible marks on the pages of her history.

The men left in Haiti by Columbus and those who followed the pioneers from Spain have scant justification for their brutal treatment of the Indians whom they met, and among the disgraces committed by white men in their dealings with the aborigines in America, the acts of the Spaniards in Haiti and Santo Domingo were among the most deplorable.

Before long, the Spaniards, having wiped out the native Indians, were obliged to search for labor to till their soil and to search for gold. All of the metals possessed by the local redskins had been stolen by the first-comers. Turning naturally to African slaves to solve the problem of labor, the Spaniards imported the blacks in ever-increasing numbers.

The Spaniards had not long been settled in this way before they were themselves forced to contest rule over the island, for French adventurers had come into the country and by 1697 the latter were so successful that most of that portion of land now known as Haiti was recognized by the Spanish to be under French control.

The French continued the practice, commenced by the Spaniards, of introducing negro slaves and thousands were each year added to the number already settled. Rapidly Haiti became France's richest colony and the stories of the magnificent estates and the luxury in which wealthy planters and French noblemen lived are pitiful in contrast with what was so soon to follow. Pauline Bonaparte's estate near "Mon Repos" on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince lies in ruins and there remains little trace of luxury about the huge pool where once she held court and receptions at which much of the nobility of France was present. It is said that the wealthy Parisians used to send their clothes to be washed in the waters of the streams of Port-au-Prince regularly every six months because of the extraordinary bluing quality which was credited to the water.

While Haiti was thus becoming a treasure island for the French, this wealth was at the expense of the black slaves, whom the French forced into overwork by extreme punishments. And thus, while the nobility in France were holding down their peasants to vaunt their vanity in the effete displays of the court of Louis XV, and thus foster the seeds of discontent which bore such frightful fruit in the days of the Guillotine, the French planters were doing the self-same thing to a worse extent in their treatment of the blacks in Haiti. Out of their cruel servitude was to come the succession of revolutions and the hatred of black and white which to this day has kept Haiti in the rearguard of civilization.

The era of the French revolution gave an opening for the first negro rebellion, and led by the example of the white planters who rebelled against their own government, the mulattoes organized to some extent and a man named Oge attempted to obtain justice in both Paris and from the local authorities. Failing, he was sought as a rebel and after armed resistance by himself and his followers he was captured and executed.

Critical conditions soon led the French Constituent Assembly to send three Commissioners from France to restore order and also issued a decree that "every man of color, born of free parents should enjoy equal political rights with the whites." However, the feeling in Haiti was so strong against this act that pressure was brought to bear upon Governor Blanchelande which prevented his executing the decree and pitched battles took place between the whites and the blacks.