ASSOCIATION

Well, Haiti is one of those countries that carries three names under its belt, Haiti is also called, Toma or Boyo.  Even the main streets of Haiti carry two names one that all the locals calls it by and the official written name.  Haiti is the first portal to American history since Columbus arrival,  the first black republic in the world and the only nation to have risen out of slave revolt.

 

There are a lot of great and fun things that people do not know about Haiti.  Misconceptions that have built-up over the years have generated load of stigmas and taboos when it comes to Haiti.  It is portrayed as dangerous and not a safe place to be, yet studies have shown that Haiti is considerably safer and less violent of a place than many of its neighbouring countries. The murder rate in Haiti is 20-25 victims per 100,000 population That’s far lower than many Caribbean and Central American countries. (For other reports on comparative statistics of violent crimes in the hemisphere, click here, Canada’s murder rate is 2 per 100,000).

 

Haiti is the second largest Caribbean Island and one of the two non-spanish speaking country in Latin America. It is situated 77 km southeast of Cuba. Haiti occupies the western third of the island it shares with the Dominican Republic and has 1530 km of coast line. Mountainous land between the Atlantic Ocean in the North and the Caribbean Sea in the South, Haiti also comprises several islands surrounding the main territory: La Gonâve, la Tortue, l'Ile-à-Vache, la Navase, etc.

 

The majority of the population is black with a minority group of mulatto and white.  The official language of Haiti is French and Haitian Creole. Predominantly Roman catholic roughly half of the population practices the Voudou religion if not more.  The current population is according to the Haitian bureau of statistics is 10,413.211. 35% of the population is under 15 years old and 58% between the ages of 15 to 64.

 

 

 

 

 

Haiti is incomparable to the rest of the countries in America that's what makes it unique.   The recorded history of Haiti began the 5th of Deceember 1492 when  Christopher Columbus arrived upon a large island in the region of the western Atlantic Ocean that later came to be known as the Caribbean. It was inhabited by the indigineous people called  Taíno, an Arawakan people, who variously called their island Ayiti, Bohio, or Kiskeya. Columbus promptly claimed the island for the Spanish Crown, naming it La Isla Española ("the Spanish Island"), later Latinized to be Hispaniola.

 

PRE-COLUMBIAN HAITI

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Successive waves of Arawak migrants, moving northward from the Orinoco delta in South America, settled the islands of the Caribbean. Around AD 600, the Taíno Indians, an Arawak culture, arrived on the island, displacing the previous inhabitants. They were organized intocacicazgos (chiefdoms), each led by a cacique (chief).

 

The Taíno people called the island Quisqueya (mother of all lands) and Ayiti (land of high mountains). At the time of Columbus arrival in 1492, the island's territory consisted of five chiefdoms: Marién, Maguá, Maguana, Jaragua, and Higüey. Two of these chiefdoms, Marien and Jaragua, were on the territory of present day Haiti. Marien was ruled by Guacanagarix from his capital El Guarico near present day Cap Haitien, who met Columbus and gave him permission to construct La Navidad. Jaragua was the largest caique on the island and ruled by Bohechío and his sister Anacaona, who ruled from its capital Yaguana near present dayLeogane, and later came into conflict with the Spanish.

 

COLONIAL TIME & THE REVOLUTION

 

 

Why are Haitians so proud of their country? Haiti is not only magical it has a history of being the first out of almost everything. The first colonial implentation in the Americas at the arrival of Christopher Columbus occured in Haiti. When Guacanagarix allowed Christopher Columbus to settle in the land, he  established a small settlement called La Navidad, near the modern town of Cap Haitien, built from the timbers of his wrecked ship Santa María, during his first voyage in December 1492. When he returned in 1493 on his second voyage he found the settlement had been destroyed and all 39 settlers killed. Colombus continued east and founded a new settlement at La Isabela on the territory of the present day Dominican Republic in 1493.

 

The capital of the colony was moved to Santo Domingo in 1496, on the south west coast of the island also in the territory of the present day Dominican Republic. The Spanish returned to western Hispaniola in 1502, establishing a settlement at Yaguana, near modern day Léogane. A second settlement was established on the north coast in 1504 called Puerto Real near modern Fort Liberte – which in 1578 was relocated to a nearby site and renamed Bayaha.

 

To make a long story short, Following the arrival of Europeans, La Hispaniola's indigenous population suffered near-extinction, in possibly the worst case of depopulation in the Americas.

Spanish interest in Hispaniola began to wane in the 1520s, as more lucrative gold and silver deposits were found in Mexico and South America. Thereafter, the population of Spanish Hispaniola grew at a slow pace.  Over a century after their settlement , French pirates who had established a settlement one of Haiti's coastal island Tortuga in 1625, joined by like-minded English and Dutch privateers and pirates, who formed a lawless international community that survived by preying on Spanish ships and hunting wild cattle.

 

By1660 unbroken French rule in Haiti begins.  In 1664, the newly established French West India Company took control of the new colony, and France formally claimed control of the western portion of the island of Hispaniola and had begun to grow tobacco, indigo, cotton, and cacao on the fertile northern plain, thus prompting the importation of African slaves.

the economy of Saint-Domingue gradually expanded, with sugar and, later, coffee becoming important export crops. After the war, which disrupted maritime commerce, the colony underwent rapid expansion. In 1767, it exported 72 million pounds of raw sugar and 51 million pounds of refined sugar, one million pounds of indigo, and two million pounds of cotton.[9] Saint-Domingue became known as the "Pearl of the Antilles" – one of the richest colonies in the 18th century French empire. By the 1780s, Saint-Domingue produced about 40 percent of all the sugar and 60 percent of all the coffee consumed in Europe. This single colony, roughly the size of Maryland or Belgium, produced more sugar and coffee than all of Britain's West Indian colonies combined.

 

It is a distinct history and one that needs to be analysed in dept as we look at Haiti today.  Haiti which was called, Saint-Domingue during the colonial era also had the largest and

wealthiest free population of color in the Caribbean, the gens de couleur (French, "people of color"). The mixed-race community in Saint-Domingue numbered 25,000 in 1789. First-generation gens de couleur were typically the offspring of a male, French slaveowner and an African slave chosen as a concubine. In the French colonies, the semi-official institution of "plaçage" defined this practice. By this system, the children were free people and could inherit property, thus originating a class of "mulattos" with property and some with wealthy fathers. This class occupied a middle status between African slaves and French colonists. Some Africans also enjoyed status as gens de couleur. (See also Mestizo).

 

The freed population was segregated from both the whites and the slaves.  The living condition of the slaves was very harsh.  The outbreak of revolution in France in the summer of 1789 had a powerful effect on the colony. While the French settlers debated how new revolutionary laws would apply to Saint-Domingue, outright civil war broke out in 1790 when the free men of color claimed they too were French citizens under the terms of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.

 

However it will be the alliance between the freed population and the slaves under the leadership of Toussaint Louverture, Jean Jacques Dessalines and Henri Christophe that the Haitian revolution will take shape and gain the independence of Haiti from its colonial masters.   1804 Haiti was reborn and gave rise to  the world's oldest black republic and one of the oldest republics in the Western Hemisphere. Although Haiti actively assisted the independence movements of many Latin American countries and secured a promise from the great liberator, Simón Bolívar, that he would free their slavesafter winning independence from Spain.

 

The nation of former slaves was excluded from the hemisphere's first regional meeting of independent nations, held in Panama in 1826. Furthermore, owing to entrenched opposition from Southern slave states, Haiti did not receive U.S. diplomatic recognition until 1862 (after those states had seceded from the Union) – largely through the efforts of anti-slavery senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts. To learn more about Haiti click here

 

 

HAITI IN NUMBERS TODAY!

 

Wow! what a history, Haitians and the world should be proud.  Reality is different, we need to understand the context in which Haiti find its independence.  The rest of the world was thriving from slave labor and the riches of the colonies.  Haiti was the odd man out, a black nation made from slave revolt.  The rest of the world did everthign in its power to vanquish this new nation.  Even when slavery ended, racism was still at its core, a country like Haiti had to trade with countries which had segregation a the core of its economy or countries which amassed its wealth from colonisation.  To keep the colonial powers at bay, Henri Christophe built the America biggest fortress the 'Citadelle Laferrere"

 

Most of us know that is only rescently in the 1990's that South Africa freed itself from Apartheid,  the United States from segregation to name a few countries.  Since 1804 for over 200 years Haiti has been struggling to achieve the same wealth and splan that it had.  Like every nations we have things to be proud of and things that we want to cast into the shadows.  Haiti over the years had to face massive propaganda and it continous to battle those same propaganda today.  The hope and strength of the Haitian people remains strong and it has not detered their humanism.  To learn more about Haiti's tradition of solidarity click here.

 

The population growth rate is  estimated at 0.888% in comparison to the world: 127.

 

Birth rate:23.87 births/1,000 population (2012 est.) Country comparison to the world:68

 

Death rate:8.1 deaths/1,000 population Country comparison to the world:94

 

Net migration rate:-6.9 migrant(s)/1,000 population (2012 est.) Country comparison to the world:201

Urbanization:

Urban population: 52% of total population (2010)

Rate of urbanization: 3.9% annual rate of change (2010-15 est.)

 

Sex ratio:

At birth: 1.01 male(s)/female Under 15 years: 1 male(s)/female15-64 years: 0.98 male(s)/female 65 years and over: 0.8 male(s)/female Total population: 0.98 male(s)/female (2011 est.)

 

Maternal mortality

rate:350 deaths/100,000 live births (2010)

 Country comparison to the world:33

 

Infant mortality rate:

Total: 52.44 deaths/1,000 live births 42 Male: 56.47 deaths/1,000 live births Female: 48.37 deaths/1,000 live births

 

Life expectancy at birth:

Total population: 62.51 years

Country comparison to the world: 184

Male: 61.15 years

Female: 63.89 years

 

Total fertility rate:

2.98 children born/woman (2012 est.)

Country comparison to the world: 63

 

Health expenditures:

6% of GDP (2009)

Country comparison to the world: 105

 

Physicians density:

0.25 physicians/1,000 population (1998)

Hospital bed density:1.3 beds/1,000 population (2007)

 

HIV/AIDS - adult prevalence rate:

1.9% (2009 est.)

Country comparison to the world: 31

HIV/AIDS - people living with HIV/AIDS:120,000 (2009 est.)

Country comparison to the world: 37

HIV/AIDS - deaths:7,100 (2009 est.)

Country comparison to the world: 29

 

Major infectious diseases:

Degree of risk: highFood or waterborne diseases: bacterial and protozoal diarrhea, hepatitis A and B, and typhoid feverVectorborne diseases: dengue fever and malaria

Water contact disease: leptospirosis (2009)

Children under the age of 5 years underweight:18.9% (2006)

Country comparison to the world: 39

 

Education expenditures:NA

Literacy:Definition: age 15 and over can read and write

Total population: 52.9%Male: 54.8%Female: 51.2% (2003 est.)