I’m reading a book right now called, “Why the Cocks fight: Dominicans, Haitians, and the struggle for Hispaniola.” The writer Michele Wucker did extensive research on this island’s troubled past. From what I’ve read, the people’s self proclaimed identity as survivors is spot on. Especially for the eastern side, the “high place”, Haiti. 

Celebrating my own country’s independence, I began to read about Haiti’s fight for its freedom. And I wonder, blindly, since I don’t know much about Haitian culture, how its beginnings continue to affect its current culture.

The Haitian Revolution really began in the mid 1700s as slaves began to fight back against the atrocities of plantation owners who tortured and killed them. And just to get an idea of numbers, in the late 1780’s merchants were selling 40,000 slaves a year to what was then France’s richest colony, which had a high demand for labor to grow coffee, tobacco, and sugar cane. A group of slaves even attempted to sue a plantation owner for beating women to death.

Fast forward to the late 80s and early 90s we find the first slave leaders, Mackandal and Boukman. They where revered by the slaves for their skills in the vodou religion. Dominicans claim these men made packs with the devil. But listen to Boukman’s words as he slaughters a white man’s pig, “Throw away the symbol of the god of the whites who has so often caused us to weep, and listen to the voice of liberty, which speaks in the hearts of us all”. Sounds legitimate to me. Boukman and his followers then began to set fire to plantations, destroying hundreds of coffee and sugar fields and killing thousands of whites. As the slaves began to organize more, Toussaint, who had been educated and freed by his plantation manager, became the general of the slave army. In 1791, when the new French Assembly declared all men were free and equal, the African slaves were listening.

In the chaos that ensued as slaves and mullatos united to overthrow the white plantation owners, Britain saw the opportunity to take control over France’s richest colony. And Spain also set it’s eyes on the western side of the island. In hopes to trick the slaves into a false allegiance, the foreign powers promised abolition to Toussaint. And while he fell for it at first, he was quick to call their bluff. He instead allied with the French when the french commander decreed a partial end to slavery. The French and Haitian slave army quickly expelled the British and Spanish Troops.

Governor Toussaint then wrote the nation’s first constitution, outlawing slavery and giving his country the ability to make laws without consulting France. Furious with the loss of the colony to former slave, Napoleon dispatched his most able troops. They were to demand allegiance to France and deport the Haitian leaders or kill them. Toussaint, in an effort to hold on to his infant nation burned down a northern port city and the capital city. As the French arrived to reclaim it’s riches, they found only burnt ruins. They exiled Toussaint who died, weak from starvation, of Tuberculosis. But they fought on for 12 straight years. After the loss of 350,000 lives, the Haitians defeated Napoleon. In 1803 the French conceded.

The victors ripped the white stripe from the French flag, creating their flag by joining the red and blue. And they named their country after the Taino word for high place or mountains, Haiti.   In 1804, former slaves officially proclaimed Haiti’s independence. It was the first free black republic and only the second independent nation in the Americas.

The first order of business was to massacre the white plantation owners. While the people were hesitant, fear of Spanish and French coming to reclaim the former colony pushed them to comply. Colonists were made to sing a Kreyol children’s nursery rhyme to prove if they could correctly pronounce the words or duplicate the African cadences. (Trujillo, a dominican dictator would later use this tactic on Haitians living in DR who could pronounce perejil (parsley)).

Unfortunately the new nation suffered greatly. Europe would not trade with Haiti, and to appease the south, neither would the US until the end of the Civil War. The Haitian economy would in fact never fully recovery. It’s people would live in restless poverty and the country ruled by a string of assassinated presidents and corrupt dictators. And I am of the opinion that the country would forever be at the whim of the Dominican demand for cheap labor (which in turn relied of the world’s fluctuating demand for sugar) and foreign aid.

In what I hope and feel is ignorance, I wonder what chance Haitians had. Were they prepared to rule a nation? Would their experiences of order of law translate to a nation-state?

They won freedom by destroying what sustained them: coffee and sugar plantations and port cities. It makes me wonder if that was the beginning of what I observe as a learned behavior that continues today. It is a deforested country with a government that sold its people’s labor to the dominican government only to pocket that money. And I want so badly to see Haiti as more of a victim, and while it is, I am still troubled by its people’s behavior.

In Jimani, while I was certainly more appalled by the Dominican government’s actions, the Haitians were at best greedy at times. And I know it came from fear, but it was still abusive. There was a deep sense of entitlement to the aid they received and a demand for more (not by the children). But that could have everything to do with being on the side of the island that still sees them as less than human. And while I speak out to any discrimination I hear, I fear that by assimilation I have put on a racist lens in seeing Haitians. But the other thing I carry with me is a deep desire for this island to prosper. Both cultures and peoples. And what I am beginning to see more clearly is the US’ role in preventing that.

God bless Hispaniola.