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OD 021 293

Mangum, MargaretFace to Face: Introduction to the People and Historyof Haiti. LIRS Manual for Sponsors of Refugees.Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, New York,N.Y.Department of State, Washington, D.C.8117p.; For related documents, see UD 021 294-295.Photographs may not reproduce clearly. Not availablein paper copy due to institution's restriction.Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, 360 ParkAvenue South, New York, NY 10010 ($1.00).

HP01 Plus Postage. PC Not Available from EDRS.*Cultural Background; Economic Factors; *Haitians;Latin American Culture; Latin American History;Political Influences; *Refugees; Religious FactorsHaiti

ABSTRACTThis manual was prepared for sponsors of Haitian

refugees. The manual attempts to describe the background of refugeesfrom Haiti by briefly explaining their history, culture, religion,politics, economics, customs, and habits. (MK)

***********************************************************************Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made

from the original document.***********************************************************************

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TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCESINFORMATION CENTER (ERIC)."

FOREWORD-There go the ships . ." is a phrase from

Psalm 104.For all who live in the United States the

phrase should be. "Here come the ships." They havebeen coming since this continent was discovered.some large. some mere cockleshells. Our harborsremain open, and the land stretches to receive thenewcomers.

For all of us who are Christian. the shipsmust always come. and we must stand on the shoresto welcome the strangers.

We have been doing that since 1975 forthe many Indochinese refugees who have soughtnew lives in our society. Many still wait in crowdedcamps overseas, and we must continue to welcomethem to our shores.

The arrival in 1980 of approximately130.000 refugees from Cuba plus the presence of30,000 Haitian refugees once again called upon thecombined resources of Lutheran congregations.Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service andother voluntary resettlement agencies, and our gov-ernment.

In May 1980 at the 14th annual meetingof the Lutheran Council in the USA, parent agencyof LIRS, representatives of the American LutheranChurch. Lutheran Church in America, LutheranChurch-Missouri Synod and Association of Evan-

gelical Lutheran Churches authorized the spendingof up to $75.000 to get a Cuban-Haitian resettlementprogram going. The four churches later gave$275.000 for ongoing support, since the usual gov-ernment funding to help with the initial resettlementof the refugees was not readily available. The Lu-theran World Federation sent $70,000.

The council's annual meeting voted to"urge the judicatory units and congregations of theparticipating church bodies to respond expedi-tiously to the need of sponsorships . . . for the Cubanand Haitian refugees with the same compassion asthey have traditionally displayed for other op-pressed groups."

Since 1972, when Haitian refugees firststarted coming to the USA and were met with a coldshoulder, the Lutheran church bodies have period-ically given financial aid to the Biscayne BoulevardLutheran Church and Christian Community ServiceAgency in Miami, which were among those tryingto help the refugees in their dilemma. Support hasalso gone to the Haitian Refugee Information Center.LIRS has attempted "to encourage a responsiblenational policy on asylum for the care and mainte-nance of people seeking a decision on their eligi-bility for refugee status." The agency has met reg-ularly with government officials to discuss theHaitian situation.

Your receiving this manual, one of a se-ries prepared by LIRS to introduce sponsors to var-ious refugee groups, means you have agreed tohelp one or more Haitians or are seriously consid-ering doing so.

Sponsorship involves a moral commit-ment to provide housing and jobs for the refugeesand to reach out in friendship to give them theneeded emotional support and orientation to life inthe United States.

"Introduction to the People and Historyof Haiti" attempts to describe superficially what lifeis like there and what customs and events havemade the people who they are. Haitian refugees inthe USA bring a culture uniquely their own. basedon their history, and this is what the manual seeksto help you understand. The text was drafted byMargaret "Peg" Mangum, a free-lance writer andeditor from New York City. Sources of photos includeReligious News Service. the United Nations and aNew York free-lance photographer, Victor Parker.

The manual was produced in coopera-tion with the Lutheran Council's Office of Commu-nication and Interpretation. Costs were paid by agrant from the federal government.

3

CONTENTSEntertaining Angels Unawares 1

Land of Mountains 3

Poorest of the Poor 5

Society's Split Personality 6

Superimposed and Popular Beliefs 7

Saint-Domingue 8

Ins and Outs of Independence 10

Papa Doc & Son 12

Bibliography 13

-.1961 Lutheran Council in the USA4

Entertaining AngelsUnawares

Haiti is a predominantly agricultural land.A proud people. Haitians face development prob-lems that seem staggering. Most of them eke outa bare subsistence on tiny plots of eroded land.They are hampered by illiteracy and guided by su-perstition.

Haitians live in what, in effect, is a policestate ruled as a dictatorship. Violations of humanrights are widespread.

The present regime dates from 1957when after a period of unrest and the rise and fallof a series of presidents, a black physician namedFrancois "Papa Doc" Duvalier was elected to headthe government. He took firm control with the helpof a private police force, the Tontons Macoute, whichterrorized the population. He established an infa-mous policy of torturing political opponents andplacing citizens in prison without trials or hearings.He saw that the constitution was amended to makehim president-for-life. In 1971 while dying, he passedthe title and his repressive regime on to his sonJean-Claude.

The first Haitians to seek freedom in theUnited States ventured across 800 miles of oceanin a flimsy boat in December 1972. An estimated35,000 have followed through the years. Many havebecome part of the undocumented alien population.Others have waited in a "legal limbo" while seekingstatus as political refugees.

In an editorial published immediatelyafter the initial boatload of Haitian refugees stepped

Demonstrators protest U.S. policies toward Haiti.

on U.S. soil, the Miami News stated prophetically:"A moment of truth has arrived for our local immi-gration officials who so casually go about their al-most daily task of processing Cuban citizens land-ing in South Florida after having escaped the Castroregime. Should the procedure be any different forthe dark-skinned Haitians? The action taken on thiscase will be watched by people across the countryand even around the world . . . . To refuse the pend-ing request of the dark-skinned Haitians would beracism, and surely our government isn't racistoris it?"

Federal policy held that the Haitianscould not be classified as political refugees, thatthey had come to the U.S. for economic reasons.The policy seemingly viewed Haiti as a needed allyin the Caribbean and that accepting those who fledwould offend the Duvalier regime.

The U.S. Immigration and NaturalizationService has sought to deport the Haitians, holdingmany of them in jail before flying them back to theirisland home where they faced almost certain pun-ishment or death. The Haitians expected a welcome.Instead they found themselves interned in a mazeof bureaucratic procedures that many could notcomprehend. Their hopes were met with bitter dis-appointment.

The Haitians have not been withoutfriends. A variety of groups and individuals havesought to plead their cause and provide them withsupportive services. Black members of the U.S.House of Representatives have formed a congres-sional task force on Haitian refugees chaired byRep. Shirley Chisholm of New York.

In the nation's religious community, theNational Council of Churches has played a leadingrole in helping the Haitians. The NCC's governingboard charged in 1974 that "the treatment accordedblack Haitian refugees stands in tragic contrast tothe generous United States government provisionsfor Cuban refugees who are, except for a few, whiteand skilled; which by implication seems to be sayingthat our doors are open only to those who are white,skilled and fleeing from socialist governments,thereby sowing seeds of racial strife in Florida andelsewhere, and appearing by design or default achampion of dictatorship of the right, no matter howrepressive it might be."

Legal services provided by the NCC-es-tablished Haitian Refugee Center in Miami led to ahopeful court ruling in July 1980 by U.S. DistrictCourt Judge James L. King. The case centered on4,000 Haitians who sought political asylum fromAugust 1978 to May 1979.

Haitian refugees wait in jail.

Judge King concluded that the Haitianshad been denied due process of law and were vic-tims of "systematic and pervasive" discriminationby immigration authorities. "It must stop," he de-clared, ruling that the manner in which the Immi-gration and Naturalization Service had treated theHaitians "violated the Constitution, the immigrationstatutes, international agreements, INS regulationsand INS operating procedures."

King found uncontroverted evidence ofa "transparently discriminatory program designedto deport Haitian nationals and no one else." Theasylum applicants were each allowed an averageof "only 15 minutes of substantive exchange." Theywere required to concede deportability before beingpermitted to apply for asylum. The procedure was"roughly the equivalent of requiring a criminal de-fendant to concede his guilt before providing himany constitutional or statutory rights," the judgecommented.

The director of studies at a Quaker foun-dation at Wallingford, Pa., Parker J. Palmer, believesthat "the Church's most important mission in theyears ahead is to help us recover the vision of humanunity, the sense that we are not only one nation butone humanity under God." He suggests "extendinghospitality to strangers" as one way the Church andits members can carry out this healing mission.

Theologian Henri Nouwen defines hos-pitality as "the creation of a free space where thestranger can enter . . Hospitality is not to changepeople, but to offer them space where change cantake place. IPis not to bring men and women over

2 to our side, but to offer freedom not disturbed by

PURM.

dividing lines. It is not to lead our neighbor into acorner where there are no alternatives left, but toopen a wide spectrum of options for choice andcommitment. It is not a method of making our Godand our way into the criteria of happiness, but theopening of an opportunity for others to find theirGod and their way. The paradox of hospitality is thatit wants to create emptiness, not a subtle invitationto adopt the lifestyle of the host, but the gift of achance for the guest to find his or her own."

Sponsors of Haitian refugees are ex-tending hospitality as defined by Nouwen to theseboat people. The newcomers may not be able toanalyze all the reasons for their flight in fragile boats.But with the help of congregations, they will be ableto abolish the intangible factors that have kept themin bondage for so long and begin to realize theirdream of freedom.

In the last chapter of his letter to the He-brews the Apostle Paul urges, "Do not neglect toshow hospitality to strangers, for thereby some haveentertained angels unawares." Sponsors may findthat they will receive such special gifts through theexperience of refugee resettlement.

6

Land of MountainsThe Indian name for Haiti means "moun-

tains," and indeed the Republic of Haiti occupies

the western one-third of one of the most mountain-ous islands in the Caribbean, Hispaniola. The east-ern two-thirds comprises the Dominican Republic.The boundary between the two countries is 193miles long. Hispaniola lies 1,365 miles due south ofNew York City.

To the north of Haiti is the Atlantic Ocean,to the northwest is the Windward Passage sepa-rating it from Cuba 50 miles away, and to the southis the Caribbean Sea. Among Haiti's larger offshoreislands are La Gonave, which is about -40 milesnorthwest of the capital city, Port-au-Prince, andTortue, or "Turtle Island." In the 17th century Tortuewas the haunt of French buccaneers who first col-onized the western part of Hispaniola Along theextensive coastline are mangrove swamps and tidalmud flats.

Haiti's chalky mountains are not high, ris-ing an average of 3,000 feet. They are divided intoseparate northern and southern ranges which inturn form the northern and southern peninsulas giv-ing the country its distinctive horseshoe shape Afew rain forests remain where mahogany, rosewoodand other precious hardwoods grow. Otherwise themountain timber has given way to the critical need

NORD-OUESTCap-Haitien

NORD \CARTIBONITE

7

3

4

Housewife displays fruit raised on her family'splot.

for cultivable land. Serious erosion has resulted.Two-thirds of the total land area of 10,714

square miles is nonproductive, Three plains Plainedu Nord, Cul-de-Sac and Leogane extend over430 square miles. Near the Dominican frontier areseveral large salt lakes. The plains also suffer fromerosion. Parts of them are desert-like with "forests"of cacti, some of which reach heights of 15 feet.

The low-lying mountain peaks cause thetradewinds to dump much of their burden of mois-ture before it reaches the plains. Different locationsexperience considerable variations in the amountof rainfall. At Mole St. Nicholas in the northwest itis only about 20 inches per year, while some high-land areas receive over 100 inches. Hurricanes mayoccur between August and November, travelingfrom south 'to north.

Haiti lies near the northern limit of thetropical zone. Temperatures vary little through theseasons. Port-au-Prince, at sea level, has an av-erage annual temperature of 80 degrees Fahrenheit.Frosts odcur from time to time at high altitudes.

Animal life is not known to include poi-sonous snakes or wild mammals large enough tobe dangerous to the population. Insects abound,as do 200 species of birds and 270 species of fishin the coastal waters.

Poorest of the PoorHaiti is about the size of the state of Mary-

land. In that small territory live nearly five millionpeople, or 443 persons for each square mile. Morethan 85 per cent of the work force is involved inagriculture and fishing.

Except for the capital of Port-au-Princewith its 700,000 citizens, Haiti's other cities, suchas Cap-Haitien, GonalVes, Les Cayes, Jeremie andPort-de-Paix, are really overgrown towns. The eliteare concentrated in the cities, all seaports, whereforeign goods and the money to purchase them areavailable.

The countryside is marked not by villagesbut by scattered settlements of families. Each set-tlement is enclosed within mud-daubed wattle walls.The houses and shanties have wood frames andthatched roofs or, if the inhabitants are prosperous,roofs made of corrugated iron sheets.

Forty-two per cent of Haiti's populationis under 15, and life expectancy is 49 years for menand 51 for women. Nevertheless, the nation claimsmore men than women. The infant mortality rate is

15 per cent.Education is "free and compulsory" but

the literacy rate is only 10 per cent. Of the two millionchildren under 15, approximately 600,000 attendpublic elementary schools taught by 12,000 teach-ers. Slightly fewer than 60,000 attend secondaryschools which have 3,300 teachers. Slightly morethan 10,000 are enrolled in vocational or other in-stitutions of higher learning, with the ratio in theseschools being five students to each teacher. Thesingle university is located at Port-au-Prince.

Per-capita income for Haitians is about$250 annually. This makes the country the poorestin the Western Hemisphere.

I

Crowded Haitian settlement

9

For themselves and for the local markets,the peasants grow maize, sweet potatoes, manioc,papaya, avocados, taro, mango, sesame andsugarcane. They raise some cattle, swine and fowland supplement their diets with fish.

Coffee, cultivated on the slopes of allmountains, is by far the most important commercialcrop. The second major source of income is tourism,with about 100,000 annual visitors. Other items inthe export category are sisal, cocoa, sugarcane,cotton, bananas, tobacco and rice. The UnitedStates is Haiti's principal trading partner, buyingnearly 75 per cent of exports.

Bauxite is mined for aluminum. Other re-sources are copper, gold, silver, cement and timber.Unfortunately most of these resources are too lim-ited in quantity for commercial exploitation.

Haiti is the largest baseball producingcountry in the world. Ironically, hides for the ballsare imported, and baseball is not played by Hai-tians. Almost all mills and factories are foreignowned, and most of their workers are women.

Since few manufactured goods can befound in village markets, the peasants produce whatthey need themselves. They work the fields by handwith hoes, billhooks and dibbles. They are apt assmiths, charcoal burners and leather workers. A fewcabinetmakers craft simple furniture.

Cow horn or tortoiseshell is made intocombs, bones into buttons, and grasses and bam-boo into fish traps and baskets. From wood areshaped bowls, mortars and pestles, spoons andtool handles. Tin cans are transformed into pots andpans, old tires and inner tubes into sandals. Onmarket days customers can purchase mattressesfilled with grass or pots made from clay.

The number of vehicles in the republicindicates how few earn enough to own them. In1974, 15,700 passenger cars were in use along with1,500 commercial vehicles. The country has only2,000 miles of roads, many of which deteriorate rap-idly in the rainy season, and 185 miles of railroads.The two train lines carry mostly freight.

The number of television sets in use in1975 was 13,000. The number of telephones in-stalled in homes and businesses in 1977 was17,800.

Haiti's currency is called the gourde. Fivegourdes equal one U.S. dollar. A recent nationalbudget was 387 million gourdes, or $77 million.

5

Society's Split PersonalityHaitian society is divided into two distinct

parts: the light-skinned elite, who make up only fiveper cent of the population and cluster in the cities;and the black rural peasants, who are of Africanancestry and comprise the vast majority. Officiallyall Haitians are considered equal, regardless ofrace. Population reports are barred from discussingracial divisions.

The elite are the government officials,merchants, lawyers and doctors. In sharp contrastto the rest of Latin America, they are not a landedaristocracy. The elite have their clubs, tennis courts,walled gardens and country estates, but their wealthcannot be measured in the same terms as in theUnited States.

Those in teaching and the church aresometimes included among the elite, but they donot have the same prestige as the groups above.Of paramount importance is the unspoken dictumthat the elite never engage in manual work.

The elite speak French, Haiti's official lan-guage, and also understand the dialect known asCreole. The peasants speak nothing but Creole, arich mix of 17th-century French and African expres-sions. It emerged as a means of communicationbetween the French colonialists and the blackslaves brought from the Dahomey or Congo tribesin West Africa.

The use of Creole has played a role inmaintaining the chasm between the elite and peas-ants and in keeping the peasants isolated and illit-erate. Efforts to make Creole the sole vehicle ofprimary education have not succeeded. Peasantchildren must contend with lessons taught in French,which for them is a half-foreign language.

Lack of a chance even for an elementaryeducation has bred conservative attitudes amongthe peasants and helped preserve their supersti-tious beliefs. Ignorance and poverty combine in anever ending cycle from which few escape. Theupward mobility that occurs takes generations. Buteven when rural peasants gain an education andmoney and settle into urban life, they are rarely seenat social gatherings.

One of the everyday symbols that per-sonifies the peasants' dilemma is the importanceto them of shoes. Shoes signify success and afflu-ence. If a person owns a pair of shoes, they areworn when he or she goes to town.

The elite send their sons to private pri-mary and secondary schools and to colleges over-seas. Formal education is conducted separately forwomen, whose lives center in the home. The fewwomen who move into public life are either teachersor clerical workers in the government.

Peasant men usually avoid the towns andcities because of lingering fear from two centuries

6 ago when they were often impressed into military

service. Instead the peasant women, who are knownfor their energy and work habits, walk down the hillswith their produce on their heads to sell on marketdays.

Because of their heritage as slaves, thepeasants place special significance on owningsmall plots of land. The land offers sustenance andstability and is "good" in and of itself. The peasants'ancestors are buried in the land, and the voodoo"gods" live there.

Health conditions of the peasants areprimitive. Deaths from malaria, yaws, hookworm,elephantiasis and tuberculosis are common

The peasants endure their hardships sto-ically. Most are honest, polite, cheerful and kind If

they can, they entertain lavishly. Their main recre-ational diversions are cockfights and storytelling, anational pastime. The traditional password and re-sponse exchanged between storyteller and listenersat the beginning of a tale is "cric-crac." Dancing onSaturday nights to the beat of drums is also universaland grows out of the folk religion, voodoo.

Marriage for the elite takes place underRoman Catholic rites. Men often have mistresses.Divorce is uncommon. Common-law marriages andeven polygamous relationships are frequent amongthe peasants.

An area of Haitian life which is losing itssplit personality is the arts. "Sophisticateci" and"primitive" or "French" and "African" are appliedless and less to the works of national artists, dancetroops which have gained international acclaim anda Creole theater established several decades ago.Instead they are accepted simply as "Haitian."

The Episcopal Cathedral St. Trinite, dec-orated by eight "old masters" of Haitian popular art,has become a tourist attraction second only to KingHenry Christophe's mountaintop citadel, a stupen-dous architectural and engineering achievement.

Luggage goes on top of this Haitian bus.

10

Superimposed andPopular Beliefs

Haitians, according to a saying, are 90per cent Roman Catholic and 100 per cent voodoo.The French superimposed Catholicism on the coun-try, while voodoo is a traditional popular belief.

In colonial times the French Church con-sidered Haiti a missionary country. Clergy were sentfrom France, and the few Haitians who chose achurch vocation were trained in the old world.French priests and friars established Carmelite,Capuchin, Dominican and Jesuit orders on the is-land. A few courageous clergy spoke outagainst the colonialists' treatment of the slaves. Dur-ing the slave revolt of 1791 which resulted in a freeHaiti, five Jesuits acted as chaplains to the blacks.The undisputed leader of the slaves, ToussaintL'Ouverture, was not religious himself but believedthat the Roman Catholic Church provided a stableinfluence on society. He encouraged church activ-ities.

The first imperial ruler of Haiti, JeanJacques Dessalines, separated church and state,declared marriage a civil rather than a religious cer-emony and permitted divorce. Following his assas-sination and the division of Haiti into two kingdoms,the benevolent ruler of the south, Alexandre Petion,let in the first Protestant missionaries, WesleyanMethodists from Great Britain. The ruler who brought

Voodoo ceremony

L

Haiti back together, Jean Pierre Boyer. consideredthe Catholic Church corrupt, ousted the Frenchclergy and declared himself head of the church.

In 1860, when Haiti was once again arepublic, a relationship was reestablished with theVatican. An all-French clergy returned to adminsterthe sacraments, say mass and serve the religiousneeds of the people. Not until 1953 did a blackHaitian become a bishop, due in part to the church'simpact being limited to the urban elite. In the 1960'sthe Duvalier regime resumed the expulsion of allforeign-born clergy. The one Catholic seminary nowhas an average of 60 graduates per year.

Haiti has never had enough priests toreach the bulk of the population in the countryside.Also, conceptual thinking and theological thoughtprocesses have been beyond the reality of the illit-erate peasants. While baptized as Catholics, mostpeasants practice a "folk religion" which has su-perimposed Christian symbols and saints onto theirAfrican heritage and tradition.

Voudun, known as voodoo to Americans,is basically an animistic cult which has a pantheonof lesser "gods" who control elements in nature andwho must be propitiated in order for the land toaccept, protect and provide for the individual wor-shipers. Christian ideas of monotheism, sin andmoral law, all based on a rational system of thoughtand self-restraint, are absent from voodoo. It in-volves action and participation. Public dancing isa major component. Private services include sac-rifices to the lesser "gods" and traditionally precedethe dancing.

Parallel to the practice of voodoo but notactually part of the religion is a prevalent belief inmagic and sorcery. North Americans often fail todifferentiate between the magical and religiouspractices and call both "voodoo."

As in other folk cultures that precededthe arrival of Christianity and Western customs, Hai-tian peasants believe in spirits and spells that causeor prevent evil from visiting an individual. Forapeo-ple in thrall to such a system of beliefs, the TontonsMacoute of "Papa Doc" Duvalier and other groupscan easily rule through fear and terror as much asthrough physical persuasion or torture. "Papa Doc,"according to reports, dressed at times as the BaronSamedi, a voodoo deity thought to be the keeperof tombs and cemeteries and therefore with influ-ence over the dreaded spirits who might returnharmfully.

Statistics vary between 550,000 and885,000 as to the number of Haitians today whoclaim to be other than Roman Catholics. The Epis-copal Church is particularly influential in both thecities and countryside as well as progressive interms of social work, higher education and encour-agement of native arts. Baptist, Seventh-day Ad-ventist and Church of God congregations can alsobe found. The Protestants operate 12 schools andseminaries.

11

Saint-DoraingueOn December 6, 1492, Christopher Co-

lumbus took shelter at Mole St. Nicholas on thenorthwestern tip of the island he called Hispaniola.The name honored the country which sponsored hisexplorations.

Wthin a century the few Spaniards whosettled primarily on the eastern shore had killed offthe indigenous Arawak Indian population. The In-dians were worked to death, slaughtered outrightand victimized by foreign diseases and interbreed-ing.

Sailing from their base in the CaymanIslands to the northwest and the closer Tor tue Island,French pirates used to come to the largely unin-habited western section of Hispaniola to hunt wildcattle. In time they established plantations there. In1664 the French West India Company took posses-sion of the newly founded town of Port-de-Paix. In1697 Spain formally ceded the western third of theisland to the French, who named it Saint- Domingue.

The French foothold quickly expandedin the 18th century with the labor of African slavesand irrigation of the semiarid plains. A handful ofplanters grew rich on the production and export ofindigo, sugarcane, sisal, coffee and cotton. By the1780's two-thirds of the wealth France derived fromits colonial empire came from tiny Saint-Domingue.Its population had grown to 556,000, made up ofonly 32,000 whites, 24,000 free blacks and 500,000slaves.

Saint-Domingue's society in those daysforecast its future culture as well as its future prob-lems. At the top of the pyramid were the Brandsblancs, the French people of wealth. Beneath themwere the petits blancs, whites whose economic re-sources were more limited. In a separate categorywere the gens de couleur, free people with Africanblood who were Insured full citizenship by the CodeNoir-decreesiby Louis XIV. At the bottom were themany black slaves. They were often freed by theplantation owners for faithful service and being abeloved mistress or a parent.

Village signs un rscore renc :Wage,

Many of the gens de couleur were des-cendents of the aristocracy, who educated and pro-vided generously for their partly white offspring. Thestatus they gained was resented by the petitsblancs, who developed racist rules and customs.The poorer whites forced the colored class to weardifferent clothing from the rest of the population,submit to a curfew and sit in separate sections ofchurches. They managed to bar them from the na-tional assembly.

The French Revolution, with its destruc-tion of the ruling aristocrats and its cry for freedomand equality, brought further tension to Saint-Do-mingue. Two years after the revolution's beginningin 1789, the slaves acted against such atrocities asbeing buried alive, thrown into boiling caldrons ofcane syrup and being consigned to man-eatingdogs.

Leader of the revolt was a slave namedBoukman, who had risen to the rank of overseer. On

12

the eve of the uprising he delivered the followinginvocation, which has the ring of a psalm althoughBoukman was not a Christian and was probablyilliterate:

"Good Lord who hath made the sun thatshines upon us.

That riseth from the sea.Who maketh the storm to roar, and

governeth the thunders.The Lord is hidden in the heavens.And there he watcheth over us.The Lord seeth what the blancs have

done.Their god commandeth crimes.Ours giveth blessings upon us.

The good Lord hath ordainedvengeance.

He will give strength to our arms andcourage to our hearts.

He shall sustain us.Cast down the image of the god of the

blancs.Because he maketh the tears to flow from

our eyes.Hearken unto libertyThat speaketh now in all our hearts."

The uprising started under the guise ofa voodoo ceremony in the woods of a plantation.Drum messages passed the word to slaves on otherplantations. They massacred their white masters,pillaged buildings and burned fields. White survi-vors fled to the towns.

In order to continue holding the island asa colony, the French abolished slavery by a decreeissued February 4, 1794. The ex-slaves and Bensde couleur united to insure their security in the faceof widespread economic disorganization, socialchaos and civil war. In 1795 Spain ceded the easternpart of the island to France.

A black general, Toussaint L'Ouverture,emerged as a national leader and folk hero. Small,frail and ugly, Toussaint was an ex-slave educatedabroad. who served first with the Spanish and thenin the French army. He apparently did not take partin the slave uprising of 1791 but is said to havehelped his former master escape to the UnitedStates. Afire with the spirit of the French Revolution.he wrote: "I desire the establishment of liberty andequality in Saint-Domingue. I strive to bring theminto being."

Toussaint attempted to restore the economy in the territory he controlled by forcing the freedblacks back to work the land. He also began a cam-paign to free all of Hispaniola. By 1801 he had cap-tured Santo Domingo, capital of the former Spanishcolony.

Back in France the little Corsican, Na-poleon Bonaparte. had gained control and withmeteoric speed carved out his empire. SaintDo-mingue was a particular concern. In 1802 Napoleonsent 25,000 troops and 70 warships under hisbrother-in-law. General Charles Leclerc. to subdueToussaint. The resistance of Toussaint's army com-manded by another black general. Henry Chris-tophe. was short-lived. The local troops fled to themountains. The French burned Port-au-Prince andcaptured the folk hero. He was taken to France.where he died in a dungeon a year later.

Leclerc's forces were decimated by trop-ical fever. attacked by black guerrillas and menacedby the British navy. Within months Leclerc himselfwas dead. The island's economy was entirely ru-ined. Toward the end of 1803 Napoleon left the for-mer pride of New France to fend for itself. Anotherblack general. Jean Jacques Dessalines. gainedcontrol and proclaimed the entire island independ-ent on January 1. 1804. He restored its original Ar-awak name. Haiti.

Cathedral of Notre ame in Port-au-Prince

13

Ins and Outsof Independence

Emulating Napoleon, Dessalines hadhimself proclaimed Emperor Jacques I in October1804. He believed in the importance of the stateover the individual. "Freedom" to him meant free-dom from France and extermination of Frenchwhites. With a tyrannical hand and with the army toenforce his decrees, he devised a system in whichneither color nor money had meaning. Social distinctions were based on divisions in laboring tasks.Under him land was controlled by the state anddivided among the people, the roots of Haiti's peas-ant life today.

Like Toussaint, Dessalines had to decreeforced labor in an attempt to restore the economy.The ensuing resentment led to his assassination in1806. continuing civil war, the emergence of a north-ern state ruled by General Christophe as Henri I anda southern state controlled by the mulattoes underGeneral Alexandre Ri3tion as president-for-life. In1808 with BritiSh help, Spain regained control of theeastern end of the island.

Christophe was a benevolent despot whobuilt a feudal society and brought back some pros-perity and tranquillity. He installed a rigid workschedule for the people, ruled by bells. He at-tempted to instill moral precepts like honesty, andadopted British agricultural methods. Despite thesepositive developments, Christophe was also anegotist who constructed a spectacular palace. San

10 Nationarpalaceln ort-au- rime

Souci, and an imposing fortress, the Citadelle La-ferriere, both at Cap-Haitien. There with mutinoussoldiers almost at his door, he committed suicidein 1820.

Meanwhile in the south, Petion proved aphilosophical, gentle ruler who broke the hold of thearistocrats and moderated the color problem. Heattempted to found an educational system and torule constitutionally. But his economic programswere a disaster. He deeded small landholdings tothe peasants and abolished the land tax in a com-plete laissez-faire policy based on his interpretationof Adam Smith's economic theories. He grantedgovernment subsidies to large landholders and in-stituted a tenant farm system similar to the formersharecropping in the South of the USA.

After Petion's death in 1818, another mu-latto, Jean Pierre Boyer, took over the south and twoyears later, with Christophe also dead, all of HaitiHe was probably the most enlightened ruler in itshistory, uniting the country by persuasion and notforce. He instituted a "Code Rural" in an effort toreform the agricultural system. Unfortunately thedivision that exists today between the governmentand peasants at the local level was in effect in theearly 1800's, and the peasantry largely ignoredBoyer's directives.

To the east, Santo Domingo proclaimedits independence from Spain in 1821. The new staterequested a treaty of friendship with Haiti, but Haiti'sresponse was a successful invasion and occupa-tion. Santo Domingo finally regained its independ-ence in a popular uprising in 1844, the year after

King Christophe's mountaintop citadel

Boyer was overthrown.France had recognized Haiti as an in-

dependent country in 1825. The price was an ex-orbitant indemnity to pay the losses of French plant-ers. =Trying to deal with this obligation led to furtherdebts and defaults, political anarchy and personaltyrannies. The tiny nation struggled in virtual isola-tion from the rest of the world.

Between 1843 and 1915, 22 heads ofstate followed one another in quick succession. Onlyone president served out a full term. The last oneduring the period, another tyrannical leader namedGuillaume Sam, was literally torn to pieces by amob. Constitutions were adopted and then rewritten.Revolution after revolution took place.

By the beginning of the 20th century,business interests from the United States hadgained a foothold in Haiti. In 1905 the U.S. movedto take Haiti's customs into receivership and bringabout reforms. A decade later the U.S. Marineslanded to begin an occupation which lasted until1934. The action was justified on the grounds ofhumanitarian intervention and under the MonroeDoctrine, but many Haitians believed the marineswere there to protect approaches to the PanamaCanal.

U.S. control was basically at govern-mental and economic levels. In 1918 the occupierssupervised adoption of another new constitutionwritten by Franklin D. Roosevelt, then assistant sec-retary of the Navy. It allowed foreigners to own landin Haiti after over a century of being banned fromsuch ownership. The U.S. backed Haitian leadersof lighter complexion, the class which holds thereigns of government and wealth in the country to-day.

Throughout this' period, bloody borderdisputes continued between Haiti and what was nowcalled the Dominican Republic to the east. The Do-minicans, with their Spanish culture and greateradmixture of European blood, looked `with disfavorand fear upon the black Haitians, with their "inferior"African culture and lower standard of living. A 1937

massacre of thousands of Haitians near the bordereventually drew a promise from the Dominican Re-public of compensation for the relatives who wereslain, but little recompense ever reached Haiti,

Despite U.S. control and the establish-ment of a variety of development programs, presi-dent followed president in much the past pattern,with fraud accompanying most elections. The con-stitution was often altered to suit the leader or ig-nored. With the promise to put political and eco-nomic power into the hands of the black masses,Francois Duvalier, a physician formerly employedby a U.S. medical aid program and a student ofvoodoo, was elected president in 1957. He put inplace the present personal dictatorship.

15

11

Papa Doc & Son"Papa Doc" Duvalier immediately dis-

missed and exiled most of the leaders of the army.He established his power through the strong-armedgang called the Tontons Macoute. In local parlancethe name means "bogeyman." Indeed this vigilantegroup has utilized fear and terror to control the pop-ulation. It supposedly receives up to one-third of thenational budget and gives Haiti its fascist overtones.

Another of Duvalier's initial actions wasto engineer an alliance with General Rafael Trujillo,dictator of the Dominican Republic. They bothwanted to protect themselves from the kind of up-risings which brought Fidel Castro to power in Cubain 1959. The alliance was short-lived. In the early4.960's Duvalier again sealed the border. He aimedto keep infiltrators out of Haiti and prevent Haitiansfrom leaving.

In his attempts to rebuild Haiti's badlyweakened economy, Papa Doc received consid-erable help from the United States. He played uponU.S. fears of a communist Cuba and what couldresult from a power vacuum in Haiti. U.S. aid cen-tered on building a dam on the Artibonite River toprovide water for irrigation and electrical power andon attacking malnutrition and disease in a once -fertile area of northern Haiti.

Haiti's government under Papa Doc untilhis death in 1971 at age 64 and since under his sonJean-Claude is directed from a residence much likethe U.S. White House in Port-au-Prince. Papa Dochad consolidated the former bicameral legislatureinto one house. The assembly's 58 deputies are allmembers of the one official party and are completelysubordinate to the president-for-life, who rules bydecree. The national territory is divided into fivedepartements, each with a capital. The departe-ments are divided into approximately 100 com-munes. Each commune is divided into five or sixrural districts, each supervised by a chef de sectionappointed by a local military captain.

No elections take place. No opposingpolitical parties exist. Potential political opponentsfind themselves in jail. Justice differs for upper andlower class offenders. The majority of people whoreside in rural areas have no avenue by which to

. influence national policy.Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier was

only 19 when he assumed power. Few believed hecould Idst long. His sister, Marie-Denise DuvalierDominique, has repeatedly tried to wrest power fromher brother by encouraging discontent among themilitary establishment. Baby Doc has suppressedboth the Lica' and international press by intimida-tion. In a 1979 law he made criticism or "disrespect"of the president-for-life, his mother, his father'smemory or Haitian culture a serious offense.

12 Jean-Claude's rule has been less violent

than his father's. As a result, foreign investment andtourism have revived. But a severe drought in1975-77 brought famine, aggravated by erosion causedby the destruction of most trees.

The International Red Cross has beenforbidden access to Haitian prisons to check oncontinuing reports of human rights violations A re-port from Amnesty International indicates that "Haiti'sprisons are still filled with people who have spentmany years in detention without ever being chargedor brought to trial. Amnesty International remainsseriously concerned with the continued repressionof dissent in Haiti and the denial of human and legalrights . . . . The variety of torture to which the de-tainee is subjected is incredible. clubbing to death,maiming of the genitals, food deprivation to the pointof starvation,and the insertion of red hot pokers intothe back passages .. . . In fact, these prisons aredeath traps (and) find a parallel with the Nazi con-centration camps of the past but have no present-day equivalent."

No wonder thousands of Haitians havetaken the only course they see open to them torisk their lives on the 800-mile trip in small boats onthe open seas to the shores of the USA and thedream of a new free life.

Papa Doc Baby Doc

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Bibliography*Dane Chandos, The Trade Wind Islands (GardenCity: Doubleday, 1955).

*Richard D. Crassweller, "Darkness in Haiti," For-eign Affairs, January 1971, pp. 315-330.

*John Edwin Fagg, Cuba, Haiti and the DominicanRepublic (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1965),pp. 113-117.

"Haitians: America's Boat People," entire issue ofMigration Today, Vol. 7, No. 4, September 1979.

Robert Debs Hein! Jr. and Nancy Gordon Hein!,Written in Blood: A Story of the Haitian People 1492-1971 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1978).

*James G. Leyburn, The Haitian People (New Ha-ven: Yale University Press, 1966).

*0. Ernest Moore, Haiti: Its Stagnant Society andShackled Economy (New York: Exposition Press,1950).

*available only in libraries