Haiti

By: Philippe R. Girard

Source:

 Encyclopedia of African American History, 1619-1895: From the Colonial Period to the Age of Frederick Douglass

Haiti

Haiti, which occupies the western third of the Caribbean island of Hispaniola, is the Western Hemisphere's second independent republic and the world's first black republic. Frederick Douglass served as U.S. minister and consul general to Haiti from 1889 to 1891. Christopher Columbus landed in Haiti (which he named Hispaniola) during his first transatlantic voyage in 1492. The island was home to Arawak Taino Indians, almost all of whom died of disease and bad treatment within fifty years of Columbus's arrival. Because of a dwindling Indian population and limited gold reserves, Hispaniola quickly became a backwater of Spain's American empire. France acquired the western third of the island under the Treaty of Ryswick (1697) and renamed it Saint Domingue. Under French rule, cultivation of coffee, sugarcane, cotton, and indigo turned Haiti into the richest European colony in the Western Hemisphere, but this success came at a price: African slave labor. On the eve of the Haitian war of independence, the brutally mistreated slaves outnumbered free Haitians ten to one (500,000 black slaves, 30,000 free blacks and mulattoes, and 20,000 whites).

The Haitian war of independence began in August 1791, when the Vodun priest Boukman Dutty organized a ceremony at Bois Caiman, outside Cap Français (modern-day Cap-Haïtien) in Haiti's north. The war, which lasted until January 1804, was a particularly bloody affair, pitting free against slaves, whites against blacks, monarchists against republicans, and Spaniards and Englishmen against Frenchmen. Toussaint Louverture, the most famous of the rebellious slaves, died in captivity in France in 1803.

After its independence, Haiti came to symbolize independent black rule to its supporters and detractors alike. The Gabriel conspiracy (Richmond, 1800) and the Denmark Vesey conspiracy (Charleston, 1822), both seemingly inspired by the Haitian slave revolt, led several southern states to ban Haitian blacks from entering the United States while encouraging immigration of freedmen to Haiti. Some American abolitionists, such as Henry Highland Garnet and John Brown, viewed the Haitian slave revolt as an example to follow, but most advocated moral suasion and political reform instead and rejected Haiti's violent path to emancipation. The British abolitionists James Stephen and William Wilberforce warned that revolts akin to that in Haiti would break out unless the slaves were emancipated, while Victor Schoelcher of France wrote a celebrated biography of Toussaint Louverture.

Frederick Douglass in Haiti, as shown by the American illustrator James E. Taylor, c. 1891. Douglass, facing the viewer, is wearing a panama hat; the woman standing to his right has been identified as Victoire, the mistress of President Hyppolite of Haiti, who was a widower at the time when Douglass was the U.S. minister there.

National Park Service.

view larger image

After gaining independence, Haiti came to symbolize independent black rule to its supporters and detractors alike. Much richer and stronger than it has become in modern times, Haiti was a notable regional power, invading the neighboring Dominican Republic in 1801, 1805, 1829, 1849, and 1855. Some leaders, such as Faustin Soulouque (r. 1847–1859), made a point of emphasizing pride in Haiti's African past, Vodun religion, and black population, a century before Jean Price-Mars's noirisme, Aimé Césaire's négritude, and Stokely Carmichael's Black Power popularized the concept of racial pride.

Haiti, however, was also a pariah. Shortly after the January 1804 declaration of independence, the governorgeneral for life, Jean-Jacques Dessalines, ordered all white French people slaughtered (a few priests, foreigners, and doctors were spared). As a result, France did not recognize Haiti until 1825, when it established diplomatic relations against an indemnity of 150 million francs. The United States only did the same in June 1862, after most slave states had seceded. The antics of some of Haiti's dictators (Soulouque included), chronic political instability, corruption, short-lived constitutions, and declining economic output gave credence to the racist claim that blacks could not rule themselves. In 1888 one of Haiti's most able, though dictatorial, rulers, Lysius Salomon, was ousted, ushering in another civil war, pitting FrançoisDenis Légitime (who had France's backing) against his U.S.-supported rival, Florvil Hyppolite.

Frederick Douglass first became involved in Caribbean diplomacy in 1871 when the U.S. president, Ulysses S. Grant, appointed him secretary of a commission investigating a possible annexation of the Dominican Republic. The commission included the former Ohio senator Benjamin F. Wade; the president of Cornell University, Andrew D. White; and Grant's friend Samuel Gridley Howe. The U.S. Senate opposed annexation, and negotiations proved inconclusive.

Even though Douglass was the most prominent black supporter of the Republican Party after the Civil War, the position of U.S. minister to Haiti long eluded him (instead, Douglass was named president of the Freedman's Savings and Trust Company in 1874, marshal of the District of Columbia in 1877, and recorder of deeds in the District of Columbia in 1880). Republican and Democratic administrations nominated other black leaders as ministers to Haiti: first Ebenezer D. Bassett, then John Mercer Langston, and then John E. W. Thompson.

In 1889 President Benjamin Harrison finally asked Douglass to serve as U.S. minister to Haiti, a position he held until 1891. Given Haiti's hot climate, poor sanitation, and unstable politics, the position was not deemed very desirable, but Douglass considered it an honor to live in what was at the time one of only three independent black countries in the world (the other two were Liberia and Ethiopia). Douglass came to relish diplomatic duties, which fit his love for dignity, decorum, intellect, and racial pride. Douglass lived in Port-au-Prince with his second wife, Helen Pitts Douglass, for most of his tenure as minister, except for summer vacations in their home in Washington, D.C.

Douglass landed in Port-au-Prince in 1889, shortly after Hyppolite defeated Légitime for the presidency. Douglass hoped to defend the black republic against the imperialist designs of major western powers, including his own, but, paradoxically, he spent much of his tenure defending less idealistic U.S. policies. One of his first actions was to collect a debt Haiti owed a private U.S. citizen, Charles Adrian Van Bokkelen. Even though Douglass spoke no French, and Hyppolite spoke no English, the two maintained extremely good relations (the former minister, Bassett, stayed in Haiti, acting as clerk and translator). Douglass tended to overlook Hyppolite's various shortcomings, particularly his dictatorial style (after a failed revolution in May 1891, Hyppolite ordered at least one hundred opponents shot).

Douglass's most important request as minister was that Hyppolite should fulfill a previous promise, made while Hyppolite was courting U.S. support in his struggle against Légitime, under which Haiti would give away base rights in Môle Saint-Nicolas, a natural harbor located along its northwestern coast. After gaining power, however, Hyppolite reneged on his promise. The arrival of a seven-ship squadron led by Rear Admiral Bancroft Gherardi in 1891 failed to strong-arm the Haitian government into yielding to U.S. demands. On 22 April 1891, the Haitian secretary of state, Anténor Firmin, notified Douglass that Haiti had no interest in granting base rights to the United States. The U.S. press blamed Douglass for undermining the U.S. attempt to annex Môle Saint-Nicolas, supposedly because he had let his sympathy for the black nation and his friendship with Hyppolite overwhelm his own patriotic duties. Douglass was forced to resign on 30 July 1891. His last involvement with Haitian politics took place in 1893, when he served as commissioner of Haiti's pavilion at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago.

See also Bassett, Ebenezer D.; Brown, John; Dominican Republic, Annexation of; Douglass, Frederick; Emancipation; Firmin, Anténor Joseph; Garnet, Henry Highland; Haitian Revolutions; Hyppolite, Louis Modestin Florvil; Langston, John Mercer; Liberia; Môle SaintNicolas (Haiti) Annexation; Riots and Rebellions; Toussaint Louverture; and World's Columbian Exposition.

processed xml | source xml