Editing History of Haiti (section)

==Independence: The early years (1804–1843)==
{{Main|Independence of Haiti}}
[[File:Vue de Port-au-Prince et ses environs ca1800 BPL m8805.png|thumb|[[Port-au-Prince]] and surroundings at the start of the 19th century]]
[[File:Jean-Jaques Dessalines (Fondateur de l'Independance d'Haiti).jpg|thumb|[[Jean-Jacques Dessalines]]]]

===Black Republic (1804)===
Haiti became the second state in the Americas after the United States to gain independence from a European colonial power.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Christopher|first1=Marc|title=Haiti|url=http://worldbookonline.com/student/article?id=ar242480&st=haiti#tab=homepage|website=Worldbook Online|publisher=Worldbook|access-date=3 April 2016}}</ref> 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 slaves after winning independence from Spain. The country inhabitated mostly by former slaves remained excluded from the hemisphere's first regional meeting of independent states, held in [[Panama]] in 1826, largely due to the atrocities of the [[1804 Haitian massacre|1804 Haitian Genocide]] which targeted European men, women and children who resided in Haiti, including those who were favorable to the revolution.<ref name=":0b">{{Cite journal |last=Girard |first=Philippe R. |date=2005 |title=Caribbean genocide: racial war in Haiti, 1802–4 |url=https://doi.org/10.1080/00313220500106196 |journal=Patterns of Prejudice |volume=39 |issue=2 |pages=138–161 |doi=10.1080/00313220500106196 |issn=0031-322X |s2cid=145204936 |quote=The Haitian genocide and its historical counterparts [...] The 1804 Haitian genocide}}</ref> Despite the efforts of anti-slavery senator [[Charles Sumner]] of Massachusetts, the United States did not recognize the independence of Haiti until 1862. The Southern slave states held a majority in Congress and, afraid of encouraging slave revolts, blocked this; Haiti was quickly recognized (along with other progressive measures, such as ending [[slavery in the District of Columbia]]), after these legislators left Washington in 1861, their states having [[Confederate States of America#Secession|declared their secession]].

Upon assuming power, General Dessalines authorized the Constitution of 1804. This constitution, in terms of social freedoms, called for:
# Freedom of religion. (Under Toussaint, Catholicism had been declared the official state religion.)
# All citizens of Haiti, regardless of skin color, to be known as "Black" (this was an attempt to eliminate the multi-tiered racial hierarchy that had developed in Haiti, with full or near full-blooded Europeans at the top, various levels of light to brown skin in the middle, and dark skinned "Kongo" from Africa at the bottom).
# White men were forbidden from possessing property or land on Haitian soil. Should the French return to reimpose slavery, Article 5 of the constitution declared: "At the first shot of the warning gun, the towns shall be destroyed and the nation will rise in arms."<ref>{{harvnb|Heinl|1996|p=129}}</ref>

===First Haitian Empire (1804–1806)===
{{main|First Empire of Haiti}}
On 1 January 1804, Dessalines proclaimed Haiti an independent sovereign state.<ref>{{cite book |last=Dayan |first=Joan |year=1998 |title=Haiti, History, and the Gods |publisher=University of California Press |isbn=978-0-520-21368-5 |pages=3–4}}</ref> Mid-February, Dessalines told some cities (Léogâne, Jacmel, Les Cayes) to prepare for mass massacres.<ref>{{cite book |last=Girard |first=Philippe R. |year=2011 |title=The Slaves Who Defeated Napoleon: Toussaint Louverture and the Haitian War of Independence 1801–1804 |location=Tuscaloosa, Alabama |publisher=The University of Alabama Press |isbn=978-0-8173-1732-4 |page=319}}</ref> On 22 February 1804, he signed a decree ordering that all [[White people|whites]] in all cities should be put to death.<ref>Blancpain 2001, p. 7.</ref> The weapons used should be silent weapons such as knives and bayonets rather than gunfire, so that the killing could be done more quietly, and avoid warning intended victims by the sound of gunfire and thereby giving them the opportunity to escape.{{sfnp|Dayan|1998|p=4}}

On 22 September 1804, Dessalines proclaimed himself Emperor Jacques I. Yet two of his own advisers, [[Henri Christophe]] and [[Alexandre Pétion]], helped bring about his assassination in 1806. The conspirators ambushed him north of [[Port-au-Prince]] at Pont Larnage (now known as Pont-Rouge) on 17 October 1806 en route to battle rebels to his regime.

The state created under Dessalines was the opposite of what the Haitian lower class wanted. While both the elite leaders, such as Dessalines, and the Haitian population agreed the state should be built on the ideals of freedom and democracy,<ref>{{cite web|author=Jean-Jacques Dessalines|title= Haitian Declaration of Independence|year=1804|website=Duke Office of News and Communications|url=https://today.duke.edu/showcase/haitideclaration/declarationstext.html|accessdate=April 30, 2018}}</ref><ref name="faculty.webster.edu">{{cite web|title=The 1805 Constitution of Haiti, May 20, 1805. Translation|website=Webster University Faculty|url=http://faculty.webster.edu/corbetre/haiti/history/earlyhaiti/1805-const.htm|accessdate=April 30, 2018}}</ref> these ideals in practice looked very different for the two groups. The main reason for this difference in viewpoints of nationalisms come from the fact that one group lived as slaves, and the other did not.{{when|date=January 2023}}<ref name="Mimi Sheller 2000">Mimi Sheller, Black Publics and Peasant Radicalism in Haiti and Jamaica (Florida: [[University Press of Florida]], 2000), 5.</ref> For one, the economic and agricultural practices of Dessalines, and leaders after him, were based on the need to create a strong economic state, that was capable of maintaining a strong military.<ref>Mats Lundahl, "Defense and Distribution: Agricultural Policy in Haiti during the Reign of Jean-Jaques Dessalines, 1804-1806," Scandinavian Economic History Review, 32, no. 2 (2011), 86-87.</ref> For the elite leaders of Haiti, maintaining a strong military to ward off either the French or other colonial powers and ensure independence would secure a free state. The leaders of Haiti saw independence from other powers as their notion of freedom.

However, the Haitian peasantry tied their notion of freedom to the land. Because of the mountainous terrain, Haitian slaves were able to cultivate their own small tracts of land. Thus, freedom for them was the ability to cultivate their own land within a subsistence economy. Unfortunately, because of the leaders' desires, a system of coerced plantation agriculture emerged.<ref>James Franklin, the Present State of Hayti with remarks on its agriculture, commerce, laws, religion, finances and population (Connecticut: Negro Universities Press, 1828), 189-190.</ref> Furthermore, while all Haitians desired a black republic,<ref name="faculty.webster.edu"/> the cultural practices of African Americans were a point of contention. Many within the Haitian population wanted to maintain their African heritage, which they saw as a logical part of the black republic they wanted. However, the elites typically tried to prove the sophistication of Haitians through literature. Some authors wrote that the barbarism of Africa must be expelled, while maintaining African roots.<ref>Beaubrun Ardouin, Etudes sur l’historie d’Haiti : suivies de la vie du général J.M. Borgella (Paris: Dezobry et Magdeleine, 1853-1860), quoted in Erin Zavitz, "Revolutionary narrations: Early Haitian historiography and the challenge of writing counter-history," Atlantic Studies, 14, no. 3 (2017).</ref>

Furthermore, other authors tried to prove the civility of the elite Haitians by arguing that Blacks were capable of establishing and running a government by changing and augmenting the history of the revolution to favor the mulatto and black elites, rather than the bands of slaves.<ref>Thomas Madiou, Histoire d’Haiti, 1847. Quoted in Erin Zavitz, "Revolutionary narrations: Early Haitian historiography and the challenge of writing counter-history," Atlantic Studies, 14, no. 3 (2017), 343.</ref> Furthermore, to maintain freedom and independence, the elites failed to provide the civil society that the Haitian mass desired. The Haitian peasants desired not only land freedom but also civil rights, such as voting and political participation, as well as access to education.<ref name="Mimi Sheller 2000"/> The state failed to provide those basic rights.

The state was essentially run by the military, which meant that it was very difficult for the Haitian population to participate in any democratic process. Most importantly, the state failed to provide the access to education that a state of former slaves needed.<ref>M.B. Bird, the Black Man or Haytian Independence (New York: Published by Author, 1869), 220.</ref> It was nearly impossible for the former slaves to participate effectively because they lacked the basic literacy that had been intentionally denied to them under French colonial rule. Through their differing views on Haitian nationalism and freedom, the elites created a state that greatly favored them, instead of the Haitian peasantry.

===The struggle for unity (1806–1820)===
[[File:Duckworth's Action off San Domingo, 6 February 1806.jpg|thumb|The [[Battle of San Domingo|battle of Santo Domingo]] (1806) painted by 	
Nicholas Pocock in 1808]]

After the Dessalines ''coup d'état'', the two main conspirators divided the country in two rival regimes. Christophe created the [[authoritarianism|authoritarian]] [[State of Haiti]] in the north, and the ''[[gens de couleur]]'' Pétion established the [[Republic of Haiti (1806–1820)|Republic of Haiti]] in the south. Christophe attempted to maintain a strict system of labor and agricultural production akin to the former plantations. Although, strictly speaking, he did not establish slavery, he imposed a semi-feudal system, ''fumage'', in which every able man was required to work in plantations (similar to Spanish ''[[Latifundia|latifundios]]'') to produce goods for the fledgling country. His method, though undoubtedly oppressive, produced the greater revenues of the two governments.

In contrast, Pétion broke up the former colonial estates and parceled out the land into small holdings. In Pétion's south, the ''[[gens de couleur]]'' minority led the government and feared losing popular support, and thus, they reduced class tensions by land redistribution. Because of the weak international position and its labor policies (most peasants lived through a subsistence economy), Pétion's government was perpetually on the brink of bankruptcy. Yet, for most of its time, it produced one of the most liberal and tolerant Haitian governments ever. In 1815, at a key period of [[Military career of Simón Bolívar|Bolívar's fight for Venezuelan independence]], Pétion gave the Venezuelan leader [[right of asylum|asylum]] and provided him soldiers and substantial material support. Pétion also had the fewest internal military skirmishes, despite his continuous conflicts with Christophe's northern kingdom. In 1816, however, after finding the burden of the [[Senate]] intolerable,{{explain|date=January 2023}} he suspended the legislature and turned his post into [[President for Life]]. Not long after, he died of [[yellow fever]], and his assistant [[Jean-Pierre Boyer]] replaced him.

[[File:Kingdom of Haiti.jpg|thumbnail|The Kingdom of Haiti in the North and the Republic of Haiti in the South]]
In this period, the eastern part of the island rose against the new powers, following general Juan Sánchez Ramírez's claims of independence from France, which broke the Treaties of Bâle attacking Spain{{explain|date=January 2023}} and prohibited commerce with Haiti. In the Palo Hincado battle (7 November 1808), all the remaining French forces were defeated by Spanish-creole insurrectionists. On 9 July 1809, the Spanish colony Santo Domingo was born. The government put itself under the control of Spain, earning it the nickname of "España Boba" (meaning "The Idiot Spain").

In 1811, [[Henri Christophe]] proclaimed himself King Henri I of the [[Kingdom of Haiti]] in the North and commissioned several extraordinary buildings. He even created a nobility class in the fashion of European monarchies. Yet in 1820, weakened by illness and with decreasing support for his authoritarian regime, he killed himself with a silver bullet rather than face a ''coup d'état''. Immediately after, Pétion's successor, Boyer, reunited Haiti through diplomatic tactics and ruled as president until his overthrow in 1843.

===Boyer's domination of Hispaniola (1820–1843)===
{{main|Republic of Haiti (1820–1849)}}
[[File:President_Jean-Pierre_Boyer_of_Haiti_(Hispaniola_Unification_Regime)_Portrait.jpg|thumb|[[Jean-Pierre Boyer]]]]

Almost two years after Boyer had consolidated power in the west, Haiti invaded Santo Domingo (present-day Dominican Republic) and declared the island free from European powers. Boyer, however, responding to a party on the east that preferred Haiti over Colombia, occupied the ex-Spanish colony in January 1822, encountering no military resistance. In this way he accomplished the unity of the island, which was only carried out for a short period of time by [[Toussaint Louverture]] in 1801. Boyer's occupation of the Spanish side also responded to internal struggles among Christophe's generals, to which Boyer gave extensive powers and lands in the east. This occupation, however, pitted the Spanish white elite against the iron fisted Haitian administration, and stimulated the emigration of many white wealthy families. The entire island remained under Haitian rule until 1844, when in the east a nationalist group called [[La Trinitaria (Dominican Republic)|La Trinitaria]] led a revolt that partitioned the island into [[Haiti]] on the west and [[Dominican Republic]] on the east, based on what would appear to be a riverine territorial 'divide' from the pre-contact period.

From 1824 to 1826, while the island was under one government, Boyer promoted the largest single [[Haitian emigration|free-Black immigration]] from the [[Thomas Jefferson and Haitian Emigration|United States]] in which more than 6,000 immigrants settled in different parts of the island.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Bourhis-Mariotti |first=Claire |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pV3gEAAAQBAJ&dq=Boyer+haiti+6000&pg=PA26 |title=Wanted! A Nation!: Black Americans and Haiti, 1804-1893 |date=2023-12-15 |publisher=University of Georgia Press |isbn=978-0-8203-6555-8 |language=en}}</ref> Today remnants of these immigrants live throughout the island, but the larger number reside in [[Samaná Peninsula|Samaná]], a peninsula on the Dominican side of the island. From the government's perspective, the intention of the immigration was to help establish commercial and diplomatic relationships with the US, and to increase the number of skilled and agricultural workers in Haiti.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Heinl |first=Robert Debs |title=Written in Blood: The Story of the Haitian People 1492-1995 |publisher=UPA |year=2005 |isbn=0761831770 |edition=newly revised |language=English}}</ref>

[[File:Sans Souci Palace.jpg|thumb|The ruins of the [[Sans-Souci Palace]], severely damaged in the 1842 earthquake and never rebuilt]]
In exchange for diplomatic recognition from France, Boyer was forced to pay a huge indemnity for the loss of French property during the revolution. To pay for this, he had to float loans in France, putting Haiti into a state of debt. Boyer attempted to enforce production through the ''Code Rural'', enacted in 1826, but peasant freeholders, mostly former revolutionary soldiers, had no intention of returning to the forced labor they fought to escape. By 1840, Haiti had ceased to export sugar entirely, although large amounts continued to be grown for local consumption as ''taffia''-a raw rum. However, Haiti continued to export coffee, which required little cultivation and grew semi-wild.

The [[1842 Cap-Haïtien earthquake]] destroyed the city, and the [[Sans-Souci Palace]], killing 10,000 people. This was the third major earthquake to hit Western Hispaniola following the 1751 and 1770 Port-au-Prince earthquakes, and the last until the devastating [[2010 Haiti earthquake|earthquake of 2010]].