History of Haiti- Part 1

When I heard about the earth quake in Haiti I must admit I did not think much about it. I was not drawn to the television nor did it ever occur to me to give a donation. Once I saw the pictures of the people rising out of the rubble, dead bodies on the street and the immense suffering the human side of me was jolted. I wondered how a nation full of black people could be suffering so much and it takes a catastrophic situation like an earthquake for the rest of the world to pay attention. So I’ve set out to learn as much about Haiti as I can. I would like you to go on this journey with me. Surely if we can indulge our brains into the latest gossip we can actually learn about a people so closely tied to our (African Americans) story.

The orginal natives of Haiti were the Arawak/Taino Indians. On December 5 or 6 1492 a fateful wind led Christopher Columbus to the island of Haiti that he renamed Espanola thinking that it looked like Spain. The head chief welcomed Columbus. But of course Columbus took the natives kindness for weakness and knew he had to come back. The purpose of Columbus’s second voyage was to colonize, control and exploit the island. His goal was to bring to the Spaniards as much gold as they need...and as many slaves as they ask. His fleet thus comprised 17 ships and 1,300 men as well as 20 horsemen to terrorize the native people.

When Columbus returned to Espanola (Haiti), he found that the thirty men he had left on the Navidad (one of his ships) were all dead, killed by the Indians (original natives of Haiti). The men were killed because they chose to use the native women for their sexual pleasure.

Columbus built many forts and once he discovered gold he launched a war against the natives. During that time thousands of Indians were killed while protecting their land. By the end of 1494 the Taino were in open revolt. Columbus had hoped to put down the resistance by kidnapping Caonabo the chief of the Cibao region and making an exemplary spectacle of him.


Columbus sent troops to occupy the north east of the island and had more forts built in the Cibao region. He immediately instituted a system requiring a quarterly tribute in gold from the Taino, which was calculated according to the number of people over the age of fourteen. He introduced Indian slavery suggesting that it would be lucrative enough to compensate for the meager supply of gold found. In 1495, he and his men went on a raid in the interior of Espanola (Haiti) capturing as many as fifteen hundred Taino, men, women and children. Columbus picked the 500 best specimens and sent them to Spain. Two hundred of these five hundreds Taino died en route to Spain. Columbus’s reaction was to exclaim: Let us in the name of the Holy Trinity go on sending all the slaves that can be sold.

Villages that could not pay the tribute imposed on the Taino were brutally repressed. On July 22, 1497 the Crown (Spanish government) authorized the distribution of lands to the Spanish colonists (Repartimiento) to sow grain and plant gardens. This land was designed to encourage permanent Spanish settlers in Espanola who were expected to establish small farms with Spanish labor. Columbus on the contrary instituted a Repartimiento where native communities were allocated to Spaniards for their own use. This system was the first concrete measure to colonize and annihilate the Taino population of Espanola (Haiti).