Haiti, which originally means "land of high mountains", is one of the small island states in the Caribbean Sea. It is also the third largest country in the Caribbean, with a population of over 10 million.
The Caribbean, as the beginning of The First European Colonial Expansion. Nature was taken care of by the European powers. Its lands were controlled directly and indirectly by Spain, France and the United States. During the French colonial period, a large number of black slaves through the triangular trade were brought to Haiti to work and establish rich sugar plantations. As a sugar-producing base, it has become one of the richest regions in the world.
However, the latest UN report shows that Haiti's skilled labor force is short, widespread unemployment and a severe underemployment, saying that "more than two-thirds of the workforce is not in formal employment." "And three-quarters of Haiti's population lives on no more than $2 a day.
So, what the hell is going on here? Why did the wealth of the colonial period become more and more miserable in the current period of independence?
For this, we have to start with the history of Haiti:
Spain's colonies were among the first European navigators in European history to explore and colonize the outside world. One of the most famous is Christopher Columbus, as we know it.
The navigator Christopher Columbus landed in Haiti on December 6, 1492, and for the first time, the indigenous peoples of Haiti came into contact with people from a very different world.
According to Columbus, the natives here still maintained a relatively primitive emirate system. On the island of Haiti at that time, it was divided into five emirates. They were surprised but not very hostile to these white-skinned, blue-eyed Europeans at first. And that also gave Columbus a chance to rest his already badly damaged ships and weary men.
Here, the Spaniards of Europe and the native Taino people barter.
Surprised, right? The Europeans did not burn and loot. In fact, the main reason is that at this time, European talents have just begun to colonize overseas, and the primitive accumulation of capital is not rich enough, and they have little ability to fight directly with others.
But despite this, haiti itself but indigenous people also died on a large scale. European Spanish sailors carried Endemic Eurasian infectious diseases that the local people lacked immunity to, resulting in a large number of deaths in the epidemic. The first recorded smallpox epidemic in the Americas broke out in 1507, which killed a third of Haiti's indigenous people. The Spanish, on the other hand, took control of the area without bloodshed.
Later, as the Spaniards focused their colonial efforts more on the greater wealth of Central and South America, the island of Haiti was largely reduced to a refueling station for trade and ships. And with the support of Spanish traditional rivals such as France and Britain, there is a flood of pirates here. And this is also the prototype of the "Pirates of the Caribbean" that we often hear.
French pirate attacks forced Spain to give up a third of Haiti, which was controlled by the French. The territory it controlled was renamed the French name "Santo Domingo". The French set out to build sugar and coffee plantations, worked by slaves imported from Africa in large numbers, and Saint-Domingue gradually became their richest colony.
Because France introduced a large number of black slaves and Europeans for land development, Haiti's ethnic group showed a state of diversification. There were three kinds of people in Haiti at the time: white, black, and mestizo (people of color who intermarried between different races).
Inspired by the French Revolution of 1789 and the principles of human rights, French settlers and free people of color demanded greater political freedom and more civil rights, culminating in the Haitian Revolution, which began Haiti's bumpy history.
Here I will tell you a few reasons why Haiti has gone from rich to poor:
1. Huge foreign debt oppresses the country's economic development space
As we said above, the Haitian revolution proclaimed Haiti's independence. But this independence is unilateral, and only Haiti recognizes itself as an independent State. But its former suzerainty did not recognize its independence. It was like having to sign a treaty with Britain after the American Revolutionary War, and Britain had to recognize American independence.
Because France has always refused to recognize Haiti's independence, Haiti's international relations and foreign trade are quite embarrassing. In various ways, the European powers indirectly or directly excluded this small country that did not cooperate with the colonial system.
In 1825, under pressure, President Boyet agreed to an agreement between france and France that formally recognized Haiti's independence in exchange for a treaty in which Haiti paid France 150 million francs. But a small country in Haiti, although the economy is indeed OK, but where is so much money?
You may not have a concept of this figure, we said that the "Xinugu Treaty" signed after the Sino-Japanese War was required to lose 300 million taels. We ignore the exchange rate, and a tiny Haiti is being demanded half of the reparations of a large eastern country. This is impossible for anyone to say, so Haiti can only tear down the eastern wall to make up for the western wall, and exchange this money for foreign debt from the Western powers. But the money is coming back, and Haiti's economy is getting worse.
This can be said to be "success or failure". Haiti was rich because it produced sugar as a plantation, but after independence, if a country's economy was too single for a commodity, the price fluctuations caused by the economic cycle were devastating for a country. A little penny down, a hundred million tons of goods is a loss of hundreds of millions of dollars.
In addition, because plantations require a lot of labor. After independence, Haiti continued to maintain a slavery system, that is, "the people of their own country enslaved their own people" to work, which also caused the class contradictions in the country to be extremely serious. This also caused the civil war after the independence of Shanghai in history, and the military government continued to rise to power and fall.
From 1915 to 1935, Haiti was under Period of American Occupation. Anxious about the war in Europe (World War I) and the growing german influence on Haiti, coupled with the United States' own Monroe tendencies, the United States invaded Haiti.
In 1919, the U.S. Army was passing through Haiti's rainforest
It maintained military control for 20 years, during which time the United States imposed American-style political reforms, which in turn made the Haitian economy worse and worse because of the nationalist revolt of the Haitians. The U.S. Marine Corps instilled a special paternalistic style in Haitians, "expressed in the metaphor of the relationship between father and child."
In 20 months of active unrest, 2,250 Haitians were killed. However, in a report to the Secretary of the Navy, he reported a death toll of 3,250. Haitian historians claim that the true numbers are much higher. Some have even said: "By the end of peacetime, the total number of combat victims and casualties of the repression and consequences of war may reach four to five times as many — about 15,000." "And all of this has left an indelible wound on Haiti."