Haiti: The roots of rebellion

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By KWAME M.A. SOMBURU The Haitian revolution of 182 years ago was the only time in world history that slaves successfully defeated their slave -masters, declared complete independence, and established a government.

Five hundred years of tyranny and grinding poverty began in 1492, when Christopher Columbus landed on the island of Hayti (the aboriginal Arawak name, which referred to its many mountains).

In less than 40 years, Columbus and the Spanish conquerors virtually exterminated the Arawak native population, estimated at over 1 million. By 1550, there were only 150 left.

In 1697, Spain ceded the island to France. The French named their colony St. Domingue and developed coffee, spice, and sugar plantations with imported African slave labor. Brutal 18-hour workdays reduced the working life-span of the average slave in Haiti to only four to seven years.

Sugar soon became the colony's most valuable crop. By 1742 sugar production exceeded production in all of the British West Indies. By the 1780s the colony accounted for over one-third of French Free Frantz Nelson!

Frantz Nelson, a leader of the Haitian Liberation Party (PLH) and signer of the "Freedom Charter" (see above) returned to Haiti on Feb. 14, whereupon he was immediately arrested and sent to prison.

Telegrams demanding his immediate release should be sent to the Haitian Em -bassy, 2311 Mass. Ave. NW, Wash ington, D.C. foreign commerce and was the wealthiest European colonial possession in the Americas.

"Give them Blacks to eat"

The class struggles in France that resulted in the French Revolution were reflected in St. Domingue. Under the leadership of Toussaint L'Ouverture-and later, Jean-Jacques Dessalines—-the Haitian Revolution triumphed after more than a dozen years of brutal racial and class warfare.

After Napoleon Bonaparte became head of France in 1799, he tried to re-enslave the Africans in the colonies—who had been declared free by the revolutionary French convention of Feb. 3, 1794. Napoleon sent his brother-in-law, General LeClerc, to St. Domingue with 50,000 troops to reinstitute slavery by any means necessary.

The French purchased bloodhounds in Cuba to pursue rebels. Soldiers were instructed not to give any rations to the dogs. "Give them Blacks to eat," their officers told them.

In June 1802, the usually cautious and wily Toussaint was tricked by Napoleon, kidnapped, and sent to France, where he died in prison within a year. Dessalines was able to escape from a later attempt to capture him and he organized the final struggle for independence-which came on Jan. 1, 1804.

They renamed the former colony Haiti. The new Declaration of Independence read: "Wherever they near our shores, may the French tremble, if not from the guilt of past atrocities, then from the resolve to slaughter any person born French, whose footprint henceforth contaminates our land of liberty....

Within the few French men, women, or children escaped Dessalines' wrath. All who were captured were put to death. Whites of other nationalities were generally spared.

"Haiti is a public nuisance"

This nation of former slaves represented a threat to the other European slave colonies and to the United States, which was dominated by the slave-owning oligarchy of the Southern states. The United States refused to recognize Haiti for 58 years-until after the Southern slavemasters had seceded from the union.

U.S. warships visited Haitian ports "to protect American lives and property" in 1857, '59, '68, '69, '76, '88, '89, and every year from 1902 to 1913 except 1910: In 1888 the U.S. Secretary of State referred to Haiti as "a public nuisance at our doors."

In 1914, the U.S. intervened directly to assist in the overthrow of the president of Haiti and to install a new one. A company of U.S. Marines robbed the National Bank of Haiti at gun-point, stealing $500,000 in gold that belonged to the incumbent government. The gold was taken to the vaults of the National City Bank in New York in order to pressure the government to sign a treaty authorizing the United States to collect taxes and handle Haitian finances.

The following year, the United States invaded Haiti and took complete control of its treasury. In 1918, the U.S. government rewrote the Haitian constitution, spe -cifically to change a section prohibiting foreigners from owning property. The U.S. occupation lasted until 1934.

U.S. aids Duvalier dictatorship During the occupation, a young phy -sician, Francois Duvalier, wrote articles on Haitian ethnology and became a champion of Black nationalism. "Papa Doc" skillfully used Voodoo-an agglomeration of African and Catholic elements that serves as the religion of the masses—as a political tool in his acquisition of power. The masses mistakenly identified Duvalier as a symbol of their aspirations against the domestic elite and foreign exploiters.

In 1957, Duvalier became president. Soon afterward, he organized a terrorist police force called the Tontons Macoutes ("bogey men"). They were initially trained by a U.S. military mission in 1959.

After the death of Francois Duvalier in 1971, the United States aided Duvalier's playboy son, Jean Claude Duvalier, who inherited his father's title of "president-for life.' " Today, Haiti is a source of cheap labor and raw materials for close to 300 U.S. corporations and the outlet for a U.S.dominated tourist industry.

Poverty steadily increased during the rule of the Duvaliers—while the United States helped keep the dictators supplied with military aid and personal riches. Only 1 percent of the population owns over 45 percent of the wealth. Average per-capita income declined from $420 a year in 1980 to $320 last year, according to the World Bank. Unemployment is 48 percent.

In 1934, the United States ended its military occupation of Haiti in the belief that the country was at long last under perpetual U.S. domination. The recent mass uprisings in Haiti, however, forced the U.S.-backed "president for life" to flee for his life.

Haiti was the first Black republic in the world and the second independent republic in the Americas. The first Haitian Revolution—and its legendary heroes such as Toussaint L'Ouverture-inspired op -pressed people around the world for generations. Now once again, the beacon of the Haitian Revolution has been ignited. •