Haiti is a country in the Caribbean, occupying the western third of the island of Hispaniola, which it shares with the Dominican Republic. It holds a unique and heroic place in history as the site of the only successful large-scale slave revolt, which made it the first independent Black republic and the second independent nation in the Americas. Yet that proud beginning was followed by crushing burdens, and Haiti has long been the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, beset in recent times by disaster and instability.
The island was home to the Taino before Columbus arrived in 1492, after which the Spanish, and then the French in the west, turned it into the immensely profitable colony of Saint-Domingue, the richest in the Caribbean, built on sugar and the brutal labour of enslaved Africans. In 1791 the enslaved rose in a massive revolt, and under leaders such as Toussaint Louverture they fought off France, Spain, and Britain to win independence in 1804, founding Haiti as the first nation born of a successful slave revolution.
Haitian tradition holds that the revolution was launched at a secret Vodou ceremony in August 1791 at a place called Bois Caïman, where a priest and priestess led the enslaved in a ritual and a vow to rise against their masters, an event treated as the sacred spark of the revolution. While most historians accept that some gathering took place, the details of the ceremony, and even precisely how it unfolded, are debated, with the famous account a mixture of history, later tradition, and legend.
Haiti occupies the western part of the mountainous island of Hispaniola, and its name comes from an indigenous word meaning land of high mountains, an apt description of a country dominated by rugged ranges. Between the mountains lie fertile valleys and plains, and the coastline is deeply indented, the country's shape often likened to a pincer enclosing a gulf. Centuries of deforestation, as trees were cut for fuel and farmland, have stripped much of the land bare, leaving it badly eroded and vulnerable to the floods and hurricanes that strike the Caribbean.
The flag of Haiti has two horizontal bands of blue over red, with the national coat of arms on a white panel in the centre for official use. By tradition the blue and red were created during the revolution by tearing the white from the French tricolour, leaving the colours of the formerly enslaved and free people of colour, and sewing them together, a symbol of the rejection of France and the union of the people. The coat of arms shows weapons and a palm tree topped with a liberty cap.
The majority of Haitians are Christians, predominantly Roman Catholic, a legacy of French rule, alongside a growing number of Protestants. Yet Haiti is equally defined by Vodou, a religion that grew from the West African beliefs of the enslaved, blended with Catholic elements, which is widely practised, often alongside Christianity, and which played a powerful role in the revolution and in national identity. Far from the lurid caricature known abroad, Vodou is a complex faith honouring a pantheon of spirits and the ancestors.
Haitian cuisine is flavourful and distinctive, blending African, French, and Caribbean influences with a love of bold spices and chili. The national dish is griot, chunks of pork marinated and fried until crisp, often served with fried plantains and a spicy pickled-vegetable relish called pikliz. Rice and beans, hearty stews, and dishes seasoned with a fragrant herb-and-spice base are staples, along with seafood from the surrounding sea. The food is a proud part of a rich and resilient culture.
Agriculture is the livelihood of a large share of Haitians, mostly small farmers working eroded and exhausted hillsides, growing food crops such as maize, rice, beans, and root vegetables, along with coffee, cocoa, and mangoes for export. The country was once a great producer of sugar and coffee, but generations of deforestation, soil erosion, and lack of investment have left its agriculture struggling to feed the population, and recurring hurricanes and droughts add to the hardship of rural life.
The Haitian Revolution, which defeated the armies of Napoleon and created the first Black republic in 1804, is one of the most remarkable events in world history. But independence came at a terrible price, including a crushing indemnity that France forced Haiti to pay for its own freedom, which burdened the country for generations. A long history of dictatorship, foreign intervention, and instability followed, compounded in recent times by a catastrophic earthquake in 2010 and by gang violence and political collapse.
Haiti has a population of around 11 million people, almost entirely of African descent, the descendants of those brought in slavery who won their own freedom. They speak Haitian Creole, a French-based language that is the everyday tongue of the nation, alongside the official French. The population is young and concentrated in the cities, above all the crowded capital, Port-au-Prince, and a very large Haitian diaspora lives abroad, particularly in the United States, the Dominican Republic, and Canada.
