The Haitian Massacre of 1937

The Haitian Massacre of 1937

La Isla Espanola or the island of Hispaniola is the land that currently covers two distinct countries - the Dominican Republic and Haiti . This are bears many names given to it by its original inhabitants , the Taino Indians or Arawaks for example Hayti and Avti . The history of Hispaniola revolves around Spanish exploration and their attempt at spreading Catholicism in the islands

Hispaniola Under Spain

The island became Santo Domingo after colonization by Spain , who used the land to spread their sphere of influence in surrounding lands

. but the local inhabitants were not always cooperative and they usually attacked and burnt property belonging to the Spanish . Apart from the Spanish , other powers of the time were also interested

Hispaniola Under France

Haggerty (1989 ) says that French outlaws (buccaneers ) camped in nearby Tortuga , starting 1625 . they tried to destabilize Spanish rule through pirating of Spanish ships . They also hunted wild cattle . The Spanish were helpless in expelling the French who afterwards settled on Tortuga in 1659 but now under the authorization of King Louis XIV

Under the French , the island was renamed Saint-Domingue with the French officially laying claim to the western part of the Island (James , 1963 br

.45 . they pushed Spain into signing the Treaty of Ryswick , where this part now legally fell under French authority . The French , urged by Louis XIV , started tobacco , cotton , cacao and indigo growing . This brought about the demand of African slaves to these plantations

James (1963 ) continues that the economy of Hispaniola grew to incorporate sugar and coffee for export (p .45 . labor was provided by close to the 790 ,000 slaves imported via the Atlantic from Africa (Ibid 55 ) supervised by just about 32 ,000 French settlers on the island Notable during French rule was the cruelty with which the African slaves were treated by their masters , an instance of which is recounted by Henri Christophe

Have they not hung up men with heads downward , drowned them in sacks crucified them on planks , buried them alive , and crushed them in mortars ? Have they not forced them to eat shit ? And , having flayed them with the lash , have they not cast them alive to be devoured by worms , or onto anthills , or lashed them to stakes in the swamp to be devoured by mosquitoes ? Have they not thrown them into boiling cauldrons of cane syrup ? Have they not put men and women inside barrels studded with spikes and rolled them down mountainsides into the abyss ? Have they not consigned these miserable blacks to man eating-dogs until the latter sated by human flesh , left the mangled victims to be finished off with bayonet and poniard ' [Heinl , 1996

Haitian Independence

Slaves successfully resisted French rule , giving rise to Haiti on 1 January 1804 . heroes of the struggle for the liberation of French Hispaniola changed the country 's name to Haiti , the original name that it bore before colonization , marking the birth of a newly independent country with blacks at the helm...