A brief history of Haiti

The island of Haiti has a very interesting history.

It only goes to show that you can help and help and help but unless a people are willing to step up to the plate and help themselves, all you will end up with is more misery and being blamed for the problems you tried to solve.

You can feed a man a fish and he eats for the day,
but if you teach him to fish, he eats for a lifetime.
Haiti has never learned to fish.............

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In the 1700's,
What is now Haiti was called the "Jewel of the Caribbean,"
and supplied about 40% of the world's sugar.

In 1791,
The government of France passed legislation to phase out slavery in its Caribbean colonies and grant the former Negro slaves citizenship. Rather than becoming citizens, Haiti's Negro population mass murdered all whites and Mulattoes who could not flee the Island in time.

In 1804,
Only full blooded Negros remained and Haiti became the first Negro ruled nation. The Haitian revolution dominated America's debate over slavery.

While both the north and the south agreed that slavery should be ended, southerners and a large percentage of northerners universally opposed having a large population of freed slaves living in their midst.. The Haitian "Revolution" was fresh in every one's mind.

Flash forward to 1915.
The "Jewel of the Caribbean," is now a desolate cesspool, that is exporting almost no sugar. The United States decides to "take up the white man's burden" and send the US Marine Corps to rebuild Haiti's infrastructure and feed it's starving population.

The United States gave huge amounts of money to Haiti and over-saw the building of 1,000 miles of road, telephone lines, modernized its port, and helped Haiti to start exporting sugar once again. The US also put an end to the thousands of bandits along Haiti's border with the Dominican Republic.

In 1934,
The US left at the request of the then stabilized and very ungrateful Haitian government.Haiti immediately sank straight back into total desolation and strife.

In 1973,
The United States once again began playing a huge role in Haiti, giving the Island huge sums of money in handouts each year.

In 1994,
The Clinton administration once again sent the US military to Haiti to rebuild the Island's infrastructure.

In 1995,
the Peace Corps went to Haiti in large numbers to train the Haitians in job skills.

Between 1995 and 1999,
The US government spent almost One Billion Dollars providing food and job training to the Haitians .

So when Obama says:
Haiti has our "full, unwavering, support,"
-they have already had our full support since 1915.

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History of Haiti sitemap