Research On Haiti

Biographical info about the author

1. Four years old, her mother and father had moved to the United States, leaving Danticat and her brother behind with an aunt and uncle. She joined her parents in 1981, but, with her Creole language and Haitian dress and manners, she found adapting to life and school in the United States difficult. Partly as a way to escape these unpleasant situations, she wrote stories, a practice she had started at an early age.

2. Her parents had hoped that she would have a career in medicine

3. Novels, poems, and mostly short stories


Timeline for Haiti's history from Independence to present

1. Independence from France on 1804, second independent country in Americas

1804 - Haiti becomes independent; former slave Jean-Jacques Dessalines declares himself emperor.

1806 - Dessalines assassinated and Haiti divided into a black-controlled north and a mulatto-ruled south

1818-43 - Pierre Boyer unifies Haiti, but excludes blacks from power.

1915 - US invades Haiti following black-mulatto friction, which it thought endangered its property and investments in the country.

1934 - US withdraws troops from Haiti, but maintains fiscal control until 1947.

Duvalier dictatorships

1956 - Voodoo physician Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier seizes power in military coup and is elected president a year later.

1964 - Duvalier declares himself president-for-life and establishes a dictatorship with the help of the Tontons Macoutes militia.

1971 - Duvalier dies and is succeeded by his 19-year-old son, Jean-Claude, or "Baby Doc", who also declares himself president-for-life.

1986 - Baby Doc flees Haiti in the wake of mounting popular discontent and is replaced by Lieutenant-General Henri Namphy as head of a governing council.

1988 - Leslie Manigat becomes president, but is ousted in a coup led by Brigadier-General Prosper Avril, who installs a civilian government under military control.Haiti's fight for and gain of Independence

Democracy, coup and intervention

1990 - Jean-Bertrand Aristide elected president in Haiti's first free and peaceful polls.

1991 - Aristide ousted in a coup led by Brigadier-General Raoul Cedras, triggering sanctions by the US and the Organisation of American States.

1994 - Military regime relinquishes power in the face of an imminent US invasion; US forces oversee a transition to a civilian government; Aristide returns.

1995 - UN peacekeepers begin to replace US troops; Aristide supporters win parliamentary elections

Rene Preval, from Aristide's Lavalas party, is elected in December to replace Aristide as president.

1997-99 - Serious political deadlock; new government named.

1999 - Preval declares that parliament's term has expired and begins ruling by decree following a series of disagreements with deputies.

Aristide's second term

2000 November - Aristide elected president for a second non-consecutive term, amid allegations of irregularities.

2001 July - Presidential spokesman accuses former army officers of trying to overthrow the government after armed men attack three locations, killing four police officers.

2001 December - 30 armed men try to seize the National Palace in an apparent coup attempt; 12 people are killed in the raid, which the government blames on former army members.Toussaint L'Ouverture2002 July - Haiti is approved as a full member of the Caribbean Community (Caricom) trade bloc.

2003 April - Voodoo recognised as a religion, on a par with other faiths.

2004 January-February - Celebrations marking 200 years of independence turn into uprising against President Aristide, who is forced into exile. An interim government takes over.

2004 May - Severe floods in south, and in parts of neighbouring Dominican Republic, leave more than 2,000 dead or disappeared.

2004 June - First UN peacekeepers arrive, to take over security duties from US-led force and to help flood survivors.

2004 July - International donors pledge more than $1bn in aid.

2004 September - Nearly 3,000 killed in flooding in the north, in the wake of tropical storm Jeanne.

late 2004 - Rising levels of deadly political and gang violence in the capital; armed gangs loyal to former President Aristide are said to be responsible for many killings.

2005 April - Prominent rebel leader Ravix Remissainthe is killed by police in the capital.

2005 July - Hurricane Dennis kills at least 45 people.

Preval wins elections

2006 February - General elections, the first since former President Aristide was overthrown in 2004. Rene Preval is declared the winner of the presidential vote after a deal is reached over spoiled ballot papers.

2006 June - A democratically-elected government headed by Prime Minister Jacques-Edouard Alexis takes office.

2006 September - Launch of a UN-run scheme to disarm gang members in return for grants, job training.

2006 October - US partially lifts an arms embargo, imposed in 1991.

2007 January - UN troops launch tough new offensive against armed gangs in Cite Soleil, one of the capital's largest and most violent shantytowns.

2008 April - Food riots. Government announces emergency plan to cut price of rice in bid to halt unrest. Parliament dismisses Prime Minister Alexis.

2008 May - US and World Bank announce extra food aid totalling 30m dollars.

In response to plea from President Preval for more police to help combat wave of kidnappings-for-ransom, Brazil agrees to boost its peacekeeping force.

Protests

2010 October-December - Cholera outbreak claims some 3,500 lives and triggers violent protests.

2010 November - Presidential and parliamentary elections.

2010 December - Announcement of inconclusive provisional results of presidential election triggers violent protests.

2011 January - Former president Jean-Claude Duvalier returns from exile, faces corruption and human rights abuse charges.

2011 March - Michel Martelly wins second round of presidential election.

2011 May - Mr Martelly takes up office as president.

2011 July - Death toll from cholera outbreak climbs to nearly 6,000.

2011 October - President Martelly appoints UN development expert Garry Conille as his prime minister, after parliament rejected his two previous nominees.

2012 January - Presidential Martelly proposes reviving Haiti's army, which was disbanded in 1995 because of its role in coups and its history of human rights abuses.

2012 February - Prime Minister Garry Conille resigns in protest at the refusal of many of his ministers and the presidential administration to cooperate with a parliamentary inquiry into dual citizenship among senior officials.

2012 May - Parliament approves Foreign Minister Laurent Lamothe as prime minister.

2012 October - Hundreds protest against the high cost of living and call for the resignation of President Martelly. They accuse the president of corruption and failure to deliver on his promises to alleviate poverty.

Haiti's fight for and gain of Independence

In 1791, a slave revolt erupted on the French colony, and Toussaint-Louverture, a former slave, took control of the rebels. Toussaint organized an effective guerrilla war against the island’s colonial population. He found able generals in two other former slaves, Dessalines and Henri Christophe, and in 1795 he made peace with revolutionary France following its abolishment of slavery. Toussaint became governor-general of the colony and in 1801 conquered the Spanish portion of island, freeing the slaves there.

In January 1802, an invasion force ordered by Napoleon landed on Saint-Domingue, and after several months of furious fighting, Toussaint agreed to a cease-fire. He retired to his plantation but in 1803 was arrested and taken to a dungeon in the French Alps, where he was tortured and died in April.

Soon after Toussaint’s arrest, Napoleon announced his intention to reintroduce slavery on Haiti, and Dessalines led a new revolt against French rule. With the aid of the British, the rebels scored a major victory against the French force there, and on November 9, 1803, colonial authorities surrendered. In 1804, General Dessalines assumed dictatorial power, and Haiti became the second independent nation in the Americas. Later that year, Dessalines proclaimed himself Emperor Jacques I. He was killed putting down a revolt two years later.

Toussaint L'Ouverture

Boukman (A vodou prist)

          Boukman was a Jamaican slave and houngan, and on August 14th, 1791, he organized a meeting of slaves in the mountains of the north plain of Haiti. This meeting took the form of a vodou ceremony in the Bois Caiman ('Alligator Woods'), on the plantation of his owner M. Lenormand de Mezy. It was raining heavily and the assembled slaves lamented their condition.
          On August 22nd, 1791, the blacks of the North entered into a rebellion, killing all whites they met and setting the plantations on fire. The French, however, quickly captured Bouckman, and beheaded him, bringing the rebellion under control. Like Macandal before him, Bouckman had inspired the slaves with the belief that he was invincible (through vodou), so the French displayed his head on a spike in Le Cap's square, to convince them he was really dead.

1937, Dominican Massacre

That ended on Oct. 2, 1937, when the Dominican military, under Trujillo's orders, began to execute Haitian families as well as Dominicans of Haitian descent. The killings, many of which took place in the border region, were mostly carried out by machete to help sell the regime's official account that the massacre was a spontaneous uprising of patriotic Dominican farmers against Haitian cattle thieves.

The killing lasted between five and eight days. Afterward, there was a moratorium on newspapers covering the massacre, and Trujillo refused to publicly admit his government's role or accept responsibility.

After the dictator was assassinated in 1961, researchers began to investigate what had been an off-limits subject, conducting interviews, digging through documents and putting together the pieces of what happened. Estimates of the number of dead still vary widely — from less than 1,000 to 30,000. Mass graves were never found.

Commonly known as the Parsley Massacre — Haitians and Dominicans pronounce the Spanish word perejil differently and, according to a popular though unconfirmed story, this was used as a litmus test of their origins — the killings are now acknowledged by Dominican society at large and taught in schools. But in many ways, the massacre remains a historical footnote, seen as an uncomfortable reminder of a brutal past.

Rafael Trujillo

The Dominican's Republic leader. He ordered the massacre in 1937. Dominican Republic was an ally with the USA.

Voodoo religion

Voodoo is a religion that originates in Africa. In the Americas and the Caribbean, it is thought to be a combination of various African, Catholic and Native American traditions. It is practiced around the world but there is no accurate count of how many people are Voodooists.

Voodoo has no scripture or world authority. It is community-centered and supports individual experience, empowerment and responsibility.

Voodoo is different in different parts of the world, and varies from community to community. This is mostly about Voodoo in New Orleans and Haiti.

Voodoo embraces and encompasses the entirety of human experience. It is practiced by people who are imperfect and may use religion for their own purposes.

Voodoo believe that there is a visible and an invisible world, and that these worlds are intertwined. Death is a transition to the invisible world, so our predecessors are still with us in spirit. They watch over and inspire us.

Voodoo was first practiced in America and the Caribbean by slaves of African descent, whose culture was both feared and ridiculed. Slaves were not considered fully human. Their religion was dismissed as superstition, their priests were denigrated as witchdoctors, their Gods and Spirits were denounced as evil.

Duvalier (Papa Doc)

François Duvalier, byname Papa Doc, (born April 14, 1907, Port-au-Prince, Haiti—died April 21, 1971, Port-au-Prince), president of Haiti whose 14-year regime was of unprecedented duration in that country.

Duvalier graduated in 1934 from the University of Haiti School of Medicine, where he served as a hospital staff physician until 1943, when he became prominently active in the U.S.-sponsored anti-yaws campaign.

A contributor to the daily Action Nationale (1934), Duvalier was markedly influenced by the mystic scholar Lorimer Denis and became a member of Le Groupe des Griots, a circle of writers who embraced black nationalism and voodoo as the key sources of Haitian culture.

A supporter of President Dumarsais Estimé, Duvalier was appointed director general of the National Public Health Service in 1946, and he directed the anti-yaws campaign in 1947–48. He was appointed underminister of labour in 1948 and the following year became minister of public health and labour, a post that he retained until May 10, 1950, when President Estimé was overthrown by a military junta under Paul E. Magloire, who was subsequently elected president. Duvalier returned to his former work with the American Sanitary Mission in 1951–54 and began organizing the resistance to Magloire. By 1954 he had become the central opposition figure and went underground.

After the resignation of Magloire in December 1956, Duvalier’s followers participated in most of the six governments that were formed in the succeeding 10 months. Running on a program of popular reform and black nationalism, Duvalier was elected president in September 1957. Setting about to consolidate his power, he reduced the size of the army and, with his chief aide, Clément Barbot, organized the Tontons Macoutes (“Bogeymen”), a private force responsible for terrorizing and assassinating alleged foes of the regime.

When Duvalier was stricken by a heart attack in 1959, Barbot acted in his stead. Upon recovery, the president promptly imprisoned his aide. His manipulation of legislative elections in 1961 to have his term extended to 1967 and other corrupt and despotic measures precipitated a termination of U.S. aid to Haiti. That summer he had Barbot murdered, after the latter, on his release from prison, had attempted an insurrection. Other attempts to overthrow Duvalier were equally unsuccessful.

Late in 1963 Duvalier moved further toward an absolutist regime, promoting a cult of his person as the semidivine embodiment of Haiti. In April 1964 he declared himself president for life. Although diplomatically almost completely isolated, excommunicated by the Vatican until 1966 for harassing the clergy, and threatened by conspiracies against him, Duvalier was able to stay in power longer than any of his predecessors. His regime of terror quelled political dissent, causing nearly 30,000 deaths, but at the same time achieved for Haiti an unusual degree of political stabilization. On Duvalier’s death, power was transferred to his son, Jean-Claude (“Baby Doc”).

Tonton Macoute

a private force responsible for terrorizing and assassinating alleged foes of the regime.

Jean Claude Duvalier (Baby Doc)

The only son of Duvalier, Jean-Claude succeeded his father as president for life in April 1971, becoming at age 19 the youngest president in the world. Partly because of pressure from the United States to moderate the tyrannical and corrupt practices of his father’s regime, Duvalier instituted budgetary and judicial reforms, replaced a few older cabinet members with younger men, released some political prisoners, and eased press censorship, professing a policy of “gradual democratization of institutions.”

Nevertheless, no sharp changes from previous policies occurred. No political opposition was tolerated, and all important political officials and judges were still appointed by the president. Under Duvalier, Haiti continued a semi-isolationist approach to foreign relations, although the government actively solicited foreign aid to stimulate the economy. Duvalier graduated from secondary school in Port-au-Prince and briefly attended law school at the University of Haiti. In 1980 he married Michèle Bennett, who later supplanted Duvalier’s hard-line mother, Simone, in Haitian politics.

In the face of increasing social unrest, however, Duvalier and his wife left the country in February 1986, and a military council headed the country for several years. From 1986 Duvalier resided in France, despite the urging of Haitian authorities that he be extradited to stand trial for human rights abuses. He returned to Haiti in January 2011, one year after the devastating 2010 earthquake. Two days later Duvalier was taken into custody by authorities for questioning regarding alleged corruption and embezzlement during his rule; he was subsequently released. He remained in Haiti but refused several times to appear for hearings on human rights violations that he was alleged to have committed while president. In late February 2013 Duvalier was taken before a pretrial hearing to face questioning on those charges. Although he denied any responsibility, the court ruled that the case would proceed. Duvalier died, however, before he could be brought to trial.