Haiti is an island located in the Caribbean between Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Jamaica. The island itself is inhabited by two separate nations, the Dominican Republic and the Republic of Haiti. Christopher Columbus was the first person to “discover” the island during his voyage in 1492. He thought he had reached India when he arrived and began to call the natives Indians. However, the island was already occupied by people who called themselves “Tainos”. The Tainos occupied Cuba, Haiti and Puerto Rico and were originally from South America.
I am going to skip some of the history due to the fact that it is so vast, and there are so many people involved, that I would not be able to incorporate the book in any way. The island of Haiti went through periods of occupations. The first occupation was the Spanish occupation. The Spaniards forced the Tainos into slavery and exploited their gold mines. They even renamed the island Hispaniola, meaning “Little Spain”. When the Spaniards arrived on the island, there were as many as three million to four million Tainos on the island. Most of those Tainos were then killed due to the harsh slavery, planned massacres, and diseases they contracted from the Spaniards. A Spanish priest spoke out against this genocide and convinced the government to import slaves from Africa. The first slaves arrived in Haiti in 1503 from Spain and that ended the enslavement of Tainos. The Spaniards left Hispaniola for more gold and richer lands in South America.
Haiti was then taken over by France in 1625. The Spaniards that stayed on the island signed the Treaty of Ryswick with France in 1697 giving them the western part of the island. The French developed St Dominigue which turned into the richest colony in the world. They used slaves from Africa to achieve this. Only the landowners and other citizens besides the slaves made any actual profit, so the portion of people benefitting from the richest colony in the world was very slim. Haiti went through a series of revolutions carried out by the slaves, or “Afranchis”. The island of Haiti became a black independent republic on January 1st, 1804. All of the remaining Frenchmen were executed. At the end of these revolutions, the republic was in serious debt with many countries, including the United States.
The United States was involved with the First World War around the time they occupied Haiti in 1915. The Haitian president Vilbrun Guillaum Sam executed one hundred and sixty-seven political prisoners during that year and the United States used it as an excuse to invade. They used the Monroe Doctrine to shield themselves from political backlash. The occupation lasted from 1915 to 1934. They changed the constitution, allowing foreign nations to own land in the Republic. The Army of Haiti was created to maintain stability while the United States was gone. In 1934, the Army of Haiti’s authority was passed over to the “Garde Nationale” which kept the power while the United States removed themselves from the country.
The government after this point was made up of military powers. In 1991, Jean Bertrand Aristide complied with the people and agreed to apply for the presidency. Seven months after his election, he was overthrown by the military and forced to leave the country. He moved to New York so he could eventually go back to Haiti and go for re-election. Another election happened after Aristide left and his former Prime Minister Rene Preval was elected. On February 7th, 2001, Aristide was re-elected into the presidency. The country is hopeful that this democratic environment will promote stability and growth.
After analyzing Haiti’s complex history, it’s easy to see why Edwidge Danticat chose a character who was escaping the country, however unwillingly. Sophie first found out she had to leave when her mother sent for her. “I felt it in my heart and took it on Monsieur Augustin’s advice that, once you got there, you would love it so much that you would beg your mother to let you stay. You have heard with your own two ears what everyone has said. We have no right to be sad.”(Danticat page 17).
Works Cited
Danticat, Edwidge. Breath, Eyes, Memory. New York : Soho Press, Inc., 1994.
"Synopsis of Haitian History". Discover: History.
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