Haiti takes out high-interest loans from American, German, and French banks to cover the cost (approximately 80% of the country’s annual national budget). 1825-1914: Independence, but at a costįrench King Charles X agrees to formally recognize Haiti as an independent nation, provided that the country pay 150 million francs in reparations to France (approximately $33 billion in today’s currency). Haiti’s independence from France came at a cost: Reparations that cost the country approximately $20 billion that were paid through high-interest loans. Reunification following the second peace excludes Black Haitians from power. This leads to a Haitian civil war between the north and south that lasts until 1820.

He declares himself Emperor later that year, and is assassinated two years later. On January 1, 1804, Dessalines assumes the role of Governor-General.

For the first time in over 300 years, Haiti is once again an independent nation. On December 4, 1803, French forces surrender to Jean-Jacques Dessalines in the northwestern commune of Gonaïves. The Haitian Revolution continues for more than a decade, destroying much of Haiti’s agricultural resources and infrastructure. France violently represses this activism, which leads to the beginning of the Haitian Revolution in 1791. The events of 1789 make more people - on both sides of the Atlantic - outspoken for the rights of Black and indigenous people of color in the colony. (Photo: New York Public Library Digital Collections) 1789-1804: Revolution(s) Under French rule, Saint-Domingue is the country’s richest colony in the 18th Century, producing half of all the sugar and coffee bought and sold in Europe and accounting for one-third of the Atlantic slave trade.Īn engraving by Nicolace Ponce of Cap Français (present-day Cap-Haïtien), 1791. In 1697, Spain cedes its territory in western Hispaniola to France.

In the latter part of the 17th Century, under Louis XIV, France authorizes African slave trade in the territory and introduces the Code Noir, which not only further restricts the rights of enslaved people in all French territories, but also the rights of free people of color. The first French settlers establish a colony on Tortuga Island and in the northwestern area of Haiti’s mainland, naming the territory Saint-Domingue. Five years later, after all but decimating the population of Taíno people, Spain brings 1,600 kidnapped and enslaved African people to the island to work in gold mines and on sugar plantations. In 1496, the first Spanish settlement on Hispaniola (and the first European settlement in the western hemisphere) is established in what is now present-day Dominican Republic. (Image: Library of Congress) 1496-1697: Spanish colonization

An engraving by Theodor de Bry of Christopher Columbus landing on Hispaniola on Dec.

Tortuga island haiti