preview

Insula Before The Haitian Revolution

Decent Essays

In 1942, Christopher Columbus took possession of a colony that he named Insula Hispania, which means the Spanish island. It also went by the name Saint-Domingue and is now known as the country of Haiti (Feb. 1st, Regina Wellner). The country is located on the west side of Hispaniola, sharing the same island as the Dominican republic in the Caribbean sea. The colony thrived economically in its early days because of the coffee and sugar industry, which were primarily run by slaves. It was even nicknamed “The pearl of the Antilles” because it was the richest French colony in the west and produced 60% of the world's coffee and 40% of the world's sugar (Feb 1st, Regina Wellner). It was the taxes and income from the sugar industry in Saint-Domingue …show more content…

This in turn hurt the sugar industry because it was mostly run by slaves, so production went to cuba instead. Haiti also didn't have successful relations with other nations for their trade industry, causing them to lose money they could have made with trading their coffee and sugar resources. The colony gained independence from France, but this only started their economic decline because they had to pay off reparations or “lost property” which resulted to a loss of 80% of their budget going back to France. Haiti also became isolated from western powers from this revolution, and the United states did not see them as their own country for a long time. France even refused to recognize Haiti until 1825, in exchange for 150 million gold francs, which was later reduced to 90 million. This wasn’t paid off until 1947 (Feb 8th, Regina …show more content…

The earthquake hit just 15 miles south of the capital Port-au-Prince and took more than 200,000 lives. Along with the lives lost, Haiti's economy suffered greatly as well as it is said to have created up to $8.5 billions of dollars in damage. 80% of schools were destroyed in this disaster as well as the airports, government buildings and all the roads (Amadeo). It's even more devastating to learn that this earthquake occurred right when Haiti got approved for a trade agreement with the United States that was helping to grow their economy (Amadeo). Haiti did receive about $13.5 billion in aid which helped to clean up the streets and build the country back to normal as much as possible

Get Access