To set the stage for our collective learning about Haiti, it is important to know something about the history of Haiti. You will start to see why Haitians are proud, and why they tenaciously hold on to hope.
In the book, The Uses of Haiti, by Paul Farmer, we learn that in 1804, "The Republic of Haiti became the first independent nation in all of Latin America. In the hemisphere, only the United States is older. This point is overshadowed however, by the overriding singularity of Haiti's birth: there exists outside of Haiti no other case of an enslaved people breaking its own chains and using military might to defeat a powerful colonial power.
‘Haiti was more than the New World's second oldest republic, more even than the first black republic of the modern world. Haiti was the first free nation of free men to arise within, and in resistance to the emerging constellation of Western European empires (Lowenthal, 1976, pp. 656-657).'"
Going back even further, the same author quotes Christopher Columbus describing the people native on the island as being "lovable, tractable, peaceable, gentle, decorous Indians." Soon after Columbus' arrival, the native population died at an appalling rate. "At the end of the fifteenth century their numbers were estimated as high as eight million, but by 1510, only 50,000 native Indians remained. Less than 30 years later, the population could be counted in the hundreds," Farmer states.
Columbus also introduced sugar cane to the island. Because the native population was all but extinct, Africans were brought over as slaves to work the fields. Farmer writes, "Between 1784 and 1791, the average annual import was 29,000 slaves. The small territory was by then home to almost half of all slaves held in the Caribbean colonies...one of every three slaves died during his first three years of intense exploitation." The torture of living a slave's life is detailed in Farmer's book in the words of the Baron de Vastey, a Haitian who had grown up a slave: "Have they not hung up men with heads downward, drowned them in sacks, crucified them on planks, buried them alive, crushed them in mortars? Have they not forced them to eat shit? And, after having flayed them with a lash, have they not cast them alive to be devoured by worms, or onto anthills, or lashed them to stakes in the swamp to be devoured by mosquitoes? Have they not thrown them into boiling cauldrons of cane syrup?"
All of this makes the story of their hard-won freedom truly remarkable. Yet, it seems true freedom for the poor of Haiti is still beyond reach. In a summary statement Farmer writes, "Time is running out if we are to help make sure that the Haitian poor do not ‘die in the silence of history.'"
Is it possible to impact history by partnering with poor women of Haiti? Our hope is to bring economic opportunity to a small number of rural Haitian women who otherwise would be without opportunity. Yet, equally important, we wish to tell their story-using their voice-in a manner that connects you to their journey for freedom.
I am compelled to try, because as I wrote in the preface of, Defining Moments: A Trilogy of Hope:
"Life is about struggle,
if not our own,
then another's.
Is the absence of strife
our claim of victory?
Or, are trials the path to hope?
I am a freedom fighter.
I cannot be otherwise."
I hope you will join us on our journey into freedom.
