Is Haiti actually cursed?

Haiti, one of the poorest country in the western hemisphere has just been hit by the strongest earthquake in more than 20 years. Seismometers recorded a magnitude of 7.0. Thousands are feared dead with many more homeless and displaced.Haiti is an impoverished country with 63% of its population undernourished and only 25% having clean drinking water.

Haiti is used to weather-related disasters . It is sitting atop a natural fault line and the nation is battered by hurricanes. The country was still recovering from a series of 4 hurricanes.

Haiti is also a country of rampant violent crime, widespread diseases not to mention hurricane destruction.Haiti is located approximately 750 miles southeast of Florida which it shares with the Dominican Republic. The climate is tropical with average temperatures ranging from 27� in January to 30� in July. Like in all Caribbean countries, hurricanes are common.

Haitians are said to be a warm, loving and surprisingly joyful people under the circumstances. They share and help each other with what little they have.

History of Haiti

Haiti is a Creole and French-speaking Caribbean country. The capital is Port-au-Prince. They gained their independence through a successful slave rebellion. Haiti is the only predominantly Francophone independent nation in the Americas.

At first Haiti was exploited by the Spaniards for its gold and those refusing to work in the mines were slaughtered or forced into slavery. Europeans brought infectious diseases with them that were new to the Caribbean. Diseases were the main cause of their decline and the Spanish governors began importing enslaved Africans for labour. The first inhabitants became virtually extinct. Then the island soon was settled by French buccaneers. One of them Bertrand D'Ogeron succeeded in growing tobacco. Bertrand D'Ogeron attracted many colonists from Martinique and Guadeloupe and then indigo and sugar cane plantations were established. There were lots of political struggle at that time and eventually France and Spain settled hostilities by a treaty in 1697. France received the western third St Domingue in the Dominican Republic so a lot of French colonists established plantations due to high profit potential.

From 1713 to 1787 about 30.000 colonists emigrated from Bordeaux. It quickly became the richest French colony in the New World due to the profits from sugar, coffee and indigo industries.
The French revolution contributed to social upheavals in St Domingue and the French and West Indies expatriates bankrolled and armed opposing groups. In 1888 US Marines supported a military revolt against the government. In 1912 Syrians in Haiti participated in a plot in which the presidential palace was destroyed. The USA occupied the island from 1915 to 1934.

From 1957 to 1986 the Duvalier family reigned as dictators. Many Haitians fled to exile to the USA and Quebec ( Canada). In 1986 protests led the US to arrange for Duvalier to be exiled to France. In 1990 the former priest Jean-Bertrand Aristide won the election. Following a coup d' Etat in 1991 Aristide was flown to exile.

Due to political turmoil and unrest lots of Haitians are being forced out of their home country. Haiti ecology has been significantly damaged since its independence in 1804. Only 7% of the country original forest remains unscathed by deforestation. Most of the trees have been cut and used as firewood for heating and cooking.

Roman Catholicism is the official religion but voodoo may be considered the country's national religion.

Most people in the world were left broken hearted when they learnt about the earthquake which caused an unknown number of casualties. The French government have begun working to mobilize and dispatch without delay urgent aid to Port-au-Prince. But Haiti's lack of building codes, emergency codes, and strong infrastructures slowed down relief efforts in the previous disasters and the country is still recovering from a series of four hurricanes that wiped out any progress and development.

Ackowledgements : Photos provided by Vanberto ( advertising), M eriksson ( palace) sifu Renka ( boat) joel abroad ( sugar plantation) Ianloic ( mamie picking indigo) and UF digital collection ( gaz propane)under Creative Commons Licence via Flickr