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Who colonized Haiti?

Caribbean — the powers that ruled Haiti, the dates, and what independence did and did not change.

In short

Who colonized Haiti?

Spain first, then France. Spain claimed Hispaniola from 1492; France took the western third as Saint-Domingue in 1697 and made it the world's most profitable slave colony until the revolution of 1791–1804.

Haiti won its freedom and was then charged for it. In 1825 France sent warships to demand 150 million francs in compensation — for the loss of enslaved people as property — as the price of diplomatic recognition.

Reference

Who ruled Haiti, and when

before 1492
Taíno polities
1492–1697
Spain
1697–1804
France — Saint-Domingue
since 1804
Republic of Haiti

At a glance

Key facts

Colonising powers
Spain, France
Independence
1 January 1804
Sugar
Saint-Domingue produced around 40% of Europe's sugar before 1791
The indemnity
150m francs demanded in 1825, later reduced to 90m — paid off in 1947
Cost today
Modern estimates of the indemnity's value run to tens of billions of dollars

Chronology

Key dates

  1. 1492

    Spanish arrival; the Taíno population collapses within decades.

  2. 1697

    Treaty of Ryswick cedes the western third to France.

  3. 1791

    The revolution begins at Bois Caïman.

  4. 1804

    Independence — the first state founded by formerly enslaved people.

  5. 1825

    France demands 150 million francs to recognise independence.

  6. 1947

    The last of the indemnity debt is finally cleared.

Context

What the record shows

Servicing that debt consumed a large share of Haitian state revenue for over a century and required loans from French banks, transferring the cost of abolition onto the abolished.

Questions

Frequently asked

Who colonised Haiti?
Spain from 1492, then France, which held the western third of Hispaniola as Saint-Domingue from 1697 until the Haitian Revolution ended in 1804.
Why did Haiti pay France?
France demanded an indemnity in 1825 as the condition of recognising Haitian independence, nominally to compensate slaveholders for lost property.
When did Haiti become independent?
1 January 1804.

Read on

Related in the archive

References

Sources — colonial Haiti

  1. [1]Bartolomé de las Casas, Brevísima relación de la destrucción de las Indias (Seville, 1552).
  2. [2]Noble David Cook, Born to Die: Disease and New World Conquest, 1492–1650 (Cambridge University Press, 1998).
  3. [3]Eduardo Galeano, Open Veins of Latin America (Monthly Review Press, 1971; English 1973).
  4. [4]Adam Hochschild, King Leopold's Ghost (Houghton Mifflin, 1998).
  5. [5]Thomas Pakenham, The Scramble for Africa (Random House, 1991).
  6. [6]Shashi Tharoor, Inglorious Empire: What the British Did to India (Hurst, 2017).
  7. [7]Caroline Elkins, Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain's Gulag in Kenya (Henry Holt, 2005).
  8. [8]Alfred W. McCoy, Policing America's Empire: The United States, the Philippines, and the Rise of the Surveillance State (Wisconsin, 2009).
  9. [9]Daniel Immerwahr, How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2019).
  10. [10]Jürgen Zimmerer, "The birth of the Ostland out of the spirit of colonialism", Patterns of Prejudice 39:2 (2005), on the German South-West Africa → Holocaust lineage.
  11. [11]Walter Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (Bogle-L'Ouverture, 1972).
  12. [12]Karl Marx, Capital, Volume I (1867), Chapter 31 ("Genesis of the Industrial Capitalist").

All works cited in good faith for documentary, educational and critical use. Errors and omissions: contact the archive.