Hayti

Hayti, or HAITI ('mountainous country,' otherwise HISPANIOLA, or SANTO DOMINGO), is, after Cuba, the largest of the West Indian Islands, now divided into the independent states of Hayti and the Dominican Republic (q.v.). For the map, see WEST INDIES. It is nearly equidistant from Porto Rico on the E., and from Cuba and Jamaica on the W., with the Caribbean Sea on the S., and with the Bahamas and the open ocean on the N. Hayti lies between $17^\{\backslash circ\}\; 37\text{'}$ and $20^\{\backslash circ\}$ N. lat., and between $68^\{\backslash circ\}\; 20\text{'}$ and $74^\{\backslash circ\}\; 28\text{'}$ W. long. It belongs to the group of the Greater Antilles, and, like all the principal members of its series, its greatest length (about 400 miles) is in the direction—from west to east—of the chain of which it forms a part; its greatest breadth is 160 miles. Area, including the islands of Tortuga, Gonaive, &c., about 28,820 sq. m., or nearly that of Scotland. The country is mountainous, being traversed longitudinally by northern, central, and southern ridges, terminating in headlands on either coast; but between these ranges are wide and fertile plains. There are no active volcanoes in the island, but earthquakes are frequent. The highest peak is Loma Tina (10,300 feet), and in the middle section of the Sierra del Cibao the average height is 7000 feet. The climate is hot and moist in the lowlands, the temperature at Port-au-Prince ranging from $67^\{\backslash circ\}$ to $104^\{\backslash circ\}$ F.; the mean range in the highlands is from $60^\{\backslash circ\}$ to $76^\{\backslash circ\}$ F. The heaviest rains are in May and June, and occasional hurricanes visit the island. Agriculture is very backward, although Hayti is one of the most fertile spots in the West Indies; while its excellent harbours, more especially those in the Gulf of Gonaive on the west, offer considerable facilities to foreign trade. The mountains are clothed with forests of pine and oak, and the island is rich in mahogany, satinwood, rosewood, and other valuable timbers. Cotton, rice, maize, cocoa, ginger, arrow-root, yams, tobacco, and numerous fruits are indigenous; and the mango, bread-fruit, sugar, coffee, and indigo are also produced. The minerals are now little worked, though some gold-washing is still carried on in the streams descending the northern slope of the Cibao. The rivers are inconsiderable, and useless for navigation. The largest lake, besides several bodies of fresh water, is the salt lake of Enriquillo, 25 miles inland from the south shore. Both rivers and lakes abound in caymans as well as fish. Birds are few, but reptiles and insects are numerous; the agouti is the largest wild mammal.

Hayti was discovered in 1492 by Columbus, who landed here on 6th December; and within little more than one generation the aborigines had been swept away by the remorseless cruelties of the Spaniards. Their place was filled with negro slaves, who were introduced as early as 1505. Next came the Buccaneers (q.v.), who settled in the island of Tortuga, and ultimately gained a footing on the mainland; and, as those marauders were chiefly French, the western portion of Hayti, which was their favourite haunt, was in 1697 ceded to France by the peace of Ryswick, thus presenting the first important break in the unity of Spanish America. For nearly a hundred years the intruders imported vast reinforcements of Africans; while the mulattoes, who were a natural incident of the concomitant license, rapidly grew, both socially and politically, into an intermediate caste, being at once uniformly excluded from citizenship and generally exempted from bondage. In 1791, under the influence of the French Revolution, the mutual antipathies of the three classes—white, black, and mixed—burst forth into what may well be characterised as the most vindictive struggle on record—a struggle which, before the close of the 18th century, led to the extermination of the once dominant Europeans, and the independence of the coloured insurgents. Thus, as the emancipated bondmen mostly belonged, at least in form, to the Church of Rome, Hayti now exhibited the only Christian community of negro blood on either side of the Atlantic. In 1801 France sent out a powerful armament to recover her revolted dependency, treacherously seizing and deporting the deliverer of his brethren, Toussaint l'Ouverture (q.v.). In 1803, however, she was constrained to relinquish her attempt; and in 1804 Dessalines, aping the example of Napoleon, proclaimed himself Emperor of Hayti, thus reviving the indigenous name of the island, which had been in disuse for upwards of three hundred years.

This great change was fatal to the commercial prosperity of French Hayti, decidedly the more valuable section of the island. In its progress it had destroyed capital in every shape; and in its issue it could not fail to paralyse labour under circumstances where continuous exertion of any kind was equally irksome and superfluous. Nor was the political experience of the lately servile population more satisfactory than its economical condition. Sometimes consolidated into one state, and sometimes divided into two, the country alternated, through the instrumentality of one revolution after another, between despotism and anarchy, between monarchy (more or less constitutional or imperial) and republicanism. Its only tranquil period of any duration coincided with the rule of President Boyer (q.v.), which subsisted from 1820 to 1843—its last twenty-one years comprising not merely the whole of French or Western Hayti, but likewise the Spanish or eastern portion of the island, whose inhabitants in 1843 formed themselves into the Dominican Republic (q.v.). Hayti, thus united, was in 1825 recognised even by France, on condition of paying 150 million francs, or £6,000,000, as a compensation to the former planters—a sum reduced in 1838 to sixty millions. The western portion of the island remained republican in its form of government until 1849, when its former president, the negro General Sonlouque, proclaimed an empire, and assumed the title of Emperor Fanstin I. In 1859, however, a republic was again proclaimed and a new constitution adopted, which was modified in 1867. Few presidents have since been permitted to complete their term of office (seven years), which has usually been cut short by revolutions. In 1889 General Hippolyte succeeded in the chief-magistracy General L'égitime, whom he had driven out of the country. Sir Spenser St John's Hayti, or the Black Republic, gives a truthful picture, at once melancholy and ludicrous, of the utter savagery that is dominant in the western state. Official peculation, judicial murder, and utter corruption of every kind underlie the forms and titles of civilised government; the religion, nominally Christian, is largely vaudoux or serpent-worship, in which actual and horrible cannibalism is even now a most important element. Instead of progressing, the negro republicans have gone back to the lowest type of African barbarism.

The area of the western portion of the island, the negro republic of Hayti, is about 9200 sq. m.; the population was stated in 1888, somewhat extravagantly, at 960,000; it is probably under 600,000. The capital, Port-au-Prince, is reported to have 30,000 inhabitants, and perhaps has 20,000. Under the president are a senate and house of representatives, and four heads of departments. The returns of income and expenditure are merely estimates, and the disorders of civil war have in recent years rendered these more than usually valueless. There is a large floating debt, chiefly resulting from the issue of paper money by successive governments. The total debt amounts to between £3,000,000 and £4,000,000. The annual revenue is, since 1894, stated at £1,250,000, a sum generally exceeded by the expenditure. The army consists nominally of 6828 men, mostly infantry; some half-dozen small vessels constitute the navy. The dialect of the people is a debased French. The exports of Hayti may have a value of about £1,000,000 a year; the chief articles are coffee, cacao, logwood, mahogany, and cotton. Of the imports, valued at about £700,000 annually, over two-thirds come from the United States, the rest mainly from Germany, France, and Britain.

See St John, Hayti, or the Black Republic (1884; 2d ed. 1889); works by Maidou (1847), Ardouin (Paris, 1853-61), Linslant-Pradine (Paris, 1851-65), Janvier (Paris, 1883-85-86), La Selve (1876-81), Nau (Paris, 1886), Fortunat (1888), Rouzier (1892), Marcelin (1893), Justin (1894), and Tippenhauer (Leipzig, 1893).