Haiti

From the Taino island of Quisqueya and the slave colony of Saint-Domingue to the world's first Black republic.

Haiti occupies the western third of Hispaniola, the Caribbean island the Taino called Quisqueya, where Christopher Columbus landed in 1492 and where Spanish and then French colonisers built Saint-Domingue, the richest colony on earth, on sugar, coffee, and the mass enslavement of Africans. Between 1791 and 1804 the enslaved majority waged the only successful large-scale slave revolt in history, and on 1 January 1804 Jean-Jacques Dessalines proclaimed independence, making Haiti the second sovereign nation in the Americas and the first Black republic. Its sovereignty was burdened by a crippling 1825 indemnity demanded by France, chronic instability, a United States occupation (1915-1934), and the Duvalier dictatorships (1957-1986). The catastrophic 2010 earthquake and, since the 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moise, a spiral of state collapse and gang violence have defined Haiti's recent history.