[
Ayiti’s Deforestation by Leisa Faulkner
Sacramento State University May 20, 2008
Preface: Forest Hideout saves slaves
January 6, 1777, escaped slaves or maroons, had been on the run for weeks in the forests of Saint Dominique (Haiti). M. de Saint-Vilme located the Negro colony at Bahoruco and attacked it, but since his dogs had barked during the whole preceding night, the maroons had “fled to the forest, which was so thickly wooded that the troops were unable to penetrate it. The soldiers were overwhelmed with fatigue, and had even been reduced to drinking their own urine; the detachment was forced to withdraw to get provisions” (Price 1996: 136-137). Mountainous forests were a hideout for run-away slaves.
Now, though, the legionary forests of Haiti have mostly vanished. And, “most mineral deposits (of bauxite, gold, silver, copper, nickel, and sulfur) either have been fully exploited or are no longer commercially viable” (OCLC). Soil erosion and desertification are so far advanced, Haiti is, therefore, an ecological disaster” (Country Watch 2008).
Why care about Haiti? Hasn’t it always been a disaster? It is, after all the most impoverished country in the Western Hemisphere, with an annual rural income of less than $100 (Reid 1999:34). Is it a mistake, though, to think of it as a backward country? In fact, just the opposite is true. Haiti was at one time the most valuable colony in the world. It was the first colony outside Europe to have a European cathedral and university (Labossiere). Given the extreme wealth generated in Haiti, combined with the obvious militarily strategic position it holds, it is no wonder that Haiti was torn apart.
Haiti has been torn apart, literally. Her indigenous people victims of genocide, her subsequent peoples kidnapped, enslaved, and tortured to near extinction. Her natural resources ripped, mined, sawn, and plowed from the earth, until her very soil tumbles back into the sea.
Objective
The purpose of this study is to examine the political economy of the deforestation in Haiti within a historical-sociological construct using a world systems perspective in a post-colonial setting, then to briefly compare those conditions to those of the concurrent global food crisis. The neo-Malthusian perspective, though losing ground with theorists today, will be discussed; as will conflict theory, dependency theory and dominant racial hegemony in that they continue to afflict Haiti, and finally how the treadmill of production contributes to a fuller understanding of deforestation in general; by these tools of environmental sociology, this paper will explore some of the contributing factors that brought Haiti to the ruin is in today.
Introduction
Environmental sociology as a discipline offers researchers an opportunity to bring together an abundance of disciplines to tell a bigger, and hopefully, better story. I will relate the story of Shada, Haiti, as well as I can, in this essay. Dominant social structure, culture, religion, trade, political economy, changing global power structure dynamics (from colonial, post-colonial, development, development project, to the current globalization project) all need to go into the story telling.
The deforestation of Haiti is merely one of a myriad of symptoms that point to larger structural problems; other symptoms include poverty, high infant mortality, illiteracy, lack of medical care, food shortage, transportation, safety, welfare, and the current food crisis are problems that have roots deeply ingrained in the current global political economy. This essay will attempt to explain how our modern capitalist world system got its start during the Age of Revolutions (1760-1830), and the Haitian revolution of 1791-1804 was central to that period. The slave revolution challenged the existing naturalist hierarchal order, pushing Haiti to the forefront of post-colonial nations (following only the U.S.) and has impact on Haiti today and on what we can predict for the future of Haiti. However, in order to discuss the Haitian revolution as it pertains to a current world system still permeated by dominant race hegemony, we must first place that revolution in its historical-sociological context.
Wallerstein (2005) emphasized the value of utilizing an approach to systems analysis that widens our perspective to include an analysis of world-systems rather than focusing on nation-states as separate entities. From this perspective, we will consider historical processes over time, utilizing this analytical framework to pull in bodies of knowledge including those historical, political, religious, economic, and sociological, using that world-systems perspective, not ignoring the severity of the consequences of racial constructs, historically and as they do today.
The story of third world impoverishment is often told within the construct of overpopulation, “leaving the poor at fault for their own immiseration”. Recent political economy analysis broadly sees past the older neo-Malthusian story, especially since Lappe and Collins (1977) and later Sen (1981) show that unequal distribution of resources cause poverty and that such inequalities are structurally imposed. The structural factors that cause poverty and concomitant deforestation are largely ignored in the previous neo-Malthusian perspective (Haught 1992: viii).
These forces, when inflicted to the point of deprivation, prompt many unpleasant consequences, deforestation and hunger being only two, and are usually accompanied with a strong and persistent use of force. Conflict theory traditionally defines the state as the entity, which claims a monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force. This is manifest in the various nation-states persistent vying for domination of Haiti.
Dependency theorists will recognize a flow of resources from the "periphery" of the poor to a "core" of the elite, though these continue to change. Andre Gunder Frank’s “development of underdevelopment” (Wallerstein 2006:12) is especially helpful when looking at the global south disparities with the global elite. It is a central contention of dependency theory that poor states are impoverished and rich ones enriched by the way poor states are integrated into the "world system."
Also, whether acknowledged or not, racial hegemony has been an defining factor dating back to the stories of a son of Adam and Eve receiving the “mark of Cain” (Moses 5:40) for a transgression, and the dark progeny of Ham, son of Noah for having married Egyptus “or that which was forbidden” (Abraham 1:23).
White supremacist mythologies inherited and internalized have become tools used to maintain or claim power, economic advantage, affirm social/cultural or religious inclinations. These value systems are so well infused in various belief systems and social structures that even those perpetrating them onto younger generations may deny their existence (Hintzen 1994).
Sometimes, these views are not so discrete; for example, President Theodore Roosevelt, “certainly the architect of 20th century U.S. policy was quite clear in his rejection of the application of ‘rules of international morality’ to non-European populations whom he considered to be ‘savages’ and ‘beasts.’ He thought it of ‘incalculable importance’ that lands ‘should pass out of the hands of their red, black, and yellow aboriginal owners, and become the heritage of the dominant (white) world races” (Roosevelt 1926:57-58 in Hintzen 1994:39). His sentiments have not been far from the prevailing sentiments throughout “development” practices, and when dominant power mixed with a hunger for ever-expanding wealth (the treadmill of production’s goal) confronts a resistant force, violence is the result.
In Haiti’s case, the violence has been so grotesque; it is a difficult story to hear, yet Haiti’s horrors speak for themselves.
It should become clear, from reviewing the story of Haiti, that had Ayiti been allowed to thrive in her “natural” state, as she had been supporting for seven thousand years a balanced environment, resplendent with peace loving humans, abundant plant and animal life, that if the treadmill of production had not turned Haiti basically into a “factory town”, she may have been able to teach us how to help humans avoid becoming another one of the earth’s endangered species.
World setting prior to 1492
Haiti, or Ayiti, as her first peoples referred to their home, has been torn apart, literally. Her thousands-year-old Amerindian indigenous culture victim of genocide, her subsequent peoples kidnapped, enslaved, and tortured to near extinction. Her overly abundant natural resources ripped, mined, sawn, and plowed from the earth, until her very soil tumbles back into the sea.
The Taíno, had the misfortune to be “discovered” by Cristoforo Colombo, (known to us as Christopher Columbus) on December 22, 1492 (Wilson 1990:7-8). The Taíno, have cultural and linguistic roots which can be traced back for well over a millennium and are the outcome of some 7000 years of adaptation to the Caribbean island environment (British Museum 2007). The Taíno, showed an appreciation of preserving their environment and understood sustainable cultivation, including preserving their lush forests (Haught 1992:19).
Meanwhile, the long 16th century (to include the “discoveries”) was a crucial one in Europe. Spiritually and intellectually, the discovery of the “New World” coincided with the fullness of the Italian Renaissance and happened just before the emergence of Renaissance thought in northern Europe and England.
Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) and Michelangelo (1475-1564) were contemporaries of Christopher Columbus. China had become a source of practical kinds of paper and the Gutenberg bible was printed around 1454. By 1500, more than 25 thousand different books were published. However, according to Samuel Wilson, Columbus was aptly described by Todorov (1984:1-3) as a “medieval mentality” whose spiritual worldview stands in such sharp contrast to the emerging secular vision of the Renaissance. According to Todorov, Columbus’ passion for discovery was motivated by his dream of providing money for the liberation of Jerusalem from the infidels (p. 10) – a rebirth of Crusader ideals three hundred years out of date (Wilson 1990: 8).
As the Pope faced challenges to hegemony, the shape of the dominant world system was often violently contested between colonizers from Europe such as Spain, Portugal, Holland, France, and Britain, and vitally politically and economically interested parties such as the U.S. and Germany (Dubois 2004:33, Wilson 1990:35, Rogozinsky 1992:36-42 & 58 & 98, Fick 1990:15). Each one played large roles in the demise of a sustainable environment in Haiti, beginning with the Spanish “discovery”.
To simply examine conditions in Haiti today without an in-depth look at the socio/historical record precludes understanding and analysis that could possibly demonstrate possibilities for remedy. It would be impossible to tell the story of deprivation without telling the story subsequent to the “discovery” fairly completely, since on Ayiti the indigenous people lived in abundance and without depletion of their environment for thousands of years (Wilson 1990:17-19).
Why vie for Haiti?
Since Haiti is the most impoverished country in the Western Hemisphere, it has been a frequent error to mistake it for a backward country. In fact, just the opposite is true. It was the first colony outside Europe to have a European cathedral and university (Labossiere). Haiti was at one time, the most valuable colony in the world; Haiti was first in world production of coffee, rum, cotton and indigo, and produced 75% of the world’s sugar. In 1776 Haiti (the size of Maryland) produced more revenue “than all thirteen North American colonies combined.
In fact, it was the busiest trade center in the world (Farmer 2003:56). C.L.R. James wrote that Saint-Domingue (as Haiti was then known) “received at its ports 1,597 ships, a greater number than Marseilles, France. The U.S. and France each traded more with Haiti than at any other port in the world. In the years that Haiti was throwing off the chains of slavery, Britain, Spain, France, and Holland were all trying to take possession of it. Also during Haiti’s drive to rid itself of slavery, the United States economy was very engaged with slavery, leading in part to Thomas Jefferson declaring Haiti a threat to the U.S.
Haiti was the economic giant, the plum of Napoleon's empire, and the jewel around which he would build his empire. The (then) small and less interesting U.S. would simply be a feeding ground for the slaves he intended to reinstate in Saint-Domingue (Corbett 1991). Given those conditions, and the extreme wealth generated in Haiti, combined with the obvious militarily strategic position it holds (central point for Napoleon to reach Florida and the Louisiana region, as well as bridge-way from North America to Cuba, the Caribbean and Latin America, as well as being central in the triangular trade zone), Haiti was on everyone’s mind.
Island Overview Prior to 1492
The Island named Hispaniola by Columbus is divided today between Haiti (western third) and the Dominican Republic, and sits immediately southeast of Cuba in the Greater Antilles (see notes1)
Haiti today is mountainous: 54% of the land lies on a slope of greater than forty degrees (Landahl 1979:59). Nearly all of these slopes are now void of tree cover. In the 1980’s nearly 6,000 hectares of topsoil from these denuded hill-slopes were washed away (Bellegarde-Smith 1990: 115). In many areas, all topsoil has been eroded, leaving exposed bedrock. Consequently, peasants, who make their living from the soil are seeing their resource base disappear” (Haught (1992:11). Prior to European arrival much of the island was covered by seasonal rainforest especially in the lowlands, which is also disappearing. Precipitation in the once-forested zone is between 1250mm and 2000mm with a well defined dry season lasting two to five months (Watts 1990:30-31).
There have been many “discoveries” of what we call Haiti, dating back to 5,000 B.C., then another migration of people about 3,000 B.C. In the last few centuries B.C., a sedentary horticultural people moved into the Caribbean, an Arawak speaking community of Amerindians that had migrated from the northeast coast of South America (Wilson 1990:17-19), whom we call the Taino Indians. The numbers of Taino that thrived on the island prior to 1492 vary significantly according to various sources. Some researches place the number at 225,000 (Rogozinsky 1992:32), and according to Bartolomé de las Casas (1552:4) there were about three million at that time, but Paul Farmer puts the number closer to eight million (Farmer 2003:54).
Before “discovery”, the indigenous Taino people had developed a very sophisticated social and agricultural system that provided them not only with an eco-sustainable food source, but also with such abundance, that they spent much time in leisure, sport and the arts. They adapted to and managed the tropical environment through a complex agricultural system based on multiple resource-use strategies, resulting in high production and environmental sustainability. The conuco system (see notes2) was the most significant strategy, but combined with the conuco agriculture, kitchen gardens, hunting, fishing and gathering were also important (see notes3).
Columbus Discovers the New World and the Tainos
The first black nation to throw off slavery didn’t start out black. When Christopher Columbus first ‘discovered’ what would become known as Haiti, the Tainos flourished for more than a thousand years “without need for clothing in the tropical paradise” (Wilson 1990:13 & 53-56, Dubois 2004:14).
Soon after the “discovery” of Haiti, Bartholomaeus de las Casas’ details the total loss of indigenous life through-out the region at 50 million, including near total genocide of all inhabitants of Cuba, Jamaica, Hispaniola, St. John, the Lucayan Islands and every other smaller island in the region, having been exported to Hispaniola to work in the gold mines (Las Casas 1552- see notes4). It is interesting to note that this is a first hand account, and how Las Casas’ sympathies clearly lie with the Indians, however, when Black slaves began replacing indigenous ones, his outrage was gone.
The “Other” construct and racial hegemony permeates Haitian history. The European exercise of power in the colonies “revealed the hard edge of power in the modern state, premised on racial humiliation” (Cooper and Stoler 1997). This reconstruction of ideology (sanctioned by both Queen and Pope) allowed the indigenous and imported to be re-classified into categories of less-than human or other, primitive and savage, as they became tools for the benefit of the homeland. Christian conversion, when it did happen, did not prevent the subsequent brutality of both human beings and their environment.
The “discovery” of Hispaniola also clearly marked the beginning of the end for the island, its inhabitants and its cultural, intellectual and natural resources, though Frederick Douglass, 90 years after the revolution, still described Haiti as a tropical paradise (see notes5).
Columbus wrote of his first meeting the Taínos in his log,
“They…brought us parrots … and many other things. They willingly traded everything they owned…They were well-built, with good bodies and handsome features…They do not bear arms, and do not know them…they would make fine servants…with fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want” (Zinn 2003:1).
Neither the Indians nor their paradise would long survive the ‘discovery’ of what Columbus renamed, the island of Hispaniola. The introduction of cattle, horses, sheep, hogs, dogs, guinea fowl, chickens and other animals had a disastrous impact on the ecological balance of the island. At first, young boys were assigned the task of running animals off the conucos, but soon all were enlisted in gold production, the conucos were then quickly rooted up. Soil underwent compaction, and lowered infiltration aided soil erosion (Haught 1992:36-37, see notes6).
Since Columbus had gained the opportunity and funds for his quest from the Spanish monarchy based in part on fanciful visions of great wealth, wealth expected to return in the form of gold. When Columbus realized that he was falling short in his promise to deliver gold to Spain, he “ordered all persons fourteen years or older to collect a certain quantity of gold every three months. The island did not support the gold business well. The Taínos had never broken the earth to mine their gold, choosing instead to simply collect it, when it washed up in streams, or when they found it on the ground. This method was probably the most efficient, because the submergence of the pre-historic island was the source of gold sediment. So, it wasn’t long, before their meager supply ran out. When the villagers did bring it, they were given copper tokens to hang around their necks. Indians found without a copper token had their hands cut off and sometimes bled to death. And yet it is the Taino who were considered savages.
For example, the Taínos were well groomed. They liked to bathe often. Later, the Spaniards enacted a law forbidding this healthy attitude considering it as harmful to the Indians. The Spaniards believed that frequent bathing would take one’s soul away. Soon total control led to total cruelty.
Immeasurable violence was used to maintain control over the Taínos, and especially after the indigenous people decided the Spaniards were not “messengers from Heaven”, following the “abuse (of) the Consort of the most puissant King of the whole Isle” (Las Casas 1552:6). Las Casas gives a vivid first hand account:
“the Spaniards no sooner perceived, but they, mounted on generous Steeds, well weapon'd with Lances and Swords, begin to exercise their bloody Butcheries and Strategems, and overrunning their Cities and Towns, spar'd no Age, or Sex, nay not so much as Women with Child, but ripping up their Bellies, tore them alive in pieces. They laid Wagers among themselves, who should with a Sword at one blow cut, or divide a Man in two; or which of them should decollate or behead a Man, with the greatest dexterity; nay farther, which should sheath his Sword in the Bowels of a Man with the quickest dispatch and expedition… If a Taíno dared retaliate, an edict was enforced that allowed 100 Indians to be slain for every Spaniard” (Las Casas 1552:6, see notes - 7),
Those that Columbus first described as “lovable, tractable, peaceable, gentle, decorous Indians” (Columbus 1492) had to be re-invented to be less than human. “In their attempts to maintain or increase power, prestige, or wealth, groups found it easy to invent or accept the idea that others were somehow inferior to them and thus not deserving of equal treatment.” (Lauren 1988:5)
The Spaniards ‘thought nothing of knifing Indians by tens and twenties and of cutting slices off them to test the sharpness of their blades.’ Within two years half of the natives were dead”(Zinn 2003: 4-6).
The sad fact is that we can “estimate their number at the close of the fifteenth century at eight million, but by 1510, only 50,000 natives remained on the island.” Fifty years after the landing of Columbus, only two hundred Taínos remained alive (Robinson 2007:3).
The demand for gold did not decline with the population. “Taínos were forced to work in the mines until they died. Miners were given only (manioc) cassava (Sauer in Haught 1992:33). Malnourished and dispirited, many committed suicide by eating unprocessed manioc rather than remain in the mines (Watts in Haught 1992:33). By 1530, the Arawaks had (generally) ceased to exist as a population” (Crosby in Haught 1992:34, see notes8).
African Slavery
In 1517 the transatlantic slave trade was fully engaged. By 1540, thirty thousand Africans had been imported to the island (Farmer 2003:54) and they had to be constantly replaced. “One in three slaves died in his first three years of intense exploitation” (Benitez-Rojo 1992:70).
From the few slave journals available we have an eyewitness account of the human cost that this intense wealth producing world system of exchange accrued. Human sweat and sinew became the tools of treadmill of production in this largest system of accumulation of wealth known to the world at that time. Baron de Vastey, having grown up a slave in Haiti, gives us this narrative:
“Have they not hung 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 the 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?” (de Vastey circa 1800:73). See notes7 for description by Las Casas 1552.
Though the Spanish introduced indigenous enslavement, and then African slavery to the island, they were not the sole purveyors of the practice on Hispaniola. While they continued dominion on the eastern larger portion of the island, the French were making their presence secure starting on the smaller island of Tortuga , just off the northern coast. In 1697, Spain deeded France the western third of the island of Hispaniola; the Spanish side was called Santo Domingo (the future Dominican Republic) and the French portion was called Saint Dominique (Haiti). Slavery stayed the same, just with new names and masters (see notes9).
By this time, slavery was legally practiced in many parts of the world, including in the United States (from 1654 until 1865) as well as in France, and it was a great source of wealth for the French, from which funds titles of nobility could be purchased (Gros 2000:212). It is estimated that one third of their wealth was extracted from Haiti. This slavery-construction ideology (sanctioned also by both Queen of Spain and the Pope) allowed the indigenous and imported to be re-classified into categories of less-than human or other, primitive and savage, as they became tools for the benefit of the homeland. Christian conversion, when it did happen, did not save the slave.
It is interesting that slavery was a broadly accepted practice, throughout the “Age of Enlightenment”, which, though considered an age of optimism, was tempered by the realistic recognition of the sad state of the human condition and the need for major reforms.
Colonization
The immense wealth generated by the trans-Atlantic slave trade, was built on the premise of racial superiority, even as the contest for hegemonic dominance was sending its masters into war after war. “European exercise of power in the colonies revealed the hard edge of power in the modern state, premised on racial humiliation” (Cooper and Stoler 1997).
During the Haitian colonial period (1492-1804) William Shakespeare (1564-1616) began shaking down the cultural structures of the Middle Ages with a more modern, secular voice. There is a postcolonial African saying, “When the white man came he had the Bible and we had the land. When the white man left we had the Bible and he had the land” (McMichaels 2008: 28). The Black Code (Code Noir) was imposed by the French, re-asserting fear and racial hegemony. For example, if a free mulatto was caught walking down the street wearing clothes that seemed too European, any white person had the right to rip their clothes off, there on the street (Fick 1990:34).
Beginning in the 16th century, colonizers sought precious metals, slave labor, spices, tobacco, cacao, potatoes, sugar, and cotton, in the process, as McMichaels says, they reorganized the world. Not only was this the beginning of enforced specialized extraction of resources, but it also was the beginning of an unequal ecological exchange, as colonies became “exporters of sustainability”. (Gupta 1998: 309, quoted in McMichaels) The colonial division of labor depended on this over-harvesting. Soon, forests gave way to crops, and family plots became savannas; deforested hillsides ran to the sea.
Stephen Bunker and Paul Ciccantell, in their research on Amazonian ecology, observe,
“Extractive economies thus often deplete or seriously reduce plants or animals, and they disrupt and degrade hydrological systems and geological formations [which] serve critical functions for the reproduction of other species and for the conservation of the watercourses and land forms on which they depend. Losses from excessive harvesting of a single species or material form can thus ramify through and reduce the productivity and integrity of an entire ecosystem” (Bunker and Ciccantell 2005).
Colonial Cultivation
Sugar cane was introduced in 1493 as a cash crop, when initial clearing of forests began, though the work of the gold mines took precedence. Initially, cane cutting were inserted into mounds, following conuco tradition. Not until 1515, when the first sugar masters were brought to the island, did wholesale deforestation begin earnest. This was highly profitable until about 1560 when other areas in the world began producing sugar. (Haught 1992:30)
The Spaniards expected the indigenous people to supply them with food and labor, yet did so wastefully. “One individual Spaniard consumed more ‘vituals’ in one day, than would serve to maintain three families a month, every one consisting of ten persons” (Las Casas 1552:6).
The following French colonization was much more destructive to the forests and ecosystems. Also, massive human migrations to the mountains to escape slavery aided hillside erosions. (Micro-fiche UCB May 9 2008)
Historical Forests
Nancy Peluso wrote that, “historically, the state, the peasantry, and other external interests have acted out their tensions in the natural theater of the forest” (Peluso 1992: 4); this is nowhere more true than in Haiti. She continues, “where the interests of states and peasants clash, we often find environmental deterioration, poverty, and ambivalent power relations.”
The environment of the island was and still is fragile due to the moist, warm climate, chemical weathering occurs quickly, and soil erodes easily and massively (Rogozinsky 1992:11). The earlier Arawak agricultural system,
“left much of the mature tropical rainforest intact. Cutting of certain mature hardwoods did occur for construction of houses or the making of canoes. Fallow periods allowed for secondary vegetation regeneration and prevented soil exhaustion. Conuco poly-cropped systems stabilized soil with vegetational cover to prevent erosion” (Haught 1992:24).
Though deforestation began when the Spanish first landed, it has been progressing since. Forests were cleared to grow tobacco, indigo, cotton, and cacao at various times (Stein 1988:42, Debien 1941:37, Cauna 1987:173-6 in Haught 1992:49). Vast tracts of forests were cleared for indigo and for sugar cane plantations (with additional wood burned to heat sugar in processing) under French rule. Then, erosion became an even more serious problem with the onset of coffee plantations (Haught 1992:62-3 & 94).
Age of Revolutions - 1760 to 1830
Just following the Seven Years War (over a million dead and all European powers engaged), began the Age of Revolutions, in the center, and it seems focal point, lay Haiti (see Timeline in Appendix 2). Haiti was so center, in fact, that Napoleon had considered making it the center of his new empire; the British went to war five times to gain the region, and the French’s losses in Haiti were basically the reason the U.S. doubled its territory size.
Slave Revolution in Haiti - 1804
In 1804, when Jean-Jacques Dessalines declared Haiti a free nation, it became the successful slave revolution in modern history. Frederick Douglass, who served as the U.S. ambassador to Haiti declared in 1893 that when the “black sons of Haiti” had “struck for freedom,” they had “struck for the freedom of every black man in t he world” (Douglass in Dubois 2004:305), though it was not the slaves who originally started the revolution, it was the mulattoes.
An early uprising by mulattoes led to the full revolution by the slaves. As inspiration, in 1791, Boukman, a slave himself, wrote these words:
“ The god who created the sun which gives us light, who rouses the waves and rules the storm, though hidden in the clouds, he watches us. He sees all that the white man does. The god of the white man inspires him with crime, but our god calls upon us to do good works. Our god who is good to us orders us to revenge our wrongs. He will direct our arms aid us. Throw away the symbol of the god of the whites who has so often caused us to weep, and listen to the voice of liberty, which speaks in the heart of us all” (James 1963:87 in Haught).
Over half the people on Haiti were dead. The sugar plantations and all the cruelty attached to them were burned to the ground. Every white person left or was killed in retaliation (Clark 2004: xi). The massive destruction to human life as well as the environment slowed in 1804, at the end of the revolution, though no systems were in place to feed and maintain the newly freed republic. Slavery, though, sometimes has a way of re-creating itself.
In a manner of re-colonization, today, “child trafficking dwarfs the trans-Atlantic slave trade at its peak by a magnitude of 10” (McMichael 2008:207). And, “there are more slave laborers in the world today – at least 27 million-than at any other moment in human history” (Nick Nesbit in Hargreaves 2005:44).
Louisiana Purchase
Following the revolution, France clearly gave up her dream of making Haiti the center of Napoleon’s new empire. France had suffered huge military loses in Haiti, due in large part because Thomas Jefferson had refused to honor a treaty with France, in which he promised support to France in Haiti. This is interesting, because Jefferson was known for having referred to Haiti as “the biggest threat to U.S. National security” (Jefferson and the U.S. still owned slaves at the time of the Haitian revolution. France almost gave the Louisiana Purchase to the U.S. following its massive losses in Haiti.
French Debt
Haiti won its independence from France in 1804, through a bloody 12-year war, becoming the second independent country in the Americas and the only nation in history born of a successful slave revolt. But world powers forced Haiti to pay a second price for entrance into the international community. They refused to recognize Haiti's independence, while French warships remained off its coasts, threatening to invade and re-institute slavery.
After 21 years of resisting, Haiti capitulated to France‘s terms: in exchange for diplomatic recognition, Haiti's government agreed to compensate French plantation owners for their loss of “property,” including the freed slaves; compensation to be paid with a loan from a designated French bank, (equivalent to $21.7 billion today” (Flynn, Labossiere and Roth 2003:1). The debt was ten times Haiti's total 1825 revenue and twice what the United States paid France in 1803 for the Louisiana Purchase, which contained seventy-four times more land.
The debt was a crushing burden on Haiti's economy. The government was forced to redirect all economic activity to repay it. A huge percentage of government revenues—80% in some years—went to debt service, at the expense of investment in education, healthcare, and infrastructure. The tax code and other laws channeled private and public enterprise to export crops such as tropical hardwoods and sugar, which brought in foreign currency for the bank but left the mountainsides barren, the soil depleted, and the population hungry.
Haiti did not pay off the independence debt until 1947 - to the U.S. who had bought Haiti’s loan (Concannon 2006).
“Over a century after the global slave trade transmuted to other forms of economic servitude, Haitians were still paying their ancestors' masters for their freedom. After the debt was paid, Haitians were left with a chronically underdeveloped economy, rampant poverty, and a spent land—today relatively minor environmental stresses like tropical storms cause catastrophic damage in vulnerable Haiti” (Concannon 2006:1).
Despots to Democracy
Dictators and despots floated to the top. Haiti, once self-sufficient, had been turned into an export-factory, against her will, but now was refused trade with any of her previous partners. Even the Pope would not recognize Haiti. There was no infrastructure left after the 12 years of annihilation from the revolution; family gardens and eco-balanced agriculture had given way to gold mines and plantations three hundred years earlier.
One dictator’s reign outlived and out-devastated all the others: the Duvalier’s - from 1957 – Poppa Doc declared himself “President for Life”. It hardly seems possible, given the state of degradation by 1957, but state levels of extraction of forests and resources even intensified through lower producer and higher consumer prices (Haught 1992:95).
Haiti also lost its democracy, with the 2004 kidnapping of President Aristide’s, added by U.S. troops. This kidnapping by the U.S. has been compared to France’s kidnapping of Toussaint L’Ouverture just before the end of the Haitian Revolution (Katel 2005:14 see notes11).
In some parts of Haiti, life barely goes on. Life expectancy (at 53 years) is 20 years shorter than for the average person living in the Latin America/Caribbean region (World Bank 2007). There have been headlines lately of women selling dirt biscuits (Katz 2008), to stave off hunger. Not surprisingly, death comes from many sources. Infant mortality in Haiti is almost four times as high as for babies born elsewhere in the Latin American/Caribbean region (84 to 26 per 1,000), according to the World Bank 2007 report.
In all parts of Haiti, electricity is sporadic at best. In Milot, as of August 2007, there had not been electricity for two years. Well water comes up green, and can’t be used to drink. There is no plumbing, but a few new dry-toilets have been built. Gasoline is sold in used milk cartons. There are no screens or windows in Milot, though death from malaria rivals only TB and AIDS. Choking smoke from charcoal fires for cooking, and trash burning only rival the smoking sugar cane fields, torched to make rum. Children brush their teeth with sugar cane, and often go half-clothed or naked. The barely work with cash, and credit is unheard of. The meal of the day is one plate of rice with a few beans, but well seasoned with traditional Creole sauce. That plate feeds the guest first, then the men. I have never actually seen a child eat food, though I know, they get what is left over. Women must eat while they cook. A massive tree stands in the jungle, and is thought to be magic, so it has escaped the saw.
Hispaniola’s Forests
There are forests on Haiti’s island, just many more of them on the Dominican half. As a whole, Hispaniola is still one of the world’s natural treasures. “The Nature Conservancy reports that more than 90 percent of the amphibians and reptiles on Hispaniola exist nowhere else in the world. The same goes for half the area's butterflies, more than 40 percent of its plant species, and 35 percent of its birds” (Ventre 2008:1). While the entire island was first known for its lush vegetation and dense forests, and by some measures, in 1950 forests still covered nearly 80 % of Haiti’s part of the island; today they cover less than 2 % (see Appendix 9).
While many have wondered about the two parts of this tropical island, and its forested differences, it really has less to do with the manner the early colonizers “mastered”, than it does with what happened at the transition to post-colonialism. With the heavy debt owed to France, Haiti was kept in abject poverty for the following one hundred and twenty years, whereas, in the Dominican Republic, the economy was less fettered. Perhaps more importantly, though, were the vicious tactics of the D.R. dictator, Rafael Trujillo (Ventre 2008 see notes12). It was one of his goals to preserve parks and forests and he went to cruel extremes to accomplish protecting these resources. It did, however, include the bloodthirsty annihilation of the forest-dependent peoples in his country. Eventually, he paid the same price, with his own assassination.
According to Martin Haigh (cf. Pacione 1999: 209), recent “rapid deforestation in the Dominican Republic is associated with the construction of roads and pasture conversion. Logging also played an important role in opening up the forest to agricultural settlement. Pasture conversion was not due to the expansion of large ranches…(as much as) a local response to the economic advantages of cattle raising. As always, government actions also strongly influenced deforestation. In this case, the problem (lies largely with) the monopolistic practices of the Dictator Rafael Trujillo, and the chaos following his assassination.”
Desertification/Deforestation Cycle
According to the Library of Congress report of 1989, the most direct effect of deforestation was soil erosion. In turn, soil erosion lowered the productivity of the land, worsened droughts, and eventually led to desertification, all of which increased the pressure on the remaining land and trees. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization estimated that this cycle destroyed 6,000 hectares of arable land a year in the 1980s. Analysts calculated that, at the rate of deforestation prevailing in the late 1980s, the country's tree cover would be completely depleted by 2008. Trees play a major role in mitigating extreme events: floods, avalanches and landslides (Charoenphong 1991). The lack of tree cover also reduces levels of rainfall and lowers crop yields. Deforestation causes the loss of topsoil and the silting over of riverbeds as well as hastening the destruction of coral reefs in areas where silt drains into the ocean.
Contributing Factors to Deforestation
In a discussion of the factors that lead to deforestation, I agree with N. Peluso, when she says that no one source can be blamed for forest depletion…rather, it is a “culmination of complex interactions between shifting interests” (Peluso 1992:4; Brothers 1997). Buttel adds, “environmental problems and material problems (poverty) have common roots” (Humphrey and Buttel 1982:253). By this we understand that deprivation of many sorts, (deforestation, food shortage, poverty, high infant mortality, illiteracy of women, lack of medical care, to name a few), comes from a common nest of instigators. Some, like Schnaiberg say, only by jumping off the treadmill of production, we can rid ourselves of these troublemakers (Schnaiberg and Gould 2000).
With that in mind, lets look at the nest of causation. The following list does not assume to be all-inclusive; also, it is important to remember that just as a lie is simple, the truth is very complex. Many of these instigators are co-dependent, and multi-factorial, some help create, at times, an overall benefit, so it is that causal factors are like people, sometimes they work wonders, and sometimes they only cause trouble. That said, here is a sampling from the nest of instigators of deforestation:
Militaristic approach to “Development”.
War is Hell. The charred remains of the U.S. military intervention in Iraq is proff that not much of bio-diversity escapes the toll of these interventions. Much of this essay demonstrates, for over half a millennium, Haiti has had the misfortune of being militarily significant. There are now indications that the U.S. is considering yet another military intervention in the near future (as per an October 2007 military report – see notes14).
Bio-Fuel crop diversion (such as using sugar and corn for bio-fuels, thus diverting land mass for crops grown to provide fuel) should not be practiced as it contributes yet another profit motive as justification for removing forests for agri-business, while it also contributes to converting food crops to fuel crops. “What biofuels do is undeniable: they take food out of the mouths of starving people and divert them to be burned as fuel in the car engines of the world's rich consumers. This is, in the words of the United Nations special rapporteur on the right to food, Jean Ziegler, nothing less than a "crime against humanity" (Lynas 2008). Both our food supply and our forests suffer when we give over land to bio-fuel production.
Paternalistic approach to Development.
Successful development requires recognition by aid agencies that their paternalistic approach to development is counterproductive. Planners have ignored the importance of including the people most affected by a project (Reid 1997:32). Even using the GDP measure of value, understates the value of most of the people who live in the Global South. “Many are not consumers of commodities: at least two-thirds of the roughly 6 billion people in the world do not have access to consumer cash or credit” (McMichaels 2008: 13). To use northern measures to value others shows a disrespect and disregard for other cultures and people.
And, on a practical level, if the forest projects (Appendix 10) history is any indication, failing to rely on centuries-old and proven practices of sustainable culture, agriculture and forest management, lead most often to wasted millions of dollars.
Racial/Global Hegemony destabilizes countries in the Global South, and contributes to the weakening of their ability to protect themselves and their environment. David Pellow uses an old philosophical point, which he says is insisted upon in the south (I would add, Global South), “You must have mudsills to society. You have got to have the Negro down where he cannot have power, because all society that is worth anything has people of that sort, people on whom you can wipe your feet, people who do the unimportant work, people whom you stand to and who have no right to attend to themselves” (Pellow 2002: 67). It seems as if Haiti has become that mudsill, and her abundant forests, lost in the mudslide.
Trade Liberalization.
Trade Liberalization of 1995 Haiti has undergone rapid trade liberalization and is now one of the most open economies in the world. In 1995, it slashed import tax on rice from 35% to 3% under international pressure. As a result, cheap imported rice flooded local markets driving down prices causing severe hardship for rice farmers (OXFAM). “Per capita income has dropped from around $600 in 1980 to $369 in 2000” (Dobbs “Free Market…” 2000), and stories are rampant about “Haiti’s poor resorting to eating dirt cookies” due in part to a desire to feel full (Katz 2008:1). When peasants flee rural areas, because they cannot subsist in their small villages, it opens that land up to agri-business, which generally is more than anxious to develop the land. Agri-business crop cultivation is one of the main instigators of deforestation.
Replacement of peasant farming systems with agribusiness.
Martin Haigh confirms that, “one of the cause(s) of deforestation is the replacement of peasant farming systems with agribusiness, a process that has forced displaced peasants to clear forest on steep marginal lands (cf. Pacione 1999:208).
Un-sustainable Tax Policies.
Attempts to slow deforestation will not succeed while forest and tax policies promote exploitative mining of forest resources and whle agricultural policies force peasant farmers to clear forested areas (Reid 1997:32).
Low Tariffs helped the Rice Corporation penetrate the Haitian market, and may also be attached to Structural Adjustment Loans, conceded Lawrence Theriot, chief lobbyist for the U.S. owned Rice Corporation of Haiti (Dobbs 2000). This plant product invasion wiped out the Haitian rice farmer, and has risen the price of rice sometimes as high as 10x what it was in 2000. Peasants then are forced to become scavengers in their own backyard. Anything that can be cut down is far game. Forest’s gave way to provide marketable lumber and charcoal, for use and sale. That is one of the reasons that Haiti has less than 2% forested land.
Subsidized Food Imports.
News headlines on April 10, 2008, rocked the world, put the concurrent $300 million farm subsidy bill into question, sent hedge-fund managers running for their blackberry’s, and unfortunately, reflected the harsh reality that leaves 87,000 people a day dying of hunger related disease (Hintzen 2008, Doyle 2008, Lynas 2008, Macwhirter 2008, World Bank April 13 2008 -see appendix 9). When subsidized food invades a Third World market, it will always under-sell local farmers, and thus makes vulnerable local, small producers, and provides incentive for farmers to search out new forested land for alternative production.
Foreign Food Aid under the pretext of charitable intent, builds food dependency (McMichaels 2008:71) as markets are changed, local farmers under-cut, and the food supply is made vulnerable (as when cheap or free U.S. rice flooded the Haitian market, then when there was a flood, and the rice producers were already out of production, suddenly the U.S. Rice company raised their prices by a factor of 10).
De-facto colonization is simply transmuted power (McMichaels 2008: 274). This can include “Free Trade Zones” that re-establish slave conditions for workers under the pretext of increasing GDP, and that actually takes workers out of local production, while not providing a living wage. De-facto colonization can also include any forced manipulation that places restrictions on imports or exports that preclude safe guarding the growing of food crops that are consumed within the developing country (Ormachea 2007:1). “Over the last two decades, a period of growing IMF tutelage over the Haitian economy, exports of American rice to Haiti have grown from virtually zero to more than 200,000 tons a year, making the poverty-stricken country of 7 million people the 4th largest market for American rice in the world. According to U.S. and Haitian economists, the result has been a massive shift in local consumption habits, with many Haitians now choosing cheap imported rice at the expense of domestically grown staples, including rice, corn and millet” (Dobbs “In Haiti…” 2000). In desperation, Haitian farmers and their families face starvation, leaving their land to work at slave wages in “Free Trade Zones”, or move further up the mountains, in search of land to clear in often vain attempt to feed their families.
Mono-crop and agri-business and its accompanying increased road construction, as promoted by the IMF and World back, favored by lower interest rates, or loan availabilities, do not encourage growth in country of sustainable agriculture based on the particular needs of the developing country. Mono-cropping leads to massive land use for export profit. In Venezuela, deforestation is primarily due to the expansion of agriculture; just 20 percent is related to timber extraction (Centeno 1996). In Kerala, up to 60 percent of cleared forest went to agriculture, while most of the remainder has gone for irrigation and hydro-electric works (Haigh et al. 1998).
Odious Debt plays a direct role in destabilizing developing countries. In Haiti, it amounts to the equivalent of $26 billion (Labossiere 2003). In fact, the debt that Haiti accepted in part to gain re-access to the French market, was shut out of that market in 1936, at least a decade before the last payments were made (Hubert 1947:278).
Land dispacement/scarcity can be accomplished directly (as was done to Mexico), or more subtly as when the U.S. Marines changed the Haitian constitution to allow land acquisition that was illegal under their constitution. Any time land is removed from food production for foreign profit, that developing country loses potential food production opportunities that peasants may have been using.
Hydro-electric Projects should cause a particular amount of concern. As we witnessed in Arundhati Roy’s work, not only do they bury forests, land and people, they contribute to reduced water flow, increased pollution in those waters and increased salinity, which things were never good for trees, all for what she calls the right to build dams that to her were nothing more than, “huge, wet, cement flags, symbols of nationalism (Roy 2001:63).
Grain/fishing for animal consumption, should be avoided, as it deters crops (like corn and rice) from becoming available for human consumption. We know that “it takes up to 16 times more farmland to sustain people on a diet of animal protein than on a diet of plant protein” (Nepstad [2006] in McMichaels 2008:15). We also know that thousands of people die each day from hunger related disease, and that it would be easier to feed the world, if our food production (and resulting land) were not used to produce animal protein. “Roughly 95 percent of global soybean production, and a third of commercial fishing, are consumed by animals rather than humans (McMichaels 2008:15). More people than ever are poor and hungry. N. Peluso, in her work on Java, noted that Java (like Haiti) has had years of intensive forest exploitation, high population density, and a differentiated rural social structure; each then, are demonstrating the dynamics of center-periphery relations in the interface of forest policy. It only naturally follows that “when state systems exacerbate the poverty of villagers living on the edges of the forest, they exacerbate forest degradation (Peluso 1992:4).
Livestock Farming.
A “quarter of the earth’s landmass is used as pasture for livestock farming, while grain fed to U.S. livestock roughly equals the amount of food consumed by the combined populations of India and China” (McMichaels 2008:15). Much of the consumption of animal protein, has been a created demand, enhanced in part by corporate media advertising. It is hard to find a country in the world that does not have at least one McDonals. “Rapid economic growth in India and China has created tens of millions of new middle-class consumers, all demanding western-style diets high in meat and dairy products, thereby vastly increasing the quantity of grain required for livestock production Lynas 2008). By both increased land use, and grain diversion, livestock farming contributes indirectly to deforestation by diminishing human food supply and wealth, also decreasing land available for reforestation projects.
Hedge Fund trading.
For example, trading food commodities artificially raises prices out of the reach of the impoverished populations. “This latest food emergency has developed in an incredibly short space of time - essentially over the past 18 months. The reason for food "shortages" is speculation in commodity futures following the collapse of the financial derivatives markets. Desperate for quick returns, dealers are taking trillions of dollars out of equities and mortgage bonds and ploughing them into food and raw materials. It's called the "commodities super-cycle" on Wall Street, and it is likely to cause starvation on an epic scale” (Macwhirter 2008- see notes for more of this article). We have seen repeatedly the connection between extreme poverty in developing countries, and deforestation, they are practically twin orphans to the treadmill of production.
Treadmill of Production.
Those in the power elite of the Global North, have always been in search of commodifiable resources. The Global South, and Haiti in particular have always been a handy pocket to pick. First, her indigenous human resource, then her imported slaves, every conceivable mineral resource, all agricultural products, natural and imported for production, and of course, her magnificent mahogany and wood products…all spent, till her “mountains (literally) flow to the sea”. Stephen Bunker and Paul Ciccantell, in their research on Amazonian ecology, observe, “Extractive economies thus often deplete or seriously reduce plants or animals, and they disrupt and degrade hydrological systems and geological formations” (Bunker and Ciccantell 2005).
Is there any hope for Haiti, considering the massive nest of instigators that have been swarming into Haiti for more than 500 years?
Innovation
It seems that innovation can’t resist trying to solve a problem, even if it was technological innovation (development) that caused the problem in the first place. Innovation just seems to have a problem that a lot of people do, just saying, “I’m sorry.” While the Taínos really seem to have solved the eco-sustainable balance issue that proved itself for many more a thousand years, still innovation has her hand in.
In China, for example, the new thing is “dry water”, imported of course, from an American company. The premise is that this substance is pumped under-ground, to disperse (turn into water) at a regulated pace (see notes15 for more).
Re-Forestation Projects
There are several reforestation projects in Haiti. Please see notes (10) for a partial list of afforestation/reforestation projects in Haiti, and for references. It needs to be said that these projects have always been fraught with problems; the following is a list of problems that have been encountered.
Poor planning: not including the local people who might benefit, or care for the forests, not using indigenous techniques that may have been lost in common knowledge, using non-native trees that reduce diversity, using green technologies that are too expensive to maintain, using systems that require advanced technology, encouraging the timber trade by distribution of free seedlings, thereby encouraging cutting down even more trees than are planted.
Corruption: in a non-cash/credit economy, cash based projects, or distribution of a marketable commodity, invites abuse. Also, when farmers were paid per tree, they were not invested in the survival of those trees, and most did not thrive once the salary for planting them was collected. All of the corruption issues are exasperated of course, due to extreme poverty and starvation, as well as the instability of governmental support. Christopher Marquis of the Miami Herald, wrote that “each year U.S. relief workers plant six million saplings; each year, Haitians desperate for firewood, farmland or timber chop down 30 million trees.”
Conclusion
We cannot leave this discussion of Haiti with only a bleak picture. None of the Haitian’s I know would ever want that. As a whole, there is a spirit of determination that lived during the revolution, and may be the driving force keeping them alive today. There is some hope also for Haiti’s forests. Shaxson reports that not all the environmental impacts of deforestation need be disastrous, that many can be mitigated by careful environmental management, and by good land and water husbandry (Shaxson 1995; Shaxson et al. 1989; Pereira 1989). Martin Haigh also assures us that “forests are resilient systems. Given time, forest regenerate and reclaim their land, even if they are not actively replanted” (Haigh cf. Pacione 1999: 209).
While we have room to hope, we may also need to be aware, that sometimes better things can come out of crisis. Every re-birth offers hope of a better future. As always, though, we need to be vigilantly aware that we are limited in our opportunities to see the world as it really is. Perhaps, this paper helps toward that end. From our flawed experience, we find it hard to see much past our own moment and experience. It is hard to remember that as we experience the consumption of each foreign product, so those producers experience the consequences of our consumption. For example, when high prices for bio-diesel are derived from sugar cane fields, we aren’t the ones who choke on the smoke of the burning fields. Murali and Hegde, 1987, point out that “much tropical deforestation is deforestation exported from the developed world. Unwilling to consume their own forest resources, developed nations are happy to use their corporate muscle and economic wealth to plunder the resources of their poorer neighbours in the developing world” (Haight cf. Pacione 1999:209).
This paper’s brief examination of the political economy of the deforestation in Haiti has revealed many common threads deforestation has with poverty in the global south and the concurrent global food crisis. In examining the potential list of contributing factors to deforestation, or that nest of instigators, we cannot avoid recognizing that association. By using a historical-sociological look with a world systems perspective, we have been able by-pass common misconceptions that folks have about Haiti. Global North dominance has been powerfully and violently demonstrated through sometimes first-hand accounts, but more often by use of previous researchers careful work. While this essay has rejected the neo-Malthusian perspective, the principles of conflict theory, and de-facto colonization were examined. Dependency theory continues to be demonstrated in most paternalistic development projects, with consistently poor results, and dominant racial hegemony was graphically revealed throughout Haiti’s bloody history. They each continue to afflict the Global South, and Haiti in particular.
The modern world system, and the current Globalization Project (manifest by the IMF, World Bank and the WTO) put all the impoverished communities of the global South at risk, largely by perpetuating the treadmill of production, not only by rampant deforestation such as we now see in the third world. During this current food crisis, for example: “the demand for Guyanese rice is driven by a global grain shortage due to a shift toward corn production to meet ethanol demands, according to Dharamkumar Seeraj, director of Guyana’s Rice Producers Association. As of January 2008, Guyanese consumers are paying up to double what it cost three months ago” (Global Demand for Guyana Rice 2008). It has been reported that food prices globally have risen 83% in the last year. Norman Solomon complains that the corporate media’s coverage of the anti-globalization protest in places like Seattle and Quebec contrasts sharply with the lack of coverage of the World Social Forum, which he sees as a hopeful emergence of the global movement against neo-liberalism (Solomon 2001:1).
Through these tools of environmental sociology, we see vividly how the “development of the underdeveloped” (Frank 1989) destroyed the sustainable forests and agriculture, we have seen that within context of post-colonial setting “cultural practices of wealth sharing and cooperative labor – dissipating individual wealth, as was used in Taíno culture, were perceived as a traditional obstacle to making the transition to development (McMichael 2008:48). However, more interesting are the possibilities that through (perhaps yet to be discovered) forms of social movements and resistance, there may be hope that we may have learned something, and if we are really diligent, we may even someday learn how to live a peaceful, sustainable lifestyle like the Taínos.
End Notes
Notes1.
“It was first formed in the Cretaceous period with the southward movement of the South American continent. It was later submerged resulting in tremendous submarine depositions, including gold. During the Pliocene, the island re-emerged to its present physical contours. Uplifting during Pleistocene resulted the formation of three major mountain ranges which run roughly northwest to southeast in a parallel fashion” (Watts 1990:5).
Notes2.
Conucos were central to food production. They are large mounded beds, which provided the stable of the indigenous diet. They were more or less knee high and 3 to six feet across, usually cultivated within 16 kms of the village with a crop complex that assured production, regardless of changing conditions (Rogozinsky 1992:14, Haught 1992:20). They packed the conuco with leaves to prevent soil erosion Two common crops were cassava (aka manioc or bitter yucca) and maize (Rogozinsky 1992:14-15).
Conuco agriculture was always rain-fed with the exception of the region of Xaragua (which is today the Cul-de-Sac region of Port-au-Prince). (Haught 1992:21) The most common crop complex in conuco agriculture was Amerindian in origin: manioc (cassava or bitter yucca), sweet potatoes, and occasionally peanuts, a nitrogen-fixing legume which increased soil fertility. Also a maize, beans, tobacco and squash complex was grown on the fringes of the conucos. The maize complex played a minor role in the Arawak diet compared to manioc, suggesting that the carbohydrate bounty of conuco farming relied on protein from fishing and hunting. Included in conucos were arrowroot, peppers, and gourds. A variety of farming systems ensured food production year-round, as well as a nutritionally balanced diet. Reliance on tubers moreover, reduced labor demands for food storage (Rogozinsky 1992:14-15).
The Spaniards claimed that the conucos could produce more in eight days than could be produced in twenty in Spain (Chanca in Wilson: 1990:76).
Conucos were cultivated for about 10 to 15 years (Rogozinsky 1992:14-15) after which they were left fallow for approximately 30 years, and then the cycle would begin again. Manioc from abandoned Conucos continued to be harvested for up to two years. This form of cultivation is still used in the coastal regions of Nicaragua (Haught from Watts 1990:57).
Notes3.
Other Food Sources for the Taínos.
Kitchen Gardens
These bore fruit trees (sour sop, hog plums, guavas, paw paws and pineapples, cashews, Genipa hardwood and bixa shrub (for dyes), and tobacco (Haught 1992:22) as well as cotton for woven clothing.
Hunting, Fishing and Gathering
It is likely (through extrapolated from Amerindian research in the tropics), that plants were intentionally grown on trails such as palm hearts, fruits of the sea grape, and plants for medicinal purposes. They fished during the dry season, and hunted numerous birds. They also hunted the hutia (a large rodent), which was the largest mammal on the island. From the sea they found ample food as well: fish, shellfish, crabs, manatees, and sea turtles. Men and women shared in the harvesting (Rogozinsky 1992:14-15, Watts from Haught 1992:22-24).
Early Forests
The environment of the island is fragile due to the moist, warm climate, chemical weathering occurs quickly, and soil erodes easily and massively (Rogozinsky 1992:11). “The Arawak agricultural system left much of the mature tropical rainforest intact. Cutting of certain mature hardwoods did occur for construction of houses or the making of canoes. Fallow periods allowed for secondary vegetation regeneration and prevented soil exhaustion. Conuco poly-cropped systems stabilized soil with vegetational cover to prevent erosion.” (Haught 1992:24)
Notes4.
From Bartolome de Las Casas 1552 (spelling is original):
“The Spaniards first assaulted the innocent Sheep, so qualified by the Almighty, as is premention'd, like most cruel Tygers, Wolves and Lions hunger-starv'd, studying nothing, for the space of Forty Years, after their first landing, but the Massacre of these Wretches, whom they have so inhumanely and barbarously butcher'd and harass'd with several kinds of Torments, never before known, or heard (of which you shall have some account in the following Discourse) that of Three Millions of Persons, which lived in Hispaniola itself, there is at present but the inconsiderable remnant of scarce Three Hundred. Nay the Isle of Cuba, which extends as far, as Valledolid in Spain is distant from Rome, lies now uncultivated, like a Desert, and intomb'd in its own Ruins. You may also find the Isles of St. John, and Jamaica, both large and fruitful places, unpeopled and desolate. The Lucayan Islands on the North Side, adjacent to Hispaniola and Cuba, which are Sixty in number, or thereabout, together with with those, vulgarly known by the name of the Gigantic Isles, and others, the most infertile whereof, exceeds the Royal Garden of Sevil in fruitfulness, a most Healthful and pleasant Climat, is now laid waste and uninhabited; and whereas, when the Spaniards first arriv'd here, about Five Hundred Thousand Men dwelt in it, they are now cut off, some by slaughter, and others ravished away by Force and Violence, to work in the Mines of Hispanioloa, which was destitute of Native Inhabitants: For a certain Vessel, sailing to this Isle, to the end, that the Harvest being over (some good Christian, moved with Piety and Pity, undertook this dangerous Voyage, to convert Souls to Christianity) the remaining gleanings might be gathered up, there were only found Eleven Persons, which I saw with my own Eyes. There are other Islands Thirty in number, and upward bordering upon the Isle of St. John, totally unpeopled; all which are above Two Thousand miles in Lenght, and yet remain without Inhabitants, Native, or People.
As to the firm land, we are certainly satisfied, and assur'd, that the Spaniards by their barbarous and execrable Actions have absolutely depopulated Ten Kingdoms, of greater extent than all Spain, together with the Kingdoms of Arragon and Portugal, that is to say, above One Thousand Miles, which now lye wast and desolate, and are absolutely ruined, when as formerly no other Country whatsoever was more populous. Nay we dare boldly affirm, that during the Forty Years space, wherein they exercised their sanguinary and detestable Tyranny in these Regions, above Twelve Millions (computing Men, Women, and Children)
have undeservedly perished; nor do I conceive that I should deviate from the Truth by saying that above Fifty Millions in all paid their last Debt to Nature.”
Notes5.
Frederick Douglass: “In the nature of the country itself there is much to inspire its people with manliness, courage, and self-respect. In its typography it is wonderfully beautiful, grand and impressive. Clothed in its blue and balmy atmosphere, it rises from the surrounding sea in surpassing splendor…It is a land strikingly beautiful, diversified by mountains, valleys, lakes, rivers and plains, and contains in itself all the elements of great and enduring wealth. Its limestone formation and foundation are a guarantee of perpetual fertility. Its tropical heat and insular moisture keep its vegetation fresh, green and vigorous all the year round. At an altitude of eight thousand feet, its mountains are still covered with woods of great variety and of great value. Its climate, varying with altitude like that of California, is adapted to all constitutions and productions.”
Notes6.
To further disrupt indigenous island management, new food crops were introduced, such as: chick pea, banana, sweet orange, sour orange, lemon, lime, citron, coffee, and indigo. Wheat, olives and pomegranates were tried, but not successful (Haught 1992:35 & 41).
Sugar cane was introduced in 1493 as a cash crop, and some clearing of forests began, though the work of the gold mines still took precedence. Initially, cane cutting were inserted into mounds, following conuco tradition. Not until 1515, when the first sugar masters were brought to the island, did wholesale deforestation begin earnest. This was highly profitable until about 1560 when other areas began producing sugar (Haught 1992:30).
The Spaniards expected the indigenous people to supply them with food and labor, yet did so wastefully. “One individual Spaniard consumed more Vituals in one day, than would serve to maintain Three Families a month, every one consisting of Ten Persons” (Las Casas 1552:6).
Notes7.
“They snatcht young Babes from the Mothers Breasts, and then dasht out
the brains of those innocents against the Rocks; others they cast into Rivers scoffing and jeering them, and call'd upon their Bodies when falling with derision, the true testimony of their Cruelty, to come to them, and inhumanely exposing others to their Merciless Swords, together with the Mothers that gave them Life.
They erected certain Gibbets, large, but low made, so that their feet almost reacht the ground, every one of which was so order'd as to bear Thirteen Persons in Honour and Reverence (as they said blasphemously) of our Redeemer and his Twelve Apostles, under which they made a Fire to burn them to Ashes whilst hanging on them: But those they intended to preserve alive, they dismiss'd, their Hands half cut, and still hanging by the Skin, to carry their Letters missive to those that fly from us and ly sculking on the Mountains, as an exprobation of their flight.
The Lords and Persons of Noble Extract were usually expos'd to this kind of Death; they order'd Gridirons to be placed and supported with wooden Forks, and putting a small Fire under them, these miserable Wretches by degrees and with loud Shreiks and exquisite Torments, at last Expir'd.
I once saw Four or Five of their most Powerful Lords laid on these Gridirons, and thereon roasted, and not far off, Two or Three more over-spread with the same Commodity, Man's Flesh; but the shrill Clamours which were heard there being offensive to the Captain, by hindring his Repose, he commanded them to be strangled with a Halter.
The Executioner (whose Name and Parents at Sevil are not unknown to
me) prohibited the doing of it; but stopt Gags into their Mouths to prevent the hearing of the noise (he himself making the Fire) till that they dyed, when they had been roasted as long as he thought convenient. I was an Eye-Witness of these and and innumerable Number of other Cruelties: And because all Men, who could lay hold of the opportunity, sought out lurking holes in the Mountains, to avoid as dangerous Rocks so Brutish and Barbarous a People, Strangers to all Goodness, and the Extirpaters and Adversaries of Men, they bred up such fierce hunting Dogs as would devour an Indian like a Hog, at first sight in less than a moment: Now such kind of Slaughters and Cruelties as these were committed by the Curs, and if at any time it hapned, (which was rarely) that the Indians irritated upon a just account destroy'd or took away the Life of any Spaniard, they promulgated and proclaim'd this Law among them, that One Hundred Indians should dye for every individual Spaniard that should be slain” (Las Casas, Bartolomé 1552).
Notes8.
Then, in 1518, smallpox broke out. Some researchers say that this was the final straw for the indigenous population as a viable entity. “By 1530, the Arawaks had (generally) ceased to exist as a population” (Crosby in Haught 1992:34), though some effort has been made lately to support Taíno/African vestiges of a population. Paul Farmer claims that by late in the 17th century “not a single (pure) Indian remained” (Farmer 2003: 53-54). Today, the near loss of the Taínos and their invaluable knowledge of sustainable agriculture is still felt in Haiti. (See Appendix for sketch of a Taíno home). Gratefully, some small bits of knowledge were passed from a hand-full of Taino who met escaping Black maroons when each was evading the Spanish in the mountainous regions. Before the transatlantic slave trade began, all the other islands in the region were denuded of their indigenous populations to supplement the workers on Hispaniola. Then, the slave tyranny turned to Africa for black slaves to replace those unfortunate enough to have been discovered in paradise.
Notes9.
In 1625-1697 French colonists assumed the territory including Turtuga Island (Clark 2004:xi). The island was divided in the 1697 Treaty of Rysick, as Spain granted the western third of Hispaniola to France, renamed this portion Saint Dominique (future Haiti). The Spanish held half of island called Santo Domingo – the future Dominican Republic (Logan 1969:2 and Clark 2004:xi).
Notes10.
Hedgefunds. “The rocketing price of wheat, soybeans, sugar, coffee, (rice) - you name it - is a direct result of debt defaults that have caused financial panic in the west and encouraged investors to seek "stores of value". These range from gold and oil at one end to corn, cocoa and cattle at the other; speculators are even placing bets on water prices.
Just like the boom in house prices, commodity price inflation feeds on itself. The more prices rise, and big profits are made, the more others invest, hoping for big returns. Look at the financial websites: everyone and their mother is piling into commodities. It is the great bull market of the Noughties. The trouble is that if you are one of the 2.8 billion people, almost half the world's population, who live on less than $2 a day, you may pay for these profits with your life.
This speculation doesn't happen on its own, however. Commodities such as gold and oil are favourite "hedges" against falling currencies. But this time all manner of other commodities, such as wheat and rice, have been swept along in the inflationary slipstream.
Investment houses, pension funds, private equity groups and banks are driven by profit not morality, and they invest wherever they can see the biggest return. It is not a conspiracy, but it is a conscious strategy, backed by the central bankers of the west as they try to help Wall Street back on its feet. Put another way, the banks are exporting our debts to the developing world. The collapse of the dollar means that most international commodities are more expensive for poor people to buy. The dollar's decline is a direct result of the low interest rate policy of the US Federal Reserve and the Bank of England, which shockingly cut interest rates on 10 April even as inflation spiralled.
When interest rates are below the rate of inflation, investors have to keep moving their funds from sector to sector in search of higher returns. In the 1990s they piled into internet stocks. When that bubble burst in the 2000 stock-market crash, they shifted into property and complex collateralised debt dealing based on US "sub-prime" mortgages. Now, with the collapse of the property bubble - not just in the US but across the world - investors are on the move again, and the only place left is commodities. It's the third bubble and it's hitting the developing world hard.
There are other reasons for food shortages: the diversion to biofuels because of the depletion of oil reserves, the increasing population, changing eating habits in south-east Asia - all these are putting long-term pressure on agricultural resources. But the efforts of institutions such as the US Federal Reserve to revive the economy on the back of a commodities boom have dramatically speeded up global inflation.
Will it work? Will the new "asset bubble" restore the profits of the banks and revive the US economy? In the short term, possibly yes - but at terrible human cost. In the end, the US may be cutting its own throat. Once speculative prices get out of control, there is no knowing when they will stop. Oil is now more than $100 a barrel. Resource-rich countries such as Russia are suddenly world powers again. Hungry people are desperate people. This might be the bubble to end all bubbles (Macwhirter 2008).
Notes11.
Haiti's foremost founding father was an ex-slave named Toussaint Louverture, a brilliant military and political strategist who tried to lessen the racial hatreds between blacks, mulattoes and whites created by slavery and colonialism. But he didn't live to see the fruits of his labor. The French tricked him aboard a ship bound for France, where he died imprisoned in a mountain fortress in 1803. Aristide's claim that he was “kidnapped” when the Americans whisked him away from Haiti in 2004 was seen by his partisans as an echo of the Louverture tragedy — a comparison Aristide “did not discourage,” wrote Paul Farmer, an American physician who runs a rural health clinic in Haiti and an Aristide supporter” (Katel 2005:14).
Notes12.
The Dominican Republic's Armando Bermúdez National Park and the José del Carmen Ramírez National Park were initiated over half a century ago by Rafael Trujillo, “a dictator whose cold-blooded rule lasted for more than 30 years…set aside 10 percent of the country's land area as parks or scientific reserves” (Ventre 2008:1).
Notes13.
The State of China’s Forests
Analysis of three sets of forest census data gives considerable reason for optimism about China’s forests. Available data suggest that forest cover in China increased 15 percent between 1980 and 1993, and forest volume has recovered sharply in the past decade after a long, steady de-cline. Much of the newly forested area is covering land that was originally bare wasteland and highly susceptible to erosion. The most recent data suggest that these trends are continuing. The optimism must be guarded, however, since China still faces a number of challenges. Because the rise in forest area has come from an increase in timber plantations, shelterbelts, and commercial plantations, the rise in forest diversity and its associated environmental services has been minimal. Moreover, analysis of China’s forest statistics suggests that harvesting practices by forest farms and collectives have limited the contribution of plantation expansion to forest cover increases and may have reduced diversity. During the first 15 years of reform, China has apparently transformed the structure of at least 30 percent of its forest area; on the one hand, forest plantations in some areas have increased; on the other hand, natural and old growth forests in other areas appear to be declining. While such a transformation may increase individual profits and may not greatly affect the ability of the newly forested areas to provide (or eventually provide) environmental services such as erosion control, the transformation does limit other environmental contributions. For example, limited-species forests do not greatly increase the natural forest's diverse flora and habitat for large groups of wildlife, except to the extent that they indirectly reduce pressure on natural forests. These and other adverse environmental impacts also may have indirect effects on the livelihoods of certain groups of forest dwellers in that some non-timber products also are tied to the diversity of natural forests. The 1998 logging ban may slow this trend, but the substantial tradeoffs between environmental and socioeconomic objectives in the short and medium term could make the economic and socioeconomic costs of the ban very high. The World Bank Group Operations Evaluations Department. July 1, 2001. http://wbln0018.worldbank.org/oed/oeddoclib.nsf/0/3789E9EBF06DD73D852569700079E223?OpenDocument
Notes14.
U.S. Military Intervention
From the Army War College of October 2007, the “debate regarding Haiti’s place within U.S. national interests has raged for well over a century…the conclusion is that the United States does possess a national security interest in Haiti.” It is concluded then, within this report that “the lack of a (previous) coherent overarching strategy and the unwillingness to commit the requisite means to sustain the ambitious ends meant that success was fleeting in Haiti. If history is any guide, the failure to achieve lasting effects in Haiti will necessitate another U.S. intervention in the not too distant future (Sklenka 2007:14 & 17, emphasis added).
Notes15.
Dry Water. “China to Use ‘Dry Water’ in Afforestation”. From Peoples Daily, April 27, 2000.
China will import "dry-water" this year for trial use in the afforestation of the country's western region, an official with the State Forestry Administration (SFA) said here today. He said that the product, called Driwater, will first be used in the provinces of Qinghai, Gansu and Shaanxi, and the autonomous regions of Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia, areas largely arid land and hills.
"If this proves successful, China will introduced this technique," he said, adding that the SFA has started technical training for personnel undertaking this work.
Driwater, patented by its inventor in the United States, is a new concept in plant irrigation. It comes in a gel form, and when buried in soil it dissolves into water at a controlled flow rate which will irrigate plants or seedlings over a fixed period of time. http://english.people.com.cn/english/200004/06/eng20000406_38410.html
Appendices
Appendix 1 – Terms
Appendix 2 – Timeline of Haiti’s Underdevelopment
Appendix 3 – Map of Haiti
Appendix 4 – Map of Caribbean
Appendix 5 – Map of Louisiana Purchase
Appendix 6 – Sketch of Taino Homes
Appendix 7 – Wood Production
Appendix 8 – Food Shortage Headlines
Appendix 9 – Haiti’s Forest Coverage
Appendix 10 – Reforestation/Afforestation Projects
Works Cited
Appendix 1 – Terms
Ayiti: One of the original indigenous names for the entire island, meaning mountainous that is now known by the name Columbus gave it, Hispaniola. After the slave revolution, the black slaves honored the indigenous people who preceded them in slavery on the island, by taking the name Ayiti for the new republic, now meaning the western third of the island, known in the U.S. as Haiti. Europeans still use the name Ayiti to identify Haiti. Two countries, the Dominican Republic and Haiti, share the island of Hispaniola today.
Taino: A term used to identify the early indigenous people of Haiti. Taino means “Men of the Good”. The Tainos are Arawaks, who are believed to have originated from the North Eastern part of South America (now modern day Venezuela and Guyana). There were between 1 million and 8 million Tainos living on Ayiti before Columbus.
Arawak: Amerindians who inhabited the islands of the West Antilles.
Charib and Taino: types of Arawak Indians that migrated from Northern South
America, a thousand years before Columbus.
Conuco: mound cultivations
Cacicazgos: Five major divisions of island prior to 1492 (Haught 1992:16).
Appendix 2 – Timeline of Haiti’s Underdevelopment
Prior to 1492 Taino Indians subsist in ease on abundance of Island.
(Haught 1992:16)
1492 Columbus “Discovers” and names Hispaniola Island (The island will
eventually be divided into what is now known as Haiti and the
Dominican Republic). Annihilation of 8 million natives begins.
(Farmer 2003:54)
1510 50 thousand natives survive “discovery” (Farmer 2003:54)
1517 Transatlantic traffic in humans began in earnest (Farmer 2003:54)
1540 By now - 30,000 Africans Imported to island (Farmer 2003:54)
1552 Total of less than 300 Arawak alive on all islands combined.
(Bartolomé de Las Casas 1552)
1625 First French Settlements in Haiti on Tortuga Island (Clark 2004:xi)
1688 The British (Glorious) Revolution, also called the Revolution of 1688, overthrew King James II.
1697 Treaty of Rsywick: Spain grants portion of Hispaniola to France,
renamed Saint Dominique (future Haiti). The Spanish
held half of island called Santo Domingo – the future Dominican Republic (Logan 1969:2 and Clark 2004:xi). Migration begins (Micro-fiche UCB May 9 2008)
1700 Not a single native living (Farmer 2003: 54)
1717 63 distilleries in New England alone to process smuggled Haitian
molasses into Rum (Logan 1969: 6)
1748 Britain tries to claim Haiti (Logan 1969: 5)
1753 Seven years war, all major European powers involved, and their colonies, up to 1,400,000 dead.
1760-1830 Age of Revolutions
1762 France deeds the Louisiana purchase to Spain who hold it until 1800 (see Appendix 7)
1764 Some American colonists wanted to conquer “Haiti” (Logan 1969: 7)
1774 U.S. illegally trades more with Haiti than with any country other
than Britain (Logan 1969: 7, 22, 29)
1776-1777 France secretly supports American Revolution in exchange
for promises by Jefferson to support the French interests in Haiti
(Logan 1969: 7 & 14)
1778 Jefferson officially promises to support the French interests in Haiti
in the Treaty of Alliance (Logan 1969: 17)
1783 France fears U.S. take over in Haiti (Logan 1969: 27)
1789 French Revolution
1791 Over 500,000 slaves revolt against tyranny of French colonists.
France, Britain and Spain to scramble for control of Haiti. (Greggus
2001: preface xi)
1793 The British army invaded Haiti, “thus beginning the fifth great war with France for control of the Caribbean islands. Almost 13,000 men died; 1,000 in battle, the rest from yellow fever” (Rogozinsky 1992:167)
1791-1804 Haitian Slave Uprising causes France to lose immensely
wealthy colony of Haiti (Greggus 2001: preface ix)
1791-93 George Washington (slave owner) directs Thomas Jefferson
(slave owner) to send $400,000 to white colonists in Haiti to repress
uprising. (Clark 2004:43) Though Haiti’s example is feared to rise up
rebellions in the American slaves, by 1793 the U.S. refuses to honor
its pledge to support France and declares neutrality (Logan 1969:
29) due in large part to the foreseeable advantage in having a
weakened Napoleon to bargain with for the Louisiana Purchase.
(Greggus 2001: 221)
1793-98 British troops claim part of Haiti (Logan 1969: 32 & 41)
1793 Since the 16th century until 1793 - 850,000 to one million slaves came
to Haiti - about 100,000 died in the middle passage alone. (Dubois
2004: 39)
1800 France regains the Louisiana Purchase
1802 The French kidnap revolutionary leader Toussaint Louverture. He
dies in a prison in France a year later. (Katel 2005)
1803 Louisiana Purchase sold to U.S. following massive losses in Haiti
1804 Jean-Jacques Dessalines renamed Saint-Domingue, Haiti and declared independence on January 1, after crushing the French army sent to re-enslave Haiti. (Katel 2005) Over half the people in Haiti were killed before the struggle has run its course. (Clark 2004:xi)
1812 Haitian Americans serve to defend Louisiana from the British,
comprising up to one third of the Orleans Battalion
(Greggus 2001: 221)
1822 Haiti invades the Spanish colony of Santo Domingo (the other potion
of the island of Hispanola – now known as the Dominican Republic
and ends slavery there (Clark 2004: xi)
1825 French warships demanded Haiti pay the equivalent of $21.6 Billion dollars (in 2004 US dollars) and give massive reductions in tariffs and customs in exchange for France not invading and re-enslaving Haiti and a conditional recognition that would allow Haiti to trade again with France in the “Ordinance of 1825”. (Clark 2004: 105, Dunkel 2004:105 and de Côrdoba 2004)
1838 Full recognition of Haiti by France (Dunkel 2004:105)
1843-1911 Sixteen presidents held office in Haiti, an average of four years
each (Clark 2004:6-7)
1860 The Vatican recognizes Haiti (Robinson 2007:17)
1861 Spanish Navy threatens to bombard Port-au-Prince
(Dunkel 2003: 55)
1861-65 U.S. Civil war. Haiti allows the Union army warships to repair and
refuel in her safe harbors (Clark 2004: 6)
1862 Lincoln puched the U.S. to recognize Haiti (Clark 2004:6) Theorized in part to be as a way to gain support for Lincoln from abolitionists
1863 America lifts economic sanctions on Haiti
1867-1900 U.S. Expansion tactics included Marine Corps landings in
Formosa, Japan, Uruguay, Mexico, Korea, Colombia, Hawaii, Egypt,
Haiti, Samoa, Argentina, Chile, Nicaragua, and China. The U.S. then
annexed Alaska, Midway, Hawaii, Guam, Tutuila, the Philippines,
Wake, and approximately fifty smaller islands in the Pacific (Schmidt
1995:4)
1879-1915 “Four Imperialist powers…(Britain, France, Germany, U.S.)
battle for Haiti” (Farmer 2003: 74)
1891 U. S. Tries and fails to take by force the same harbor Haiti freely
offered to Union forces during the Civil War
1898 U.S. takes possession of Puerto Rico and occupies Cuba (Schmidt:
1995:5)
1902 Haitian Admiral Hamilton Killick wraps himself in the Haitian flag
And detonates himself onboard a ship loaded with German munitions in front of the German crew he had just ordered safely to shore, not wanting to injure those he thought simply taking orders. (Dunkel 2003: 55)
1903 U.S. President Roosevelt takes Panama (Schmidt: 1995:5)
1906-09 U.S. takes occupies Cuba again (Schmidt: 1995:8)
1909 U.S. occupies Nicaragua
1914 World War I begins. Haiti increases in military strategic position. Panama Canal opens. (Hintzen 1994:39)
1915-1934 U.S. Marines occupy Haiti (Chomsky 2004:3). All customs
revenues are turned over to the U.S. (Robinson 2007:234). Racial hegemony dominates, not even Haitian presidents could enter the American Club in Port-au-Prince (Gros 2000:220).
1916 President Roosevelt occupies Dominican Republic
1916 President Roosevelt purchases the Virgin Islands
1922 U.S. Buys Haiti’s debt from France, Haiti begins payments to U.S. see: 1825 (Hubert 1947)
1936 France ended her trade treaty with Haiti (Hubert 1947) The 1825 debt France had extracted from Haiti in exchange for trading rights with France would not be paid off until the next decade.
1947 After more than 100 years, Haiti finished paying (to the U.S. who had bought the loan) the 1825 French slavery debt (Concannon 2006).
1957 Francois Duvalier elected president of Haiti, ushering in “terrifying dictatorship” with help of the Tontons Macoutes (Katel 2005)
1964 Papa Doc Duvalier declares himself “President for Life” Rules with
blood, thousands die trying to escape. (Clark 2004:9-11)
1971 Francois Duvalier (Papa-Doc) dies and leaves his 19 yr. son as ruler
(Clark 2004:xii)
1981 Bodies of 33 Haitian boat people wash up in Florida (Katel 2005)
1982-84 U.S. State Departments Agency for International Development
and the Organization of American States oversee the slaughter of
Haiti’s “Creole pigs” accused of being carriers of African Swine
Fever. This is a major blow to the peasant economy.
1986 Widespread opposition to “Baby-Doc” Duvalier forces from rule.
U.S. Air Force provide him flight and exile in France.
1990 Liberation theologian and priest, President Aristide elected by 92%
of the vote. (Clark 2004:12)
1991 Coup assisted by U.S. troops remove President Aristide
1992 35,000 Haitian refugees intercepted by the U.S. Coast Guard, most
are returned to Haiti (Haiti.org). The U.S. holds about 300 Haitian refugees in Guantanamo, (Clark 2004:157)
1994 Aristide reinstalled by U.S. led military (Katel 2005)
1995 Aristide dissolves the Haitian armed forces (Katel 2005)
2000 Aristide is elected to a second term, the U.S. disputes the vote. (Katel 2005) 20,000 angry Haitians march in New York against police brutality (Clark 2004:159)
2001 U.S., the European Union, and international banks block $500 million
in aid to Haiti, which was (at the time) twice as poor as any nation in
the Western Hemisphere. (Farmer 2004:19)
2003 Haiti sends over 90% of all its foreign reserves to Washington to pay arrears on loans made to Duvalier dictatorship (Farmer 2004: 19)
2004 “U.S. backed coup removes President Aristide, bringing Haiti's ten-
year experience with democracy to a brutal end.” (Labossiere, p 2)
2004-2006 Four thousand Haitian men, women, and children killed by
the American-armed thugs, the interim governments’ national
police force, as well as by American, French, Canadian, and United
Nations troops during rule by Latortue, the American assigned
interim president of Haiti (Robinson 2007: 257)
2006 President Preval inaugurated president of Haiti (Robinson 2007:
256)
Appendix 3 – Map of Haiti
Appendix 4 – Map of Caribbean
Appendix 5 – Map of Louisiana Purchase
Appendix 6 – Sketch of Taino Homes
Appendix 7 – Forest Extraction/Production in Haiti
Of mahogany:
1825: 3,000,000 logs;
1840: 4,000,000;
1850: 2,000,000;
1882: 1000,000;
1914: 4,000
Log-wood:
1825: 4,000 tons
1840: 15,000;
1882: 65,000;
1887: 140,000;
1892: 55,000;
1914: 25,000
1950: 1,000 (Moral 1961:120 in Haught)
Appendix 8
April 2008 Global Food Crisis Headlines
These news headlines from April 10, 2008, rocked the world, put into question the newest $300 million farm subsidy bill, sent hedge-fund managers running for their blackberry’s, and unfortunately, reflected the harsh reality that leaves 87,000 people a day dying of hunger related disease (Hintzen 2008, Doyle 2008, Lynas 2008, Macwhirter 2008):
Morocco: 34 people were jailed in January for rioting over the rise in food prices.
Indonesia: 10,000 demonstrated in Jakarta this week after soya bean prices rose 125 per cent in the past year.
Pakistan: Thousands of troops have been deployed to guard rice supplies after rationing was introduced in January.
Cameroon: 24 people died and 1,600 people were arrested during food riots in February. Tax cuts and wage increases followed.
Senegal: Violent demonstrations in Dakar as prices of rice, milk and oil soar (Lynas 2008).
Egypt: A wave of protests led to four deaths this month, over food.
Haiti: Four killed as food riots threaten to topple new government (Macwhirter 2008).
World Bank: 13 April, 2008: forecasts that 100 million people face starvation.
Appendix 9
Haiti’s Forest Coverage
1923 60 % (Library of Congress 2006).
1950 80% (Reid 1989:34)
1954 (Hurricane Hazel downed trees accelerated logging followed – Library of Congress 1989)
1988 2% (Library of Congress 1989)
1989 8% (Reid 1989:34)
1999 1.5% (Earth Is. Journal 1999)
2006 less than 2 % (Library of Congress 2006)
Appendix 10 - Afforestation or Reforestation projects:
Walter Reid of the World Resources Institute considers the “Haiti Agroforestry Outreach Project” (AOP) one of the most promising models of afforestation/reforestation. The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) funded $8 million for this project in 1981 to promote trees as a cash crop. It used three private groups (one used as an umbrella for the others) as intermediaries that worked with 170 smaller Haitian and U.S. NGOs. This project followed 19 previous failed erosion control projects in Haiti. The idea was that USAID would avoid the cost and difficulty of dealing directly with so many small farming organizations, on the other side, the small groups avoided having to deal directly with all the bureaucracy involved with USAID. In the first five years, 39 nurseries were in operation, producing more than 5 millions seedlings per year (Reid 1989:34). At first, I would question spending more than $200 thousand dollars per nursery established, but if 110,000 farmers directly benefited from planting trees, this sounds hopeful However, there are other concerns, such as the choice of trees used as introducing non-native trees can actually diminish environmental diversity; also, as we saw in the Pwoje Pyebwa project, encouraging tree growth for profit, may establish a logging business (and make it profitable – especially with free seedlings) that will end up cutting more trees than are planted. So, it seems clear that this project begs more analysis.
The Pwoje Pyebwa (Tree Project) was the country’s major reforestation program in the 1980’s. Peasants planted more than 25 million trees under Projè Pyebwa, but as many as seven trees were cut for each new tree planted (Boulos 1989).
Katherine Dunham Botanical Gardens. The 30-acre paradise of trees and medicinal plants lies in the heart of Carrefour, a concrete slum of 400,000 people on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince. It contains 32 species of trees, including mahogany, avocado, and breadfruit, as well as dozens of plants and shrubs (Boling 1995). I have some skepticism about this property, due to its history. It once was home to Napoleon Bonaparte's sister Pauline. In the late 1960s it was converted into an international jet-set playground, with villas, swimming pools, a casino, and a hotel. Today, says Brohman, the gardens serve the people as a natural escape from the concrete jungle of the slums (Boulos 1989). I have to wonder how much access the slum residents have to this property.
Quixote Center. 1998, the QUIXOTE CENTER/HAITI REBORN has partnered with local groups in Gros Morne to build a reforestation program. The program is based at the Jean Marie Reforestation Center, which houses a tree nursery, garden, and model forest. The nursery produces 100,000 tree seedlings a year. Farmers and community leaders come to the center to learn about sustainable agriculture and forestry techniques. Here, they receive tree seedlings--fruit trees, as well as pine and mahogany trees--and go back to their villages with information about planting and caring for new forests. Also, satellite nurseries are planned to provide greater access to seedlings and broaden the geographic reach of this project into northern Haiti.
The only information I found about this project was from the promoters who did ask for donations. However, this should not dismiss further analysis.
Haitian Bleu project. The project started in 1990, in a southern mountain village, as a $7.3 million coffee project sponsored by AID. Some consider this a model for other parts of Haiti. Said an impressed President Rene Preval: ``If we put in a project for the revitalization of coffee, the farmer himself will do the reforestation'' (Marquis 1997).
U.S. workers introduced superior Costa Rican plants to replace strains that had long since peaked in quality, hoping to capture a niche U.S. gourmet coffee market.
The solution here may be contributing to the larger problem of encouraging the treadmill of production, as well as the problem that many third world countries have, that of producing food to feed their populations. One farmer named Douce said, he had previously been a coffee farmer, but found he wasn’t making enough to feed his family, so, ``was obliged to cut the coffee trees to plant beans and corn.'' In my opinion, this was the better direction, however, now that Haitian Bleu project became an option, he is back to cash cropping…thanks, USAID. The bright side, is that to shade his coffee crop, he does plant citrus and banana plants to provide a canopy that will retain moisture and nourish the coffee bean trees.
Works Cited
Anderson, Elijah
1899 Quoted in The Philadelphia Negro: A Social Study. Philadelphia: University of Penn. Press.
Bellegarde-Smith, Patrice
1990 Haiti: The Breached Citadel. Boulder: Westview Press.
Benitez-Rojo
1992 “The Repeating Island: The Caribbean and Postmodern Perspective” in The Uses of Haiti. Maine: Common Courage Press.
Boulos, Malik
1989 "Forestry". A Country Study: Haiti , Richard A. Haggerty, editor. Library of Congress, Federal Research Division, Dec. 89
British Museum
2007 “The British Museum News.” Retrieved May 10, 2008: http://www.britishmuseum.org/the_museum/news_and_press_rele ases/press_releases/2007/the_caribbean_before_columbus.aspx
Brothers, Timothy
1997 “Deforestation in the Dominican Republic: a village-level view”. Cambridge Journals 24: 213-223; Cambridge University Press.
Bunker, Stephen G. and Paul S. Ciccantell
2005 Globalization and the Race for Resources. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
University Press.
Charoephong, S.
1991 “Environmental calamity in southern Thailand’s headwaters;
Causes and Remedies.” Land Use Policy 8:185-188.
Chomsky, Noam, Paul Farmer, and Amy Goodman
2004 Getting Haiti Right This Time. Maine: Common Courage Press.
Clark, Ramsey, Edwide Danticat, Frederick Douglass, Ben Dupuy, and Paul
Laraque
2004 Haiti: A Slave Revolution, 200 Years After 1804. New York:
International Action Center.
Coffey, William J., and Laurence A. Lewis 1985 "The continuing deforestation of Haiti." AMBIO - A Journal of the Human Environment 14.3 : 158. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. CSUS Library, Sacramento, CA. 18 February 2008. <http://proxy.lib.csus.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=8374163&site=ehost-live>.
Collard III, Sneed B.
1991 "Hope in Hispaniola." Earth Island Journal 6.2 (Spring 1991): 26. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. CSUS Library, Sacramento, CA. 21 February 2008. http://proxy.lib.csus.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=9611103527&site=ehost-live>.
Columbus, Christopher
1492 “Letters Home” in The Uses of Haiti. Maine: Common Courage
Press.
Concannon, Brian and Anthony Phillips
2006 “Economic Justice in Haiti Requires Debt Restitution.” Americas Program Commentary. September 7, 2006.
Retrieved March 30, 2008. http://americas.irc-online.org/am/3494
Cooper, Frederick and Ann Laura Stoler, eds.
1997 Tensions of Empire: Colonial Cultures in a Bourgeois World. Berkeley, Ca.: University of California Press.
Davis, Harold
1936 Black Democracy. New York: Dodge Publishing Company.
de Saint-Méry, Mederic-Louis-Elie Moreau
1794 A Civilization that Perished: The Last Years of White Colonial Rule in Haiti. Paris: Society of the History of the French Colonies.
1797 Description topographique, physique, civile, politique et historique de la partie Française de l'isle Saint-Domingue. Revised and expanded edition. Paris: Society of the History of the French Colonies.
de Vastey, Baron
circa 1800 “Written In Blood” in The Uses of Haiti (from Heinl and Heinl,
1978.) Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co.pp56-7
Douglass, Frederick
1893 “Lecture on Haiti” in Haiti: A Slave Revolution. New York:
International Action Center.
1893 In Avengers of the New World by Laurent Dubois. 2004.
Dubois, Laurent
2004 Avengers of the New World, The Story of the Haitian Revolution.
London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
Dubois, W.E.B.
1900 The Philadelphia Negro. Philadelphia: University of Penn. Press.
Dunkel, Greg
2003. “U.S. Embargoes Against Haiti – from 1806-2003” in Haiti; A Slave
Revolution 200 Years After 1804. Edited and Compiled by Pat Chin,
Greg Dunkel, Sara Flounders and Kim Ives. New York: International
Action Center.
Fanon, Frantz
1968 The Wretched Of the Earth. Trans. Constance Farrington. New
York: Grove Press
Farmer, Paul
2003 The Uses of Haiti. Maine: Common Courage Press.
Farmer, Paul
2004 “What Happened in Haiti? Where Past is Present” in Getting Haiti
Right This Time. Edited and Compiled by Noam Chomsky, Paul
Farmer, and Amy Goodman. Maine: Common Courage Press.
Feagin, Joe and Clairece Feagin
2002 Racial and Ethnic Relations (7th Edition). New Jersey: Prentice Hall.
Fick, Carolyn
1990 The Making of Haiti; The Saint Domingue Revolution from Below. Tennessee: The University of Tennessee Press.
Flynn, Laura, Pierre Labossiere, Robert Roth
2003 “Hidden From the Headlines”. Berkeley: Haiti Action Committee.
Frank, Andre Gunder
1989 “The Development of Underdevelopment.” Monthly Review, 1966: Volume 18.
Greggus, David
2001 The Impact of the Haitian Revolution in the Atlantic World.
South Carolina: University of South Carolina Press.
Gros, Jean-Germain
2000 “Haiti: The Political Economy and Sociology of Decay and Renewal” in Latin American Research Review. Volume 35 number 3. Latin Pittsburgh, PA:American Studies Association.
James, C.L.R.
1980 The Black Jacobins, in Haiti, From Revolution to the Kidnapping of
a President: An Unbroken Agony. New York: Basic Civitas Books.
“Haiti: In Need of Trees.”
2004 American Forests 1 July 2004:12. ABI/INFORM Trade &
Industry. ProQuest. Retrieved: 18 Feb. 2008.
http://www.proquest.com/
Hargreaves, Alex
2005 Memory, Empire, and Postcolonialism: Legacies of French Colonialism. Maryland:Lexington Books.
Haught, Jeanne Vay
1992 The Political Economy of Deforestation in Haiti. Los Angeles, CA.: University of California.
Hintzen, Percy
1994 “Race and International Relations: History and the Making of
Modern Haiti.” IJRES 1.11
Hintzen Percy
1997 “Reproducing Domination Identity and Legitimacy Constructs in the
West Indies.” Social Identities. 13504630. February 1997. Vol. 3 issue 1: 47-76. Available from: Academic Search Premier. Cited February 22, 2008.
Hubert, Giles A.
1947 “War and the Trade Orientation of Haiti.” Southern Economic Journal, Vol. 13, No.3. (Jan., 1947), pg. 276-284. http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0038-4038%28194701%2913%3A3%3C276%3AWATTOO%3E2.0.CO%3B2-C
Humphrey, Craig and Frederick Buttel
1982 Environment, Energy, and Society. Belmont, Calif: Wadsworth Publishing Co.
James, C.L.R.
1989 The Black Jacobins. New York: Vintage Books.
Katz, Johnathan
2008 “Haiti’s Poor Resort To Eating Dirt Cookies.” The New York Sun. January 30, 2008. Retrieved Feb. 4, 2008. www.nysun.com/article/70428
Kaul, Chandrika and Valerie Tomaselli-Moschovitis, Valerie
1999 Statistical Handbook on Poverty in the Developing World.
Phoenix, AZ: Oryx Press.
(de) Las Casas, Bartolome
1552 A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies Or, a faithful
NARRATIVE OF THE Horrid and Unexampled Massacres, Butcheries, and all manner of Cruelties, that Hell and Malice could invent, committed by the Popish-Spanish-Party on the inhabitants of West-India, TOGETHER With the Devastations of several Kingdoms in America by Fire and Sword, for the space of Forty and Two Years, from the time of its first Discovery by them. Release Date: January 9, 2007 [EBook #20321] The Project Gutenberg
Labossiere, Pierre, and Robert Roth
2003 We Will Not Forget. Berkeley: Haiti Action Committee.
Landes, David
1999 The Wealth and Poverty of Nations. NY: W.W.Norton & Co.
Lappe, Francis and Joseph Collins
1977 Food First: Beyond the Myth of Scarcity. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Lauren, Paul Gordon
1988 Power and Prejudice: The Politics and Diplomacy of Racial
Discrimination. Boulder: Westview Press.
Library of Congress
2006 “Country Profile”. May 2006. Washington: U.S. Congress, Federal Research Division.
Logan, Rayford
1969 The Diplomatic Relations of the United States with Haiti 1776-1891.
New York: The University of North Carolina Press.
McMichael, Philip
2008. Development Social Change; A Global Perspective. Fourth
Edition. Los Angeles: Pine Forge Press.
Marquis, Christopher
1997 “Haiti Coffee Project Stirs Reforestation Hopes”. Miami Herald, August 16, 1997.
Pacione, Michael
1999 Applied Geography. New York: Routledge.
Peluso, Nancy
1992 Rich Forests, Poor People: Resource control and resistance in Java. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Parillo, Vincent
2002 Strangers To These Shores: Race and Ethnic Relations in the United
States. New York: W.W. Norton & Company.
Pellow, David Naguib
2002 Garbage Wars. Cambridge: Massachusetts.
Perito, Robert M.
2007 “Haiti; Hope for the Future” United States Institute of Peace, Special Report. (2007) Washington, DC. 23 February 2008. www.usip.org
Pina, Kevin
2003 “Haiti: Blood, faith and tears. Democracy is not just a word.”
Haiti Information Project. Haiti.
Price, Richard
1996 Maroon Societies. London: The Johns Hopkins University Press.
Robinson, Randall
2007 Haiti, From Revolution to the Kidnapping of a President: An Unbroken Agony. New York: Basic Civitas Books.
Rogozonski, Jan
1992 A Brief History of the Caribbean; From the Arawak and the Carib to the Present. New York: Facts On File.
Roy, Arundhati
2001 Power Politics. Cambridge: South End Press.
Schaefer, Richard
2003 Racial and Ethnic Groups, (9th Edition). New Jersey: Prentice Hall.
Schmidt, Hans
1995 The United States Occupation of Haiti: 1915-1934. New Jersey:
Rutgers University Press.
Schnaiberg, Allen and Ken Gould
2000 Society and Environment: The Enduring Conflict.
Sen, A.
1981 Poverty and Famines: An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Sklenka, Stephen (commandant of the Marine Corps Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies)
2007 “Strategy, National Interests, and Means To An End”. The U.S. Government: U.S. Army War College, Strategic Studies Institute.
Statistical Abstract of the United States: 2003
2003 Springfield, Virginia: US Census Bureau.
Statistical Abstract of the United States: 2004
2004 Springfield, Virginia: U.S. Census Bureau.
Stein, Robert Louis
1988 The French Sugar Business in the Eighteenth Century. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press.
Todorov, Tzvetlan
1984 The Conquest of America. New York: Harper and Row.
Trouillot, Michel-Rolph
1990 The Narrative of Liberation. Ithaca and London: Cornell Univ. Press
Wallerstein, Immanuel
1974 The Modern World System: Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the European World Economy in the Sixteenth Century. New York: Academic Press.
Wallerstein, Immanuel
2005 World Systems Analysis. London: Duke University Press.
Walton, John
1992. Western Times and Water Wars; State, Culture and Rebellion in
California. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Watts, David
1990 The West Indies: Pattern of Development, Culture and Environmental Change Since 1492. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Wilson, Samuel M.
1990 Hispaniola; Caribbean Chiefdoms in the Age of Columbus. Alabama: The University of Alabama Press.
World Bank (compiler)
2006 “World Bank Development Indicators, 2005” in The World
Development Report, 2006 released September 15, 2005. Herndon, VA: World Bank Publications.
2007 “World Bank Development Indicators, 2007. Retrieved May 16, 2007: http://devdata.worldbank.org/AAG/hti_aag.pdf.
Zinn, Howard
2006 A People’s History of The United States. New York: Harper
Perennial.
