Haiti History

1. Haiti was discovered by Spanish, Columbus in 1952, December 5.
2. At first Haiti was Spain's colony but then in 1600s France assailed Spain and won so Haiti became France's colony. Since the France conquered Haiti, Haitians learned how to speak French and nowadays, Haiti's one of official languages is French.
3. Once, Haiti was France's colony and French increased the production of crops such as coffee, cotton, sugarcanes, corn, sorghum and wood.
4. Through revolution under Toussaint L'ouventure led by half million slaves, they acquired independence and became the first black republic in Lation America in 1804.
5. Haiti was one of the wealthy countries in the Caribbean Sea because lands in Haiti were once very fertile and there were abundant resources.
6. However long dictatorship and continuous natural disasters brought a calamity which was that Haiti became the second poorest country at the Western Hemisphere.
7. Americans invaded Haiti and stayed there for 19 years and finally left Haiti in 1934.
8. From 1957 to 1986, Francois Duvalier and Jean Claude Duvalier who were father and son, carried out dictatorship which caused a great disaster to Haiti.
9. One of the terrible things they did was they became Papa and Baby docs and murdered Haitians for 29 years and more than ten thousand Haitians died.
10. In 1990, Aristide was elected as a president of Haiti. However one year later, a coup d'etat overthrew the President.