Haiti vs. the Dominican Republic
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I can’t be sure how much of this is casual and how much is symptomatic, but I I strongly believe that the main driver of the -current outlook- is culture.
Both Haiti and the Dominican Republic are majority slave- descendants.
Spanish were inclusive with their culture, tending to extend it to slaves, and Dominicans largely see themselves as descendants of Spanish colonists. They idolize the Spanish royalty, and fully embrace Spanish culture and language.
In contrast, the French were exclusive. As a result, harían culture is not particularly French, is much less cohesive, and shows deep cracks from the shattering of culture that was the circumstances of most of its early people.
Hatian farming practices tend towards being consumptive and destructive, lacking the benefit of science and long term thinking.
Often, land farmed by Haitian immigrants where I live is utterly barren within 5 years from extensive herbicide and pesticide use, local water sources contaminated and irrigation systems filled with mud from soil erosion.
Land tended by Dominicans, under the advice of agronimos, flourishes alongside, with less chemical intervention.
Clearly this is a matter of education, but also a result of a cultural resistance to education.
I can’t begin to tell you how many times I have tried to caution hatian workers dripping with pesticides that they need to be careful, that those chemicals will harm them, only to be told that “Haitians are immune to pesticides” or that they are not dangerous because they do not feel sick, and the advice is utterly ignored. Same for soil conservation techniques, even though they can clearly see that the technique is working for a farm 50 meters from where they are standing.
Harinas tend to see themselves as descendants of slaves rather than colonists, and deeply distrust any information not from “traditional” sources (ie magic, religion, their parents)
Obviously these sweeping generalizations and are far from universal, but nonetheless there is enough of this that it is hard to imagine a prosperous future for Haiti. The hope I do have comes from the very bright Haitians I have met that are on the complete opposite side of the fence, educated, progressive, and mostly utterly without hope for their country.
20% of its budget is cash from France. Its main income is from mining which is in deficit and heavily subventionned by France.
They would need to make the socual security, police etc.
100000 people are expected to leave to France.
A yes would be suicidal.
1. External debt
Sure Haiti finished paying France a decade before its economy began to diverge with the Dominican Republic. But what could it have been spending this on for the over a hundred years it was repaying this sum? If the Dominican Republic didn't have such a (frankly ridiculously unfair) debt, is it possible it was able to make some investments in infrastructure, for example, that Haiti wouldn't have been?
2. Land mismanagement
The idea that Haitians deforested their part of the island, causing themselves environmental (and therefore economic) problems is is a fairly common myth. It seems that overall the forests are relatively sustainably managed and Haiti has a level of forestation you'd expect: https://www.vice.com/en/article/43qy9n/one-of-the-most-repea...
> There is LOTS of context missing before we get to the 1804 massacre of the remaining whites in Haiti.
Thirteen years of conflict and war took place before this happened. Why? Enslaved people wanted what the French Declaration of the Rights of Man guaranteed, that "all men free and equal."
In struggling for this Haitians were bounced around like a football, between the great powers of France, Spain, and Britain.
Every attempt at autonomy or freedom was met with outright force or duplicity aimed at returning Haiti to the status quo of one of the most brutal forms of slavery in history.
What's the saying? Fool me once...
Dessalines, who ordered the 1804 massacre, had seen all of this, topped off by the French just a few years before taking out Toussaint Louverture, who was forgiving of whites.
He had also seen brutality the likes of which we cannot imagine:
"the French staged mass executions via firing squads, hanging, and drowning Haitians in bags:
"Rochambeau invented a new means of mass execution, which he called "fumigational-sulphurous baths": killing hundreds of Haitians in the holds of ships by burning sulphur to make sulphur dioxide to gas them."
Should you still think the Haitians more brutal than others, do read up on the British and French exploits in continental Europe during the Peninsular Wars. God help you should you find yourself a non-combatant in a place just taken by siege.
Haiti was born in brutal slavery. It has been meddled with incessantly throughout its history by greater powers. If we want to trace a line back, those are the dots to look at connecting.
> Exactly this. To discuss Toussaint and 1804 and not discuss the French commander Rochambeau is extremely misleading. He brought gas chambers to Haiti via and was systematically massacring blacks. The entire war turned brutal.
Haiti knew trade was key as they were the wealthiest colony in the west. Toussaint actually negotiated treaties with John Adams and welcomed American investment and trade deals along with other nations. What happened (and again Haiti perspectives comes in to play of who was writing history and what gets emphasized), was a nation of slave gaining independence and defeating Napoleon in military combat. That absolutely shocked the European powers. They were all slave holding counties and their immediate acts was to stop Haiti from succeeding at all costs.
In the US Thomas Jefferson took over, and being a southern pro-plavery president he immediately blocked all trade with Haiti knowing that the colony depended on trade to survive financially. France as well planned to essentially starve the country economically and take it back over later. The entire western powers effectively put the country under embargo. They were deathly afraid it would inspire other slave areas to want freedom (lots of texts written about this) and the way they decided to stop it was to ensure Haiti fails as a country.
The fighting in that war for independence was brutal and ugly on all sides. Toussaint was a brilliant leader and likely would've taken the country to success. He beat what were considered to European armies is the time. Final after winning again against the French, they invited him to "parley" and when he came for the discussion they captured him and threw him in a prison where he died. They could not beat him and finally that was his they stopped him. For diplomatic negotiation and the capture. And that was maybe the third back stab by the European powers at the time. He was the father of Haiti, their George Washington.
His replacement is the one who never forgave that and who militarily was against Rochembeau and who was after this betrayal we no longer want any Europeans here. Previously the British betrayed them, said they'd fight with with against France to end slavery. They agreed - allied with the British and then a the hatians they took all the militarily losses and handed territory to the British to be British free colonies the British came in and started enslaving the Haitians again.
The period of that time is insanely complex. All of a sudden I've seen the narrative of OP being pushed everywhere. Because it's "easy" and people can think of Zimbabwe as an easy analogy - that's wrong. And frequently people pushing it then turn it into discussions of current US politics. [And that's where I'll stop because I don't want this to start down that trail]. What went on in Haiti is way more complex than that simplistic narrative.
Connecting the dots from this to their present sad state of affairs is obviously pretty controversial, but I need to note that aside from the obvious racist inferences, there are also many indirect paths. For example, Haiti being both linguistically and culturally "the odd one out" in the neighborhood, they lack an obvious pool of culturally related investors to tap into, face racism from non-Haitians (relations between Haiti and DR in particular are very bad) and struggle to attract investment from the outside.
This is to say that the drop in trade was ENORMOUS because no other nation at the time wanted to consider what a successful slave revolt might mean for them.
Dominican Republic (and I am Dominican) was a largely abandoned island with no real economic attractions. People fled after one pirate raid. And for a hundred or so years it was largely empty.
One minir nit;
You are very right in pointing out the animosity between the former slaves and their enslavers. It is importa however to note that the leader of the revolution, Touissant was actually a bit more compassionate than the average Haitian at the time. Moreover, he was much more interested and capable of management than almost everyone else. Everyone else was uneducated and more importantly deprived of basic culture.
Thirteen years of conflict and war took place before this happened. Why? Enslaved people wanted what the French Declaration of the Rights of Man guaranteed, that "all men free and equal."
In struggling for this Haitians were bounced around like a football, between the great powers of France, Spain, and Britain.
Every attempt at autonomy or freedom was met with outright force or duplicity aimed at returning Haiti to the status quo of one of the most brutal forms of slavery in history.
What's the saying? Fool me once...
Dessalines, who ordered the 1804 massacre, had seen all of this, topped off by the French just a few years before taking out Toussaint Louverture, who was forgiving of whites.
He had also seen brutality the likes of which we cannot imagine
the French staged mass executions via firing squads, hanging, and drowning Haitians in bags
Rochambeau invented a new means of mass execution, which he called "fumigational-sulphurous baths": killing hundreds of Haitians in the holds of ships by burning sulphur to make sulphur dioxide to gas them.
Should you still think the Haitians more brutal than others, do read up on the British and French exploits in continental Europe during the Peninsular Wars. God help you should you find yourself a non-combatant in a place just taken by siege.
Haiti was born in brutal slavery. It has been meddled with incessantly throughout its history by greater powers. If we want to trace a line back, those are the dots to look at connecting.
We don't need to imagine because ISIS filmed it in 1080p for us.
Of if you want something a little less cultural exotic there's plenty of examples from the Balkans.
Haiti knew trade was key as they were the wealthiest colony in the west. Toussaint actually negotiated treaties with John Adams and welcomed American investment and trade deals along with other nations. What happened (and again Haiti perspectives comes in to play of who was writing history and what gets emphasized), was a nation of slave gaining independence and defeating Napoleon in military combat. That absolutely shocked the European powers. They were all slave holding counties and their immediate acts was to stop Haiti from succeeding at all costs.
In the US Thomas Jefferson took over, and being a southern pro-plavery president he immediately blocked all trade with Haiti knowing that the colony depended on trade to survive financially. France as well planned to essentially starve the country economically and take it back over later. The entire western powers effectively put the country under embargo. They were deathly afraid it would inspire other slave areas to want freedom (lots of texts written about this) and the way they decided to stop it was to ensure Haiti fails as a country.
The fighting in that war for independence was brutal and ugly on all sides. Toussaint was a brilliant leader and likely would've taken the country to success. He beat what were considered to European armies is the time. Final after winning again against the French, they invited him to "parley" and when he came for the discussion they captured him and threw him in a prison where he died. They could not beat him and finally that was his they stopped him. For diplomatic negotiation and the capture. And that was maybe the third back stab by the European powers at the time. He was the father of Haiti, their George Washington.
His replacement is the one who never forgave that and who militarily was against Rochembeau and who was after this betrayal we no longer want any Europeans here. Previously the British betrayed them, said they'd fight with with against France to end slavery. They agreed - allied with the British and then a the hatians they took all the militarily losses and handed territory to the British to be British free colonies the British came in and started enslaving the Haitians again.
The period of that time is insanely complex. All of a sudden I've seen the narrative of OP being pushed everywhere. Because it's "easy" and people can think of Zimbabwe as an easy analogy - that's wrong. And frequently people pushing it then turn it into discussions of current US politics. [And that's where I'll stop because I don't want this to start down that trail]. What went on in Haiti is way more complex than that simplistic narrative.
You could have written that about Zimbabwe and it would be just as relevant. There are also a lot of people in SA who are trying to go the same route as fast as they can. I fully understand the anger and resentment these people feel towards ethnic Europeans, but revenge never comes without it's own price.
I also think there's a cultural factor at play. In addition to wealth and education, more well-off families may also have cultural capital which encourages things like entrepreneurship, long-term thinking and higher self-esteem. Even if these are secondary to wealth, they may still have an impact. I think the impact of culture in general is underestimated as it very much influences human behaviour and outcomes, not just politics, geography etc.
What you're losing when you kill / expel the wealthy (whomever they are) and expropriate / redistribute property is cultural investment in institutions.
In that people may feel the previous system was unjust, but they nevertheless believed in it. That belief (aka trust) takes generations to build.
Revolutions which violently dislocate institutions don't replace them with alternatives: they start from zero.
This has profound growth consequences when, for example, it takes four+ decades for people to trust the legal system again. Or banking. Or anything.
In that the things you have to say and positions you have to hold to inspire people to revolution, are ill suited to post-revolution rebuilding.
Which is probably why it's rare: you'd need someone who's self-aware enough to hold both views, talented enough to have both skillsets, and politically astute enough to navigate that pivot with their colleagues and constituents.
Granted, 150 is a lot, but you'd expect some convergence before divergence.
I was looking at generation size and life expectancy per country to tease that out further, and there's a surprising gap between Haiti [0] and the DR [1], going back to 1950, that has persisted. Couldn't find earlier.
Both are increasing, but using life expectancy as a proxy for economic power (people spend on it as a priority, etc), Haiti appears to have started from a much lower base.
[0] https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/HTI/haiti/life-expecta...
[1] https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/DOM/dominican-republic...
They don't share the same geography or natural resources at all, most of the settled, economically important places both in Haiti and DR are in the plains but DR has more plains than the whole area of Haiti, while Haiti's few plains are mostly salt marshes with cities in the more hospitable areas.
> Haiti [...] is steadily losing arable land. But it still has more arable land than the entire Dominican Republic, despite being only about half as large in terms of territory! So the D.R. actually had — and has — less opportunity to farm.
Seems almost the opposite of your argument, if we substitute "plains that are not salt marshes" for "arable land". I don't know which is true or whether you're actually measuring something substantially different.
While on Haiti, it says that of the total arable land of 550,000 hectares, 125,000 hectares are suited for irrigation, and of those only 75,000 hectares actually have been improved with irrigation.[1]
So while I'm sure Haiti could do better than what they are doing now, it seems curious to say that it is more suited for farming than the Dominican Republic. I think the author might have misread numbers.
[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_Dominican_Repub...
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Haiti#Agriculture,_...
An odd phrasing considering that their own bodies were considered their property and slavery was among the institutions. Government was the primary institution and one which the freed slaves did not abolish.
Instead of killing off the slavers, pressing them into forced restitution as advisors and educators would have been better for Haitians, more satisfying, and just.
Why kill the governor who knows not only how to builds roads but where and when they should be built, and instead force him to continue doing his job, only his payment is now a stay of execution?
So they were a society of uneducated ex-slaves with no institutions. That's likely enough to explain the difference by itself?
Please be very, very specific
People generally invest and hire people that looks similar to them. It shouldn't be like this, but that's a very common thing to see.
-- From Wikipedia: "Race is another defining factor of Dominican–Haitian relations. The ethnic composition of the Dominican population is 73% mixed race, 16% white, and 11% black; while 95% of the Haitian population is black."
Also I find it peculiar how the damage incurred by the Duvalier family was not mentioned directly in the article.
Consequently, if there's a difference in the rate at which infrastructure is built, it's going to more heavily affect Haiti.
Or, to put it another way: a hurricane knocks out a power line that took Haiti 5 years to get in place, vs DR 3. Haiti loses 10 years of infrastructure (initial + rebuild) while the DR only loses 6. To say nothing of the lost economic activity while replacing.
You're a public institution and the taxpayer gives you a marshmallow with the expectation of using it to create some public good. You can eat the whole marshmallow yourself and feel pretty good for a while, but after that you'll have nothing but a heap of dirt (and soon that heap will be washed into the sea).
You can take a bite for yourself and get a dysfunctional society, but at least you and your countrymen get some kind of half decent jobs, food on the table, education and healthcare.
You can just nibble a little on the edge, and you get western society.
What happens if you save the whole marshmallow? Who knows.
The surplus of resources, I guess. The disposable income of a nation.
It doesn't make sense, it's just someone painting the Haitians as a short-sighted and reckless people (which I believe is untrue) without giving any reasons why they believe this.
The entire reason they were a colony was due to having vast amounts of arable land where coffee and sugar cane was grown. That's ignoring the natural beauty of the country that would be ripe for tourism if they had corruption and crime under control.
It doesn't make sense to act as if Haiti is a barren wasteland with no possible way to generate wealth. The "marshmallow" is quite literally the wealth the country as a whole can generate. They are one of the worst countries in the entire world when it comes to corruption index:
Who did that?
Here's the first result that comes up when I do a web search for "how corruption works", it's pretty informative for those who are unfamiliar with the concept: https://www.transparency.org/en/what-is-corruption
That would be Singapore.
Western societies are really great at consuming unconstrained amount of taxes without efficiently generating returns.
Your personal observation, scientific fact or last nights night club small talk?
Besides, such exploitation doesn't even help the standard of living in the home countries anyway, since the profits are more likely to be stashed in offshore accounts or reinvested in more of the same shenanigans, rather than be invested in the home economy.
Given the heat over there, I'm guessing a puddle of sticky goo.
The Cibao on the Dominican side is a really fertile and productive agricultural area.
Haitians are pretty much screwed, especially with friends like the Clinton Foundation, who needs enemies.