Caribbean pearl’s descent to disaster
JOHANNESBURG – Haiti is a country located on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola off the Dominican Republic. It has a surface area of 27750km2 with an estimated population of 11 million (2018), 95 percent of whom are of African descent.
The country represents the greatest symbol of Africanness outside the African continent. Native Haitians were pre-Columbian Amerindians called Taíno, “the good people”. The Taíno named their land “Ayiti”, meaning “Land of Mountains” – a term that evolved into “Haiti”.
Haiti proclaimed its independence on January 1, 1804, after a prolonged armed struggle against French colonial rule.
It was a prosperous colony that supplied France with threequarters of its wealth.
It was the only successful slave revolution in the world and made an immense contribution to humanity, since it modified the geopolitical order of slavery worldwide.
Source: iol.co.za