Basics Population: 7 million Area: 27,560 square km Currency: Gourde (£1=73 Gourdes) Capital: Port-au-Prince History The earliest people on the island of Hispaniola (now Haiti and the Dominican Republic) arrived in canoes from South America in about 2600BC. Around 250BD the Arawks arrived, closely followed by the Taino from Venezuela. Taino means friendly people, and hammock, barbeque, tobacco and canoe are all Taino words. These people lived happily for hundreds of years. In 1492 Christopher Columbus arrived and messed everything up. He decided that Spain now owned Hispaniola and forced the native people to work in gold mines. The conditions were so bad that most of them died within a few years. The Spanish set up sugar plantations, and lots of other Europeans came along to get in on the act, bringing many slaves with them. The Spanish and the French began arguing and eventually the Spanish gave the French the western third of Hispaniola. This area is now Haiti. The French shipped in about 20,000 slaves a year to work in the plantations in Haiti. They had to bring so many because they kept dying of over work. By this point Haiti was responsible for producing half of the world's sugar, indigo dye (used in jeans), cotton, leather and coffee. Obviously this situation could only go on for so long, and in 1798 the slaves started to rebel against the French. The war lasted 12 years and was led by ex-slaves. At one point Napoleon sent 40,000 soldiers from France to try and take back control, but the Haitians eventually won. Independence was declared in 1804, and Haiti became the first republic with a black leader (Dessalines). Unfortunately it was not all smooth sailing from there. Dessalines tried to grab too much power and was assassinated. Over the next hundred years several people tried to take over and were assassinated or forced to leave by the army. In 1915 the USA occupied Haiti. They said it was to help stabilise Haiti, but in reality they wanted to control the sea between Haiti and Cuba. Whilst they were there the Americans tried to take the Haitian gold reserves, replace the Haitian army with US police and build US military bases, none of which made them at all popular. When rebellions against the USA started more American soldiers arrived and killed thousands of rebels. The USA stayed in Haiti until 1934 and they left a real mess behind. At this point many Haitians went to work in the Dominican Republic, but they were very unpopular. In 1937, 20,000 Haitians were killed in the Dominican Republic in just 3 days. In 1957 a man nicknamed Father Doc became president of Haiti. He used the backing of the USA and 300,000 armed men to destroy his opposition and stay in power for life. When he died his son took over and was quickly named Baby Doc. Since then there have been a series of short-term presidents and military take-overs.