HAITI AND ITS REGENERATION BY THE 



UNITED STATES 



HAITI'S PROBLEM is not one 

 that can be dismissed with a 

 word or cleared up with a 

 stroke of a pen. It is made up of the 

 sum of all the accumulated evils and 

 abuses of more than a hundred fevered, 

 retrograde years — years cursed with 

 tyranny and bloodshed unimaginable ; 

 years in which all the plagues enumer- 

 ated in the litany, of sedition, conspiracy, 

 rebellion, plague, pestilence, famine, 

 battle, murder, and sudden death rav- 

 aged the body politic until the tortured 

 tillers of the soil forsook their fields and 

 fled to the hills. 



Here, in the elemental wildernesses, 

 the natives rapidly forgot their thin 

 veneer of Christian civilization and re- 

 verted to utter, unthinking animalism, 

 swayed only by fear of local bandit 

 chiefs and the black magic of voodoo 

 witch doctors. (See "Haiti, A Degener- 

 ating Island," by Rear Admiral Colby M. 

 Chester, in the National Geographic 

 Magazine, March, 1908.) 



And while the peasants thus took to 

 the bush, the middle and upper class 

 Haitians gravitated to the seacoast 

 towns, where they learned the art of liv- 

 ing by the expert exploitation, political 

 and commercial, of the unthinking black 

 animals of the interior. 



THE GEOGRAPHY OF HAITI 



To understand Haiti's problems, a 

 glance at her location, conditions, and 

 resources and a peep into her history are 

 necessary. 



Haiti's history has been remarkable 

 and full of dramatic interest. Physically 

 she is blessed by nature with unstinted 

 wealth. Occupying, with her sister re- 

 public of Santo Domingo, the second 

 island of the Greater Antilles, once 

 known 'as Hispaniola ("Little Spain"), 

 Haiti is situated' about 500 miles south- 

 east of Key West, Florida, while Cuba 

 lies about 50 miles across the Windward 

 Passage to her west. 



The republic's eastern boundary is 

 made up of a series of rivers and hills, 



beyond which lies Santo Domingo, while 

 farther to the east lies the third island 

 of the group, Porto Rico. 



Haiti has an area of about 10,400 

 square miles, being about one-fourth 

 larger than the State of Massachusetts. 

 The twin republic, Santo Domingo, which 

 occupies the remainder of the island, is 

 nearly twice the size of Haiti (see map, 

 page 489)-. 



Situated in the lap of the tropics, Haiti 

 possesses every natural advantage re- 

 quired to make her a treasure-house of 

 riches. In her valleys and plains near 

 the seacoast alluvial soil of immense 

 depth and richness brings forth, with the 

 roughest tillage, crops of wonderful 

 bounty. 



Sugar-cane, cotton, and cocoa are pro- 

 duced in abundance, while Haitian coffee 

 is known to epicures the world over for 

 its richness and flavor. Tropical fruits 

 of all descriptions grow wild, and natu- 

 ralists declare that more than seventy- 

 five food-plants, cereals, legumes, etc., 

 flourish here. 



Higher in the hilly plateaus of the in- 

 terior, vegetation of a different sort is 

 encountered. Wheat, rye, barley, and 

 other products of the temperate zones 

 are found, while on the mountains, some 

 of which reach an altitude of nearly ten 

 thousand feet, flourish extensive timber 

 forests. 



Coal, iron, copper, and other minerals 

 have been found in quantities which 

 promise to pay richly for working, while 

 in the days of the Conquistadores the 

 gold and silver mines of the island are 

 said to have yielded to the viceroy of the 

 Spanish king more than $30,000,000 

 worth of the precious metals in a single 

 year. 



RICH IN TRADITION AS WELE AS IN 

 MATERIAL WEALTH 



Rich as the island is in material wealth, 

 it is even richer in history and tradition. 

 Here Columbus landed and here, in what 

 is now Santo Domingo City, he pined in 

 prison, and here, after his death, his 



497 



