HAITI AXD ITS REGENERATION BY THE UNITED STATES 



409 



bone? were brought to be buried in the 

 soil of the new world which he had dis- 

 covered. Here Pizarro and Cortez 

 ruffled in the streets before they set out 

 to carve new empires for Spain out of 

 Peru and Mexico, and here the capital 

 of New Spain waxed and prospered in 

 learning and culture. 



Then came stormy days. All through 

 the sixteenth century English buccaneer^, 

 ravaging the Spanish Alain, harassed its 

 commerce and harried its cities. French 

 freebooters came also, forming a pirat- 

 ical settlement on the tiny Tortuga 

 Island just off the coast, from which 

 they erupted about 1630, driving the 

 Spaniards from the part of the island 

 which is now Haiti and also from most 

 of what is now Santo Domingo, until in 

 1775. by a formal treaty, France obtained 

 the whole of the island. 



Under the French rule, civilization and 

 prosperity on the island rose to a high 

 pitch. Roads gridironing the agricul- 

 tural districts were constructed and mag- 

 nificent chateaux, the homes of landed 

 proprietors, dotted the hills and valleys. 

 It was this period which marked the 

 complete disappearance of the Indians 

 from Haiti and the multiplication of the 

 number of negro slaves imported from 

 Africa, who performed all work in all 

 parts of the island. 



Toward the close of the eighteenth 

 century disorders arising out of the 

 revolution in France and its attendant 

 wars shook the island, weakening the 

 whites, until at length the negro slaves 

 arose and with indescribable atrocities 

 wiped out almost the entire white popu- 

 lation. 



France, though filled with horror, was 

 in the midst of the Napoleonic wars and 

 had few troops to spare for a transat- 

 lantic campaign ; so. after desultory 

 fighting, the rebels achieved independ- 

 ence. 



BLACK LEADERS PROCLAIM THEMSELVES 

 KINGS 



A republic was proclaimed and a presi- 

 dent was elected. His first act was to 

 proclaim himself emperor in Port au 

 Prince. Xot to be outdone, another ne- 

 gro leader in the north proclaimed him- 

 self king in Cape Haitien, and set up a 



system of nobility with eight dukes, in- 

 cluding a Duke of Limonade. thirtv- 

 seven barons, and other lesser lights, all 

 colored relative- of the monarch. For 

 the story of this remarkable man. Henri 

 Christophe, see pages 469 to 482. 



From that time, retrogression to the 

 present followed in natural steps. Social 

 disintegration continued apace. All sem- 

 blance of order in the interior vanished. 

 Bands of armed negroes roamed the 

 countryside, pillaging and burning a- 

 they went. Each negro who could find 

 arms for himself and a few follower- 

 proclaimed himself king or president or 

 general, recruited himself an "army."' 

 and set out on a career of conquest. 



A PICTL'RE OF ABAXDOXED CIVILIZATIOX 



At first the magnificent homes and 

 palatial villas of the former French 

 land-owners offered rich loot, but when 

 all of these had been sacked and burned, 

 nothing of value remained, and as the 

 faithful had to be fed. the "generals' 1 

 turned their attention to those of their 

 own race who after the uprising had 

 chosen to continue to till the fields and 

 were endeavoring to live as they had 

 lived under the French. 



Repeated robbery soon reduced these 

 to ruin and desperation. The men who 

 possessed the necessarv initiative and 

 education removed to the coast cities, 

 where life was more secure, while the 

 rest left their fields and hid in the im- 

 penetrable fastnesses of the hills. 



Abandoned by their owners, the com- 

 fortable dwellings of the island went to 

 rack and ruin. Weeds overgrew the cul- 

 tivated lands, and in a generation the 

 fertile fields of the island, which had once 

 produced magnificent crops, lapsed to the 

 tropical jungle from which they had been 

 redeemed many years before. 



Seeds sprouted and trees grew in the 

 once famous roads, while to the eye of the 

 occasional traveler the island presented a 

 melancholy picture of the retrogression 

 of man. with its houses and mansions, so 

 substantial that fire and pillage could not 

 destroy them completely, still standing, 

 its magnificent roads overgrown, and its 

 fertile fields a jungle waste — the ruin of 

 an abandoned civilization. In the sur- 

 rounding wilderness the natives lived, 



