Haiti or the black republic

Sir Spenser St. John

Published by Smith Elder & Co, hardcover
signs of use


CONTENTS.

I. GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF HAYTI
II. HISTORY BEFORE INDEPENDENCE
III. HISTORY SINCE INDEPENDENCE
IV. THE POPULATION OF HAYTI
V. VAUDOUX-WORSHIP AND CANNIBALISM
VI. CANNIBALISM
VII. THE GOVERNMENT
VIII. RELIGION, EDUCATION, AND JUSTICE
IX. THE ARMY AND POLICE
X. LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE
XI.AGRICULTURE, COMMERCE, AND FINANCE


INTR0DUCTI0N.

WHILST living in Port-au-Prince, Don Mariano Alvarez, my Spanish tolleague, remarked to me, "Mon ami, if we could return to Hayti fifty years hence, we should find the negresses cooking their bananas on the site of these warehouses." This judgment is severe, yet from what we saw passing under the Salomon Administration it is more than probable—unless in the meantime infiuenced by some higher civilisation—that this prophecy will come true. In fact, the negresses are already cooking their bananas amid the ruins of the best houses of the capital. My own impression, after personally knowing the Haytian Republic above twenty-five years, is, that it is a country in a state of
rapid decadente. The revolution of 1843 that upset President Boyer commenced the era of troubles, which have continued to the present day, and the people have since been steadily falling to the rear in the race of civilisation.
The civil war (1867-1869) during the Presidency of General Salnave destroyed a vast amount of property and rendered living in the country districts less secure, so that there has been ever since a tendency for the more civilised inhabitants to agglomerate in the towns and leave the rural communities to fetish-worship and …..........................................