Why is Haiti so poor?

Answer 1

Haiti is located in the Caribbean, close to Cuba and bordering the Dominican Republic to the west. There are a group of rich people who controls over half of the countries wealth. Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere and the fourth poorest in the world. The life expectancy of its citizens is 52 for men and 48 for women. That's very low for this time in history. Only about half of adults have a mid school education. Only 30 percent of adults are employed. Most all Haitians live on one dollar a day.

Before the arrival of Columbus and Europeans, Haiti was home to a thriving civilization of Native Americans. Europeans brought disease, death, and misery. Since then, there have been many dictators that have ruled over the people of Haiti. They persecute many people. They had no intention in helping the country. The dictators stole money from the country and left the people very poor. Although the country itself was the richest colony in the Western Hemisphere. The eternal problem of dictators isn't the only factor that plays into why Haiti is so poor. Outside forces have stopped Haiti from advancing or from improving. After wining their independence with France, Haiti thought it was free, but it has never been a smooth ride for them. They had a civil war between groups of slave owners but the world never helped. The French lost their wealthiest colony at the time after the war. The French and the Americans are holding a grudge the island for their loss and will not help the country.

Well the real reason pertains to the payments that Haiti had to make to France.

The Spaniards came to the island of Hispaniola first, settling mostly on the greener (rainier) side. Before long, the home country got too preoccupied with growing difficulties elsewhere in its empire to pay much attention to Hispaniola anymore. The French showed up later, took the dry end of the island, and then-because they were rich and their empire was on the rise-were able to convert it to intensive sugar cane cultivation, importing and brutally exploiting lots and lots of African slaves who eventually got fed up and revolted. Once independent, the Haitians understandably wanted to stop hacking at sugar cane. They also wanted to keep the Europeans out. So Haiti settled into an existence of isolation and subsistence farming. The Spanish side of the island, which eventually became the Dominican Republic, experienced no such sugar-cane boom, and was conquered by the Haitians a couple of times along the way, but welcomed immigrants from Europe and developed multiple cash crops.

Then, in the 20th century, both Haiti and Dominican Republic were ruled for decades by murderous tyrants, but the Dominican murderous tyrant (Rafael Trujillo) was at least interested in industrial development. He was also eventually succeeded by a former minion (Joaquín Balaguer) who, while not at all a nice guy, did turn out to be a patriot and a total tree hugger. Meanwhile, Haiti's despicable "Papa Doc" Duvalier was succeeded by his only slightly less despicable son. The result: The Dominican Republic, while still poor, is much richer than Haiti-and it still has trees.