Haiti and The Bahamas History
Haiti and the Bahamas are both countries that are located in the Caribbean. The Bahamas is a group of 16 islands whereas Haiti is on an island with half of the geography as Haiti and the other half being the Dominican Republic. Both Haiti and the Bahamas were discovered and named by Christopher Columbus, when sailing for the Spanish, but later on, Haiti was colonized by the French in 1659, and the Bahamas was colonized by the British in 1717. Both countries have similar histories when it comes to European discovery and control in their respective areas, but each country had its own individual outcome after independence. Across Haiti and the Bahamas, European colonization has a prominent impact on these countries’ futures.
Both the French and the British brought slavery to the islands and instituted plantations that were worked by these slaves. In both places this created an economy relying on plantation farming. In Haiti the largest source of revenue for these plantations came from the sugar industry whereas in the Bahamas it became the cotton industry. Slavery, as seen across the globe resulted in horrific working conditions and treatment of slaves and led to the deaths of many peoples. This was no different in the colonies of Haiti and the Bahamas. It was estimated that around 11 million slaves were brought from Africa to the Americas and the Caribbean, with only around 9 million surviving the trip (National Archive). In both Haiti and the Bahamas it led to the importation of many African slaves which changed the ancestry of future Haitians and Bahamians. Many people of both Haiti and the Bahamas today now have roots in African ancestry.
After the abolition of slavery, came roads to Independence. For the Haitians, it was the Haitian Revolution, which started in 1791, was led by the slave population in Haiti. The people of Haiti consisted mostly of black slaves, as compared to the small percentage of the white population. In Haiti, there was an uprising amongst the slave population, led by Toussaint Louverture against the white European plantation owners which eventually led to revolution and then independence. Unlike the Haitians, the Bahamian people had a much more peaceful road to independence. In 1973, the British House of Lords voted on Bahamian independence and it passed, resulting in the Bahamas being part of the Commonwealth (Lansford). The Bahamas had a peaceful road to Independence in contrast to the bloody conflicts that came out of the Haitian Revolution. Today, the Bahamas have a Bicameral Legislature and a Prime Minister, whereas Haiti has a Representative Government that resembles that of the US (Lansford). Alongside this, the Bahamas only gained their independence in 1973. Since the Bahamas maintained a status within the Commonwealth, they were allowed to draw on resources from the UK. One example of this was seen with the Hotel and Steamship Act of 1898 which allowed people to call on the government for assistance to build tourism areas such as resorts and hotels to boost the tourism industry for economic benefit. This allowed the Bahamas to open up a new revenue source after the collapse of their plantation revenue. On the contrary, Haiti was not able to do this. After Independence there was a push for local Haitians to return to work for wages on the plantations because of the amount of global revenue it brought to Haiti but people did not want to return to that type of work, which led to a downward trend in the Haitian economy. This is one of the largest factors that contributes to the reason that the Bahamas is a much wealthier country than Haiti.
