Honest History

BLACK DEMOCRACY, the Story of Haiti --H. P. Davis--Dial Press ($5.00).

The History. Utterly out of proportion to Haiti's size and importance are the spectacular dramatics of its history. In 1492 Columbus discovered it, marveled at its extraordinary beauty and fertility, bartered beads and gaudy bracelets for pretty gold-dust friendly "Indians" had found. But the Spaniards' brutality reduced these Indians to a paltry number and, needing laborers, they began importing large numbers of Africans. Before long the color line was so loosely drawn that very few of Santo Domingo's inhabitants could boast unmixed blood. Added to Spanish, Creoles and blacks, were soon the French and English traders, and by the end of the 18th Century French control was so well in the ascendency that Haiti contributed vast wealth to the kingdom of France.

But with the French Revolutionists' declaration of the Rights of Man, the black slaves of Haiti, in all consistency, revolted against their masters--rich Creoles, and supercilious whites. A slave born of slave parents, Pierre-Dominique Toussaint L'Ouverture, First of the Blacks, established in 1801 an independent constitution. He was well under way with a promising period of reconstruction when Napoleon took time to consider his refractory colonies. A swift intelligent military campaign subdued Toussaint's able generals. Toussaint himself was taken unscrupulously by ruse, and imprisoned in France--to be mourned in lines by Wordsworth.

Tropical fever was meanwhile ravaging French troops, and, Napoleon being engrossed by troubles at home, Toussaint's best general was able to declare independence. Only 13 years before, all the land and 90% of the population was owned by a small oligarchy of whites. Now no white owned land, and all the havocked property passed to ex-slaves. Making himself emperor in the grand manner, Jean Jacques Dessalines governed these ignorants by the universally understood authority of force, but he was murdered for brutal abuse of power. Among his simultaneous successors was black King Christophe, most picturesque of Haitians.*

Followed a century of terrific political upheaval. Tortures and carnage culminated in the massacre of 1915 which seemed to justify American intervention. For in spite of unrest, foreign financial investments had reached proportions requiring protection. America took control first of the customs, then of national finance, and virtually all other administration, with "no object in view except to insure . . . firm government by the Haitian people."

The Significance. Masses of economic reports, period studies, impassioned tirades, colorful sketches, have long since reflected the atmosphere of Haiti, but the present volume is the first authentic, comprehensive history of the island. The past established, Mr. Davis proceeds to sort out the truth from the array of scandal and propaganda that has befogged the present Haitian problem. He stultifies prevalent accusations of graft. He gives America full credit for feats of rehabilitation, agriculture, public health, policing and education, in the face of such stupendous difficulties as 95% illiteracy. But in no uncertain terms he flays American failure to prepare Haitians for the independent self-government which will be theirs, according to treaty, in 1936.

The Author. No itinerant writer in search of fresh material, Author Davis has lived in Haiti for twelve years. He is friend to Haitian President Louis Borno, as well as to the American High Commissioner; he is oracle to biographers, geographers, and even the historians charged to write French textbooks for Haiti's public schools. His library is famous for Haitiana--maps, records, folklore.

*Whose highly engaging and profoundly tragic history has been excellently and imaginatively told by Author John W. Vandercook in Black Majesty (TIME, May 20).