50 Fun Facts About Haiti

Haiti shares the island of Hispaniola with which other country?

The Dominican Republic won its independence not from Spain but from Haiti, which ruled the whole island from 1822 until the Dominicans broke away in 1844.

What is the capital and largest city of Haiti?

Port-au-Prince's century-old wooden 'gingerbread' houses rode out the 2010 earthquake far better than the modern city around them, thanks to their flexible timber frames.

The name Haiti comes from a Taíno word usually translated as what?

Land of high mountains is the usual reading of Ayiti, probably the Taíno name for the whole island; the revolutionaries revived it in 1804 to replace the colonial name.

What are the two official languages of Haiti?

French and Haitian Creole are both official under the 1987 constitution, which calls Creole the one language uniting all Haitians; only a minority speak French.

Which US president finally recognised Haiti's independence, 58 years after it was declared?

Abraham Lincoln recognised Haiti in 1862; for decades before, American leaders had shunned the republic, fearing its example would stir revolt among the enslaved in the South.

Defeat in Haiti helped persuade Napoleon to sell which territory to the United States in 1803?

Louisiana lost its point for Napoleon once disease and the rebel army had wrecked his forces in Haiti, so he offered startled American envoys the whole territory for $15 million.

Before independence, Haiti was a European colony known by what name?

Saint-Domingue made France rich on sugar and coffee, but by 1789 its enslaved workers outnumbered white colonists about ten to one, and within two years they rose in revolt.

Which Haitian Revolution leader was seized by Napoleon's troops and died in a French mountain prison in 1803?

Toussaint Louverture was arrested in 1802 and shipped to Fort de Joux, a fortress in the Jura mountains, where he died in April 1803, months before the independence he had fought for.

Who declared Haiti's independence in 1804 and became its first emperor?

Jean-Jacques Dessalines crowned himself Emperor Jacques I within months of independence and was assassinated at Pont-Rouge in October 1806.

Which disease ravaged Napoleon's army in Haiti and killed its commander, his brother-in-law?

Yellow fever killed General Charles Leclerc, husband of Napoleon's sister Pauline, in November 1802, along with thousands of his soldiers; the survivors surrendered a year later.

Which revolutionary leader crowned himself king of northern Haiti in 1811?

Henri Christophe ruled the north as King Henry I, created a nobility of dukes and counts, built the mountaintop Citadelle, and shot himself in 1820 as his army mutinied.

Which liberator did Haiti arm in 1816 for a promise to free the enslaved?

Simón Bolívar reached Haiti as a beaten exile; President Alexandre Pétion gave him money and weapons on one condition, that he free the enslaved wherever he won.

What did France demand from Haiti in 1825 as the price of recognising its independence?

A huge cash payment of 150 million gold francs, later cut to 90 million, was to compensate former slave owners for their losses, and the debt was not cleared until 1947.

Which horror monster reached American pop culture from Haiti during the 1915–34 US occupation?

The zombie reached American readers through William Seabrook's 1929 Haiti travel book The Magic Island, and by 1932 Hollywood had Bela Lugosi commanding the undead in White Zombie.

What was the nickname of François Duvalier, dictator of Haiti from 1957 to 1971?

Papa Doc came from François Duvalier's earlier career as a physician in rural public-health campaigns; he had himself declared president for life in 1964.

What was the name of the feared death squad that enforced the Duvalier regime?

The Tonton Macoute, officially the Volontaires de la Sécurité Nationale, took their name from a Haitian folk bogeyman, Uncle Gunnysack, who carries off children in a sack.

What ended Jean-Claude Duvalier's 15-year rule over Haiti in 1986?

A popular uprising, after a wave of street protests, sent him into exile in France, ending 29 years of rule by father and son; he returned in 2011 to face corruption charges.

Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who served several terms as Haiti's president from 1991, had earlier been what?

Aristide was a Salesian priest, expelled from the order in 1988 over his fiery liberation-theology sermons to the capital's poor, before winning the December 1990 election.

Which disease, unseen in Haiti for a century, did UN peacekeepers bring after the 2010 earthquake?

Cholera came with peacekeepers from Nepal whose base leaked sewage into a river, and it killed about 10,000 Haitians; the UN denied any part for six years before apologising.

Which Oscar-winning actor ran a tent camp for Haitians made homeless by the 2010 earthquake?

Sean Penn ended up managing the golf-course camp himself, and the relief group he founded was still at work in Haiti almost a decade later.

The gunmen who assassinated Haitian president Jovenel Moïse in 2021 were mostly former soldiers from which country?

Colombia was home to most of the gunmen, ex-soldiers hired through a Florida security firm, who stormed the president's house above the capital before dawn on 7 July 2021.

What is the national currency of Haiti?

The gourde was long fixed at five to the US dollar, which left behind the 'Haitian dollar', a fictitious unit of five gourdes that prices are often quoted in though no such note exists.

What lies across the Windward Passage from Haiti's north-west tip?

Cuba is so near that when tens of thousands of Haitians fled by boat after the 1991 coup, the US held those it stopped at sea in tent camps at its Guantánamo Bay base there.

What is the longest river in Haiti, and on the whole island of Hispaniola?

The Artibonite waters Haiti's main rice valley, whose farmers were undercut when tariffs on subsidised American rice were slashed in the 1990s, a policy Bill Clinton publicly apologised for in 2010.

Which is the largest of the islands lying off Haiti's coast?

Gonâve, about 60 km long, lies in the bay west of the capital; by his own account its villagers crowned an American Marine sergeant named Wirkus as their king in 1926.

The island of Tortuga off Haiti's north coast was famous in the 17th century as a haven for what?

French buccaneers based there raided Spanish shipping, and the island later lent its name to the pirate port in the Pirates of the Caribbean films.

Which French novelist's father was born enslaved in colonial Haiti?

Alexandre Dumas's father, born into slavery near Jérémie, joined the French army as a private under his mother's name and rose to general; his son wrote The Three Musketeers.

Which African American leader was US minister to Haiti from 1889 to 1891?

Frederick Douglass saw an American admiral sent over his head to press Haiti for a naval base at Môle Saint-Nicolas; Haiti refused, and he resigned in 1891.

From the remains of which ship did Columbus build La Navidad on Haiti's coast in 1492?

The Santa María, Columbus's flagship, ran aground on Christmas Day 1492; timbers from the wreck built La Navidad, whose 39 men were all dead when he returned in 1493.

Which famous naturalist was born in Haiti in 1785, the son of a French sea captain?

John James Audubon was born on his father's sugar plantation at Les Cayes, raised in France and sent to America at 18 to dodge Napoleon's draft; there he painted The Birds of America.

Haitian Vodou blends West and Central African religions with which other faith?

Catholicism was forced on enslaved Africans, who by a 1685 law had to be baptised Catholic; their spirits took on saints' faces, so the serpent spirit Danbala doubles as St Patrick with his snakes.

Soup joumou, eaten every 1 January to celebrate independence, is a soup made from what?

Joumou is the local name for the pumpkin-like calabaza squash; by tradition colonists kept the soup for themselves, so after independence Haitians made it their 1 January dish of freedom.

Griot, one of Haiti's best-loved dishes, is made from which meat, marinated in citrus and then fried?

Pork came from the hardy black Creole pigs that were nearly every farm family's savings bank, until a US-backed swine-fever cull in the early 1980s slaughtered almost all of them.

Barbancourt, made in Haiti since 1862, is a celebrated brand of which drink?

Rum at Barbancourt is distilled twice and aged in oak the way cognac is, a method its founder, Dupré Barbancourt, brought with him from France to Haitian sugar cane.

Which Haitian dance music did saxophonist Nemours Jean-Baptiste launch in 1955?

Compas began as his band's reworking of the older Haitian méringue, went on to fill dance floors across the Caribbean, and in 2025 was added to UNESCO's intangible cultural heritage list.

Haitian-born musician Wyclef Jean first found fame as a member of which hip-hop trio?

The Fugees, formed with Lauryn Hill and Pras Michel, made Wyclef a star with 1996's The Score; he ran for Haiti's presidency in 2010 but was ruled ineligible on residency grounds.

Under what stage name was Haitian president Michel Martelly a famous musician?

As Sweet Micky, Martelly fronted a raunchy dance band from the late 1980s, then won the 2011 presidential run-off and served until 2016.

Which motto appears on the ribbon of Haiti's coat of arms?

Unity makes strength, L'Union fait la force in the original, sits under a palm tree and cannons, yet the constitution gives Haiti a different national motto: Liberty, Equality, Fraternity.

The flag of Haiti is a bicolour of two horizontal bands in which colours?

Blue over red: legend says the revolutionary leader tore the white band from the colonial tricolour at Arcahaie and had the remaining blue and red bands sewn together as the new flag.

Which country's goalkeeper saw his record unbeaten run ended by Haiti's Emmanuel Sanon at the 1974 World Cup?

Italy's Dino Zoff had not conceded an international goal in almost two years when Sanon rounded him just after half-time; Haiti led for six minutes before losing 3-1.

Sylvio Cator, Haiti's 1928 Olympic silver medallist, set a 7.93-metre world record in which event?

Long jump gold in Amsterdam went to the American world-record holder Ed Hamm; a few weeks later Cator took the record off him with the first leap past 26 feet, and Haiti's national stadium was named after him.

Michaëlle Jean, born in Haiti's capital, served from 2005 to 2010 as governor general of which country?

Jean, whose family fled to Canada in 1968, was Canada's 27th governor general; she later led the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie as its first woman secretary-general.

Which Haitian-American author's first novel, Breath, Eyes, Memory, became an Oprah's Book Club pick?

Edwidge Danticat was raised by an uncle in Haiti, joined her parents in New York at 12 and learned English there, the language in which she published this novel at just 25.

Which Haitian city is renowned for its papier-mâché Carnival masks?

Jacmel grew rich shipping coffee, and after a fire gutted it in 1896 its merchants rebuilt in brick with imported cast-iron pillars and balconies, the backdrop to its masked Carnival parades.

Which Haitian beach resort did the government lease to Royal Caribbean as a private cruise stop?

Labadee is a fenced, guarded peninsula on the north coast; cruise ships kept calling there days after the 2010 earthquake, landing relief supplies along with holidaymakers.

Which reptile lives in the salty waters of Étang Saumâtre, Haiti's largest lake?

American crocodiles share the lake with flamingos; saumâtre is French for brackish, and with no outlet to the sea the rising lake has flooded neighbouring farms and villages.

Which city on Haiti's north coast was once nicknamed the Paris of the Antilles for its colonial wealth?

Cap-Haïtien's wealth came from the sugar plain around it, where the great slave revolt began in 1791; the revolution's last battle, Vertières, was fought on the city's edge twelve years later.

Haiti's ruling elite made the obscure general Faustin Soulouque president in 1847 expecting him to be what?

A puppet was the plan, but Soulouque turned on his backers, had himself crowned Emperor Faustin I in 1852 with a freshly minted nobility, and ruled until a revolt toppled him in 1859.

What did US Marines carry out of Haiti's national bank in December 1914 and ship to New York?

Its gold reserves, some $500,000, went by gunboat to a Wall Street vault; National City Bank, the forerunner of Citibank, had pressed Washington to step in, and a full US occupation followed seven months later.

Which dictator ordered the 1937 Parsley massacre of thousands of Haitians near the border?

Rafael Trujillo ordered the killings in October 1937; soldiers reportedly held up parsley, perejil, and used the victims' pronunciation to pick out Haitians.