Explaining Haiti

Right or wrong, Haiti is considered the point of entry of Christianity into the New World because it is the place where Christopher Columbus built the first Spanish colony after landing on December 5th, 1492. Roman Catholicism was the official religion of Spain, and thus was imposed on all the original inhabitants of the island. The natives were made Christians by force and the island was called ‘Hispaniola’, meaning ‘little Spain’. Before long the Indian population was enslaved and wiped out, and Africans were imported as replacements. But that’s not all.

Haiti is the only place in the world where revolutionary African slaves successfully ended slavery and colonialism to build a new and independent country. All this happened when Jean-Jacques Dessalines, his Generals, along with the indigenous army, proclaimed Haiti’s independence from France on January 1st, 1804. On that day, they rejected the colonial name ‘Saint-Domingue’ and reclaimed the Indian name Haiti (Ayiti1) for the country.

In celebration of Haiti’s bicentenary, the United Nations General Assembly has proclaimed 2004 the ‘International Year to Commemorate the Struggle against Slavery and its Abolition’. Ironically, in that same year, several thousands soldiers from different countries landed in the country as the ‘United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti’ (MINUSTAH2). Two hundred years after its independence and at less than 700 miles from the coast of Florida, Haiti has become the most unstable and the poorest country of the western hemisphere. Although Haiti’s free fall can easily be understood from a strictly historical perspective, religious arguments have been used by many to follow and explain the demise of this tiny nation.

Have you ever heard how some preachers or theologians try to explain the unspeakable misery that is crippling most of Haiti’s population of 8 million? Everywhere you go, from your television screen to the Internet, what you are most likely to find is a reference to a spiritual pact that the fathers of the nation supposedly made with the devil to help them win their freedom from France. As a result of that satanic alliance, as they put it, God has placed a curse on the country some time around its birth3, and that divine burden has made it virtually impossible for the vast majority of Haitians to live in peace and prosperity in their land. Surprising, right?

The satanic pact allegedly took place at Bois-Caïman near Cap-Haïtien on August 14, 1791 during a meeting organized by several slave leaders, under [Dutty] Boukman’s leadership, before launching what would become Haiti’s Independence War. This brutal period lasted 13 years until the last survivors of the French expeditionary forces, dispatched to Saint-Domingue with the sole purpose to re-establish slavery, were allowed by Dessalines to leave the island and return to Napoleon. Those who made it safely to France wrote and reported about the utmost bravery and supreme courage of Haiti’s indigenous army.

Obviously, the idea that Haiti was dedicated to Satan prior to its independence is a very serious and profound statement with potentially grave consequences for its people in terms of how they are perceived by others or how the whole nation is understood outside its borders. One would agree that such a strong affirmation should be based on solid historical and scriptural ground. But, although the satanic pact idea is by far the most popular explanation for Haiti’s birth as a free nation, especially among Christian missionaries and some Haitian Church leaders, it is nothing more than a fantasist opinion that ultimately dissipates upon close examination.

Exploring the religious argument

I was born and raised in Haiti, and I am a graduate of the State University in Port-au-Prince. I am also a believer in the Lord Jesus-Christ in accordance with the Bible. In all of my studies of Haitian history, however, I have yet to find a good evidence of even the idea of Satan’s assistance in the Independence War, let alone a satanic pact.

For quite some time now, several articles on the Internet have mentioned the existence of an iron pig statue in Port-au-Prince as a monument to commemorate Haiti’s so-called pact with the devil through Vodou. The statue would be in remembrance of a pig that was killed during the gathering by the African slaves. In an effort to know more about that rumor, I contacted several authors about the exact location of the pig statue that’s incidentally nowhere to be found in the country. Their answer was complete silence, a simple apology, or just the removal of the reference from their texts.

One writer was grateful to me for pointing out the inaccuracy of her article, and she made the necessary adjustment. But I am sure that the same allusion can be found somewhere in other published pieces of writing and documents. The worst part of the whole picture is that the story is believed by many sincere Christians in America and around the world; and not only do they believe it, they also spread it as fact. The tragedy of our age is that repeated lies are often mistaken for the truth, especially when repeated long enough. That’s particularly the case in religious circles where faith on the part of the audience is generally expected, but that should never be so for those who believe in the Bible.

Maybe, believers need to return to biblical texts like 1 Thessalonians 5:21, “Test everything. Hold on to the good”.

It’s hard to know where the idea of a divine curse on Haiti following the purported satanic pact actually originated, whether from foreign missionaries or from local church leaders. In his book Ripe Now - A Haitian congregation responds to the Great Commission 4, Haitian pastor Frantz Lacombe identified a ‘dependence mentality’ in the leadership of the Haitian church, which resulted from the way the Christian faith was brought to the country, historically and through various denominations. Apparently, this unfortunate manner of thinking, which tends to emulate the worldview and culture of North American and European Christian missionaries, has permeated the general philosophy of the Haitian church on many levels, including church planting, church management, music and even missionary activities.

In that context, I would not be surprised if the satanic pact idea (followed by the divine curse message) was put together first by foreign missionaries and later on picked up by local leaders. On the other hand, it is equally possible that some Haitian church leaders developed the idea on their own using a theological framework borrowed from those same missionaries who subsequently propagated the message around the world. Either way, because of this message, Haiti has been portrayed as the country born out of Satan’s benevolence and goodwill toward mankind. Shouldn’t such a fantastic idea be tested for its historic validity and theological soundness? I invite you to take with me a closer and possibly different look at the available records.

Watch for Part two of this article on BlackandChristian.com.

Footnotes

1 – Ayiti means land of mountains in Indian language. True to its name, the country has approximately ¾ of its territory made of rugged terrains, high mountains, hills and valleys. Some have said that it was Haiti’s topography along with rains and tropical diseases that defeated the French soldiers during the independence war. While it is true that the environmental conditions favored the indigenous army, with the use of guerilla warfare, the Spanish and the French were able to establish and maintain slavery on the island for 300 years under those same conditions. Therefore it is safe to conclude that nature alone was not the factor and Haiti would have never won its independence from France if the leaders of the revolutionary army were not who they were and did not do what they did the way they did it.

2 – Information on the structure and mandate of the United Nations forces currently in Haiti can be found on the U.N. website at http://www.un.org/Depts/dpko/missions/minustah/.

3 – Gelin, J. 2004. La malediction divine sur Haïti: un message ambigu et forcément caduc. Available online at http://www.alterpresse.org/article.php3?id_article=1766, this article in French addresses the ambiguity and abeyance of the whole divine curse idea.

4 - Lacombe, F. 2003. Ripe Now – A Haitian congregation responds to the Great Commission , JoniwritrProductions. Huntington Beach, CA. Pastor Lacombe is a graduate of Moody Bible Institute and he has recently launched a ministry aimed at encouraging Haitian believers to embrace the Great Commission.

Jean R. Gelin is a licensed minister of the Church of God and serves as an assistant pastor for a young Haitian-American church in the United States. He holds a Ph.D. in plant sciences and works as a scientist in agricultural research. Dr. Gelin can be contacted at gelinjr@yahoo.fr regarding this article.

Copyright @2005 Jean Gelin, All Rights Reserved. Used by permission, BlackandChristian.com