It started, as did so much in the Caribbean, with Christopher Columbus. The Genoese navigator encountered this 29,418-square-mile chunk of misty mountains and virgin forest – which, on the 21st-century map, sits between Cuba and Puerto Rico – on his first voyage of “discovery”. He landed at what is now Mole-Saint-Nicolas, on the north coast of Haiti, on December 6 1492, christened his finding “La Isla Española” (“The Spanish Island”; in time, this would be corrupted to “Hispaniola”), and triggered a reshaping of the globe. Within a year, colonists had dug out the first European settlement in the “New World” (La Isabela, now midway along the Dominican north coast). In six, they had set up what would be the first major port (Santo Domingo, now the Dominican capital, on the south). Within a decade, the indigenous population was well on its way to destruction.

Disease in the sunshine

There were five Taino chiefdoms on the island (Jaragua, Marién, Maguana, Maguá and Higüey) in 1492. These seafaring Amerindians had migrated from what is now Venezuela at various stages between 600AD and 1200. They probably called their home “Quisqueya” (although the 16th century Spanish historian Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo argued that the word was “Haiti”). Modern genetic analysis suggests they may have been as many as 750,000 in number when Columbus showed up. That figure was down to 26,334 by 1514, as imported diseases – notably smallpox and typhoid – ripped through a population with no immunity to either, and the effective slavery of the encomienda labour system devoured many of those compelled to toil on sugar plantations and in gold mines.

The story was barely any happier as the 16th and 17th centuries progressed. Distracted by bigger battles against the Aztecs in “Mexico” and the Incas in “Peru”, and increasingly favouring Havana as its most important port in the Caribbean, the Spanish Empire gradually forgot about its Christmas toy of 1492. The neglect was such that France slowly annexed the western third of the island, first via lightning pirate raids, then with a steady influx of plantation owners, and the African slaves used to power these businesses. Saint-Domingue was declared a colony in 1665, and recognised at Rijswijk 32 years later.

A country born of crisis

But just as that diplomatic pow-wow failed to secure peace in Europe, so it hardly calmed life on Hispaniola. Built on African bodies and bones, Saint-Domingue developed a Creole culture distinct in language and religion from the Spanish colony. For much of the 18th century, it was far wealthier than its neighbour, but it also boiled with resentment. When it began, the Haitian Revolution was a brick through an already cracked window – taking advantage of the turmoil in Paris that had started with the storming of the Bastille in 1789. On the night of August 21 1791, thousands of slaves revolted against their “masters”, killing plantation owners, and their wives and children alike, before following their leader, the charismatic Toussaint Louverture, into a war of liberation. Even with the rise of Napoleon, who sent an invasion force to the colony in 1802, France was unable to restore the old system. The republic which coalesced in 1804 was called “Haiti”. It was the first independent nation in Latin America and the Caribbean, the first country in the Americas to abolish slavery, and the only state ever to be founded upon a slave rebellion.

Victory came at a cost. France recognised Haiti’s sovereignty on April 17 1825, but delivered its terms – an indemnity of 150million francs, to compensate dispossessed slave owners – via a fleet of battleships. Facing another war, Haitian president Jean-Pierre Boyer agreed to a bill that, adjusted for the 21st century, would be around £27billion. Although reduced to 90million francs (about £16billion) in 1838, the debt crippled Haiti, and its capacity to develop as a country. It would not pay the final instalment until 1947.

Neighbourhood dispute

There was, though, one way to make money. Go next door. Inspired by events over the border, Santo Domingo had declared independence from Spain in November 1821. The moment was short-lived. In February 1822, Haiti invaded its neighbour. It maintained the occupation for over two decades – and once the deal with Paris had been reached, sought to ease its financial burden by heavily taxing the people under its boot. The Dominican War of Independence, which erupted in 1844, was inevitable. It too dragged its heels, but ultimately led to the formalisation of an independent Dominican Republic in 1856. Weary of the ongoing acrimony, the two countries signed a treaty of mutual recognition in 1875.

Here, finally, were the two sides of Hispaniola with their European apron-strings severed. Here too, was a vacuum, into which a new power stepped. Both found themselves under American control in the early 20th century – Haiti from 1915 to 1934; the Dominican Republic between 1916 and 1924 – as Uncle Sam, nervous about the scope for instability in two fledgling nations during a time of World War, forcibly protected his own interests.

A Dominican despot

From the latter period came a despot. Rafael Trujillo stuck so closely to the classic dictatorial tropes that he might have been reading them from a how-to manual. The chief of both the police and the army, his ascent to power in 1930 was part rigged election, part coup d’etat. Once in the presidential palace, he renamed the Dominican capital “Ciudad Trujillo” (“Trujillo City”), the country’s highest mountain “Pico Trujillo”. He murdered his political opponents, sucked a fortune of US$800million (£4billion at modern value) from his country’s coffers, and ordered one of the most appalling cases of violence ever seen on an island soaked in blood. The Parsley Massacre of October 1937 was a week of undisguised genocide – his army seeking and murdering any Haitians it found living on Dominican soil. Up to 35,000 may have died, though it is impossible to gauge the precise statistic. In many cases, victims’ remains were thrown into the sea, for sharks to feast on.

His own end was just as brutal. On May 30 1961, Trujillo was gunned down when his car was ambushed near the capital. The weapons were almost certainly supplied by the CIA.

The “voodoo dictator”

Haiti did not escape a similar tyranny. Francois Duvalier, a doctor prior to entering politics, was elected president in 1957. His professional background would earn him the nickname “Papa Doc”, but there was nothing caring about his 14 years in power. An unashamed populist, he tied his image closely to Haitian vodou mythology, associating himself with Baron Samedi, the top-hatted, black-cloaked guardian spirit of the dead. He was responsible for the deaths of up to 60,000 Haitians who fell victim to the “Tontons Macoutes” – the private militia he used to suppress dissent. 

Closeness to the throne was no guarantee of survival either. In 1963, Duvalier lost trust in Clément Barbot, the death squad’s leader. Convinced that his former right-hand man could transform himself into a black dog, the president had all such canines in Haiti destroyed as part of the manhunt. Even his death, from heart disease, in April 1971, could not quell the madness. His son Jean-Claude (“Baby Doc”) kept the family business going until he was deposed in 1986.

A beautiful destination

Sadly, Haiti has been scarcely more stable in the four decades since, its troubled soul wracked by political and natural disasters. Last July saw the assassination of President Jouvenel Moïse. A month later, a 7.2-magnitude earthquake killed at least 2,248 people. Though even this compares little to the quake which eviscerated the country on January 12 2010 – a gut-punch from the depths which may have ended as many as 160,000 lives.