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H

Haiti
A Caribbean country that shares with the Domi-
can Republic the island of Hispaniola. After
Columbus’s arrival there in 1492, French, British,
and Spanish forces sought to colonize the island
that was known as Saint-Domingue and Santo
Domingo. In 1791 Haitians, led initially by Tous-
saint Louverture, overthrew and eventually ousted
the French, whose military forces were directed by
Napoleon Bonaparte. In 1804, the nation of Haiti
was established. Led by General Jean-Jacques
Dessalines, it became the first black country to re-
cover its independence from colonial forces. Its
historic example of successful slave uprisings and
black political autonomy inspired enslaved com-
munities and threatened pro-slavery governments
and supporters in the United States. As a result, it
was not until 1862, one year after the American
Civil War began, that Frederick Douglass, the for-
merly enslaved American orator and statesman,
became the first consular minister sent to Haiti by
the United States. American military forces, on or-
ders from President Woodrow Wilson, occupied
the island from 1915 until 1934.
Haiti figured prominently in the research and
literary imagination of Harlem Renaissance artists
and scholars. The best-known figure of the era as-
sociated with the island was ZORA NEALE
HURSTON, the author of Tell My Horse.Hurston
used her 1936 the GUGGENHEIMFELLOWSHIPto
fund six months of research on Haitian culture,
folklore, and voodoo. She lived in Port-au-Prince,
the capital, and also journeyed to La Gonâve, one
of the islands offshore. It was in Haiti that Hurston

wrote and completed her influential novel THEIR

EYES WERE WATCHING GOD (1937) in seven

weeks of intense writing.

The island of Haiti also figures prominently in

the significant play THEEMPERORJONESby EU-

GENEO’NEILL, which went on to showcase the tal-

ents of PAULROBESONand Jules Bledsoe. ARNA

BONTEMPS used Haiti as the backdrop for his

novel Drums at Dusk.Short stories such as JESSIE

FAUSET’s “EMMY” and JOHNMATHEUS’s “COULEV’

ENDORMI” also introduced readers to the mystical

and historical Caribbean place.

Scholars such as Robert Russa Moton, the sec-

ond president of TUSKEGEEINSTITUTE, also pub-

lished work relating to the island’s development.

Moton’s October 1930 report on Haitian educa-

tion policy and practice reflected the work of the

Commission on Education in Haiti that Moton

chaired.

Bibliography

Heinl, Robert Debs, and Nancy Gordon Heinl. Written

in Blood: The Story of the Haitian People, 1492–1971.

Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1978.

Renda, Mary A. Taking Haiti: Military Occupation and the

Culture of U.S. Imperialism, 1915–1940.Chapel

Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001.

Half-Century, The

A CHICAGO-based magazine that appeared first in

1916 and that was aimed at middle-class African-

American readers. Anthony Overtown, the en-

trepreneurial founder of the Chicago Beeand the