|
Haiti French Settlement and Sovereignty
Reportedly expelled by the Spanish from Saint
Christopher
(Saint Kitts), the original French residents of Tortuga
Island
(Ile de la Tortue), off the northwest coast of Hispaniola,
sustained themselves mostly through two means: curing the
meat
and tanning the hides of wild game, and pirating Spanish
ships.
The former activity lent these hardy souls the colorful
designation of buccaneers, derived from the Arawak word
for the
smoking of meat. It took decades for the buccaneers and
the more
staid settlers that followed them to establish themselves
on
Tortuga. Skirmishes with Spanish and English forces were
common.
As the maintenance of the empire tried the wit, and
drained the
energies, of a declining Spain, however, foreign
intervention
became more forceful.
The freewheeling society of Tortuga that was often
described
in romantic literature had faded into legend by the end of
the
seventeenth century. The first permanent settlement on
Tortuga
was established in 1659 under the commission of King Louis
XIV.
French Huguenots had already begun to settle the north
coast of
Hispaniola by that time. The establishment in 1664 of the
French
West India Company for the purpose of directing the
expected
commerce between the colony and France underscored the
seriousness of the enterprise. Settlers steadily
encroached upon
the northwest shoulder of the island, and they took
advantage of
the area's relative remoteness from the Spanish capital
city of
Santo Domingo. In 1670 they established their first major
community, Cap François (later Cap Français, now
Cap-Haïtien).
During this period, the western part of the island was
commonly
referred to as Saint-Domingue, the name it bore officially
after
Spain relinquished sovereignty over the area to France in
the
Treaty of Ryswick in 1697.
Data as of December 1989
|
