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Haiti SOCIAL STRUCTURE
As a result of the extinction of the indigenous
population by
the beginning of the seventeenth century, the population
of
preindependence Saint-Domingue (present-day Haiti) was
entirely
the product of the French colonists' slaveholding policies
and
practices. The major planters and government officials who
constituted the ruling class carefully controlled every
segment
of the population, especially the majority of African
slaves and
their descendants. Society was structured for the rapid
production of wealth for the planters and their investors
in
France
(see Colonial Society: The Conflicts of Color and Class
, ch. 6).
In the colonial period, the French imposed a
three-tiered
social structure. At the top of the social and political
ladder
was the white elite (grands blancs). At the bottom
of the
social structure were the black slaves (noirs),
most of
whom had been transported from Africa. Between the white
elite
and the slaves arose a third group, the freedmen
(affranchis), most of whom were descended from
unions of
slaveowners and slaves. Some mulatto freedmen inherited
land,
became relatively wealthy, and owned slaves (perhaps as
many as
one-fourth of all slaves in Saint-Domingue belonged to
affranchis). Nevertheless, racial codes kept the
affranchis socially and politically inferior to the
whites. Also between the white elite and the slaves were
the poor
whites (petits blancs), who considered themselves
socially
superior to the mulattoes, even if they sometimes found
themselves economically inferior to them. Of a population
of
519,000 in 1791, 87 percent were slaves, 8 percent were
whites,
and 5 percent were freedmen. Because of harsh living and
working
conditions, many slaves died, and new slaves were
imported. Thus,
at the time of the slave rebellion of 1791, most slaves
had been
born in Africa rather than in Saint-Domingue.
The Haitian Revolution changed the country's social
structure. The colonial ruling class, and most of the
white
population, was eliminated, and the plantation system was
largely
destroyed. The earliest black and mulatto leaders
attempted to
restore a plantation system that relied on an essentially
free
labor force, through strict military control
(see Independent Haiti
, ch. 6), but the system collapsed during the tenure
of
Alexandre Pétion (1806-18). The Haitian Revolution broke
up
plantations and distributed land among the former slaves.
Through
this process, the new Haitian upper class lost control
over
agricultural land and labor, which had been the economic
basis of
colonial control. To maintain their superior economic and
social
position, the new Haitian upper class turned away from
agricultural pursuits in favor of more urban-based
activities,
particularly government.
The nineteenth-century Haitian ruling class consisted
of two
groups, the urban elite and the military leadership. The
urban
elite were primarily a closed group of educated,
comparatively
wealthy, and French-speaking mulattoes. Birth determined
an
individual's social position, and shared values and
intermarriage
reinforced class solidarity. The military, however, was a
means
of advancement for disadvantaged black Haitians. In a
shifting,
and often uneasy, alliance with the military, the urban
elite
ruled the country and kept the peasantry isolated from
national
affairs. The urban elite promoted French norms and models
as a
means of separating themselves from the peasantry. Thus,
French
language and manners, orthodox Roman Catholicism, and
light skin
were important criteria of high social position. The elite
disdained manual labor, industry, and commerce in favor of
the
more genteel professions, such as law and medicine.
A small, but politically important, middle class
emerged
during the twentieth century. Although social mobility
increased
slightly, the traditional elite retained their economic
preeminence, despite countervailing efforts by François
Duvalier.
For the most part, the peasantry continued to be excluded
from
national affairs, but by the 1980s, this isolation had
decreased
significantly. Still, economic hardship in rural areas
caused
many cultivators to migrate to the cities in search of a
higher
standard of living, thereby increasing the size of the
urban
lower class.
Data as of December 1989
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