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One thing that's always puzzled me - why are Haiti and Dominican Republic so different politically and economically? They both share the same island. Curious a

One thing that's always puzzled me - why are Haiti and Dominican Republic so different politically and economically? They both share the same island. Curious as to why their fortunes seem to have diverged so dramatically.

mjw1007 5y ago
The history summarised here is the main reason. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27761407 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27761407 (You might hope that that quote exaggerates what was done to Haiti, but if anything it underplays it.)
objectivetruth 5y ago
This poster explains exactly why: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27761407 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27761407
mytailorisrich 5y ago
The western part of the island was a French colony and gained independence early by force. The population was made of black former slaves so they might not have had a lot going for them in the beginning, even just in terms of organizational capacity, and none of the neighbouring countries particularly wanted them to do well (slavery was a thing in all of them). Spain colonized the East of the island and government and power remained in the hands of European settlers. Haiti was also occupied by the US in the early 20th century, which was not exactly a glorious episode, either, and certainly did not help.
Simplicitas 5y ago
crytohacks comments above are a good place to start to understand Haiti's troubled history. Neither have faired so well as American neocolonies, not that foreign influence is the only factor. In "Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed", Jared Diamond contrasts the two countries ecological policies in recent decades, and that may have something to do with DR slight edge.
sorokod 5y ago
Dominican republic is rooted in Spanish colonialism, Haiti in French.
- yardie 5y ago
  Haiti is French and American colonialism. At one point the US ran the government and was even talking of annexing it as another territory.
Orou 5y ago
The Haitian revolution ravaged the new nation's economy. The machinery used to process raw materials for Haiti's valuable export products, in particular sugar and coffee, were mostly destroyed in slave uprisings, and they could not be produced locally. Haiti also lacked the natural resources necessary to develop an independent industrial base, and even if plantation outputs increased again (as many tried to make happen), luxury goods like sugar and coffee are only valuable as trade goods. Simply put, Haiti was highly dependent on international trade for the resources it needed, which meant that the embargoes from major powers crippled the nation. Mike Duncan has an excellent series on the Haitian revolution in his Revolutions podcast series, which includes a final episode that summarizes the history of the nation up to the mid-20th century.
- mjw1007 5y ago
  It wasn't just the embargoes. They really did pay back the billions of dollars-worth of "debt".
  - sudosysgen 5y ago
    Yup, and the debt was due 200 years ago and worth around 21 billion dollars. For fun I ran the numbers, at 4% real interest which is realistic for a developing country, that's 2.55 trillion dollars in lost interest.
    - wavefunction 5y ago
      I wonder what is owed Haiti for the profits extracted from the enslaved peoples forced to work to death there.
      - rsj_hn 5y ago
        Given that the slaves rose up and murdered their slaveowners, who were also Haitian, there is no one left for them to collect from, even if you could find someone still alive from that period who worked as a slave. In other words, those slaves took payment, via genocide, a long time ago. That's one of the problems with murdering all your oppressors and seizing all their assets -- at that point you have no one left to blame when things go bad over the next few hundred years.
colinmhayes 5y ago
In addition to what cryptohacks said, Haiti always had horrible relations with the US because it was founded by slaves. The revolution took place in 1804, a time when Americans, especially southerners were very worried about slave revolts. In order to dissuade more slave revolts the US did everything in its power to make sure Haiti turned into a failed state.
- boublepop 5y ago
  How are relations to USA these days, and was the president on a path to significantly improve the country?
adolfojp 5y ago
Sharing the same island means nothing unless the two places also share an ethnic seed and they don't. Haitians and Dominicans are not one nation split apart. They're two different nations that grew side by side. The Taíno, the original inhabitants of the island, were wiped out / assimilated by the Europeans who settled the island. Years later the Spanish and criollo settlers relocated to the east of the island leaving the west free for the French to develop. The French and the Spanish had different cultures and radically different strategies on how to develop their colonies and thus the island ended up with two different cultures and governments and languages and political systems and with people of different (but overlapping) racial composition. A lot of people wrongly assume that Caribbean is an ethnic group but that couldn't be farther from the truth. I'm a Puerto Rican and I have a lot in common with Dominicans and Cubans because the three territories are former Spanish colonies. But I have little in common with Haitians, Jamaicans or the inhabitants of the smaller islands of the archipelago. To illustrate my point, I have an archipelago 40 miles east of where I live and we have no ferry between the islands and no connection of any sort beyond the fact that we're both US territories. I've been there as a tourist but nothing more.
- wolverine876 5y ago
  > Sharing the same island means nothing unless the two places also share an ethnic seed ... Plenty of countries do very well without shared ethnic seeds, whatever that means, including the wealthiest country in the world. Edit: Thanks for explaining what you meant, below. That makes sense.
  - adolfojp 5y ago
    OP didn't understand why the two countries were so different despite sharing an island. I explained that they're different because they're comprised of different people with different histories. This might be obvious to you but in my experience a lot of people assume that the inhabitants of the Hispaniola came from the same seed, as in they were the same group of people who later split when that was not the case. One country was seeded by the Spanish and the other one by the French. My comment was not meant to be a thorough analysis on their respective economies.

mjw1007 5y ago

The history summarised here is the main reason. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27761407 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27761407 (You might hope that that quote exaggerates what was done to Haiti, but if anything it underplays it.)

objectivetruth 5y ago

This poster explains exactly why: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27761407 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27761407

mytailorisrich 5y ago

The western part of the island was a French colony and gained independence early by force. The population was made of black former slaves so they might not have had a lot going for them in the beginning, even just in terms of organizational capacity, and none of the neighbouring countries particularly wanted them to do well (slavery was a thing in all of them). Spain colonized the East of the island and government and power remained in the hands of European settlers. Haiti was also occupied by the US in the early 20th century, which was not exactly a glorious episode, either, and certainly did not help.

Simplicitas 5y ago

crytohacks comments above are a good place to start to understand Haiti's troubled history. Neither have faired so well as American neocolonies, not that foreign influence is the only factor. In "Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed", Jared Diamond contrasts the two countries ecological policies in recent decades, and that may have something to do with DR slight edge.

sorokod 5y ago

Dominican republic is rooted in Spanish colonialism, Haiti in French.

yardie 5y ago
Haiti is French and American colonialism. At one point the US ran the government and was even talking of annexing it as another territory.

Orou 5y ago

The Haitian revolution ravaged the new nation's economy. The machinery used to process raw materials for Haiti's valuable export products, in particular sugar and coffee, were mostly destroyed in slave uprisings, and they could not be produced locally. Haiti also lacked the natural resources necessary to develop an independent industrial base, and even if plantation outputs increased again (as many tried to make happen), luxury goods like sugar and coffee are only valuable as trade goods. Simply put, Haiti was highly dependent on international trade for the resources it needed, which meant that the embargoes from major powers crippled the nation. Mike Duncan has an excellent series on the Haitian revolution in his Revolutions podcast series, which includes a final episode that summarizes the history of the nation up to the mid-20th century.

mjw1007 5y ago
It wasn't just the embargoes. They really did pay back the billions of dollars-worth of "debt".
- sudosysgen 5y ago
  Yup, and the debt was due 200 years ago and worth around 21 billion dollars. For fun I ran the numbers, at 4% real interest which is realistic for a developing country, that's 2.55 trillion dollars in lost interest.
  - wavefunction 5y ago
    I wonder what is owed Haiti for the profits extracted from the enslaved peoples forced to work to death there.
    - rsj_hn 5y ago
      Given that the slaves rose up and murdered their slaveowners, who were also Haitian, there is no one left for them to collect from, even if you could find someone still alive from that period who worked as a slave. In other words, those slaves took payment, via genocide, a long time ago. That's one of the problems with murdering all your oppressors and seizing all their assets -- at that point you have no one left to blame when things go bad over the next few hundred years.

colinmhayes 5y ago

In addition to what cryptohacks said, Haiti always had horrible relations with the US because it was founded by slaves. The revolution took place in 1804, a time when Americans, especially southerners were very worried about slave revolts. In order to dissuade more slave revolts the US did everything in its power to make sure Haiti turned into a failed state.

boublepop 5y ago
How are relations to USA these days, and was the president on a path to significantly improve the country?

adolfojp 5y ago

Sharing the same island means nothing unless the two places also share an ethnic seed and they don't. Haitians and Dominicans are not one nation split apart. They're two different nations that grew side by side. The Taíno, the original inhabitants of the island, were wiped out / assimilated by the Europeans who settled the island. Years later the Spanish and criollo settlers relocated to the east of the island leaving the west free for the French to develop. The French and the Spanish had different cultures and radically different strategies on how to develop their colonies and thus the island ended up with two different cultures and governments and languages and political systems and with people of different (but overlapping) racial composition. A lot of people wrongly assume that Caribbean is an ethnic group but that couldn't be farther from the truth. I'm a Puerto Rican and I have a lot in common with Dominicans and Cubans because the three territories are former Spanish colonies. But I have little in common with Haitians, Jamaicans or the inhabitants of the smaller islands of the archipelago. To illustrate my point, I have an archipelago 40 miles east of where I live and we have no ferry between the islands and no connection of any sort beyond the fact that we're both US territories. I've been there as a tourist but nothing more.

wolverine876 5y ago
> Sharing the same island means nothing unless the two places also share an ethnic seed ... Plenty of countries do very well without shared ethnic seeds, whatever that means, including the wealthiest country in the world. Edit: Thanks for explaining what you meant, below. That makes sense.
- adolfojp 5y ago
  OP didn't understand why the two countries were so different despite sharing an island. I explained that they're different because they're comprised of different people with different histories. This might be obvious to you but in my experience a lot of people assume that the inhabitants of the Hispaniola came from the same seed, as in they were the same group of people who later split when that was not the case. One country was seeded by the Spanish and the other one by the French. My comment was not meant to be a thorough analysis on their respective economies.