A Tale of Two Islands

in the Americas there's a chain of islands in that chain there's a lumpy island called Hispaniola the most populated in the Caribbean and sitting on Hispaniola is not one not three but two separate countries they are Haiti and the Dominican Republic once I speak Spanish the other speaks Creole and French one is mostly mixed the other is mostly black the cities are different the industries are different the music is different the way of lives are different and most importantly while the Dominican is the fastest growing economy in the Americas Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere damn not even the poorest of the continent it's the poorest of the hemisphere on its half of the earth so if there's only one Island why are there two Tales surely it can't be from the geography can it Hispaniola is one Island and yes while most okay pretty much all the Divergence comes from its history we can give a little bit of the credit to geography the island is full of mountains Plains beaches hurricanes and more beaches pretty standard stuff most people live in the parallel valleys where the mountains are not yet most of those people live inside of Haiti actually having around half a million more people than the Dominican making Haiti almost twice as densely populated and while both countries were built off of agricultural plantations if we zoom in we can see that they're probably not equal in value while the Dominican is green Haiti is Brown from more people and less land less rainfall in this third of this island east flowing Rivers up to 80 percent of Haiti's energy still coming from wood and a history that wasn't too concerned about the future of the island its natural resources have been stripped this means only around 2 to 30 percent of Haiti's land is actually forested but around 45 percent of the Dominicans forested the the geography is definitely playing a role in keeping Haiti poor but is also likely a symptom of being poor for most of its history creating a cycle which some might call vicious Haiti was and still mostly is a subsistence farming economy with riches directly tied to how many natural resources you can take Haiti produces five times less than the Dominican eight times less per capita they trade nearly 10 times less than Domo almost all of what they do trade being cotton or natural resource related Aid is scarce the aid they do get has to deal with the rampant corruption and instability in the nation there are constant blackouts food is uncertain having to deal with rapidly shifting prices and relying on imported food with a little foreign reserves they have when middle aged Canadians fly to the Caribbean for the winter let's just say they don't go to this part of the island they'll probably be here sitting on the beach in Punta Cana but that's too much comparison for me Mr beat said he'd cover that for me ain't that right Mr B well yeah of course that's right the Dominican Republic Haiti compared the two countries that share the no not in this video go do your own oh I'm sorry I thought you said I could take over your channel no no no no no you must be confused I told you you could take over my flannel with an F oh okay but when do I get my flannel I sent a bottle it'll arrive soon awesome be sure to check out Mr beats awesome video comparing Haiti and the Dominican Republic after you're done watching this one the first foreign tourist on the island were Columbus and his Spanish crew Landing in 1492 and they liked it so much that they made a permanent settlement Santo Domingo four years later the native Islanders the Taino were not so impressed when their Island was taken over so they resisted the Takeover but the Spanish had guns horses and weird diseases not much you can do against that they set up a very typical Spanish Colonial economy importing Rich Spaniards and conquistadors to oversee plantations run by native laborers what you thought these rich landowners would sail across the entire ocean just so they can work and this heat no this kept most of the population poor tied to their land and working for their rulers not to see a dime or a peso of their production but there are two reasons that made this island less successful than most of their other colonies one the native population on this fairly small island was surprised fairly small compared to other American civilizations and if it wasn't small enough diseased genocide and forced labor helped to decimate the population as well it wasn't the most moral time they either just imported African slaves or too focused on these two areas instead near modern-day Mexico and Peru these were the Spanish piggy banks where the gold silver food and huge native populations were while I come to this island where you could become a much richer man overseeing a Peruvian silver mine as a result they didn't spend much money investing in the island and much time governing the people I mean half of the island was literally used as a pirate Outpost mostly by French Buccaneers in the 15 and 1600s that's how the French got control of this part of the island not by colonizing it but by docking pirates on the anarchic island formally getting it in a 1697 treaty calling it San doming the French flipped the script if the Spanish half was decentralized and poor the French were going to make this part overly centralized and Rich for a very small portion of the population they didn't use Taino labor but imported African labor to work on plantations of cotton tobacco but mainly sugar the small Elite owned almost everything in the colony including most of the people it was the richest colony in the Americas and one of the richest places on Earth for this small Elite but it wasn't sustainable at all there were no new ideas no education no new technology no new industry coming from this island it was quite literally to extract resources and that was its only purpose it got to the point where soil erosion forced later Haitian generations to subsistence farming because all the dirt's nutrients were used for the money crops two-thirds of French investment by the late 1700s went to San doming sung these crops back to Europe it was like growing literal cash crops and Money Trees as long as they were finally running one of the worst slave machines on Earth it was awful back-breaking deadly and many slaves escape to the mountains to fight his Maroons and then the whole glorious liberation of the French people from the tyranny of the king happened during the French Revolution promising all would have Liberty fraternity and equality ironic huh but wait there are at least 500 000 slaves and only around 32 000 Europeans in sound domingue that's weight over 15 slaves for every Frenchman what if we just had our own glorious bloody liberating deathly Revolution just like the French did and so they did defeating the French army in 1803 and declaring the Republic of aiti I mean Haiti independent in 1804 as the only nation on earth created by slaves from the very start Haiti was kind of screwed sure they were liberated and the rulers were uh dead now but the country was destroyed pretty much the only mode of production they had the plantations were destroyed from the war relations with Europe were tensor than those Wild West towns only big enough for one person including with the other part of the island losing almost all their trade and foreign investment and they were forced to pay reparations to France in order to be recognized as much as 50 percent of government revenue at times around 30 billion dollars in total in today's money went to pay the French reparations during the 1800s up until 1947. Haitian leaders have been forces stop Social Services like Education Health Care and general infrastructure just to pay this ridiculously large debt but before you say golly gee that's a lot of debt it is but you also might want to consider the alternative holy moly that's barely any Revenue the majority of free Haitians went onto the land to farm at the subsistence level who owned this land they didn't even know after Independence their revolts uprisings and even a civil war between two wannabe Kings eventually forcing many former slaves back onto plantations when order was restored Haiti became a poor land of Warlords which fought throughout the century one of these fights was an occupation of Spanish Santo Domingo for 22 years in an attempt to free their slaves leading to their war for independence and achieving it in 1844 becoming the Dominican Republic like Haiti our friend Mr Dominican was poor and a little Restless leading to In and Out dictatorships and democracy even being a Spanish colony briefly again but finally in the 1870s they started a new strategy get the massive American Market hooked on your product what is it well it's white it's a powder it's very addictive you can make Coca-Cola with it many tropical Latin American countries make it often times having their political system overrun by the producers of it that's right it's sugar the Dominicans started to export cacao coffee but mainly sugar to the USA but it's a two-way street you can't just be a small American Nation the US now depends on and expect them not to use the Monroe Doctrine on you at least that's what the Americans thought so after the Americans won the Spanish-American war in 1898 they started to meddle a whole lot more in the Caribbean sugar companies started to dominate the Dominican financial sector and government Europeans were left in the dust to sell this new booming sugar-friendly Market while the US got more involved in their government paying for services like infrastructure education and even Dominican debt they got directly involved in 1916 when they physically took over the island just in case the Germans tried something fishy with their new Canal during World War One not letting go until 1924 much after the war ended with some administrators sticking around until even 1932 meanwhile they also occupied Haiti from 1915 to 1934 for the same German suspicions the Haitian side was not nearly as prosperous under the U.S with over 15 000 people killed during the regime Mass oppression forced labor and even segregation imposed in some places so when it was time for real Independence Haiti was in even more poverty violence and incredible corruption by gangs and Warlords whereas the Dominican was just the usual type of poor and unequal found in most post-spanish Nations but the Great Depression hit the Dominican hard having built their economy on the idea of endless American demand for a seemingly endless American diet depression turned into Revolution and soon the cardio of all cadillos took charge Raphael true Hilo he ruled for 31 years and this guy had an iron fist under him the Dominican turned into a military dictatorship there are massacres political opponents were killed censorships Conformity to him and theft theft of what well pretty much everything trujilo loved the free market that is a market he is free to rule owning much of the Dominicans Land Resources factories and industries it's estimated that he potentially owned up to 60 percent of the country's GDP talk about a monopoly well for all the thousands of people who died out of trujillo's rule at least it was somewhat stable attracting foreign development to the country and having the government invest heavily to build a new nation with new industry you know since the guy in charge had so much personally invested in it well whatever the U.S kept him around since he kept pumping out and expanding that sweet sweet sugar production plus they feared the entire nation falling apart if he was killed which might have been exactly what happened see Trujillo really hated the Venezuelan president romulo Betancourt even attempting to get him assassinated in 1960 that's kind of awkward for the U.S can't have your sugar supplier trying to kill the head of your oil supplier so they cut ties with Trujillo and impose sanctions on the nation not really surprising that one year later trihila was assassinated himself this broke a centralized system and civil war broke out in 1965 followed by U.S occupation until 1966 and finally the Dominican really started to grow which we'll talk about in the section on their economy Haiti also had their own dictator actually two of them Francois duvalier took power in 1957 but you might know him better as papadoc there are three things papadoc loved most violence power and Voodoo usually combining all three like trujillo's regime Haiti became a military dictatorship run by his Tonto makut AKA The Boogeyman silencing political opposition rigging elections cutting ties with pretty much everyone diplomatically except Ethiopia killing up to 60 000 citizens during his reign with many more fleeing the nation and practically praising himself as a God among men chosen to lead Haiti to Glory If That Glory means stealing government funds taking haitian-owned businesses for yourself and stealing foreign aid then yeah I guess he was chosen to rule Haiti members of his Boogeyman were often not even given an official salary forcing them to loot and extort citizens to make a living for themselves Papa Doc was very much like the French Elite of colonial Haiti extraction by the Elites for the simple purpose of enriching themselves with no plan of developing Haiti further when he died in 1971 his son Jean-Claude duvelier AKA baby duck took rule Haitians really like their nicknames huh baby ducks Rue was more or less the same as his Papa's just a little less strict but still no questioning him and the country is made for him to get rich the rulers failed to maintain public services and infrastructure sinking Haiti more into to Poverty but unlike Papa Doc baby duck was just a little baby he was only 19 years old when he took power we can beat him said the people so the 1980s were a time of protests unrest and riots did they get what they wanted a rich and free Haiti no but baby duck fled to France in 1986 leaving Haiti in free fall he actually returned in 2011 and was charged with corruption and embezzlement so I guess it has a nice ending so while the duvalies failed to develop Haiti trujilo developed the Dominican Republic but as his own private business both stealing from their people which one ended up better the Dominican did by a long shot but that's not to say it's a rich Nation nowadays in the 80s it was among the poorest nations in the Americas and nowadays it's comparable to a middle-income nation like Mexico driving this growth was a switch and strategy from sugar to spice spice meaning industry and tourism they set up industrial free zones for manufacturing tax reports for exporting the newly made goods and diversified more into mining construction electronics and OK still a lot of farming however from a past full of Monopoly abuses Dominican small firms remain fairly uninnovative and rather inefficient today in fact only three firms make up around 96 of the sugar produced in the country still this growth has made this half of the island increasingly middle class and urban summed up by the greatest Dominican invention of all time the speaker van tourism exploded at the same time too 1984 was the first year when tourism Revenue brought in more money than sugar did yet to be fair sugar prices were some of the lowest they've ever been at the time the Dominican is the biggest tourist destination in the Caribbean when it's between them a failed State a highly restrictive state or tiny islands with not nearly as many resources available to build Resorts it's no wonder they attract tourists so well tourism is their new cash crop sell Mojitos on the beach instead of the sugar used to make that mojito tourism accounts now for over 25 percent of their GDP whereas sugar fell to less than one percent of their total exports yet tourism also uses over 40 percent of their energy and tourists generate 40 of the nation's waste hey maybe they sold out their part of the island but it might be worth it for that six percent growth rate since 2010 the highest in the Americas today Haiti did not have that option today it is much much poorer much more violent more unstable has nearly a 10-year lower life expectancy and it's just not a great vacation spot over 80 percent of the population is in poverty and just to say it one more time much of the population relies on subsistence agriculture for food security decentralized gangs fight for business in the country with around 40 percent of Porto prints controlled by them leadership changes quickly as presidents and politicians are killed and they fight against nature in terms of soil erosion floods hurricanes and earthquakes with the worst ever being in 2010 almost a quarter million died 1.3 million people were displaced and 70 of the nation's crops were destroyed with rampant corruption in foreign aid and a tiny pot of actual wealth Haiti can't afford the proper training or infrastructure to make Mass earthquake-proof buildings so in 2021 another earthquake destroyed almost 150 000 buildings two thousand lives and eleven percent of GDP from the previous year Haiti now essentially relies on the USA for aid but much of it is inefficient often going to the politicians podcast instead of the peoples for trade with 80 of their experts going to the states and for the future with Haitians increasingly running away as fast as they can to the US with immigrants tripling from 1990 to 2018. the nation's debts decentralization borderline fearful trade policies and foreign interventions kept it poor but in good news they're planting thousands of trees hopefully that can fix all their problems now go check out Mr beats video go oh

Channel: hoser

Views: 2,065,659

Keywords: h0ser, hoser, geopolitics, geography, history, economics, economy, hispaniola, haiti, two islands, dominican, haiti poor, papa doc, why is haiti poor, dominican rich, dominican economy, haiti economy, haiti history, dominican history

Id: U67cf6VDhXM

Length: 17min 29sec (1049 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 28 2023