The Republic of Haiti is the western third of the island of Hispaniola, in the West Indies, or Caribbean, Port-au-Prince is the capital. The name "Haiti" actually means "mountainous land" in the language of the Arawaks, who were the first inhabitants of the island. A few centuries ago, Haiti was covered with plantations of bananas, Indian corn and marshes of wild ginger and tropical rainforests with mahogany, redwood and pine. Unfortunately, this is no longer the case. Most of this has been cleared for farmland. Although the currency used is the 'gourde' which equals 100 'kobs,' a lot of Haitians use the barter system. THe original inhabitants of Hispaniola were driven off the island by the Carib people long before the arrival of the Spanish settlers. Most of the people of Haiti are descended from the african slaves, bought to the island to work on the plantations. Whites and mulattoes make up only 10% of the population. Mulattoes are those of both white and african descent. There are also a small minority of Syrians. One of the official religions is Catholicism, this is practised mostly by the middle and upper classes. The other official religion is voodoo, and there are minorities of other faiths. There are 2 official languages, French, which is spoken by approximately 10% of the population, the middle and upper clases only. The other official language is Creole, which began as a pidgin language used by the African slaves and their French owners. It is now not simply a spoken language as in the beginning, but a language with it's own grammer and spelling system. Creole is spoken by 90% of Haitians.

Look at this site for information on Voodoo.
To compare the Haitian Gourde with anything else, go to the Yahoo Currency Converter.
To see pictures of this country's paper money, go to Ron Wise's Paper Money Homepage
For a page showing the holidays of Haiti, look at the Global Calender
To see the language make up of Haiti, go to the Ethnologue.

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