What is the difference between Haitians and Dominicans?

A woman watches bodies being bulldozed from the streets by the U.N. in Port-au-Prince on Jan. 16, 2010

The day after a 7.0-magnitude earthquake struck Haiti, Christian televangelist Pat Robertson sparked outrage with his comments on The 700 Club that the nation's history of catastrophes owed to a "pact with the devil" that its residents had made some 200 years ago. How else to explain why Haiti suffers, while the Dominican Republic — which shares the 30,000 sq. mi. of the Caribbean island of Hispaniola — is relatively well-off? "That island of Hispaniola is one island," Robertson said. "The Dominican Republic is prosperous, healthy, full of resorts, et cetera. Haiti is in desperate poverty."

Robertson's rationale is more than suspect, yet the differences between the two nations are undeniable. The U.N. ranks the Dominican Republic 90th out of 182 countries on its human-development index, which combines a variety of welfare measurements; Haiti comes in at 149th. In the Dominican Republic, average life expectancy is nearly 74 years. In Haiti, it's 61. You're substantially more likely to be able to read and write if you live in the eastern two-thirds of Hispaniola, and less likely to live on less than $1.25 a day.

Much of this difference is geographic. The mountains that lie across the island can cut off Haiti's rainfall. The northeast trade winds, and so the rain, blow in the Dominican Republic's favor. Haiti's semiarid climate makes cultivation more challenging. Deforestation — a major problem in Haiti, but not in its neighbor — has only exacerbated the problem. Other differences are a result of Hispaniola's long and often violent history — even TIME called it a "forlorn, hate-filled little Caribbean island" in 1965. On the eastern part of Hispaniola, you'll probably speak Spanish; in the west, it's more likely to be French or Creole, a division that's the result of centuries of European colonization and numerous power struggles. (Not to mention the decimation of Hispaniola's indigenous Taino people — who, of course, spoke none of those languages.)

When Christopher Columbus arrived in 1492, he named the land La Isla Española. It served as a Spanish colony and base for the empire's further conquests, though it was never particularly profitable. In 1697 the Spanish formally ceded the western third of the island to the French, who were already present and more heavily invested. The Hispaniolan outposts of both empires imported African slaves, though the latter did so to a much greater extent. The colonies — Santo Domingo and Saint-Domingue, respectively — subsequently developed vastly different demographics. According to a study by the American Library of Congress, by the end of the 18th century, there were about 40,000 white landowners, 25,000 black or interracial freedmen and 60,000 slaves in the Spanish colony, compared with approximately 30,000 whites, 27,000 freedmen, and at least 500,000 black slaves in its French counterpart.

As revolution raged in France in the 1790s, its colonial slaves in Hispaniola revolted; in 1804, they declared independence, and Haiti, which was named after the Taino word for "land of mountains," became the world's first sovereign black republic. The Dominican Republic wasn't established until 1844, after not just European rule but also 22 years of Haitian occupation. Strife between (as well as within) the neighbors, rooted in deep class, racial and cultural differences, was constant. Interference by foreign powers was often the norm. The Spanish took back the Dominican Republic in the early 1860s, and for periods during the 20th century, the U.S. occupied both nations, supposedly to restore order but also, in the face of European threats, to assert its influence in the western hemisphere. Internal politics were characterized by multiple coups, revolts and dictators, the most infamous being Rafael Trujillo in the Dominican Republic and François and Jean-Claude Duvalier in Haiti. Juan Bosch, the first democratically elected President of the Dominican Republic in 1962, was almost immediately overthrown after taking office in 1963. Jean-Bertrand Aristide became the first freely elected President of Haiti, in 1990; he was ousted as well, returned and was ousted again.

But while both countries struggled with democracy, economically they began to diverge. Haiti had long been exploited, by foreign powers, neighbors and its own rulers. France not only milked Haiti for coffee and sugar production but also extracted an indemnity from it: the young nation had to pay a burdensome sum to its former colonizer in order to achieve France's diplomatic recognition. The lighter-skinned Dominicans looked down on the darker-skinned Haitians: in 1965, even as the Dominican Republic was embroiled in civil war, Haitians were working in Dominican fields and not the other way around. And while Trujillo at least encouraged economic development in his country, Duvalier père et fils essentially sold their people as cheap sugar-cane cutters to the Dominican Republic.

Today, with a lack of resources and a much higher population density than its neighbor, Haiti is the poorest country in the western hemisphere. The U.N. has sent peacekeeping missions to maintain order there since the mid-1990s, but terrible conditions persist. Haiti's dismal statistics have a long history; no devil is necessary.

Tens of thousands of people in the Dominican Republic are being stripped of their citizenship, on the grounds that they or their ancestors were illegal immigrants.  Thousands have already been deported across the border to Haiti, because it iss assumed all illegal migrants come from there.

The court ruling applies to anyone whose family arrived in the country after 1929 and can't document their status. Being born in the Dominican Republic doesn't make a difference. 

Some are calling it the latest manifestation of "anti-Haitianismo" in the Dominican Republic. Both countries are on the same island of Hispaniola.

Their relations are a story of race, identity, and money. The Dominican Republic is not a rich country, but it's a lot better off than its neighbor, Haiti. 

In terms of per capita GDP, it's about six times richer. So thousands of Haitians go to the Dominican Republic to find work. Haitians and their descendants may make up as many as one in ten of the Dominican Republic's population. Some Dominicans are unhappy about that, as they see Haitians as different, and some fear for the identity of their nation.

Haitians are different from their Dominican neighbors in several ways. Firstly, language: most Dominicans speak Spanish, while most Haitians speak Creole, based on French. Then, there's the issue of race.

Haiti is overwhelmingly black; whereas Dominicans identify more with the European part of their heritage, rather than the African part. Most Americans would describe most Dominicans as black. And DNA tests taken over the last decade confirm that most Dominicans have black ancestry in their family history to varying degrees. 

But race in the Dominican Republic and in other parts of the Caribbean does not mean the same thing as it does in the United States. Dominicans use a variety of words to self-identify, such as moreno, trigueno, and blanco-oscuro, indicating different colors or different types of mixed racial origins. But not many will choose the term "black."

So how did this come about? What are the roots of the differences between Haitians and Dominicans?

Haiti was once a French colony, with its economy based almost exclusively on plantation slavery. What's now the Dominican Republic was Spanish. There were slaves on both sides of the island, but the society and economy on the Spanish side were more diverse, with cattle ranches and mines just as prevalent as sugar plantations. 

At the end of the colonial era, black slaves made up 90% of Haiti's population, while less than half of Dominicans were Africans in bondage. Both societies were deeply stratified by race, but most of the whites and many of the mixed race people fled Haiti during the Revolutionary era beginning about 220 years ago.

The African slaves in Haiti fought and famously won their freedom and independence. They were able to project their power into the Spanish part of the island, and Haiti took control of the Dominican Republic for a generation. Some say the elite in the Dominican Republic still feel stung by the insult of having had to answer to Haitians in that era. 

Relations between the countries through the early 1800s were long, complicated and bloody. But the key event was the long War of Independence fought by Dominicans against Haiti, which began in 1844. It's the longest war in the Republic's history. 

For a generation from 1930, the Dominican Republic was run by dictator Rafael Trujillo, who made anti-Haitianism more or less official policy. His regime put great stress on the country's European, as opposed to its African, heritage. That may not be surprising given the prevalence of racial theories in the 1930s, both here and elsewhere.  

In the Dominican Republic, European and Lebanese immigration was encouraged. Trujillo was mixed race himself and used make-up to appear lighter skinned in public. Some historians claim he had a Haitian grandmother, but if true, that didn't stop him from whipping up hostility toward Haitians and darker-skinned Dominicans.

This prejudice occasionally turned deadly. The worst episode was a genocide in the border area in 1937, when an estimated 20,000 Haitians were killed in a few days. Deportations were also common. Dominicans of African appearance, even with roots in the country from before independence, were swept up in the deportations.

Ironically, the Dominican government needed cheap labor, so it organized migrant workers to come in, including from Haiti, and work on state-owned plantations and construction projects. It still needs the extra labor. That's the ambivalence of anti-Haitianism — the country needs cheap workers, but doesn't want them to become a permanent part of society.

Yet the Dominican government in Santo Domingo vehemently denies charges of racism in its policies.

But in 2007, a report prepared for the United Nations' Office for the High Commissioner for Human Rights described what it called a "profound and entrenched problem of racism and discrimination in Dominican society, generally affecting blacks and particularly such groups as black Dominicans, Dominicans of Haitian descent and Haitians.

"While there is no Government policy of racism and no legislation that is on the face of it clearly discriminatory," it said, there clearly was a "discriminatory impact" from "certain laws, particularly those relating to migration, civil status and ... citizenship."

There may be hope, though, for some reconciliation between people of the two countries. Some Dominicans are joining their Haitian counterparts to object to the new court ruling and the crackdown on Haitian immigrants.