Christopher Columbus claimed Haiti when he landed there in 1492. Arawak Indians were the original inhabitants of this island when Columbus arrived. Later, the island became a colony of England. Haiti remained virtually unsettled until the mid-17th century, when French colonists, importing African slaves, developed sugar plantations in the north. Under French rule from 1697, Haiti (then called Saint-Domingue) became one of the world's richest sugar and coffee producers. Soon, Haiti became a land of wealth …showed first 75 words of 1365 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1365 total…benefited those before them. Bibliography Scott III, Julius Sherrard "The Common Wind" UMI Publishing 1986 Dayan, Joan "Haiti, History, and the Gods" University of California Press 1995 Fick, Carolyn E. "The Making Of Haiti: The Saint Domingue Revolution from Below" The University of Tennessee Press 1990 http://babel.uoregon.edu/romance/rl407/creole/haitian.html Title: Haitian Creole Yahoo search http://www.eli.wayne.edu/students/Newsletter96F1/creole.html Title: The Origin of Haitian Creole Yahoo search