Income and Land Distribution in Haiti: Some Remarks on Available Statistics

Abstract

The logical starting point for an investigation on distributional issues in Haiti is James Leyburn’s 1941 classic, The Haitian People,¹ which divides the Haitian population into two distinct classes: the elite and the peasant masses. This division cannot be based on any single scale of measurement; several criteria must be employed. According to Leyburn,² the following are the most important distinctions: the elite do not perform manual labor, are educated, speak French, live in towns, are formally married, practice Roman Catholicism, and are (predominantly but not necessarily) light-skinned. The peasants, on the other hand, are manual workers, illiterate speak nothing but Creole, live in the countryside, practice common-law marriage and voodoo, and are black. More importantly, especially as concerns the focus of the present work, the two groups differ dramatically in economic terms:

Since the maintenance of a high standard of living is costly, it is obvious that another source of caste³ distinction lies in the inequalities of wealth and property. Wealth is a relative term, however, and the Haitian peasant is so poor that by contrast a few hundred dollars’ income a year will seem like riches. The elite live economically by American standards, yet even parsimonious spending of many may, when governed by a consciousness of social distinctions, make the peak of aristocracy unassailable.⁴

Even though Leyburn was exaggerating the extent of the cleavage between Haitian societies by referring to a ‘caste system’⁵ he was, nevertheless, pointing out a fundamental economic fact: the separation of the rich from the poor. Haiti had a patent problem with income distribution.