The recorded history of Haiti began on 5 December 1492 when the European navigator Christopher Columbus happened upon a large island in the region of the western Atlantic Ocean that later came to be known as the Caribbean. It was inhabited by the Taíno, an Arawakan people, who variously called their island Ayiti, Bohio, or Kiskeya. Columbus promptly claimed the island for the Spanish Crown, naming it La Isla Española ("the Spanish Island"), later Latinized to Hispaniola.
Read more about History Of Haiti: Pre-Spanish History, Spanish Hispaniola (1492-1625), United States Occupation (1915–1934)
Famous quotes containing the words history of, history and/or haiti:
“Culture, the acquainting ourselves with the best that has been known and said in the world, and thus with the history of the human spirit.”
—Matthew Arnold (1822–1888)
“The history of philosophy is to a great extent that of a certain clash of human temperaments.”
—William James (1842–1910)
“For four hundred years the blacks of Haiti had yearned for peace. for three hundred years the island was spoken of as a paradise of riches and pleasures, but that was in reference to the whites to whom the spirit of the land gave welcome. Haiti has meant split blood and tears for blacks.”
—Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960)