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The constitution of Haiti establishes the freedom of religion. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs oversees and monitors religious groups and laws affecting them. While Catholicism has not been the state religion since 1987, a 19th-century concordat with the Holy See continues to confer preferential treatment to the Catholic Church, in the form of ...
Haiti was first colonized by the Spanish, who later abandoned the island's western portion. That region came under French influence after 1630, and was formally recognized as the French colony of Saint-Domingue in 1697. Under French rule, Roman Catholicism was the sole legal religion, though African slaves frequently practiced vodou. Slaves ...
Vodou is the common spelling for the religion among scholars, in official Haitian Creole orthography, and by the United States Library of Congress. [59] Some scholars prefer the spellings Vodoun , Voudoun , or Vodun , [ 60 ] while in French the spellings vaudou [ 61 ] or vaudoux also appear. [ 62 ]
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After a massacre in 1804, nearly all the clergy left the colony but Jean-Baptiste-Joseph Brelle became the Archbishop ("grand-archevêque") of Haiti (without a regular appointment), named by Dessalines. For the following two years the only religious services given at Port-au-Prince were held by a former sacristan. After the overthrow of Jacques ...
Haiti (also earlier Hayti) [d] comes from the indigenous Taíno language and means "land of high mountains"; [38] it was the native name [e] for the entire island of Hispaniola. The name was restored by Haitian revolutionary Jean-Jacques Dessalines as the official name of independent Saint-Domingue, as a tribute to the Amerindian predecessors. [42]
By 1840, Haiti had ceased to export sugar entirely, although large amounts continued to be grown for local consumption as taffia-a raw rum. However, Haiti continued to export coffee, which required little cultivation and grew semi-wild. The 1842 Cap-Haïtien earthquake destroyed the city, and the Sans-Souci Palace, killing 10,000 people.
Vodou developed from combining of the different West African religions brought by slaves; the word Vodou is derived from an African word meaning spirit. It is the most widely practiced and considered the official religion of Haiti. Although a few devout Catholics denounce it, the majority of Haitians practice both religions simultaneously.