ABSTRACT
Important migratory movements took place between Haiti and Cuba between the First World War and 1930. These migrations which were both permanent and temporary were due almost exclusively to economic factors. The influx of Haitians represented an important addition to the labor force for the Cuban sugar harvest during a period of rapid expansion in the sugar industry, while at the same time this migration helped considerably to reduce the population pressure which had mounted in Haiti during the course of the nineteenth century and which after the turn of the century was visible in the form of increasing scarcity of arable land.
The migration of Haitian cane-cutters to Cuba is a theme which has been subject to little systematic research. The present note represents an attempt to present the most important characteristics of Haitian-Cuban migration and at the same time offers an analysis of the causes of migration.
‘Fifteen years I spent in Cuba, fifteen years, every day cutting sugar cane, oui, every day, from sunrise to dusk-dark. At first, the bones in your back get all twisted up like a corkscrew. But there’s something makes you stand it. What? Tell me, do you know what it is?’ He clenched his fists as he talked. ‘It’s being mad – that’s what! Being mad makes you grit your teeth and tighten your belt when you’re hungry…’
Jacques Roumain, Masters of the Dew