by European buyers, French and mostly German,” Christina Schutt adds.
Coffee was at the time Haiti’s main asset, and even its “only real currency,” according to the French consul general. In 1888, two years after Joseph Laroche’s birth, the country exported over seventy-five million pounds of coffee, shipped to Le Havre. Trading with Le Havre, New York, or Hamburg allowed the local economy to remain sustainable and benefited numerous families. While the big planters could easily grow rich from the business, it was not always the case for the small farmers, however. Most of the time, they had to go through multiple middlemen to move their product. They sold the coffee through a trading network of Haitian businesswomen, also called “acrobats,” “submarines,” or “Madan sara.”36 The latter resold the coffee to speculators, who finally brought it to their customers.
According to an official report, “the distribution network was far from linear, because the producers also had direct contact with speculators when they sold them their ground coffee.” Euzélie Laroche preferred procuring directly from the source. This way, she said, everybody wins.
This complex system, put in place by a government that also collected taxes, lasted until 1996. That year, there were two hundred thousand planters, ten thousand acrobats, submarines and madan-sarah, seven hundred speculators, and seven exporters in Haiti. That’s why a minister said: “Coffee is a gold mine for everyone, except its producers.”
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Euzélie Laroche was born 160 kilometers from Le Cap, in the municipality of Grande Rivière du Nord37. She later moved to Le Cap with her mother, who was in search of employment, and Euzélie rapidly adapted to the rhythm of this port city. In fact, Euzélie took the plunge almost immediately, creating her own business, as she wanted independence; she refused to be like the single mothers around her whose sole occupation in life was to raise their children, alone.
In the streets of Grande Rivière du Nord, Euzélie had more than once observed merchant women selling the cheap junk they procured from some local wholesaler. She felt she had it in her to do the same—only better. Buy and sell: it was even easier in a port city like Le Cap, where trade was a tradition.
Founded in 1670 by buccaneers, Cap Français, as it was called in old times, was the heart and soul of the sugar industry. Under the whip, enslaved men and women planted and harvested sugarcane, which the masters sold for their exclusive benefit.
In January 1802, however, the tide had turned. The slaves had eventually rebelled and chased the colonizers away. Then, everything had changed. Well, almost everything.
“The violent separation of the colony from the home country was immediately followed by an embargo that put a stop to all exchange between France and Haiti,” historian Benoît Joachim says. “This greatly benefited the British, who refused to side with the Napoleonic empire and its economic strangulation of the new state.”
The British were not the only ones to take advantage of the new regime. The Germans also continued business with this small, now independent, country. Many of their nationals had been established as traders or merchants since the eighteenth century. In 1841, one of their own, Peter Gottlieb38, disembarked in Le Cap. He was nineteen years old and dreaming of adventure.
Cap Français
Founded in 1670 by buccaneers, Cap Français, as it was called in old times, was the heart and soul of the sugar industry. Under the whip, enslaved men and women planted and harvested sugarcane, which the masters sold for their exclusive benefit. In this picture: The massacre of French colonists and burning of Cap Français in 1820
“The German sailor, Peter Gottlieb, was often seen in the Hamburg port, coming back with vivid stories of lands where anything could be undertaken. The Germans who settled in Haiti were welcome, and it seemed to him the ideal place to start a new life,” Christina Schutt explains about her ancestor.
Peter Gottlieb left gripping testimony of the earthquake39 that devasted Le Cap a year after his arrival, on May 7, 1842. The city had twenty-seven east-west streets crossing at right angles; nineteen north-south streets. The houses had two or three stories. The first floor usually served as a shop or stable. The upper floors were residences.
“I felt terrible anxiety and pain during the ten hours I was stuck under the rubble and beams. My left arm was completely buried, and my body was stuck under the stairs. A big rock on my chest threatened to stop my breathing,” Peter Gottlieb recounted. Nevertheless, he was able to free himself after tremendous effort.
“I finally got around four o’clock in the morning to the beach, where there was a crowd of people, some praying and others crying or screaming of pain from their serious injuries. The city was in total ruin and what had not burnt had been plundered. Indeed, the very first day, bandits appeared from the inner country. They stole everything they could find since military order had disappeared.”
Half of the nine thousand inhabitants of Le Cap perished in the catastrophe. Henri Laroche40, father of Euzélie and grandfather of Joseph, lost two children. Survivors fled to neighboring localities. But a year later, braving their fear, many of them came back. Little by little, Le Cap was rebuilt. Trade resumed gradually. The economy restarted.
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Morning at the Cathédrale Notre-Dame de l’Assomption in Cap-Haïtien, Haiti.
Cap-Haïtien is a port city in the mountainous north coast region of Haiti. It was founded in 1670 by the French and was originally known as Cap-Français. It gained early renown as the “Paris of the Antilles” for its stunning architecture and cultural offerings. It served as capital of Saint-Domingue until 1770 and was the scene of slave uprisings in 1791. The city was razed by French and Haitian troops in 1802 but was later rebuilt under the reign of King Henri Christophe. After the revolution (around 1820), he proclaimed it the capital of the Northern Kingdom of Haiti. Cap-Haïtien was Haiti’s most important city for a long time until Port-au-Prince relegated it to second place. Joseph Laroche was born in Cap-Haïtien, which is often referred as Le Cap or Okap.
Cockfights.
On some afternoons, Joseph attended cockfights in an open-air arena in the outskirts of the city. The gamblers crammed around a circle to watch two gallinaceans furiously trash each other by striking though the feathers with reinforced spurs.
Cockfighting is an ancient spectator sport that can be traced back at least 6,000 years. It was popular in Persia, India, and China, and spread northward into Europe after being introduced to Greece between 524-460, BC. Eventually, colonization and the transatlantic slave trade introduced it to the Western hemisphere. Cockfighting plays a central role in Alex Haley’s novel Roots. In cockfights, specially bred gamecocks are equipped with metal spurs or knives, which are fastened over their natural leg spurs, and are released into a circular ring where they spar off against other gamecocks, often until one of the birds dies from their injuries. Cockfighting is illegal in most of the modern world but is still a popular pastime for many spectators who place bets on the outcome of the fighting matches. As a youngster in Haiti, Joseph often attended cockfights in open air arenas.
While managing her business, Euzélie Laroche did not neglect her son. They had a special bond. First, because he was her only child, and moreover, because he was a boy—her greatest wish—with an origin story similar to her own.
