The Haitian People

Leyburn provides a connected story of the growth of Haiti’s social institutions out of the backgrounds of slavery and French colonial life and the slow shaping of these institutions through the 19th century. The central thesis of the book is that Haitian society is divided into two segments, the yeomanry and the elite, and that the national institutional structure has not allowed any alteration in that division in the course of Haiti’s history as a sovereign nation.