Haiti

Haiti is the country that changed the world. In 1804, enslaved Africans in the French colony of Saint-Domingue did what no enslaved people had ever done before - they rose up, defeated Napoleon's army, and founded the first free Black republic in history. That revolution shook the foundations of slavery across the Americas, inspired independence movements from Latin America to Africa, and doubled the size of the United States when Napoleon, humiliated, sold Louisiana to fund his wars. No country this small has ever had this much impact on world history.

The western third of Hispaniola, Haiti is a place of extraordinary cultural richness and devastating hardship. Haitian art - the vivid, colorful paintings, the intricate metalwork, the elaborate Carnival costumes - is among the most distinctive in the Americas. Haitian Creole, spoken by 12 million people, is a full language with its own grammar and literature. Vodou, often misunderstood and caricatured by outsiders, is a complex spiritual tradition that sustained enslaved people through unimaginable suffering and remains central to Haitian identity. The Citadelle Laferriere, the largest fortress in the Americas, stands on a mountaintop as a monument to the determination of a people who refused to be enslaved again.