The Big Truck That Went By: How the World Came to Save Haiti and Left Behind a Disaster

The history of Port-au-Prince, Haiti's capital city, has direct relevance to both its importance to the country and its vulnerability. Established by the French in 1749, the location was chosen as a strategic safeguard against piracy, but "with mountains at its back and the sea at its throat" (37), the city had little space to grow, writes Katz. Two years after the capital's founding, an earthquake shook Port-au-Prince. Given the city's geological placement and the fact that any expansion would have to occur on the slopes of the neighboring mountains, it's understandable that Port-au-Prince remained a small town for many years. In the late 1900s, however, due to disastrous trade policies that killed much of Haiti's agriculture industry, rural Haitians migrated to Port-au-Prince en masse. With little available real estate, slums arose in the mountains and poorly built, multistory buildings grew in the urban core. Haiti's history of earthquakes did little to deter the migration. The work was all in the cities now, and the immediate need for a paycheck superseded any potential future threat. All these factors created a city vulnerable to the whims of nature.