The Coin and Currency Club selection for the month is the Caribbean nation of Haiti. The Republic of Haiti is a Caribbean country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles. The island was originally inhabited by the indigenous Taíno people, who originated in South America. The first Europeans arrived on December, 5 1492 during the first voyage of Christopher Columbus, who initially believed he had found India or China. Columbus subsequently founded the first European settlement in the Americas, La Navidad, on what is now the northeastern coast of Haiti. The western portion of the island was ceded to France in 1697. In the midst of the French Revolution (1789–99), slaves and free people of color launched the Haitian Revolution (1791–1804), led by a former slave and the first black general of the French Army, Toussaint Louverture. After 12 years of conflict, Napoleon Bonaparte‘s forces were defeated by Louverture’s successor, Jean-Jacques Dessalines (later Emperor Jacques I), who declared Haiti’s sovereignty on 1 January 1804—the first independent nation of Latin America, the second republic in the Americas, the first country in the Americas to abolish slavery, and the only state in history established by a successful slave revolt.
Flag of Haiti
Front of the 10 gourdes banknote is Haitian revolutionary heroine Sanité Bélair
Charlemagne Péralte a Haitian nationalist leader who opposed the United States occupation of Haiti in 1915 is on the 50 centimes coin.