Haiti

One island shared by two very different nations. Hispaniola was the island where Columbus first brought Spanish settlers, wiping out the Amerindians who lived there within a generation. At the end of the 17th century, the island was divided between France and Spain and from then on their paths diverged. The French colony, Saint Domingue, was highly profitable but based on the untenable basis of slavery. The Spanish colony, Santo Domingo, was less profitable, having been abandoned by Spain in favour of richer colonies in South and Central America. Nowadays the position is reversed. Having carried out a successful slave rebellion at the beginning of the 19th century, Haiti's new rulers never managed to achieve the former level of prosperity and gradually the country declined to become the poorest in the Western Hemisphere. The former Spanish colony, which called itself the Dominican Republic, remained impoverished under the rule of ruthless dictators until the 1960s, when the last of the oligarchs was assassinated and the first steps were taken towards democracy and prosperity.