Creole Pig - Definition and Overview

The Creole Pig was a breed of pig indigenous to the Caribbean nation of Haiti. Creole pigs were well adapted to the rugged terrain and sparse vegetation of Haiti. The pig’s resilience allowed Haitian peasants to raise these pigs with little resources. The peasants characterized their pigs as never getting sick. Creole Pigs served as a type of savings account for the Haitian peasant. They were sold or slaughtered to pay for marriages, medical emergencies, schooling, seeds for crops, or a voodoo ceremony. Also, raising these pigs was a profitable activity for many female-headed households in rural areas of Haiti.

Creole pigs, although well adapted to local conditions (feed, management) and popular with the Haitian population, were almost all killed off in the 1970s and 1980s in order to prevent the spread of African swine fever, which had spread from Spain to the Dominican Republic and then to Haiti via the Artibonite River. By 1982 African swine fever had infected almost one-third of Haiti's Creole pig population. Concerned about the spread of the disease into the US, the United States put political pressure on the Haitian government to slaughter all the pigs in their country. The eradication of the Creole pig had gone further to impoverish the already struggling peasants. It forced many children to quit school. Small farmers were forced to mortgage their land. Many Haitians cut down trees for cash income from charcoal.

Creole_Pig.jpg
Image:Creole Pig.jpg

In the Haitian peasant community, the government's eradication and repopulation program was highly criticized. The peasants protested that they were not fairly compensated for their pigs and that the breed of pigs imported from the United States to replace the hardy Creole pigs was unsuitable for the Haitian environment and economy.

The new breed of pigs imported from the US was characterized as “better” than the Creole pig. They were so much better that they required clean drinking water which is unavailable to 80% of the Haitian population, imported feed (costing $90 a year when the [per capita income] was about $130), and special roofed [pigpens]. Haitian peasants quickly named the pigs "prince a quatre pieds," (four-footed princes). The repopulation program was a complete failure.