Hesketh Prichard took a trip to Haiti in 1899 and documented it in his book "Where Black Rules White." I'll slowly add interesting tidbits and anecdotes to this thread over the next hour or so as I come across them: 
First impressions upon reaching the shore: "Most of them carried heavy jointed clubs."
"The street was full of men and women, screaming, gesticulating, and shouting. A bareheaded negro was blowing a tin trumpet in long, ringing blasts. The din was incredible."
"General Johannis Merissier...can neither read nor write...What one man writes for him he gets another man to read..."
Beginning the trek to Port-au-Prince: "At this stage of the journey we began to pass human habitations which in every particular might have been borrowed wholesale from West Africa....children not clad at all...humpy shoulders of thatch huts.."
"We came to a bridge after a while, and my guide said: 'When you see a bridge, always go round it.' Later I discovered this to be a national proverb. It was sound advice too, for the bridge had a 6 ft. hole in the centre of it."
Port-Au-Prince: "A fester, a scar made by man, as it were of malice prepense, upon the natural loveliness of his environment."
Garbage lining the streets:
1/3 of the military are of the rank of General:
On the power of Voodoo:
Punishment for child sacrifice and cannibalism: a couple days in the slammer or a few lashings, then release
A close brush with death by poisoning:
Sailors pilfering what little could be sold from the few remaining ships in their "navy":
"In Haiti there are only three classes who work: the white man, the black woman and the ass."
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