Sainte-Suzanne

Nicknamed the “Garden City”, Sainte-Suzanne spreads over an area of 122km. Around 25,596 people inhabit the place. Chop, Blanc, Sarazin, Mocha-Nine, Fuller and Fond Bleu are its six communal sections.

The Suzannians, Suzanns, Suzannes, or the Suzannese, estimated around 30,000 inhabitants, according to the interviewees are very hospitable people who believe that agriculture remains the basis of economic and social development of the area.

History: At the time of the colony and the American occupation, the commune of Sainte Suzanne had served as a zone of resistance for the slaves during the French occupation and Cacos during the American occupation.

Historically, the commune of Sainte-Suzanne was recognized as a district of Trou-du-Nord, but thanks to the efforts of the late memory, Septimus Jean-François, the area was raised to the rank of Commune in 1881.

Located in the Northeast Department, Sainte-Suzanne is one of the four municipalities that make up the Borough of Trou-du-Nord. It is an interior commune, its dominant relief is the mountains and its climate is fresh.

Administratively, it is divided into six Communal Sections and a district (Dupity included in the Fond-Bleu section). Fond-Bleu, although far from the town center, is the most populated communal section, with nearly a third of the population.

From an orographic point of view, the region of Sainte-Suzanne is an extension of the catchment area of ​​Vallières, coming out of Grosse-Roche via Fond Bleu and Mocaneuf. Part of this watershed extends to Limonade and feeds the river Parois in rainwater.

In 1998, the population of the commune of Sainte Suzanne was estimated at 22,694 inhabitants. For an area of ​0.18 km2 the town center’s density was 10,562 inhabitants / km2.

Boundaries

With respect to administrative boundaries, it can be said that the Commune of Sainte-Suzanne is bordered:

• On the East by the Commune of Trou-du-Nord
• On the West by the Commune of the Great North River (Grande-Rivière-du-Nord)
• North by the Commune Limonade
• In the South by the Vallières, Ranquitte and Bahon communes.

Demographics: Following the difficulties encountered in relation to agriculture, this region is nowadays experiencing a strong tendency towards internal and external migration. Some members of the population, especially young people, travel to Fort-Liberté, Cap-Haïtien and Port-au-Prince in search of the bread of instruction and seldom they come back. Others older, especially farmers, as the year progresses travel to the Dominican Republic in order to be better-off the killing or the loss of all that they have been able to produce there and return even poorer than before. According to some interviewees, part of the CCC, there is a third category of migrants, called seasonal migration from the section of Mocaneuf who go every year between March and May in Central Plateau looking for work on farms.

There is no minimum meteorological station at Sainte-Suzanne to record the climatic data of the Commune. However, the Ministry of Agriculture, Natural Resources and Rural Development (MARNDR) has a small artisanal rain gauge installed on the habitation of Benn in Sarazin, raised between 400 and 500 m (1,200 to 1,500 feet) altitude used to record annual rainfall in the area. Meanwhile, there is no rain gauge in Dupity district, located 600 m (200 feet) higher. However, from the agro-ecological point of view, this locality seems quite different from the others. Following our observations on the ground, we discover that the Commune Sainte-Suzanne as a whole is semi-humid considering the climate of the four communal sections close to the Bourg Center (Foulon, Bois-Blanc, Cotelette and Sarazin) apparently dry and that of the communities close to Dupity (Mocaneuf and Fond Bleu) very wet.

In general, rainfall varies from year to year, which prevents farmers from understanding the seasonal issues. For the year 2003, for example, rainfall has reached 2,354.45 mm. The following table presents the annual change in rainfall over three years

According to some elderly people invited to the meetings, in time, around the 60s, the commune was wetter especially from September to March with very little heat from May to August, but given the current state of mountain peaks, today’s situation is totally different.

The following table presents the inter-monthly variations of rainfall and temperature in the Commune of Sainte-Suzanne.

We find in all of the region of Sainte-Suzanne, two rainy seasons and two dry seasons, the rainy seasons going from November to December and from April to June, while the dry seasons extend from January to March and from July to October. The area, despite its degradation, is very cool and pleasant with an annual average temperature oscillating around 27°C (81°F). It combines the favorable climatic conditions for the development of crops such as coffee and lends itself to fruit growing, both on the hills and in the highlands. Thanks to the climate, the people of the four communal sections (1st Foulon, 2nd Bois Blanc, 3rd Cotelette and 4th Sarazin) near the town center are vegetable crops and cultivate the yam, beans while in Mocaneuf and Fond Bleu on Dupity, farmers maintain cassava, potatoes and beans.

Soils: Soils of the Commune Sainte-Suzanne are, in general, peculiar to arboreal agriculture. They come from quartzite diorites. On the slopes, the soils encountered are mainly clay or silt and rarely the limestone found at the feet. In the town center and in the neighboring communal sections, the soils have a natural drainage, which facilitates their leaching and therefore makes them not very fertile. By cons, approaching Dupity, we realize that the natural drainage is not quite obvious and there are even in some places stagnations of water, especially on the road. According to some members of the population, the land for years would have lost its agricultural potential since the peasants until now: Continue cutting down trees for coal production especially at Dupity; Use lump-sum and contradictory farming practices to logics of soil conservation, despite the repeated advice of the MARNDR executives; Farmers, so to speak, refuse to make vegetable strips, they do not understand the need, for example, to use slopes on a contour; Continue to practice burning (slash-and-burn agriculture), they do not also want to make straw banisters on the pretext that they tolerate insects that harm crops;

In fact, by observing the mountains, one notes that they have undergone a strong anthropic action which leads to the loss of the resources of soil, transported in the course of the day by the rivers which cross the region, the disappearance of the coffee growing in a word, the most profound rhexistasia.

Water: The hydrographic network of the Commune of Sainte-Suzanne although very imposing is not used by the community. Almost all communal sections are crossed by rivers with more or less regular flow. Sudden floods in some areas take lives and property as they pass, all year long, except in February and March coinciding with the drought period. The table below provides information on the water potential of the area.

Throughout the Commune, river water is used for various purposes ranging from domestic services (beverage, laundry, food, garbage disposal, human defecation) to construction activities to finish with the needs of agriculture and livestock (i.e. breeding and watering animals). All rivers discharge their waters in the North. The sources, according to what the interviewees reported, are also very numerous. More than twenty have been enumerated for the whole area. Other water points such as ponds, in all communal sections, are also identified, but these over the years have experienced sedimentation following erosion and in the vast majority of cases people without technical knowledge have made interventions on their banks to enlarge them.

Basins: The Commune Sainte-Suzanne is home to nearly four watersheds that originate in its various communal sections and flow into the Northern Department. This explains why, even when there is no rain in the neighboring lands of the Great North River or from Parois River, in Limonade, we can observe that these waters are muddy and tumultuous, this results from the vastness of their catchment basins that start in the heights of Sainte-Suzanne.