Pierre Toussaint, famous early NYC barber & Catholic layman

There are no certain statistics about the faiths of Haitians in New York City. We have sorted through various scholarly, religious organizations’, and community estimates to arrive at our figures. We are also continuing to interview Haitian religious leaders about the attendance at their religious sites. We welcome any additional information.

A majority of NYC Haitians identify with the Roman Catholic Church. The Catholic church with the largest Haitian attendance is Saint Joachim & Saint Anne Roman Catholic Church in Brooklyn. This church is also a center for 21 Haitian Catholic charismatic groups scattered around Brooklyn, Queens, and Long Island.

The Protestant churches officially count 100 churches, and there are a number of uncounted ones. The Protestants, mainly evangelical, probably make up about 20-25% of the Haitian community in New York City. In comparison, the Haitian community in Miami, Florida is majority Protestant.

People who identify with Vodou make up about 30% of the population. Haitians, who lean toward Vodou beliefs and practices, commonly also practice other religions like Catholicism.

In Haiti and the Haitian diaspora, the proportion of Haitians who are Protestants is growing. Vodou is declining among Haitians, in part due to Protestant missionaries and to Catholic revival movements like the Charismatic movement.

Haiti

From the country of Haiti, we have somewhat more certain figures about religion:

  • Roman Catholics                                    55% 2003 (UN survey)
  • Evangelical/Pentecostal Protestants     33% 2010 (estimate) 20% 2003 (UN Survey) 3% 1940 (estimate)
  • Vodou                                                    50% (estimate)

See website Operationworld.com

Haitian Religious Chronology

  • 1493 Columbus’ second voyage to Santo Domingo, or, as he named it, Hispaniola, brings Dominican priests. Followed by Jesuits, Franciscans and Capuchins. The first Jew to settle in Haiti, Luis de Torres, arrived in 1492 as Christopher Columbus’s interpreter.
  • 1750-1790       Formation of Vodou
  • 1787                   Pierre Toussaint comes as slave to NYC. Raised funds for the original St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Mott and Prince Streets. Cardinal O’Connor moved Toussaint’s grave to the crypt inside St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Fifth Avenue.
  • 1791-1804       Haitian Revolution launched with Bwa Kayiman Vodou ceremony, Aug. 13–14, 1791 and presided over by a slave and voudou priest named Boukman. Notable independence leader: Toussaint Louverture
  • 1807                   English Wesleyan Mission
  • 1816                    Quaker evangelism by Stephen Grellet & John Hancock
  • 1823                    A freed slave Thomas Paul from New Hampshire is first Baptist missionary to Haiti.
  • 1829                    Haitian Mother Lange started with her own money the first school for Black children in the United States in 1819. She founded the first religious congregation for women of color, the Oblate Sisters of Providence in 1829. In 1991 she was proposed for sainthood in the Roman Catholic Church.
Mother Lange
  • 1853 June            Pierre Toussaint dies in New York City. He originally was buried outside St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral, where he was once refused entrance because of his race. His sanctity and the popular devotion to him caused his body to be moved to the present location of St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Fifth Avenue. Toussaint was the first layman to be honored by burial in the crypt below the main altar of St Patrick’s Cathedral on Fifth Avenue. The crypt is normally reserved for bishops of the Archdiocese of New York.
  • 1861                    Establishment of Episcopal Church of Haiti by 110 African-American immigrants.
  • 1879                   Seventh-day Adventists begin.
  • 1889                   Frederick Douglass is U.S. Minister and Consul General to Haiti.
  • 1890s                 Nationalist Louis Joseph Janvier promotes a Protestant vision for Haiti.
  • 1915-1934        After a mob kills the Haitian president, the United States occupies Haiti.
  • 1920                  Muslims from Morocco settle in Haiti.
  • 1920s-1930s   Pentecostals arise.
  • 1931                     Church of God of Prophecy Mission
  • 1934                    Church of God World Missions (Cleveland, TN)
  • 1940s                 Independent Pentecostals in the hills around Miragoane; later join Assembly of God
  • 1941-1943         Forced closure of Pentecostal churches
  • 1945                    Haitian Assembly of God starts.
  • 1948                    Haitian Nazarene Church starts.
  • 1950                    Haitian Salvation Army starts.
  • 1966                    Haitian Mennonite Church starts.
  • 1966                    Pierre Toussaint was declared “Venerable,” a step toward sainthood in 1996.
  • 1969                    Haitian Church of God  starts.
  • 1957-1986        Pro-Vodou Duvalier dictatorship & impoverishment of Haiti. Extreme poverty rose from 46% in 1976 to 81% in 1985.
  • 1980                    Haitian Lutheran Church starts.
  • 1987                    Boyce Bible Center established & directed by Dr. Jean-Baptiste (Southern Baptist Church).
  • 1965                    Establishment of Baptist Church of the French Language/Eglise Baptiste d’Expression Francaise (Southern Baptist) of Brooklyn. 2010: Pastor Jean-Baptiste Thomas, 4000 members.
  • 1975                    Father Joseph Malagreca, “baptized in the Holy Spirit,” starts ministry to Catholic Haitians in Brooklyn. Presbyterian Church in America mission to Haiti
  • 1980 May Missionary work in Haiti was begun by Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons).
  • 1985                    Haitian state officially recognizes Protestantism. First mosque in Haiti
  • 1986                    Elim Fellowship World Missions of New York starts branch in Haiti.
  • 1991                    Father Malagreca becomes pastor of Satin Joachim & Saint Anne Roman Catholic Church, Brooklyn.
  • 1990 Dec           Preaching liberation theology, Father Jean Bertrand Aristide elected President, ousted in October 1991.
  • 1997                    Abner Louima brutalized by rogue NYC police officers. Attends Fishers of Men Church, Brooklyn.
  • 2003                   Haitian state officially recognizes Vodou.
  • 2004 Father Jean Bertrand Aristide ousted for the second time and leaves for exile.
  • 2004 United Nations peacekeeping force authorized by the Security Council, known as the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti, or by its French acronym Minustah. After years of controversy, mission terminated in 2017, though some peacekeepers remain in Haiti.
  • 2005                   Evangelical Pastor Chavannes Jeune runs for President of Haiti (4th Place with 6% of the vote).
  • 2010 Jan 1        27.0 earthquake, 230,000 dead, 1 million homeless
  • 2016 Cholera introduced through poor sanitation of Asian U.N. peacekeepers. Killed 10,000+ Haitians and sickened 800,000+.
  • 2018 June         NYC designates the area in Flatbush as “Little Haiti.”  Borough President Eric Adams has referred to Brooklyn as the Port-au-Prince of America.
  • 2021 Gangs cut off capital from rest of country. 2 Protestant missionaries died in plane crash in July while trying to get around blockade. Kidnappings for ransom by gangs skyrocket. 91 people documented kidnapped in April 2021, including seven Catholic priests, including two French nationals abducted in broad daylight from their convoy.

2021 June Catholic church Bishop Alphonse Quesnel and other bishops oppose referendum called by acting president Jovenel Moise as an unworkable and arbitrary decree.

  • 2021 July 7 President Jovenel Moïse assassinated. “Nou Pap Domi” (We Never Sleep), a Catholic-realted citizen watchdog group that has campaigned against corruption and called for Moïse to step down, condemned the assassination and the river of blood flowing in Haiti.

Further reading about Haitian religions

Compiled by Bob Corbett with additions by Elizabeth McAlister, Leslie G. Desmangles,  Glen Ingrham, and Tony Carnes.

Brodwin, Paul. 1991. Political Contests and Moral Claims: Religious Pluralism and Healing in a Haitian Village. Ph.D Dissertation, Harvard University.

Belany,  Ephren.  1998. L’iglise  protestante  d’Haiti  en  question.  Port-au-Prince:  Imprimerie Media-text.

Brodwin,  Paul.  1996. Medicine  and morality  in  Haiti.  Cambridge,  England:  Cambridge University Press.

Pentecostalism in translation: Religion and the production of community in the Haitian diaspora. 2003. American  Ethnologist 30, no. 1: 85-101.

Brown, Karen McCarthy.  1991. Mama Lola: A  Vodou priestess in Brooklyn. Berkeley: University of  California Press.

Melvin Butler. 2008. “The Weapons of Our Warfare: Music, Positionality, and Transcendence Among Haitian Pentecostals” Caribbean Studies. Special Issue: Interrogating Caribbean Music: Power, Dialogue, and Transcendence. Volume 36:2, pp. 23-64.

Conway, Frederick. 1978. Pentecostalism in the Context of Haitian Religion and Health Practice. Ph.D. dissertation, American University, Washington DC.

Greene, Anne.  1993. The  Catholic church in  Haiti:  Political and social change.  East  Lansing: Michigan State University Press.

Griffiths, Leslie. 1991. History of Methodism in Haiti. Imprimerie Methodiste.

Hurbon, Laennec ed. 1989. Le Phenomene religieux dans la Caraibe: Guadeloupe, Guyane, Haiti. Montreal: Les Editions du CIDIHCA.

Jeanty, Edner A. 1989. Le  Christianisme en Haiti. Port-au-Prince:  La  Presse Evangelique.

Lain, Clinton Eugene. 1998. Church growth and evangelism in Haiti: Needs, problems, and methods. D.Miss. diss., Asbury Theological Seminary.

Louis, Andre Jeantil. 1998. Catholicism, Protestantism, and a model of effective ministry in the context of voodoo in Haiti. D.Min., Fuller Theological Seminary.

Metraux, Alfred. Vodou et Protestantisme Alfred Metraux. 1958 Oct-Dec. Revue de l’Histoire des Relgions, Vol 144, No 2, pp 198-216. Chambers comments: Discusses Voodoo and Protestantism in the Marbial Valley.

McAlister, Elizabeth. 2002. Rara! Vodou, Power, and Performance in Haiti and its Diaspora.  Los Angeles and Berkeley: University of California Press.

McAlister, Elizabeth. 1998. “Madonna of 115th St. Revisited: Vodou and Haitian Catholicism in the Age of Transnationalism,” in S. Warner, ed., Gatherings in Diaspora. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

Margarita A. Mooney. 2009. Faith Makes Us Live: Surviving and Thriving in the Haitian Diaspora. Berkeley, California: University of California Press .

Michel, Claudine, and Patrick Bellegarde-Smith, Eds. 2006. Invisible Powers: Vodou in Haitian Life and Culture. New York, Palgrave Macmillan.

Pressoir, Catts. La protestantisme Haitien (Haitian Protestantism). 1945. P-au-P: Imprimerie de la Societe Biblique et des Livres Religieux d’Haiti, Vol 1; P-au-P, Imprimerie du Seminaire Adventiste, 1977, Vol 2;

Charles-Poisset Romain. 1985. Le Protestantism Dans La Societe Haitienne, Impremerie Henri Deschamps.

Tekle Mariam Woldimikael. 1989. Becoming Black American: Haitians and American Institutions in Evanston, Illinois. New York: AMS Press.