Gonaïves in the context of "List of communes of Haiti"

The Gulf of Gonâve (French: Golfe de la Gonâve, pronounced [ɡɔlf də la ɡɔnav]; Haitian Creole: Gòf Lagonav) is a large gulf of the Caribbean Sea along the western coast of Haiti. Haiti's capital city, Port-au-Prince, is located on the coast of the gulf. Other cities on the gulf coast include Gonaïves, Saint-Marc, Léogane Miragoâne, and Jérémie. Several islands are located in the gulf, the largest being Gonâve Island, followed by the much smaller Cayemites.

The Gulf is more than 500 km in length from Mole-Saint-Nicolas to Abricots and it consist of more than a dozen bays and harbors. The Port-au-Prince Bay is the largest in the country and one of the biggest in the Caribbean.

A coup d'état in Haiti on 29 February 2004, following several weeks of conflict, resulted in the removal of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide from office. On 5 February, a rebel group, called the National Revolutionary Front for the Liberation and Reconstruction of Haiti, took control of Haiti's fourth-largest city, Gonaïves. By 22 February, the rebels had captured Haiti's second-largest city, Cap-Haïtien and were besieging the capital, Port-au-Prince by the end of February. On the morning of 29 February, Aristide resigned under controversial circumstances and was flown from Haiti by U.S. military and security personnel. He went into exile, being flown directly to the Central African Republic, before eventually settling in South Africa.

Aristide afterwards claimed that he had been kidnapped by U.S. forces, accusing them of having orchestrated a coup d'état against him, a claim denied by U.S. officials. In 2022, a dozen Haitian and French officials told The New York Times that Aristide's earlier calls for reparations had caused France to side with Aristide's opponents and collaborate with the United States to remove him from power. This claim was, however, denied by the United States Ambassador to Haiti at the time, James Brendan Foley.

Saint-Marc (French pronunciation: [sɛ̃ maʁk]; Haitian Creole: Sen Mak) is a commune in western Haiti in Artibonite departement. Its geographic coordinates are 19°7′N 72°42′W / 19.117°N 72.700°W / 19.117; -72.700. At the 2015 Census the commune had 266,642 inhabitants. It is one of the biggest cities, second to Gonaïves, between Port-au-Prince and Cap-Haïtien.

Before the settlement of the French, the region was known as Amani-y ad part of the Xaragua caciquat.

The Haitian Declaration of Independence (French: Acte de l'Indépendance de la République d'Haïti, Haitian Creole: Deklarasyon Endepandans Repiblik Ayiti) was proclaimed on 1 January 1804 in the port city of Gonaïves by Jean-Jacques Dessalines, marking the end of 13-year long Haitian Revolution. The declaration marked Haiti becoming the first independent nation of Latin America and the Caribbean, only the second in the Americas after the United States.

Notably, the Haitian declaration of independence signalled the culmination of the only successful slave revolution in history. Only two copies of the original printed version exist. Both of these were discovered by Julia Gaffield, a Duke University postgraduate student, in the UK National Archives in 2010 and 2011. They are currently held by The National Archives, Kew.

The National Revolutionary Front for the Liberation and Reconstruction of Haiti (French: Front pour la libération et la reconstruction nationales) was a rebel group in Haiti that controlled most of the country following the 2004 Haitian coup d'état. It was briefly known as the "Revolutionary Artibonite Resistance Front", after the country's central Artibonite region, before being renamed on February 19, 2004, to emphasize its national scope.

The group can be considered an alliance between two elements within the coup: armed anti-government gangs and former soldiers of the disbanded Haitian army. The most prominent of the gangs was the one based in Gonaïves, formerly known as the "Cannibal Army", who had once supported Lavalasian-party President, Jean-Bertrand Aristide but later turned against him. The coup initiated with the Cannibal Army's capture of Gonaïves on February 5, 2004. It was led until his death in 2005 by Buteur Metayer since the murder (allegedly on Aristide's orders) of Buteur's brother, Amiot Metayer, in late 2003.