Haiti: When A Country Has to Pay for Its Freedom

Haiti, a country located in the Caribbeans, is often the subject of news reports, with a natural catastrophe hitting the island every now and again and leaving a lot of damage. Most notably is the 2010 earthquake, which lead to approximately 250 thousand deaths and received international attention and support from many First World countries. Another more recent event has been the earthquake that struck Haiti this summer of 2021, and which is considered the worst disaster to hit the country since the 2010 earthquake (Wikipedia, 2021).

In addition, Haiti is also considered the poorest country in the Northern Hemisphere, and the 16th poorest in the whole world, as of today (Oluwole, 2021).

Being conscious of these facts, one might conclude that poverty in Haiti is due to the its propensity of being hit by natural disasters… But could there be another, deeper reason for the country’s current state?

The answer is, as you might have suspected, yes, and it all goes back to the time when Haiti sought independence from colonialist France in the 19th century.

From indigenous island to colony

Just as any history of an American country begins, the island that includes Haiti was once inhabited by indigenous groups, namely the Taino and the Ciboney, who had named it Quisqueya.

On December of 1492, the Italian navigator working for the Spanish kingdom Christopher Columbus sighted the island of Quisqueya and decided to name it La Isla Española. Over the next century, Taino and Ciboney communities were enslaved by the Spanish to work on gold mines in the island – their brutal working conditions, as well the exposure to European diseases, led to the annihilation of the island’s indigenous population, which was inexistent by the end of the 16th century.

Once the main mines had been depleted of gold, many Spaniards abandoned the island, leaving it free for French pirates to settle. Later on, the French West Indies Corporation took control of the northwest portion of the island and started to import grand numbers of African slaves to work in plantations.

Eventually, in 1697, the Treaty of Rijswijk took place, in which Spain agreed to cede the western portion (current Haiti territory) of La Isla Española to France, which renamed it Saint-Domingue. Saint-Domingue soon became France’s most prosperous colony, exporting mostly sugar and smaller amounts of coffee, cacao, indigo, and cotton.

By the end of the 18th century, 95% of Saint-Domingue’s population was composed of slaves, with the rest being colonizers and a very small proportion of affranchis, that, is, black or mixed-race people who weren’t held as slaves.

The Haitian Revolution

Whether slaves or not, people of colour in the colony were constantly oppressed and segregated by the white colonizers, and, eventually, they started to rebel.

In late 1770s, affranchi Vincent Ogé led an uprising against France’s Imperialism, but was captured, tortured, and executed. Subsequent affranchi and slave revolts took place, forcing the French government to grant citizenship to all affranchis in 1792 and abolish slavery altogether in the following year.

At the same time this was happening, Toussaint Louverture, a military leader and former slave, started to gain popularity for his military designs and political activity, collaborating with the French and the British. However, Napoléon Bonaparte, who by then had already become France’s military leader, felt threatened by Louverture’s power and, wishing to restore more control over the island, he sent his brother-in-law, general Charles Leclerc, with his troops.

Toussaint fought for several months against Leclerc’s forces, but was captured and sent to France in 1802, where he died the next year.

Nevertheless, Saint-Domingue’s black army continued fighting against France and, in November of 1803, they officially won the war in the Battle of Vertière. This victory was truly a great historical event because it was the only time an army of slaves won against a colonial army, let alone the most powerful army of that period.

However, this is not an event we ever hear about, especially in the Western world. In school, we learn about Napoleon’s defeats in the battle of Waterloo and in the French invasion of Russia, but never in a French public school has the Battle of Vertière been taught (Collins, 2020).

On 1 January of 1804, Saint-Domingue was declared independent and was renamed Haiti, which is derived from the Taino’s indigenous language. However, a new problem emerged because, now, colonial nations such as Spain and England and slave owners in the United Sates were threatening Haiti’s freedom and independence by organising a blockade, impeding Haiti to export and import goods to and from other countries, preventing its economy from growing and prospering.

Haitians needed France’s recognition of their independence because that was the only way other countries would recognize their independence as well.

Finally, in 1825, France’s then-king Charles X agreed to recognize Haiti as an independent country. However, that came with a cost: Haiti would have to pay the French regime an indemnity of 150 million francs, which is approximately 21 billion US dollars today. The reason for that, as Charles X argued, was that former-land owners in Saint-Domingue lost all their revenue when they got deprived of their slaves and land, and, therefore, deserved a compensation.

Haiti took 127 years to pay the whole indemnity, plus the interest rate.

Today

Knowing this new information, we can look at Haiti’s current situation in a different light. Yes, they have been struck by several natural disasters, but so has their neighbouring country, the Dominican Republic, and yet, they are ten times less poor than Haiti (Rach, 2019).

Money that could have gone towards erecting the country, allowing a good quality of life to its citizens by investing on public services, education and proper construction of buildings, was instead channelled to France. And now, 60% of Haitians are living in poverty (Choi, 2021).

Following the 2010 earthquake, the French government was urged by international activists to reimburse Haiti’s independence dept with an amount of 20 billion dollars. The same has been asked, again, after this summer’s earthquake. France has yet to respond.

Unfortunately, France’s inability to take full responsibility for its former-colony’s current struggles isn’t an exceptional case (click here to read about India and the UK’s case).

Former-colonial nations’ pride and selfishness are having a direct impact in their past colonies’ struggle to prosper and develop. And we, as citizens of those nations, remain clueless about these barbaric actions that took place because no one has taught us about them.

But it is time for that to change. As Haitian CEO Ralph Emmanuel François states in an interview with ABC News, “It is also about accountability. It is also about responsibility. Not only saying that I’m sorry, but also saying that I am fully responsible for that”.

Works cited:

Wikipedia contributors. "2021 Haiti earthquake." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 29 Sep. 2021. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=2021_Haiti_earthquake&oldid=1047265514 Web. 2 Oct. 2021.

Oluwole, Victor. “Mapped: The 25 Poorest Countries in the World.” Business Insider Africa, 21 May 2021, www.africa.businessinsider.com/local/markets/mapped-the-25-poorest-countries-in-the-world/f2tg0wr.

Girault, Christian Antoine. "Haiti". Encyclopedia Britannica, 20 Sep. 2021, https://www.britannica.com/place/Haiti. Accessed 2 October 2021.

Collins, Lauren. “The Haitian Revolution and the Hole in French High-School History.” The New Yorker, 3 Dec. 2020, www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/the-haitian-revolution-and-the-hole-in-french-high-school-history.

Rach. “Haiti and the Dominican Republic Share an Island - Why Are They so Different?” Very Hungry Nomads, 6 May 2019, www.veryhungrynomads.com/haiti-and-the-dominican-republic-share-an-island.

Choi, Hyeyoon. “How Colonial-Era Debt Helped Shape Haiti’s Poverty and Political Unrest.” ABC News, 25 July 2021, www.abcnews.go.com/US/colonial-era-debt-helped-shape-haitis-poverty-political/story?id=78851735.