Guess who’s directly responsible for the abject poverty and violence that is forcing so many Haitians to flee to the United States?
I didn’t know this until today, but the answer is that France and the United States were the chief culprits.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/05/20/world/americas/enslaved-haiti-debt-timeline.html
Haiti’s modern history began with Christopher Columbus’ arrival in 1492, to an island inhabited by about 100,000 native Arawak peoples. By 1514 over 90 percent of the native population had died from enslavement and European diseases. To sustain their lust for gold and copper and other Haitian products, the Europeans began wholesale slave imports to the island. Nearly a million slaves were brought to, and died on, Haiti over a hundred years.
By the late 1700s, the French rulers of Haiti were still importing 30,000 slaves per year, and there were 10 times as many slaves as whites and freed slaves. Everything finally changed in 1791 when the slaves revolted and finally won their freedom permanently. France fought back, but by 1804 the revolt was finalized when France finally withdrew from Haiti, the second nation in the Americas to win its independence (the United States was the first), and the first truly-successful slave revolt which legitimately began the decline of slavery in the Americas.
But in 1825, France sent a flotilla of 14 warships with 500 cannon and threatened to recapture Haiti; they levied a 150 million franc debt on the new nation in due to the loss of human property. Haiti traded this cost for their diplomatic recognition, eventually bargaining down the debt to 90 million francs by 1838 – about $35 billion in 2024 dollars. To pay this massive debt, Haiti began to take out loans from French banks. The first payment alone, in 1925, was six times the entire Haitian revenue that year.
It took Haiti 122 years to pay off the direct debt, of course with interest – but this doesn’t account for the huge economic and civic impacts from the massive loan payments that could not instead be spent on the Haitian people’s needs.
Estimates approach $124 billion in current dollars in total economic impact and direct costs paid by Haiti. For reference, the 2024 Haiti budget is the equivalent of approximately 2.4 billion US dollars. $124 billion dollars is over 50 times the current annual budget of Haiti.
In 1915, in response to political upheavals in Haiti, the United States occupied the nation in a military invasion, and manipulated Haitian elections to install puppet governments, and forced a constitution that gave the US control over Haitian security and finances. The goal was ostensibly to force governmental stability, secure economic interests on the island, and protect the US mainland against German and other foreign influences. One of the first things the invading Marines did was to strip out $500,000 in gold ($16 million in 2024 dollars) from the Haitian national bank and carry it back to the US, for “safekeeping.”
In 1922 the US government forced negotiation of a $16 million loan from the US ($300 million in 2024 dollars) to repay European debts. The US stayed until 1934, siphoning off Haitian finances via these debt repayments to the US government, and allowing foreign land ownership, further bankrupting the small nation. About 15,000 Haitians were killed during the occupation. Also during the occupation, organized Haitian schooling was essentially eliminated, leading to large-scale long-term illiteracy and further damage to the Haitian peoples.
In recent years, Haiti finally began to recognize the truth of what was done to them, and began to demand reparations be paid to THEM, instead of owing France money for their freedom. In 2004, Haiti’s government began to demand that France repay it for these unfair costs. After the utterly devastating 2010 earthquake, Haitian scholars and journalists began to lobby harder for repayment, and a French economist revisited the topic in 2020. But so far, nothing significant has been done.
With this information in mind, where do we really think that the humanitarian crisis actually started? Who is ultimately responsible for the horrible living conditions and instability that force so many desperate people to seek a better place?
The answer should now be obvious: France and the United States, who enforced debt slavery on the Haitian people, raped the nation of its natural resources, occupied the nation for generations, and devastated its natural economy and peoples.
When we treat people like property, we should expect no less a horror than this.
Maybe, rather than trying to run the Haitians out of Springfield OH, we should be paying them massive reparations, and doing something serious about rebuilding the island nation.
Sources:
https://www.britannica.com/place/Haiti/Early-period
https://www.cadtm.org/Debt-Coups-Colonialism-in-Haiti-France-U-S-Urged-to-Pay-Reparations-for
https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2021/10/05/1042518732/-the-greatest-heist-in-history-how-haiti-was-forced-to-pay-reparations-for-freed
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haiti_Independence_Debt
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_Haiti
https://history.state.gov/milestones/1914-1920/haiti
https://www.thoughtco.com/haiti-the-us-occupation-1915-1934-2136374
https://2001-2009.state.gov/r/pa/ho/time/wwi/88275.htm
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/us-invaded-occupied-haiti-180956135/
https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/haitian-groups-seek-billions-reparations-france-2024-04-18/
https://www.thenation.com/article/world/haiti-france-reparations-slavery/
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