do you think haiti had a choice about repaying france? that kind of stuff went on in other colonies too; i suspect france could have forced repayment somehow (perhaps by embargoing international trade) since that kind of money isn't usually sent willingly.
do you think haiti had a choice about repaying france? that kind of stuff went on in other colonies too; i suspect france could have forced repayment somehow (perhaps by embargoing international trade) since that kind of money isn't usually sent willingly.
There are many complex reasons why this has happened, but the bottom line comes down to education and how much corruption there is in each country. It is the same reason why Costa Rica has left it's neighbors behind.
by that scale cuba should be #1 by now. puerto rico should also be doing better than it is
while your post is interesting, what is a political dissident from haiti?
Read this please. No politics, just basic history
Louisana Purchase was in April 1803
Haitian Independenca proclained 1 January 1804
The one might have been tied to the other but certainly not the result of the other.
I feel fairly certain that Napoleon realized that he was losing Haiti. His brother-in-law LeClerq was losing men to disease and vermin at a much faster rate than from the Haitians. Without Haiti, there was really no reason to keep Louisiana as a supply depot for Haiti.
At the moment of Haitian Independence, if we go by normal happening throughout history, everything that France had on the island should have become Haiti, right?
Well it so happended that Spain has ceded the eastern portion of the island, Santo Domingo to France via the Treaty of Basel (Basilea in Spanish) in 1795 or therabouts.
Toussaint had attempted to exercise controll over the eastern part, but failed.
After Haitian Independance, a Frenchman by the name of Ferrand took control of most of the eastern (former Spanish) portion, in the name of France, and ran it for a while, until Sanchez Ramirez defeated him at Palo Hincado. But Sanchez and his group were not strong enough to govern the whole place!Not even Santo Domingo which was still in French hands...Sanchez and his people needed the help of a British squadron to strangle the people in Sto Domingo into surrendering, but they would not surrender to the "Dominicans" but only to the English!! And then the English required the Dominicans to pay them for their expenses!!
And the colony was still, in theory, part of the French colony of Saint Domingue that had become Haiti. Because of the death of Toussaint and the internal divisions between Cristophe and the others, it was not until Boyer gained control of the whole western half, including the part that Cristophe had controlled and, promising land to the now out-of-work soldiers, took over the eastern part, almost without having to fire a shot.
(This was posted in another thread)
HB
I don't think that we need to overthink this. Haiti's development as a functional democracy was seriously stunted as a result of capitulating to the French call for reparations in return for normalization of trade (which never happened).
can you shed some light on why Haiti paid all that money to the French?
the haiti founders didn't just give that money away expecting no return, and i know you're not so naive to think that either.
HB: can you shed some light on why haiti paid all that money to the french?
Free republic
On January 1, 1804, DessalinesJean-Jacques DessalinesJean-Jacques Dessalines was a leader of the Haitian Revolution and the first ruler of an independent Haiti under the 1801 constitution. He was autocratic in his rule and crowned himself Emperor of Ha?ti in 1805....
, the new leader under the dictatorial 1801 constitution, declared Haiti a free republic. Haiti was the first independent nation in Latin America, the first post-colonial independent black-led nation in the world, and the only nation whose independence was gained as part of a successful slave rebellion. The country was crippled by years of war, its agriculture devastated, its formal commerce nonexistent, and the people uneducated and mostly unskilled.
Haiti agreed to make reparations to French slaveholders in 1825 in the amount of 150 million francs, reduced in 1838 to 60 million francs, in exchange for French recognition of its independence and to achieve freedom from French aggression. This indemnity bankrupted the Haitian treasury and mortgaged Haiti's future to the French banks providing the funds for the large first installment, permanently affecting Haiti's ability to be prosperous.
The end of the Haitian Revolution in 1804 marked the end of colonialism in Haiti, but the social conflict cultivated under slavery continued to affect the population. The revolution left in power an affranchiAffranchiThe word affranchi in the context of Haiti and other French Caribbean colonies meant specifically an emancipated slave. Some whites used the term more generally to refer to all free people of color , even those born free. Most free people of color were mulattoes, or of mixed race...
?lite as well as the formidable Haitian army. France continued the slavery system in MartiniqueMartiniqueMartinique is an island in the eastern Caribbean Sea, with a land area of . It is an overseas department of France. To the northwest lies Dominica, to the south St Lucia, and to the southeast Barbados. As with the other overseas departments, Martinique is also one of the twenty-six regions of...
and GuadeloupeGuadeloupeGuadeloupe is an archipelago located in the eastern Caribbean Sea at , with a land area of 1,628 square kilometres . It is an overseas department of France. As with the other overseas departments, Guadeloupe is also one of the twenty-six regions of France and an integral part of the Republic...
. Great Britain was able to abolish its slave trade in 1807 and in 1833 abolished slavery completely in the British West IndiesBritish West IndiesThe term British West Indies refers to territories in and around the Caribbean which have been or were at one time colonised by the United Kingdom. Collectively these territories are also now known as the Anglophone Caribbean...
. France formally recognized Haiti as an independent nation in 1834, as did the United States in 1862.