Arthur Greene
In 1791, Haitian slaves rose up and fought heroically against their French colonisers.
But for their bravery, they were rewarded with a debt which crippled the country’s economy for decades to come. The French imposed a tax so great that it sent Haiti into a spiral of debt which directly led to its status today as one of the world’s poorest countries.
Haitian leaders have fought ever since for France to return to them what they had stolen.
Now researchers at the New York Times have spent months calculating the extent of the debt – and it comes in at R330 billion rand.
Before it claimed its independence, Haiti was one of the most brutal slave colonies in the world. Horrific testimonies show how wealthy slave owners would gather almost daily to watch slave executions in the town square of Cap Francais.
When the slaves rose up, they set fire to the plantations they had been made to work on and killed their slavers with as much brutality as they had been shown.
In 1801, the French ruler Napoleon sent a fleet to retake his country’s colony but failed dismally, losing as many as 50,000 soldiers in the process.
Unable to recolonise Haiti, the French thought of another solution. In 1825, King Charles X sent a warship to its coast and demanded 150 million francs in exchange for France’s recognition of its independence.
The Haitian government had no choice but to give in, but couldn’t pay even the first of five instalments. They had to seek loans overseas, and French banks were only too happy to oblige them.
Extortionate interest rates swelled the already unpayable debt – overnight 150 million francs became 156 million francs, and it kept going up.
The loan was a way for France to suck wealth out of its former colony.
The first payment rinsed Haiti of almost all its wealth. The crates of coins were loaded onto a ship that set sail for France.
Instead of being used by the new Haitian government to develop the young nation, or put into circulation to allow its businesses to thrive, the money went into the pockets of the former colonisers.
For decades France profited from the payments, and former slave owners were well compensated for their losses, while Haiti was strangled for all it had.
More than 200 years later, then Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide demanded reparations from France. His term came to an abrupt end nine months afterwards when he was forced out in a coup, believed arranged by France and the US.
And so Haiti remains among the world’s most impoverished countries, its businesses and institutions, starved of resources, still not given a chance to blossom nor its economy develop.
Image source: Blackpast
