![]() Unable to defend itself against French naval supremacy, Haiti was forced to cave to the demand, despite having no ability to pay a sum of money that large. Jefferson refused to provide aid to Haiti and sought to economically and diplomatically isolate the country.Īs the new Haitian Republic continued to struggle to establish itself, in 1825, King Charles X of France sent several warships to surround Haiti and to demand that the nation pay 150 million francs in reparations to French slave owners who lost their property in the revolution-or face another war. President Thomas Jefferson and many other American elites viewed an independent Haiti as an existential threat to the institution of slavery that was becoming even more profitable and crucial for the southern United States. Additionally, Haiti was isolated by foreign powers, including the French, the British, and the United States. ![]() For one, it was a nation run by and composed of former slaves, who possessed little to nothing in material wealth. But the newly-formed nation, now called Haiti, was immediately faced with immense obstacles. Louverture’s rebels struggled periodically against French forces for 13 years, before the nation finally declared its independence in 1804. In 1791, two years after the revolution in France proclaimed the universal rights of man, a slave revolt began in Saint Domingue, led famously by former slave Toussaint Louverture. Around the same time period, Saint Domingue alone accounted for more than one-third of the Atlantic slave trade and was home to absolutely atrocious conditions for enslaved persons who died at alarming rates. But this prosperity came at an immense human cost. The colony was immensely profitable for the French, becoming known as the “ The Pearl of the Antilles,” producing 60% of the coffee and 40% of the sugar exported to Europe by the 1780s. By 1665, the Spanish presence diminished in the western part of Hispaniola, allowing the French to claim the territory, renaming it Saint Domingue. The Spanish soon after established plantations throughout the island and began the mass importation of West African slaves to grow sugar and coffee to be exported to Europe. ![]() Originally home to the now largely eliminated Taino people, Christopher Columbus’s 1492 expedition marked the first visit of European settlers to the island now known as Hispaniola. The crisis in Haiti is not an accident of history, but the inevitable product of centuries of imperialist and racist abuse perpetrated by some of the world’s foremost defenders of human rights. From France, to the United States, to the United Nations, the West has mercilessly extracted resources and destroyed the country’s hopes of becoming a stable democracy. Haiti, since it declared its independence from France in 1804, has been systematically designed to be the failed state it is today by foreign, imperialist powers. If we look at Haiti’s history, the reasons for its current crisis become clear. But within the United States and the rest of the developed world, news relating to Haiti’s plunge into chaos is limited, and there are no indications that assistance will imminently arrive in the beleaguered nation. It is an understatement to say that Haiti is experiencing a catastrophe. Having seen its president assassinated by foreign mercenaries two years ago, it currently has no elected government officials the entire nation, but particularly the capital Port-au-Prince, is ravaged by gang violence, kidnappings, and murders nearly half of its population is suffering from a severe lack of access to food and nutrition, while an outbreak of cholera is also sweeping the country and the country has been devastated by two major earthquakes within the past 15 years. The small Caribbean nation of Haiti is currently experiencing a crisis, the likes of which are difficult to comprehend.
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