Rethinking Haiti
In the introduction to I Am Not Your Negro, Raoul Peck’s companion book to his award-winning 2016 documentary, Peck briefly delves into his upbringing and James Baldwin’s influence on him while growing up. As the Haitian filmmaker talks about his birthplace, he touches on something critical to understanding recent events:
“The successful Haitian Revolution was ignored by history because it imposed a totally different narrative, which rendered the dominant slave narrative of the day untenable.
Deprived of their civilizing justification, the colonial conquests of the late nineteenth century would have been ideologically impossible. And this justification would not have been viable if the world knew that these “savage” Africans had annihilated their powerful armies (especially those of the French and the Spanish) less than a century before.”
As the Biden Administration deports thousands of Haitians at record speeds, sending them back to a place ravaged by violence and hunger, Peck’s words are the only ones I can think of. As border patrol agents channel their precursors without a care in the world, Peck’s words are the only ones I can think of. They are a clear answer to the oft-asked “why didn’t I learn about this in school?”- because it would be incompatible with the current curriculum. If your business masquerading as a country is built on slavery, then the largest slave revolt in the Western hemisphere is bad for business. The story of self-liberated slaves who then defeated the world’s most powerful army is bad for the superpower that was crushed. Imagine if America was being soundly beaten by a smaller, not as well-funded force. We would likely rewrite history as well. Just imagine. I know it seems far-fetched but do your best to picture it.
With the knowledge of why in mind, a logical next question is “how did things get so bad?” To answer that, we must talk about how history was rewritten. We need to talk about the causes that led to the current day effects.
Chief among these causes was the cost of the Haitian Revolution. There is a verifiable price tag, and it’s $21 billion in today’s money. That is how much France demanded from Haiti in 1821 as recompense for losing their slaves. It was, in all essence, reparations for the slaveowners in exchange for Haitian freedom. It’s a horrific act, but if you’re an American scoffing at this, don’t be so quick to judge. Only a few decades later, Abraham Lincoln signed the District of Columbia Compensated Emancipation Act. This law made slavery illegal in the District of Columbia, but the government gave around 900 slaveowners an average of $8,000 in current day money for their troubles. Troubles being that they couldn’t own black people as property anymore.
But I digress.
The $21 billion indemnity crippled the Haitian economy, as anyone who’s ever paid off a loan before would imagine. They were former slaves with no money who had been at war for 20 years. They had to take out loans from banks in the same country they had freed themselves from, as well as American and German banks. It took them more than 100 years to pay it off, and that time wasn’t spent in a vacuum with no other events taking place. After the revolution, the US took control of Haiti’s gold reserves and national treasury, taking 40% of Haiti’s national income to repay debts (from freeing themselves). The French ravaged Haiti for their sugar, and the ensuing deforestation caused erosion and depleted soil. The effects of this are seen today in Haiti’s proclivity towards flooding and hurricanes. In the ’90s, Haiti was forced by the IMF to reduce tariff protections on their rice, a hallmark of their economy. If they didn’t, the IMF would refuse to give them $24.6 million in funds. When the protections lifted, inexpensive subsidized U.S. rice flooded the country and destroyed an agricultural market that employed a majority of the Haitian people.
At every turn, Haiti was gutted by the world’s biggest countries for the crime of self-liberation. If they wouldn’t let themselves be physically owned, then they would be economically owned and forced to suffer. Peck’s words come back into play once more- not only did the Haitian Revolution impose a different narrative, but it was an invitation for other countries to help expand upon that narrative. It was a call to action to oppressed people around the globe, showing that the impossible could be done. To quell any other attempts to gain independence, Haiti was made into an example of what happens when colonialist powers don’t get their way. They were bullied into poverty for the sake of appearances, and that poverty was rewritten as something they did to themselves.
Keep all of this in mind when discussing Haitian refugees today. As they come here to seek asylum, remember that they’re seeking refuge from what we did to them. They’re fleeing to the country that helped undermine them because they have no other choice, and the only thing that they did “wrong” was dare to be free.
There’s plenty more to talk about, plenty more dots to connect, plenty more context to give. We’ll continue doing so next week at 2 PM.
