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| November, 2009 |
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| Earthquake Rocks Poor Haiti |
Descendants of black freedom fighters suffering.
Haiti: Still Paying for a Slave Rebellion in 1804.
Ever wondered why Haiti is so poor? What follows are excerpts from a 2007 interview with political activist Randall Robinson by Amy Goodman on the radio show, Democracy Now!
AMY GOODMAN: Let's talk history for a minute, something the US press doesn't give us very much of. To understand the US role today in Haiti, can you go back in time to how Haiti was founded in 1804?
RANDALL ROBINSON: Well, Haiti was the largest piece of France's global empire. It was its great profit center, that slave colony with 465,000 enslaved Africans working there, many of whom had been soldiers in African armies before they were brought to Haiti. And in August of 1789 -- or 1791, rather, 40,000 of those slaves revolted and started a war that lasted twelve-and-a-half years under the leadership of an ex-slave and a military genius named Toussaint L'Ouverture and Jean-Jacques Dessalines. And this army of ex-slaves defeated two French armies, first the French army before the completion of their revolution and then another army dispatched by Napoleon under the leadership of his brother-in-law, and then the armies of England and Spain. 150,000 blacks died in that twelve-and-a-half-year war. And in January of 19 -- 1804, rather, they declared Haiti the first free republic in the Americas, because the United States was then a country that held slaves.
During the revolution, Thomas Jefferson said he would like to reduce Toussaint to starvation. George Washington lamented and vilified that revolution. The US imposed an embargo, recognized a new French government, but did not recognize the new Haitian free government and imposed a comprehensive economic embargo on Haiti until the Emancipation Proclamation. In fact, France imposed reparations on Haiti in 1825, and the interest that Haiti had to pay in loans that were American and French loans to service this debt to France, absorbed virtually 80% of Haiti's available budget 111 years after the completion of their revolution until 1915. It was only in 1947 that Haiti was able to pay off its debt.
AMY GOODMAN: The debt that was incurred as a result of France not having access to the enslaved people of Haiti.
RANDALL ROBINSON: The Haitians had to pay France for no longer having the privilege of owning Haitian slaves. That revolution provoked the end of slavery in the Americas. And so, that's why it is so important that all African people, people generally in the Americas, because Haiti funded and fought in South American revolutions. That's why Haiti is so honored in places like Venezuela by people like Simon Bolivar. Haiti was central to all of this. And we're in Haiti's debt. But it is for that --
AMY GOODMAN: Simon Bolivar came to Haiti.
RANDALL ROBINSON: Haiti, and was given arms and was given men, was given a printing press, because the Haitians believed that anybody who was enslaved anywhere had a home and a refuge in Haiti. Anybody seeking freedom had a sympathetic ear in Haiti. But because of that, the United States and France and the other Western governments, even the Vatican, made them pay for so terribly long. It's as if the anger of it never abated. I mean, you can hear Frederick Douglass talking about it in the late 1800s, about this thing in the American craw.
AMY GOODMAN: The US government didn't recognize Haiti for decades, the Congress, going back to Thomas Jefferson, afraid that the slave uprising would inspire US slaves.
RANDALL ROBINSON: Would inspire US slaves to revolt against him in Virginia, and George Washington, and on and on and on. And so, they opposed everything that was being done in Haiti that won their freedom.
AMY GOODMAN: The US government invaded Haiti in 1915 under Wilson.
RANDALL ROBINSON: Woodrow Wilson invaded Haiti in 1915. And when a Haitian, Peralte, Charlemagne Peralte, organized the Cacos soldiers, these farmers, to fight against this American occupation, the Americans killed him and nailed him to a cross, crucifixion-style, and stood him up, his corpse, in a public place in Haiti to demonstrate to Haitians what would be the price of any defense against the American invasion. The US has played a terrible role in Haiti.
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