The history of Haiti began in 1492, when the European navigator and Captain Christopher Columbus landed on the island. At that time, Haiti was inhabited by the Taïno and Arawakan people, who called their island Ayti.
The island claimed by the Spanish Crown, was named Hispaniola. Gold was discovered in eastern Hispaniola and the Taïno were enslaved by the Spaniards to work in the mines. In 1697, by the Treaty of Ryswick, Spain ceded the western third of the island to France, and the French called it Saint-Domingue.
From 1720, Santo Domingo became the world’s largest producer of sugarcane. In the middle of the eighteenth century, the island alone exported as much sugar as all the English islands combined and became the main destination for slave trade via triangular trade. The colonial products of Santo Domingo represented a third of French exports. Santo Domingo was the first colony in the world, the richest and most productive, and also the most beautiful among all the colonies.
The name of Santo Domingo (Haiti) had become synonymous with splendor and wealth. Everyone spoke with admiration of this piece of land, rightly called the Queen of the West Indies. The importance of Santo Domingo’s Antillean possession is underscored by the famous word of Voltaire during the Treaty of Paris in 1763, where Louis XV does not hesitate to sacrifice Canada to preserve the large sugar island, of which the Treaty of Ryswick of 1695, putting an end to the war of the League of Augsburg, attributed the western part of the island to France.
Haiti won its independence from France in 1804. The Haitians changed their colonial name from Saint Domingue (the name given by the French) to its Taino name of Haiti or Ayti. One of the most important outcomes of this revolution was that it forced Napoleon Bonaparte to sell Louisiana to the U.S.
In 1825 Haiti was forced to sign an agreement with France that included France demanding an indemnity of 150 million francs in five annual payments of 30 million to be paid by Haiti in claims over property that French people, slave owners, lost through the Haitian Revolution. Haiti was forced to take a loan for the first 30 million, and in 1838 France agreed to reduce the remaining debt to 90 million to be paid over 30 years, with the final payment paid in 1883.
The New York Times estimates that because of other loans taken to pay off this loan, the final payment to debtors was actually paid in 1947. The Times estimated that a total 112 million francs was paid in indemnity, which when adjusted for the inflation rate would be 560 million in 2022, but considering that if it had been invested in the Haitian economy instead, it could be valued at $115 billion.
Even after the indemnity was paid, Haiti had to continue paying the other loans, and the government of the United States funded the acquisition of Haiti’s treasury in 1911, and in 1922, the rest of Haiti’s debt was moved to be paid to American investors. The New York Times states, that it took until 1947 for Haiti to finally pay off all the associated interest to the National City Bank of New York (now Citibank).
The double debt helped set off a cascade of privation, budgetary shortfalls and onerous foreign loans that damaged the development of Haiti which is now one of the poorest countries in the world.
From the light of those past events there is no doubt that France is responsible for impoverishing Haiti.
ABOUT
Born in Boston, Joanna Gleason is a professional photographer who has worked with many agencies and institutions. These photographs taken by her twenty (20) years ago during a visit of two years in Haiti expressed a unique view into a country that was the wealthiest colony in the New World and had become the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.
