I watched a news story today about the rebuilding of Haiti, and was, once again, struck by the extreme poverty. I don't know a whole lot about the history of Haiti, but I do know that they were under control of the French, and in an amazing slave revolt, the people were able to defeat the French and claim ownership of their own land. I even heard on one news program that the reason that Napoleon sold Thomas Jefferson the Louisiana Purchase at such a low rate was because this devastating revolution in Haiti caused him to want to withdraw from the hemisphere altogether. Now that's a victory. A large part of the poverty problem, however, comes from what happened after that revolution. France demanded retribution for property damage caused by the war.
What I want to know is, who was the sales genius from France that sold that idea? Haiti won the war. Hands down. Yet somehow, someone convinced the victors that they had to pay an exorbitant amount of money to the losers. What could they possibly have threatened them with? “If you don't pay up, we will lose a war with you again.” Did it really not occur to anyone to say no? Granted, the people had been slaves, and were uneducated. They probably had not spent a lot of time brushing up on their negotiation skills. Still, they obviously were aware of what unfair treatment entails. They won a war to prove it.
Even if the erstwhile slaves had not been able to find a way not to pay this money to the intimidating French, why did they continue to pay year after year after year? The debt was not paid until 1947...over 100 years later. Surely during that time someone must have thought, “You know what? This sucks.”
Next time the French criticize the US for foreign policy, someone ought to remind them of the population that they brought to its knees simply because they could.
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