Maybe Poverty in Countries Like Haiti Has Something To Do With Centuries of Brutal Colonial and Neocolonial Exploitation and Sabotage, Or, Maybe You’re Right and They’re Just Bad at Economics
Haiti was “discovered” by Columbus in 1492, beginning a long history of brutal exploitation and savage paternalistic colonialism. Columbus instituted a “tribute system”, where natives were required to provide a quota of gold every three months. Those who didn’t meet the quota were punished by having their hands cut off and were left to bleed to death. “The Spaniards ‘thought nothing of knifing Indians by tens and twenties and of cutting slices off them to test the sharpness of their blades. Two of these so-called Christians met two Indian boys one day, each carrying a parrot; they took the parrots and for fun beheaded the boys.’” Facing extermination, the Arawak attempted to fight back but were crushed. They began committing mass suicide and feeding poison to their infants to save them from the Spanish. By the 1700s a total genocide of the indigenous population had been completed. Seems like it takes a real shithole nation to sanction such inhuman, evil cruelty by giving the man who oversaw it a national holiday.
Beginning in the 1500s, African slaves began to be imported (to replace the previously genocided indigenous population), ultimately generating vast wealth for its colonial rulers. In 1697, the Treaty of Rystwik transferred Haiti to French rule. By the 1740s it had become one of the largest suppliers of sugar to the rest of the world, and in 1789 it supplied 60% of the world’s coffee. Haiti was easily the most profitable French colony and one of the most profitable slave colonies in history; it generated far more wealth for France than the American colonies ever did for Great Britain.
At the tail end of the 1700s an ultimately-successful slave rebellion began — coincident with the revolutionary fervor sweeping France and America — which defeated a 20,000-strong expeditionary force dispatched in 1802 by Napoleon. The revolution destroyed Haiti’s infrastructure and most of its plantations. Haiti was declared an “independent” (air quotes are there for a reason) nation in 1804. The highly stratified society of plantation owners remained; though slavery was technically banished a system much like serfdom remained for much of the population.
The colonial powers weren’t going to let their ignominious defeat at the hands of inferior Brown People go unanswered. Nervous the slave uprising in Haiti would metastasize to our own shores, the United States, joining France and Great Britain, declared an embargo just two years after Haitian independence in 1806, crippling the fledgling country’s economy. “The embargo let U.S. merchants dictate the terms of trade between the two countries, establishing a neocolonial relationship. [Thomas] Jefferson, and other slave owners, kept the United States from recognizing Haiti until 1862. The U.S. slave owners presented the racist argument that Haiti’s devastating economic decline was an example of what happens when Africans govern themselves.” I guess they just needed to embrace free market principles more, or something?
In 1825, King Charles X of France sent a fleet of 12 warships to reconquer the island. Haitian President Jean-Pierre Boyer signed a treaty requiring Haiti to pay 150 million gold Francs (~$20-$40 Billion USD depending on how you figure it) for “losses” suffered (!!!!!) during the Haitian revolution in exchange for the privilege of diplomatic recognition. Haiti wouldn’t pay off all the associated interest — they borrowed from American, German, and French banks to pay off this extortion — until 1947. Having already paid for their freedom in blood, this ransom further crippled the Haitian economy. According to historian Alex Von Tunzelmann, “The long and the short of it is that Haiti was paying reparations to France from 1825 until 1947. To come up with the money, it took out huge loans from American, German and French banks, at exorbitant rates of interest. By 1900, Haiti was spending about 80% of its national budget on loan repayments. It completely wrecked their economy. By the time the original reparations and interest were paid off, the place was basically destitute and trapped in a spiral of debt. Plus, a succession of leaders had more or less given up on trying to resolve Haiti’s problems, and started looting it instead.”
Though other European powers followed suit and recognized Haitian independence, the United States refused. Between 1911 and 1915, Haiti was racked with instability — political assassinations and various successive takeovers by revolutionary armies. Apprehensive about other countries’ influence in our “backyard”, the United States occupied Haiti from 1915 to 1934 and put down multiple Haitian revolts. This was after the United States seized the Haitian government’s gold reserve and physically transferred it to New York, because why not. NAACP executive secretary Herbert J. Seligman wrote in 1920: “Military camps have been built throughout the island. The property of natives has been taken for military use. Haitians carrying a gun were for a time shot on sight. Machine guns have been turned on crowds of unarmed natives, and United States Marines have, by accounts which several of them gave me in casual conversation, not troubled to investigate how many were killed or wounded.” Further, “The next 5 years witnessed numerous cases of intimidation, arson, torture and murder of the Haitian population by U.S. Marines and their local enforcers, the Gendarmerie d’Haiti. The U.S. Marines were instilled with a special brand of paternalism allowing them to behave this way. Mary Renda writes that “paternalism was an assertion of authority, superiority, and control expressed in the metaphor of a father’s relationship with his children.” During Senate hearings in 1921, the commandant of the Marine Corps reported that, in the 20 months of active resistance, 2,250 Haitians had been killed. However, in a report to the Secretary of the Navy he reported the death toll as being 3,250. Haitian historians have estimated the true number was much higher; by the end of the pacification period, four or five times that — somewhere in the neighborhood of 15,000 persons.”
“As Graham Greene wrote in The Comedians, his novel about Haiti in the 1960s: ‘It is astonishing how much money can be made out of the poorest of the poor with a little ingenuity.’”
From 1957 to 1986 Haiti was ruled by the brutal Duvaliers. The United States backed the repressive dictatorship with economic and military support even after human rights abuses were well-known. The Duvaliers stole millions from the Haitian treasury and ran up hundreds of millions in debt that Haiti still owes. “Papa Doc [Duvalier] created the infamous terror squads known as the Tonton Macoutes. His son established 11-cent-per-hour US-owned sweatshops in the slum areas. During the Duvaliers’ reign, it is estimated that more than 50,000 people were killed by the Tontons.”
“After the 1986 overthrow of dictator and U.S. ally Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier, the CIA sought to support particular candidates and undermine Jean-Bertrande Aristide, a Roman Catholic priest and proponent of liberation theology. The New York Times reported in the 1990s that the CIA had on its payroll members of the military junta that would ultimately unseat Aristide [in 1991] after he was democratically elected in a landslide over Marc Bazin, a former World Bank official and finance minister favored by the U.S.”
After this it honestly gets difficult to keep track of the coups and various CIA shenanigans. The US would again have Boots on the Ground in Haiti in 1994, ironically, to re-install Aristide. This newfound support came with pressure to accept World Bank and IMF “reforms”: “Thirty years ago Haiti imported no rice; today, Haiti imports nearly all its rice. Though Haiti was the sugar growing capital of the Caribbean, it now imports sugar as well. Why? The US and the US dominated world financial institutions — the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank — forced Haiti to open its markets to the world. Then the US dumped millions of tons of US subsidized rice and sugar into Haiti, undercutting their farmers and ruining Haitian agriculture. By ruining Haitian agriculture, the US has forced Haiti into becoming the third largest world market for US rice. Good for US farmers, bad for Haiti.”
Arguably because our chosen candidate didn’t win (ostensibly because of electoral “irregularities”), the United States cut off aid to Haiti and blocked previously agreed-to loans after the 2000 elections. “In 2001, a bankrupt Aristide agreed to virtually all of the concessions demanded by his opponents: he obliged the winners of the disputed Senate seats to resign, accepted the participation of several ex-Duvalier supporters in his new government, agreed to convene a new and more opposition-friendly CEP and to hold another round of legislative elections several years ahead of schedule. But the US still refused to lift its aid embargo.”
In the early 2000s the United States funded and trained a rebel group opposed to the (democratically-elected) Aristide government and in 2004 Aristide was abducted in a coup orchestrated by the United States. He was taken via plane by US military personnel to exile in the Central African Republic. “Many international politicians, including members of the U.S. congress and the Jamaican Prime Minister, expressed concern that the United States had interfered with Haiti’s democratic process by removing Aristide with excessive force.” Accusations of human rights violations by US Marine and Brazilian UN “Peacekeeping” forces have been leveled in the ensuing occupation: “Haiti is rife with human rights abuses, and the U.S. and interim Haitian government are largely to blame, Amnesty International said in a lengthy report Friday. ‘Despite the presence of the [US-led] Multinational Interim Force, a large number of armed groups have continued to be active throughout the country and to abuse human rights,’ said the report. The report was especially critical of US Marines in Haiti for what it called questionable shootings of Haitians. At least six Haitians were shot dead by US troops March 7–12 in the capital city of Port-au-Prince. ‘Appropriate investigations into these killings have apparently not been undertaken.’”
I am sure there is much, much more troubling history that I couldn’t unearth in a few hours of Googling…
Haiti is a “shithole” for a reason — Western countries have treated it as our playground for centuries. This dynamic played out in countless other colonial territories as well, if you care to be bothered by our grotesque national history. It’s not a mistake that by conventional standards countries like the USA and Norway are rich and places in the global South like Haiti and El Salvador are poor; this is a direct (and easily recognizable/well-documented) result of centuries of absolutely depraved plundering by primarily Western Capitalist interests. Then again, maybe we’re just naturally better at Free Markets, Individual Rights, and Limited Government! That last one is pretty rich, considering the history we just covered.
Folks are not mad strictly because the word “shithole” came out of Trump’s mouth; they are sick of the paternalistic, thinly-veiled racist attitude towards countries like Haiti (and people of color in general) that says they are poor because they’re too lazy or stupid to “embrace free market principles, individual rights, and limited government”. To quote the original article: “They are not shitholes because of the color of the populace but because of bad ideas, corrupt governance, false religion, and broken culture.” I’ll go ahead and pretend “broken culture” isn’t code for “Black people sagging their pants and using AAVE makes me, a Christian conservative, deeply uncomfortable”. Reagan’s unbelievably racist and made from whole cloth “Welfare Queen” trope is another great example of this attitude/meme that persists to this day among conservatives. It’s not about Liberals wanting people to literally act like there’s no material difference between a country like Norway and Haiti; it has more to do with the continued obstinate refusal on the part of conservatives to acknowledge that widespread racism exists in 2018.
Funny enough, Klavan gets it partially right when he says “Further, most of the problems in these countries are generated at the top.” — whaddyaknow, the United States just happens to sit atop the world order lately if you hadn’t noticed, we kinda call the shots for better or worse.
In any case, beyond all that “history” and “colonialism” (BO-RING!), it just doesn’t seem like a very Christian attitude to refuse refugees from the poorest country on the planet (ew, gross) because you prefer rich (also they just happen to be white, complete coincidence) Norwegian snow bunnies instead.
“Cursed be anyone who withholds justice from the foreigner…” — Deuteronomy 27:19
“Do not oppress a foreigner; you yourselves know how it feels to be foreigners, because you were foreigners in Egypt.” — Exodus 23:9
