Erin Conroy
200+ yrs of US abuses in #Haiti
In 2021, "Haiti's president…was assassinated by…mercenaries, some of whom had received US military training. A Florida-based security company reportedly connected whoever wanted Moïse killed with the mercenaries…
[US] Ambassador Foote, in his resignation letter, blasted the US & other nations for...backing Moïse's unelected replacement [when] Haiti's chief prosecutor said he found evidence linking [him] to the president's killing"
AnarchoNinaWrites
@chargrille Reading this book literally changed my life:
https://libcom.org/article/black-jacobins-toussaint-louverture-and-san-domingo-revolution-clr-james
(PDF inside)
Erin Conroy
The Haitian Revolution was the most important act of political liberation of the 18th century. It revealed the racist limits of both the US (1776) & the French (1789) Revolutions, & their constitutions.
Which explains why colonial powers, including the new United States, spent the last 230 years, doing everything they could to crush the new nation of formerly enslaved people.
St. Domingue was the *richest colony in the world* in 1791 when its enslaved peoples rose up to overthrow their captors
Erin Conroy
It was *absolutely not* merely about $ for Napoleon or the US Founding Fathers.
Napoleon specifically framed it as a question of racial domination. He called it the "Black Specter" & saw it as a threat to white supremacy. Everyone in the white colonial world discussed the Haitian Revolution constantly. They were *obsessed*. Jefferson was terrified.
Haiti's black citizens defeated Napoleon's military efforts to re-enslave them. He promptly sold Louisiana to the US dirt cheap, doubling its size.
Erin Conroy
That richesse rested *entirely* on the kidnapping of black peoples from Africa & the theft of their labor via slavery, an institution maintained by the governments of white colonizers. Haiti's Revolution was the largest revolt of enslaved peoples in history.
In response, the Revolutionary government of France abolished slavery. When Napoleon took over & declared himself "First Consul"/emperor he reinstated slavery specifically to try to force the citizens of Haiti to pay France's/his debts.
Erin Conroy
Haiti's Black Democracy's forced impoverishment is as far from an accident as possible.
You probably also have been taught "reparations are unrealistic/undoable."
No again. In 1825 an alliance of slaveholding powers forced the citizens of Haiti into ***providing reparations to their prior "owners"*** - ***a& to their descendants*** - in what UVa scholar Marlene Daught has termed "the greatest heist in history."
Renowned French economist Thomas Piketty estimates France owes Haiti BILLIONS.
Erin Conroy
After liberation in 1804, Haiti "was almost immediately made a pariah state by world powers[. POTUS] Thomas Jefferson worked to isolate Haiti diplomatically & strangle it economically, fearing that the success of Haiti would inspire slave revolts back home. With the invention & spread of the cotton gin, slavery was becoming much more lucrative at the very same time a free Haiti was coming into existence." The US "didn't officially recognize Haiti until 1862, as slavery began being abolished."
Erin Conroy
Now, I wonder what you were taught in school about the Louisiana Purchase. Probably some hagiographic crap about what a clever genius Jefferson was at negotiation.
No. The Haitian people taught Napoleon that he could not control them from so far. Imo it was more important to Napoleon to maintain white supremacy & the institution of slavery - than to maintain its own colony. The new "American" colonists were closer to hand & had a better shot at controlling enslaved people.
Erin Conroy
Those French bank "loans" Haiti's citizens were forced to shoulder in 1825 came with " hefty interest rates." From 1825 to 1947, "Haiti paid French slaveholders & their descendants the equivalent of between $20 & $30 billion."
Think of the billions stolen from black Haitian children & delivered to slavers' great-grandchildren.
Again, vs.: England's prompt & full recognition of American independence in 1783 Treaty of Paris, as well as a vast land grant that doubled the size of the new nation.
Erin Conroy
IKYK the "post-slavery" US government's interference & domination of the world's first Black democratic nation didn't end there.
Haitians were forced to pay 150m francs for their "inalienable" right to freedom.
That was 10 times the amount Jefferson had paid France for the Louisiana Purchase - territory 77 times the size of Haiti.
Contrast:England's prompt & full recognition of American independence in 1783 Treaty of Paris, as well as a vast land grant that doubled the size of the new nation.
Erin Conroy
Now, *somehow,* no white nation besides France was willing to "lend" lucrative Haiti the $ to pay to their white "masters" for rights Jefferson had described as natural & "inalienable".
This joint extortion by slave powers, trapped Haiti in a prison of debt it took 122 yrs to pay.
Then, the US "violently occupied" Haiti for 19 yrs in the early 1900s. It "left Haiti in 1934 [but] continued to control Haiti's public finances until 1947, siphoning away around 40% of Haiti's national income"
Erin Conroy
The US put its full force behind these abhorrent payments by generations of Haitian descendants of enslaved people, to white French descendants of slavers.
But when Aristide, the first democratically elected Haitian head of state in decades, talked of French reparations to Haitians, the US engineered a coup [with France] & deposed him.
Just as GOP prevents US students from learning the history of slavery, French students did not learn about their history with #Haiti.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/20/world/americas/haiti-aristide-reparations-france.html
MacropodCarer: Verified 🌈🦘🦣
@chargrille
My deep apologies. I'm looking everywhere for my surprised face. 😮
David Nathanson
@chargrille Folk can read the letters of US government officials from the time. It’s not debatable. It was a full on racist panic in most quarters.
Erin Conroy
Last thing, circling back to the piece in the first post: I hope the foregoing thread explains why this ⬇️ [screenshot] was such a horrible betrayal by Biden Democrats trying to score points with racist voters, as "tough on migrants" – & why the US special envoy to Haiti that Biden had just appointed, resigned in disgust over it.
"I will not be associated with the United States' inhumane, counterproductive decision to deport thousands of Haitian refugees," Foote wrote in his resignation letter.
Erin Conroy
There is obviously a LOT more that needs to be in this thread but I am having a hard time, I've run out of spoons for the day [#ChronicSARSCOV2 #MECFS #longcovid #COVIDIsntOver]
Several people have dropped links to excellent resources for further reading - thank you all! Definitely check those out!
The main thing is, share this info with people casually dropping #Haiti news.
THERE IS A REASON THEY SUFFER, & IT IS US, & WE OWE THEM.
Also https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/20/world/americas/haiti-history-colonized-france.html
Stoney Takes
@chargrille 😳 that is awful. Thanks for bringing this story to Masto. What I’ve read over the years about Haiti was so dismal and has apparently only gotten worse. This is abhorrent.
13 barn owls in a trenchcoat
Oof https://www.sciencephoto.com/media/136114/view/hispaniola-caribbean-satellite-image
Nobody ناچیز नास्ति (he/him)
The island of Hispaniola is bald on the Haitian side, denuded to pay the 'debt', leading to massive runoff of water in storms causing crop failures, leaving Haiti exposed to ravages of nature.
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