HAITI AND REWRITING HISTORY
The very recent massive and catastrophic earthquake which leveled Port-Au-Prince, the capital city of the Republic of Haiti, has unleased a catastrophic wave of hyper history-writing, propaganda, and transnational progressive anguish over the role of the US, the rest of the Americas, and the world. Much of the history that has suddenly appeared is as incredible and imaginative as any history of Canaan written by anti-Semitic Arabs.
Some of the claims bandied about in the last 10 days:
1. The earthquake is the latest in a series of punishments from God for Haitian slaves making a pact with Satan to revolt against their French owners in 1791 (219 years ago).
2. The earthquake is the punishment of Gaea for the world’s nations’ selfishness as demonstrated by the failure to institute a comprehensive global police state to control greenhouse gas emissions and save the planet from global warming.
3. The earthquake is an artificial event caused by a weapon called HAARP employed by the US (either with or without UK and French cooperation and assistance) to establish/reestablish domination over Haiti (or as a test, or for other nefarious reasons). Alternatively, the weapon was wielded by the Bilderbergers or some other group.
4. The United States (either as a planned follow-up to #3 or just taking advantage of a situation, as any evil empire would naturally do) has used the earthquake as an excuse to invade and occupy Haiti (again) by using troops pretending to be humanitarian aid forces.
5. The earthquake itself is not the disaster – many areas have had as severe tremors and have survived with few dead and no massive destruction of infrastructure. Rather the disaster is because the rest of the world (or at least the “First World”) has systematically and intentionally kept Haiti poor, barefoot, pregnant, and in the fields – while robbing it blind, thus making it impossible for the wonderful people of Haiti to be prepared for anything.
6. The earthquake is a major disaster as the inevitable result of socialism.
Some of the historical claims:
1. Haiti made a pact with the Devil in 1791 (See #1 above).
2. Haiti’s slave revolt, from 1791 to 1804, was the world’s only successful slave revolt or revolution, or the world’s only country founded by a slave revolt.
3. Haiti’s “revolution” (1792-1804) was one of three great revolutions that changed the course of world history, together with the American Revolution (1776) and the French Revolution (1789-1799). (ref a)
4. Haiti is the only “free country” that ever tried to export its revolution and ideals (or the American and French ideals) to “all men.” (ref c)
5. France, through all its revolutions and coups and governments, has always kept a deep hatred of Haiti and continuously planned and plotted to directly or indirectly make it fail and destroy it in every possible way.
6. France has continued to treat Haiti as a colony, from 1825 when it officially recognized the Republic in a treaty in which Haiti agreed to pay 150 million Francs (gold francs) in reparation for lost property, including slaves, and which they paid 90 million of, until 1922 (1947 according to some, or 1883 or 2003 per others) (Others claim that it was an American loan paid off in 1947, a loan used to pay off the French in 1922).
7. Paying off this debt to France led to the deforestation and desertification of Haiti as it cut down its priceless hardwood forests to build French furniture and allow plantations to grow sugar and other products to sell to pay France.
8. The United States of America has always hated and feared Haiti and refused to treat it as a “real country” in part because the US feared that the “Black Republic” would set a powerful example for “marginalized and oppressed people everywhere.”(ref b)
9. Two hundred plus years ago, Haiti was the richest colony (or country) in the world – today it is the poorest in the Americas. (ref b)
10. The United States feared that Haiti’s black republic would lead to the end of slavery in the United States and to a black or slave revolt in the United States.
So, with all these claims about history and events, lets look at some FACTS.
1 The island of Hispaniola (La Espanyola) or Dominica (Santo Domingo) was originally six independent and constantly warring “chiefdoms” of the Taino, an Arawak AmerInd people. Discovered by Christopher Columbus himself in late 1492 (on his first voyage), it was colonized by Spain, which found Haiti was originally (together with today’s Dominican Republic). The Taino Chiefdoms were tributary monarchies: they ruled by fear and were paid off (tribute) by the people to leave them alone, and the rulers of the six independent states apparently had more in common with each other than with their subjects. The Taino kept slaves, mostly of non-Arawak AmerInds, and victorious warfare usually consisted of extermination of the enemy.
2 The Spanish established the first permanent European settlement (today’s Ciudad Santo Domingo) in 1496, enslaving the native population, which died off quickly due to smallpox, other European diseases, and the rigors of Spanish-style slavery. So in 1501, Spain began importing African slaves to provide a work force.
3 By the late 1500s, other Spanish colonies in the New World had caused Spanish interest in Hispaniola to wane, and the island, especially the western part, became the home base of English, Dutch, and French pirates, who preyed on the Spanish treasure ships and ports. Spain was unable to (or uninterested in) keep control, and in 1665, France claimed the western third. This was accepted by Spain in 1697.
4 The French monarchy treated their new Saint-Domingue colony like the gem it was, using slaves and expatriates from the mother country to establish huge plantations to produce food, especially sugar (converted to rum) and coffee, and great ports connecting the Old and New Worlds. This was one of the bases from which France waged the worldwide wars against the newly unified United Kingdom, and from which Kingdom of France supported the Colonials in their revolution against King George III. Wars, often three- or even four-sided, pitted the French colony against Brits, Dutch, and especially the Spanish who occupied the eastern two-thirds of the island.
5 By the last decade of the 18th Century, what is now Haiti had a population of about a half-million, including three classes of free people (white mostly French, mixed-blood mulattos and other nationalities, and free people of color) which consisted of about 1/5 to ¼ of the population, and the remainder slaves, a few of mixed blood but mostly black. As in other nations and colonies, even free blacks were likely to be slaveholders themselves. And there were, as in the United States and elsewhere, freedmen.
6 The French Revolution of 1789 with its soon-muted calls for liberty, equality, and fraternity (even though slavery was still legal in France), found rich soil in the slaves of Saint-Domingue, and even in the poorer classes of free people. However, the upper class did not take to the ideals of the revolution. So in 1791, a large number of the slaves in the north of the French colony rebelled, and were soon led by a group of freedmen and escaped slaves, as well as republicans from the mother country. In 1793, French republican commissioners in command of the island emancipated all slaves, although it was not until the next year (1794) that France itself abolished slavery formally. Slaveholding royalists continued to fight, as conditions were erratic in both France and the colonies. Ultimately, many of the rebel commanders allied themselves with the Spanish against the French, and although some transferred their allegiance back to France after emancipation and abolition, the changing of allegiances seems to be as much dictated by money and tactics as by principle. To further muddle things, a British invasion of the island had to be dealt with.
7 Three of the major leaders of the “slave revolt” which was considered to be the first phase of the “Haitian Revolution” were Louverture, a freedman, Dessalines, also either a freedman or one of the first slaves to be freed in the rebellion, and Christophe, also long a freedman. They were leading this slave revolt, but as later events would show, it appears that they did not so much object so much to the idea of slaves as to the “institution” of slavery and that they were not the masters. In the first six years of war, Louverture went from being a freedman horse trainer to the commander-in-chief of all French forces on the island. Along the way he betrayed his Spanish allies, many of his followers, and many of his fellow officers and generals, at various times.
8 Yellow fever played a role in all this fighting, especially hard on troops from Europe: French, British, and Spanish. Racism also played a major part: “pure” blacks hated and often massacred mulattos and whites, while mulattos and whites did the same to each other and to blacks. And religion, particularly the conflict between the majority Vaudou (Voodoo) and Roman Catholicism, also played a role.
9 Louverture joined (or rejoined) the French republican side in 1794, fighting against the still-remaining slaveowners who were now allied with the Brits and Spanish, and after being made commander-in-chief of French forces in the colony in 1797, deported the civilian French governor (himself a rabid republican), chased off his replacement, and then paid lip-service to a third governor appointed by Paris: he was in all but name dictator of Saint-Domingue. In 1799 he consolidated his power in the colony by wiping out a semi-independent state in the south ruled by coloreds (mixed-race) in a bloodbath not unlike those practiced by Communists in the 20th Century. Despite this, the Adams Administration in the United States signed treaties, as did the British.
10 Now Louverture turned his attention eastward, and conquered the Spanish colony of Santo Domingo “to free the slaves,” in early 1801, and unifying the entire island under a constitution which made him “Governor for life” with virtually absolute power, under the rule of First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte in Paris. It is no wonder that Thomas Jefferson reversed the “friendly” American policy when he took office that year.
11 In 1802, this all changed. Napoleon was growing more reactionary, even while paying lip-service to the ideals of the French Revolution (just as Louverture was), and decided that slavery needed to be reimposed, and ordered an expeditionary force (under his brother-in-law; typical Napoleonic nepotism) to remove Louverture from power. Le Clerc first defeated Louveture (but signed a treaty stating that slavery would not return), then had Louveture arrested and sent to France, where Louveture died in prison in 1803. In a large sense, Louveture established a standard pattern for Haitian “rulers” for the next two hundred years.
12 Leclerc did not control Saint-Domingue very long, even with the aid of the defector Dessalines. Yellow fever killed him (and many of his troops) in 1802. However, Dessalines switched sides again, and fought against Leclerc’s replacement, the Comte Rochambeau (son of the Comte who fought with the Americans a quarter-century earlier). Rochambeau’s brutal tactics against all of the colonials helped Dessalines’ forces (a coalition of black and mulattos) defeat the French decisively by December 1803.
13 On 1 JAN 1804, Dessalines declared the establishment of the Republic of Haiti with himself as (ah, you guessed it!) Governor-General-for-Life. That wasn’t enough, because in September, he proclaimed himself Emperor of Haiti Jacques I. He then proceeded to declare Haiti an all-black nation and first forbade whites from ownership of land, then voting, then life itself, and while “slavery” was illegal, he required “labor service” of all blacks as either field hands or soldiers. Like Louverture, he encouraged British and American businessmen to come and work with his state-owned or controlled business enterprises (coffee, sugar, rum, etc.), again following the classic Haitian “leadership profile.” In October of 1806 (or 1807, according to some accounts), the tyrant Dessalines was assassinated.
14 Although most of the mixed-race “coloreds” had either been killed or fled (many to New Orleans), a few remained. One of these, Alexandre Petion, is believed to be the leader of the assassination, but with the tacit support of the third of Haiti’s glorious founders, Henri Christophe. Following Dessalines’ death, Christophe was elected President of Haiti, but it was apparently an empty title (or so he claimed – it did not have enough powers). So Christophe took his marbles (and his soldiers) and went to northern Haiti where he created a separate government that same year, with him as “President and Generalissimo of the armies of the land and sea of the State of Haiti.” Petion was merely President of the Republic of Haiti in the south, backed by a General Boyer and his armies. That wasn’t enough for Christophe, who had an Archbishop ordain him King and Emperor in 1811. He then added to the standard repertoire of Haitian leaders by building six chateaux, eight palaces, and a “Citidelle” (Fortress) and creating 134 different nobles. He paid for this by a “labor service” system on the plantations and the building projects, continued the lucrative relationships with Brit and American merchants, and – get this! – imported “laborers” from Africa, “freeing” them from the evils of slavery in Spanish, French, and British colonies and in the United States.
15 Meanwhile, in the south, Petion promoted the ideals of democracy, and instituted land reform, dividing the plantations into small freeholdings, who stopped growing crops for export and became subsistence farmers. It is claimed that is one reason that the south became so poor, so quickly, compared to the wealth (or apparent wealth) of the north. A low-grade war between north and south, between the pure black north and mixed-race south, lasted until 1810 when a peace treaty split the country in two. (So Haiti can claim to be both the Second AND Third American Republic!) But even Petion found a republic and democracy burdensome, and in 1816 he became “President for Life” and in 1818 he suspended the legislature. He also started another tradition of Haiti: he was known as “Papa Bon-Coeur” (Good-hearted Dad) for his land reforms. He did aid Simon Bolivar in 1815, one of the bases for the claim that Haiti tried to export liberty while other countries (okay, the US) did not.
16 At some point in here, one or both of the Haitian governments decided to implement a final solution to the white people problem, and killed them all – those that didn’t escape to someplace else, that is.
17 Alas, all good things must come to an end. In the north, King Henri killed himself (with a silver bullet, it is said) in 1820 at age 53, fearing he would be deposed. In the south, Petion was already dead from yellow fever in 1818, and his general Boyer was in control.
18 Jean-Pierre Boyer was also a mulatto, but he was born free in 1776 (his mother was a former slave). He went to school in France, become a republican officer (battalion commander – the original republic rejected all royalist ranks), and then returned to Hispaniola to fight the British, the blacks, and the whites. He fled to France by way of the US, but came back home again in 1802 to fight against the rebels, but ultimately joined the revolution. In power when Henri blew his brains out, he quickly seized power in the north and reunited the country as President of Haiti.
19 Of course, that was just the first step. The next year, 1821, the Spanish two-thirds of the island finally declared independence from Spain, and decided to join with Gran Columbia (modern Columbia, Venezuela, Equator and Panama). Although Louveture had freed the slaves in the Spanish area in 1801, that didn’t stick, and there were still actual, official slaves there. So in 1822, Boyer invaded the new independent Spanish-speaking nation to “free the slaves” and “protect Santo Domingo from reconquest by Spain or France. In Dominica, the major resistance was from the evil white portion of the population, no doubt terrorized by stories from the political pundits of the day about what had happened to the whites in Haiti. So now Boyer was President of the entire island, but it was not a happy island. He paid off his Haitian officers with Dominican land, even while still supporting independence movement in other colonies; he refused to reestablish the legislature, but he continued the land reforms, and more and more export farmers turned into subsistence farmers.
20 Three years later, in 1825, France (now again under a nice monarchy with all that Napoleonic stuff safely behind them – they thought) saw its opportunity, and paid a visit to President for Life Boyer. With fourteen warships, natch. The treaty said that France would recognize Haiti as an independent nation IF Haiti paid France 150 million Francs in gold in five annual payments (to pay for all the property lost between 1791 and 1803). Even though Boyer had to borrow the first 30 million payment, he thought he had a good deal. And he probably did; although his efforts to generate the revenue to pay France failed – the old forced-labor system was too creaky and tying the peasants permanently to the land (an old custom called serfdom and later called communes or collectives) still didn’t result in serious surpluses to export for cash, nor did the idea of enticing 6,000 freed American blacks with skills to move to Haiti in 1824 help – they disliked the poverty and the incompetent government and went back to the US. But Boyer remained in power for an incredibly long time, until 1843 when the rural population revolted against their slavery in all but name and he fled to France. Like many after him.
21 Haiti (including the entire island, still) tried to create a new republic, complete with a provisional parliament, but one of the generals that booted Boyer out during the peasant revolt, Charles Herard, tore up their silly constitution and declared himself President. Alas, this was a short-term declaration, 13 months is all he lasted. But the eastern, Spanish-speaking two-thirds of the island took this chance to again declare independence, and he led his army to fight the secessionists. Only to get defeated by them and return to old Haiti only to find not one but two rebel armies against him. He quit the Presidency and moved to Jamaica, where he died in 1850, the same year as Boyer died.
22 As you can see, the pattern is well established. And virtually NONE of the problems are external – they are all created by the Haitians themselves: other countries can make matters worse by taking advantage of the situation, or can try to patch things up (and usually just make things still worse!) because their nationals or companies got sucked in. But ultimately, it is the Haitians themselves that started on and continue on the spiral down.
23 The newest, 1844 version revolutionaries wanted to get the mulattos out of power, so they picked an old, retired pure black warhorse, General Philippe Guerrier, a hero of the original revolution (and a noble under King Henry), to be general on 3 MAY 1844. He was 71, and he made it to 15 April 1845, all of eleven months. He seems to have died of natural causes. So they found another general, this one a mulatto figurehead (and former Prince under King Henry). He lasted for just over 11 months, but he was tossed out by a coup, and joined all the other ex-Presidents in exile somewhere, then died in 1857. Oh, yeah, his name was Jean Pierrot.
24 Never a people to give up flogging a dead horse, the “Boyerist” “ruling class” of Haiti chose another old general, Jean-Baptiste Riche, to be president, as a figurehead. He reestablished the Constitution of 1816 (the “President-for-Life” one, but with the legislature) but started talking about real reforms and so he died conveniently one day short of 12 months in office. The historians sometimes say that his presidency was a turning point in Haitian politics.
25 Haiti is just like France is so many ways, it is no wonder that French politicians and ministers are so hyper about the US getting involved – we may get involved in France again like we did in 1917 and 1944… And like France, Haiti DID try something else again. Maybe the first Emperor didn’t do it right or something. France had Napoleon I and Napoleon III, and Haiti had Dessalines (Jacques I, remember) and Faustin I. Actually, he started out like the three Presidents for Life (remember, two of them really WERE) before him: another retired general, 65 years old, picked as a good figurehead. But he was pure black and he had actually been a slave before he was freed in the first emancipation! He became president on 2 MAR 1847. But he was a lot more cunning than he looked, and took real power quickly, and got the legislature to make him Emperor in August 1849. He created 381 nobles (a lot more than Jacques I did!), and FOUR chivalric orders. He then tried to reconquer the Dominican Republic four times – 1849, 1850, 1855, and 1856. Is it any wonder that Dominicans don’t seem to like Haiti or Haitians very much? He also got into an almost war with the US in 1857 over Navassa Island.
26 Alas, Faustin I didn’t last as long as Napoleon III. A revolution began in 1858 led by General Gabre Geffrard, and the emperor abdicated in January 1859, going first to Jamaica and then allowed to come home where he died in 1867, age 85.
27 Remembering that Faustin was pure black, it should come as no surprise that the rebel commander, General Greffrard, was a mulatto. At least he fought for the job, instead of getting picked as a “safe” figurehead. He was the first Haitian leader born in the 19th Century, too: and only 53 when he took office. He gave up on the Dominican Republic, and cut the army in half, but created his own elite guards with some of the savings, and bought plantations with the rest. He started a bunch of schools, but also reestablished the labor service requirements – although this time to build and keep roads. He also tried to get more black Americans to come to Haiti. But in 1862 he found the real way to save money – he eliminated the legislature (again for how many times in Haiti?). He was also an undeclared ally of the United States rump (the Lincoln Administration) during the War Between the States, when Haiti welcomed the first US military presence: headquarters for the USN’s West Indian Squadron, part of the Anaconda blockade of the Confederacy. Like many other leaders of Haiti, he had to fight plots to overthrow him for most of his presidency. He staved them off for eight years, but was humiliated in the end: a mere Major forced him to retire.
28 In 1865, a Major Sylvain Salnave started taking control of northern Haiti, and civil war loomed. A huge fire in 1866 wrecked what there was left of the economy after years of Geffrarding it, and finally in March 1867, Geffrard fled to Jamaica. Geffrard died there in 1878, while the Major took over.
29 Here, for the nonce, I must end my tale of woe in that Pearl of the Antilles, Haiti. But the record is set; no matter what evil the USA or anyone else did after about 1865 or so, the pattern was set and the spiral was wound up and spinning down, down, down into poverty, bloodshed, a land of no liberty, no opportunity, no peace, no hope, and no prosperity.
There is no reason at all for the actions of the United States between 1791 and 1815 to be so soundly and roundly condemned as virtually EVERY Transnational Progressive I’ve read on the subject.
1. It is easy to say, after seven generations of US intervention in virtually every corner of the planet (starting with the Spanish-American War, the Philippine Insurrection and continuing right on up to Mesopotamia, the Sinai, the Balkans, and Haiti itself) to condemn Washington, Adams, and especially Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe for their failure to intervene in the Saint-Domingue rebellions. But those presidents (up to Monroe, at least) lived by the words of Washington and the intent of the Founding Fathers (which, of course, included them) to avoid entangling alliances, and to stay out of other people’s affairs.
2. To listen to modern advocates, and to listen to the national legends and myths of Haiti, their founders were noble, wise, selfless, and honorable men: as we’ve seen, the exact opposite is true. Benedict Arnold in the US was a rare bird; he would have been par for the course in Haiti during the 13 years of the “Revolution.” Actually, he would have been considered rather bland – he only turned his coat once! Even Aaron Burr cannot compare to these men.
3. Also to listen to apologists, the issue of slavery was paramount, but we see that it was not. The “Haitian Revolution” was tied in multiple ways to the highly-flawed and ultimately evil French Revolution. They were both revolutions AGAINST the old order, not (as was the American Revolution and the Texan Revolution) FOR a new and improved order. They both sought not just to “liberate” their nation or people from the old regime, but to DESTROY everything possible that the old regime had. And they ultimately replaced one very evil situation with a even more evil situation: slavery in fact if not in word – slavery of soul AND body and not just body.
Ultimately, Haiti is an object lesson to us all - a lesson that evil cannot be just reformed or given a new name, that names are NOT reality, and that government is (in the long-term or short-term) nothing but another form of slavery.
References:
a. http://www.thenation.com/doc/20100201/barnes “Haiti: The Pearl of the Antilles” by Joslyn Barnes
b. http://www.hnn.us/articles/122315.html History News Network: “Haiti’s Troubled History with the U.S. and France” by Marc Becker
c. http://www.lrb.co.uk/v26/n08/paul-farmer/who-removed-aristide London Review of Books, “Who Removed Aristide?” by Paul Farmer (15 April 2004)
d. http://www.caribdaily.com/comments/247314/the-u-s-must-not-occupy-haiti-declares-french-minister-as-aid-finally-trickles-through/ Carib Daily, Commentary on Daily Mail article (e).
e. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1244225/Haiti-earthquake-disaster-Mob-justice-Haitis-streets-blood-looter-lynched-police-shoot-rioters.html
f. http://www.odiousdebts.org/odiousdebts/index.cfm?DSP=content&ContentID=9636 Reprint of 2 JAN 2004 Wall Street Journal article.
g. http://www.louisianaweekly.com/news.php?viewStory=2283 “Haiti’s Sin” by Edmund W. Lewis
h. http://terencenance.com/2010/01/haiti-a-reminder/ 12 JAN 10
i. http://www.fff.org/blog/jghblog2010-01-21.asp Hornberger Blog, 21 JAN 10
