The History and Cost of Haiti's Independence Debt

Vocabulary flashcards covering the key terms, financial figures, historic events, and figures surrounding Haiti's independence debt to France.

Saint Domingue

The French colony that later became Haiti, which was France's most important Caribbean colony and produced the bulk of sugar and coffee consumed in Europe using enslaved labor.

Haitian Revolution

The historic rebellion started by enslaved people in Saint Domingue that overthrew white plantation owners and created the first black republic in 1804.

Baron de Macao

The French emissary sent to Haiti in 1825 with a battalion of warships to deliver an ultimatum demanding reparations for lost land and enslaved people or a declaration of war.

Independence Debt

The series of forced payments Haiti agreed to pay France starting in 1825 to compensate former slaveholders for their lost property in exchange for freedom and independence.

Double Debt

The financial burden created when Haiti paid France for its independence and simultaneously took out high-interest loans from French banks to meet the initial payment demands.

Coffee

Haiti's primary export for over a century, grown mostly by small mountain subsistence farmers and heavily taxed by the Haitian government to pay off the double debt.

$560,000,000

The exact total direct payment amount discovered in historical archives that Haiti paid to France and foreign banks for the double debt.

$21,000,000,000

The estimated present-day value of the direct debt payments if that money had remained in the Haitian people's pockets, as well as the exact sum in reparations requested by President Aristide in 2003.

$115,000,000,000

The estimated lost growth value of Haiti's economy if the money spent on the independence debt had stayed in the country and grown at the average rate of neighboring Latin American nations.

Jean Bertrand Aristide

The former priest and President of Haiti who launched a 2003 public campaign and legal strategy demanding $21,000,000,000 in reparations from France before being ousted in 2004.

Credit Mutual

The French bank involved in the historical debt payments that responded to the published investigation by announcing it would hire a team of scholars and Haitian researchers to examine its history.