American History Hit - America and the Haiti Revolution

Episode Date: February 23, 2023

The revolution in Haiti freed the country from French control and created the first Black republic after years of fighting, in 1804. Leslie Alexander tells Don how the revolution became possible and why it had such an impact on the United States - which doubled in size following the Louisiana Purchase from France when the revolution was almost won; and whose white population feared a similar uprising by its own enslaved black community.Produced by Benjie Guy. Mixed by Stuart Beckwith. Senior Producer: Charlotte Long.For more History Hit content, subscribe to our newsletters here.If you'd like to learn even more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad-free podcasts, and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe today! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Want to explore even more history? Sign up to History Hit, where you will discover history from around the world. From the American Revolution to prehistoric Scotland, there is plenty to discover. With your subscription, you'll unlock hundreds of hours of exclusive documentaries with a brand new release every week, exploring everything from the ancient world to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com slash subscribe to bring the past alive. August 21st, 1791. Drums beat the haunting rhythms of a voodoo ceremony,

resonating through the hot, humid night of Sandamang, the French colony on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola, what is today Haiti. In a cave deep in the forest, participants, enslaved Africans from nearby sugar plantations, dance and sing, some convulsing and euphoric spasm. They wave fire torches and play instruments,

preparing a sacrifice, their ritualistic office. to the Loire. This religious practice is the only possession they were able to bring from their African homeland when they were forced to cross the Atlantic. Now, years of cruel, brutal treatment by plantation owners have filled these people with unbridled anger and indignation. They know they outnumber the white population on the island 10 to 1, and it is time they act.

Tonight's ceremony is led by Duddy Bokman and is as much a religious rite as it is a rallying point. The next day, they will head out and join an uprising that will eventually become the Haitian revolution, a conflict that will birth the world's first black republic and have huge consequences for the future of the United States. Greetings all. Thanks for joining the podcast. I'm Don Wildman. Today, we're in unusual territory for American history hit, and we're discussing a revolution in a foreign land. But though this is an international story, it is a fundamental one to our own nation's history in several important ways. And without understanding its causes and consequences, one is left with a major blind spot about what is happening in America during this period and, frankly, even up to the present day. I'm talking about the Haitian revolution. Happened in the years 1791 to 1804 and resulted

in the creation of the first independent nation in the Caribbean, the second democracy in the Western Hemisphere and the first Black Republic in the world. It is a very complex and dramatic story with many twists and turns, and fortunately, our guest today will guide us through it all. Dr. Leslie Alexander is the Martin Luther King Jr. Professor of History at Rutgers University and is author of an important new book on the Haitian Revolution entitled Fear of a Black Republic. Leslie, welcome back to American History Hit. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. It's wonderful. be back. I will remind guests you formerly were on an episode early in our run about Seneca Village.

So thank you, yes, for coming back. That's so exciting to hear. I'm really glad. Leslie, there are certain histories that truly daunt me, and the Haitian revolution is one. On one level, it makes perfect sense. Enslaved labor force, cruelly abused for more than two centuries, throws off its shackles and rebels against its oppressors. But hold on, not so fast, because this is an island treasure, economically speaking, for three European powers in rotation, the Spanish, the English, and the French. What made Haiti so attractive and so lucrative? Yeah, I think that's a great question that before Haiti gained its independence, it was known as the colony of Sandomang, and it was controlled by the French government, by the French crown. And, of course, it was at the time in the 18th century, in the early part of the 18th century, in particular, it was known as,

as the pearl of the Antilles, because it was one of the wealthiest colonies in the Americas. Haiti was particularly, I guess I should say at the time, Sandomang, right, was particularly lucrative because of its ability, its natural resources, and it's particularly well adapted and inclined for the production of massive cash crops, particularly things like sugar and coffee, which were in high demand, particularly in Europe, but increasingly across the globe during the late 17th and early 18th centuries. So Sandomang, prior to the Haitian revolution, was providing France with almost a third of its annual global trade profit, which is really quite staggering when you consider that Sandomang, in terms of its physical size, was only perhaps about the size of

the state of Maryland. So it's a very small colony, and yet it is extremely profitable. It also has, by far, the largest enslaved population in the Caribbean, almost twice the number of enslaved people in Jamaica, which was the next largest enslaved population in the Americas. So San Domang is both incredibly profitable for France, but also really the heart and soul of the institution of slavery in the Americas. I know from previous experience shooting a TV show in Florida on a sugar plantation,

prior to the great modern machinery that is now doing the job for them, it took enormous amounts of labor to cut sugar and then produce it. It's just a heavy plant. All along the process, it takes a lot of people. So no wonder they needed to have a huge labor force, which in this case was an enslaved labor force. And this dates all the way back to the beginning. It's one of the first places that really uses people in this way. Let's go back to the beginning just to give people some bearings here. It is the first place that Christopher Columbus discovers. Spanish come first. He claims it, in quotation marks, for the Spanish, he calls it Espaniola. It's Hispaniola from there on. And they're there for many numbers years. At some point, there is in the 1600s a shift over,

militarily, I suppose, and politically anyway, the French take the place over. And that's when they start to really develop this place and creating all the... the infrastructure, I suppose, to grow these crops. Who is there first? The Tainos. The Taino civilization is the indigenous civilization, which gets no billing in this world. It's amazing how we've just sort of pushed them aside, like all these civilizations. But the Tainos are surprising. They're very orderly society stretching all the way to Florida. I mean, they're all throughout. It's like Polynesians, almost. And they call the place Aiti. Am I pronouncing that correct? That's right. And I think it is important to underscore the fact that once, you know, formerly enslaved people gain their

independence and establish their own nation, they do go back to an indigenous Taino name to rename the former colony from Sandomang to Haiti, which what becomes Haiti. But you're right that originally the term was a Taino name, Aiti. And they play a big role in this civilization in this society, never mind in the revolution in a sort of indirect fashion. Over these years, I mean, this is a very unique society. As in all colonial societies, there's all sorts of casts. You have the big plantation owners, and then you have the managerial class, the artisan class, and that's just the white people. And then you have all the different kinds of enslavements that are going on. It's unique also because it's in the middle of the ocean. You know, it's a very remote place.

And so there's a kind of strange quality to how life goes on and how these labor forces operate. There's a lot of escaping going on, people going into the hills, mixing with this other society. The Tainos, I mentioned this early on because they were virtually wiped out by the Spanish diseases that came over. It just diminished the population to a fraction of its former self. But there were still societies living in those hills. And as the enslaved people escaped and went up there for a while, and came back. There was a lot of mixing going on. And this is important to sort of stamp right in the beginning of this conversation, because that's the fertile bed for a lot of what makes this a very

different kind of story. You hear where I'm going with this. This is the beginnings of a whole cultural brew going on here, and it ends up with voodoo. Eventually we come to know it as voodoo, but it's the amazing melding of West African religious rituals with this Native American traditions. It all comes together there. Yeah, I think what's really fascinating about that island is its rich complexity, right, in terms of what you were just describing, obviously the rich history of the taino people and the taino culture and then the process of colonization, which, as you said, it starts with the Spanish. Eventually, the island gets divided into two colonies, right? So there's a mountain range that runs down the middle of the island of, as you said, what we call Hispaniola.

And on the one side, that becomes the French colony of Sandomang. And the other side of the island becomes the Spanish-controlled side of the island, Santa Domingo, right, which we now know as the Dominican Republic. So the island itself is complicated, right, in the sense that it has these very different histories of European colonization and competition. between the French and the Spanish over who's going to control the island, who's going to control which sides of it. And then as you said, it also has this very, like, rich, complicated cultural history in terms of the melding of Africans, enslaved Africans, the indigenous Taino population, and then also

the arrival of French colonists. I think one of the things that will be helpful for your listeners to understand, too, especially because there was a dynamic in Sandomang that was significantly different from what we're familiar with in the United States, which is that in San Domain, there also comes into being the rise of kind of a middling class, right, of free people of color, folks who are called Jean de Collier, which in French is people of color, right? They are overwhelmingly mixed race people, but they are what we would think of as just free people of color. And through most of the French colonial era, these free people of color are operating as a very complicated buffer class between white French colonists and enslaved Africans. And they, of course, end up also playing a really pivotal role once the Haitian revolution breaks out, right?

Because they ultimately overwhelmingly cast their lot with the enslaved population. and that plays a really important role in how the Haitian revolution over the long term becomes successful. I want to take a moment early here and nail down exactly why this is a relevant story to American history. Your book is called Fear of a Black Republic, and then the subtitle of it, Haiti and the birth of black internationalism in the United States. Can you explain that title in basic terms? Yes. Well, I'll first say that, you know, the first part of the title, Fear of a Black Republic for your listeners who are perhaps generation Xers or generation wires will recognize that I'm kind of riffing off of what was a very popular hip-hop album Fear of a Black Planet that was released by

Public Enemy in the early 1990s. And what a lot of the songs and the message of that album, Fear of a Black Planet, was about shedding light on a global fear about the spread of blackness and a spread of black power and the empowerment of black people across the globe. And as someone myself, who's a Generation X or I was very heavily influenced by political hip hop in the late 1980s and early 1990s. So I always had the consciousness of fear of a black planet in my mind. But as I started working on Haiti, I felt like it was really important to draw out the connections between those concepts that one of the main themes in my book is the fear that white folks in the United States, but really around the globe in the 19th century had about Haiti as an independent, sovereign,

black nation. And I think it really is important to recognize the sharp contrast between how the United States and its revolution and its establishment as a sovereign nation was received and embraced across the globe by comparison to the attempts on the part of Haitian people to do exactly the same thing, right? If you look at sort of the founding principles of the Haitian revolution and compare it to the French Revolution or what becomes the American Revolution, the core principles are the same, right? Liberty, brotherhood, natural rights philosophy, the right of all people to their freedom, the right of all humans to govern themselves. The Haitian revolution is very quite literally based on those same principles.

And yet when Haitian people, when African people, enslaved people, try to rise up, claim their natural right to freedom as human beings and establish their own, nation in almost exactly the same way the United States had done, they're not celebrated across the world for throwing off their colonial oppressors. They're not celebrated across the world for embracing natural rights philosophy, for embracing the Enlightenment, right, the way the United States was. Haitians are demonized for embracing the exact same principles, and it is simply and entirely due to their blackness. So that's what I was trying to capture in the first part of the title, fear of a black republic, that ultimately what has happened in terms of U.S. foreign policy

in particular towards Haiti can all be traced back to that core response, that fear and that terror that rises up among white Americans, but also white folks around the world. Once formerly enslaved people want to claim their human right to freedom and sovereignty. Then the second part of the title, the concept of black internationalism, is really about wanting to look at, and this is sort of the other sub-theme of the book, is really wanting to look at and understand how does the creation of independent sovereign Haiti influence black political consciousness in the United States? So in many ways, the book is about how the establishment of Haiti as the birth sovereign black nation in the Americas shapes United States political

consciousness, in part among white political leaders and what the response is in Congress, how the presidents respond, how white folks on the ground feel about the establishment and creation of Haiti. But it's also about how black folks in the United States, both enslaved people in the South, but also recently emancipated black northerners. How did they feel and respond to and symbolically connect to Haiti as a black nation? It is a lens, you know, through which to look at American history and cultural development throughout the 19th century for sure, but even beyond, you know, in terms of reacting to this thing. You know, that's what's interesting is that it was all too clear to all sorts of people the values that were being expressed by this revolution. They

are the same. Everybody knows that. Of course, any smart people could see it. But yet they couldn't reconcile themselves to the fact that this nation was rising up, given who they were, you know, and the people that were involved. Bottom line is there's just an ugly economics involved here, is that while they are human beings, they were also property, and therefore they're seen as revolting against, you know, some sort of system that they were part of. And it reminds me of Cuba, in a way, the reaction to Cuba and the embargo that we continue on with here, you know, it dates back to the fact that real estate deals were broken and all sorts of, you know, simple economic investments were betrayed and therefore we are never going to forgive that at all.

It's not an exact parallel, but you know what I'm saying? Yeah. And white Americans are also really afraid that there's going to be a domino effect. Because the problem is not that there's a rebellion in heat. Rebellions happen all across the Americas throughout the 18th and 19th century. So the rebellion is not a particular shock. or surprise. And in fact, if you look at sort of politicians' documents when what becomes the Haitian revolution first starts, they make sort of a passing acknowledgement of it. They don't become fearful until the rebellion becomes unstoppable. And it evolves into a revolution. And what really

becomes terrifying is once the revolution is successful and an independent black nation is established. The question becomes, what does this mean for the stability of other slave societies around the Americas? It drives a nail into the heart of the idea of white supremacy, but also the idea that black people are content and happy to be enslaved and that slave societies are ultimately stable and that there's nothing to fear about slave rebellions. And the Haitian revolution flies in the face of all of that, particularly once it's successful. They overthrew a superpower of the day, you know, one of the world powers. That takes a lot of strategy and a lot of wherewithal to do. So clearly this is a sophisticated, incredibly strategic

military force that's at hand here, and that says a lot. All right, so let's put this in the context of the day. This is the beginning of the age of revolution, which is also an incredible to the story. The colonial power there is France, who is basically at the same time going to through their revolution at home, you know, in the 1790s and onward, through overthrowing the aristocracy and all the same stuff that's basically going on here. And all of that is happening as Napoleon becomes the leader through this period of time. It's just so ironic that at the same time, one of their colonial powers does this, and they suddenly have to fight a war and put them back into enslavement. It's an incredibly weird clunkiness about the whole idea. Take me back

to the beginnings of this revolution and why it happened. when it did and how it goes about. Was there an inciting event that really triggered the whole thing? Well, you know, I think what you pointed out a little bit earlier in our conversation is just the sort of most painful and obvious thing, which is the overwhelming cruelty of slavery in Sandomang. And of course, it's the cruelty of slavery everywhere it exists, right? But it is particularly cruel in a place like Sandomang, where it is overwhelmingly focused

on sugar and coffee cultivation. And as you noted earlier, sugar cultivation is particularly brutal from the actual harvesting of the cane to the boiling of the sugar, to the entire process from beginning to end of cutting, cultivating, and actually creating sugar. So there had always been ripples of resistance and rebellion. And in particular, you know, we have throughout, the period, the regular practice of what historians now called marinaj, right? Enslaved people running away, creating maroon communities, which are really just independent communities of fugitive or legally free people, right? Typically, in the case of Sandomang, they're running away to the mountains because it's

difficult to get to them there, and they're establishing independent communities. So Maronage had been part and parcel of slavery in Sandomang from its inception. So there had always been patterns of resistance. There had been patterns of rebellion. There had been a series of uprisings that took place prior to what actually became the Haitian Revolution. But events really pop off in August of 1791. And most historians sort of trace the beginning of the revolution to a particular religious ceremony. And it's interesting that earlier you mentioned Vodou, right?

Because Vodou as a religion, as a spirit, spiritual practice plays a really important role, both historically and contemporarily, in Haitian society. And in this case, played a very important role in what became the uprising that led to the Haitian revolution. So there is a voodoo ceremony that is held in the northern part of Haiti in August of 1791. And that leads to an uprising. And that uprising sort of blossoms contagiously very quickly and the uprising that begins one night expands into days, becomes weeks, becomes months. And within the space of about a month, over a thousand plantations had already been burned to the ground. So the rebellion took off very quickly. And as you said, over time

eventually blossoms into a full-scale revolution. Most historians agree that before the Haitian revolution finally came to a conclusion, probably over 80,000 enslaved people became involved in the revolution itself. So it is a massive and widespread uprising that, of course, goes on for years, in which the French use a number of strategies to try to regain control over the island. At one point, of course, they abolish slavery, hoping that that's going to bring an end to the rebellion. But in this case, enslaved people actually want to be fully free and autonomous at various points. Spain, Great Britain, even the United States all send different types of financial and military support trying either to take over the colony themselves or to put down the rebellion. And so the Haitian revolution

goes on for more than a decade before it finally comes to an end at the conclusion of 1803. And Haiti declares it's independence on January 1, 1804. I'll be back with more from Leslie Alexander in just a moment. Airplanes, space suits, condoms, coffee, plastic surgery, warships. Over on the patented podcast by History Hit, we bring you the fascinating stories of history's most impactful inventions and the people who claim these ideas as their own. We uncover exceptional stories behind everyday objects.

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To catch new episodes every Wednesday and Sunday. I'm surprised that the French, given how lucrative this place was, I'm surprised their military presence wasn't stronger there, that they didn't have massive forts and everything else there. I would have thought they didn't really. They had to wage this war from France. And that was part of the challenge for them. Right.

did. And so, as you said, part of the challenges that they're also having their own internal problems. The French Revolution is also underway. But they also, as you said, have the problems of having to send troops from France all the way to San Domain. So oftentimes by the time the troops arrive there, they're already exhausted. They're already physically diminished in various ways. And then many of them, in addition to the fact that the Haitian army is just incredibly well organized and very determined, The French troops often also succumb to a variety of tropical diseases that they are not particularly prepared to face. So the French has a whole series of challenges in terms of trying to grapple with the Haitian army, which is, as I said, well organized and very committed to victory. It's a miserable place to farm and work.

It's a more miserable place to fight for your life. I mean, to wage a war. It's incredibly difficult terrain. Probably most Americans don't realize how vast this place really is. Haiti is a very big country, not to mention, you know, the Dominican Republic. The whole island is massive. And Aiti, by the way, is mountainous land. That's the Teino name for that place.

It was the primary feature of the land is that it's really hard to move around because it's filled with forest and very steep hills. And I should say for people who don't know, you know, for your listeners who have never been to Haiti or have perhaps only visited Haiti and gone to the major cities like Porta Prince or Cape Haitian, Haiti is an extraordinarily beautiful. country. I mean, the mountains and the trees and it's so lush, and it's probably the prettiest country I have ever visited. I totally agree with you. I did a show there a couple of years ago that was an extraordinary experience, and I stayed in Capatian, which is the city that figures heavily in this story in the north of Haiti. Port of Prince is down south, and Capatian is the northern capital. Yeah, extraordinary city, extraordinary architecture, as a matter of fact, but also just gorgeous lands and, of course, the oceans. I mean, it's just a great place to go.

So how much did they know they were fighting for a nation? Was that the point of the revolution? I mean, we're talking about it as if it's a slave uprising, but it quickly becomes a much more sophisticated effort, you know, to actually create a nation. I mean, it's hard to know, right? We don't necessarily know for certain what was in the minds of the original conspirators. It's clear that they were 100% committed to overthrowing and destroying the institution of slavery. How much of a vision or a plan they had be.

beyond that, we will probably never know with certainty. But as you said, it very quickly changes from a rebellion or an uprising against slavery and becomes about something much larger. And I think that part of that is rooted in their increasing belief that the only way to be sure that they will remain free and that slavery will never be reimposed upon them is to oust colonial authority entirely. And that that then means the establishment of an independent nation governed by themselves. Let's talk about the leadership. Some really charismatic leaders emerge quickly in the beginning of this. And I suppose they are the ones that most begin to shape this revolution into a more purposeful conflict. I'm thinking of Jean-Jacques Desaline, a charismatic man.

A charismatic man and a man who, the way I would put it nicely and sort of diplomatically is he did not suffer fools. So Jean-Jacques de Seline was 100% committed to Haitian independence and a hundred percent committed to ensuring that slavery would never be reimposed on the Haitian people. You know, in the eyes of many, he went to extreme measures and he made some unpopular decisions. But I think it is important to keep in mind that the French, the Spanish, the British had all made it clear that they were willing to recolonize the island and reimpose slavery if given the opportunity. And Jean-Jacques Dessaline was committed to making it clear to everyone that he would rather see the entire island sink into the ocean than to see slavery be reimposed or to see Haiti fall under

foreign rule again. Did he see the effect that he was going to have on the world at large? I mean, he must have hated slavery anywhere? Yeah, he certainly did, right? And historians love debating everything. And one of the things that, you know, historians are continuing to debate is how committed, had he lived longer, would Desilene have been inspiring and supporting rebellions and uprisings of enslaved people in other parts of the Americas? But I think it's pretty clear that he detested the institution of slavery and was 100% committed to making sure that it did not return. Talk about a hot button issue. I mean, they are pushing on the most sensitive tool, I mean, the most useful tool that white colonial powers have at this point to make a lot of money in these days of manual labor, for sure.

It strikes at the core of the whole economic machinery of the colonial world there. Toussaint, L'Uverture. Am I right with that name? Yes. I like his name. It's a good name. Quite a fellow. Yes.

Again, a very charismatic leader. long after his death was widely celebrated and hailed by his people. I think in many ways is kind of seen as the leader, the father, the architect of the Haitian revolution, and to a large degree was an extraordinary military strategist. I mean, on basic levels in terms of movement of troops and organizing of troops, but also just in terms of the big picture of how to play France and Spain against each other, how to play Spain and England against each other, you know, how to manipulate the psychology of the revolution and colonialism to their advantage as well. I mean, I think he's actually a fascinating study as a master strategist in that regard.

He had not been enslaved, right? He had. So he had been formerly enslaved and then had gained his freedom. So he was legally free at the time of the revolution, but he had been formerly enslaved. But you mentioned how the strategist. just that he is, he's the one that really begins to play these forces against each other. And that's where all these different powers, meaning mostly Spain and France, are wanting back into this place because everybody knows what money can be made should they regain the power. And he, at some point, allies with the Spanish against the French. That's not going to work out any better

for his people. So that's going to fall apart down the road. But this is the kind of chess playing that is the Haitian revolution, really. Yes. It's really fascinating. I mean, at various points, I was making a joke with my students the other day about, you know, how politics make strange bedfellows. And here's a situation where Toussaint, at various points during the revolution, is allying himself in really complicated ways. At some points, he's actually aligning himself with the French to kick the Spanish out. And then once the Spanish are out, he goes back to fighting the French. So his foresight in terms of how to play this as a game of chess is really fascinating for his time. When does the table turn?

And when did they gain the upper hand here? That's a good question. I think they really gain the upper hand over the course of 1802 and 1803. I think by then Spain kind of gives up. By the end of 1801, they've pretty effectively driven out Spain. And Spain has sort of decided, okay, we're going to just settle ourselves with Santo Domingo, the other side of the island, and sort of move on. The English have overwhelmingly been kicked out. And the French troops are just falling victim to things.

Haitian army. The Haitian army by that time is very clear. They're very well organized. They are using really effective guerrilla tactics and using home court advantage in terms of they know the terrain, they know the land. They're using all of those things to their advantage. And so I think over the course of 1802 and into 1803, it becomes clear that the French are really kind of getting their butts kicked, so to speak. And by November of 1803, the French surrender. and victory goes to the Haitians. Another prominent name that creeps up in this thing is Rochambeau, this French officer who actually played a huge role in the American Revolution, kind of heroically.

So you can hear him referred to in Hamilton. He's the good guy on our side. But he's horrible in the Haitian Revolution. He's a terrible man. Well, I mean, I think this is another example of what we were talking about earlier, right? People who kind of embrace these principles of freedom and equality in theory. But when it comes to threaten what they understand to be their property or threatens the institution of slavery, then all of a sudden, it turns out they're actually not as committed to those principles as we thought they were. In the town where I live, there is a Rochambeau Street. I now can't drive down that street. Thanks to reading about this man. He's just vile.

He's vile. Oh, my God. I'm sorry to be laughing. It's terrible. 1803, something very important happens. in April of 1803 and very tied to the American destiny. The Louisiana Purchase Treaty is signed, and France cedes its massive North American territory to the United States. This is a chapter that most people do not realize has everything to do with Haiti. Exactly. This is actually one of my favorite questions when I'm teaching either introduction to American history

or introduction to African American history. And I get to the point of the Louisiana purchase. And I look out at my students and say, So why do you suppose France was willing to sell all that territory to the United States? And they look back at me with these like giant owl eyes. Like it's all of a sudden like a light goes on and they realize I never thought about that before. Following the Louisiana purchase, the size of the United States triples. It is a massive stretch of land.

Like that's another misnomer, right? That we call it the Louisiana purchase. There's still a lot of people who think that's when the United States got Louisiana. Right. But it's a massive plot of land that goes all the way up to Canada. It stretches far out west. It's a huge piece of land that the United States acquires as the result of Louisiana purchase. And everyone knows like, okay, France sold it to the United States.

Very few people stop to ask themselves the question, why would France want to sell it? It's a very lucrative piece of territory in the Americas. And of course, the answer to the question is they were losing badly as a result. of the Haitian revolution, and they are doing everything they can to recap the financial losses, that they are incurring in part because they no longer control the trade that's coming in and out of what was then still being called Sandomang, but also because they're expending an extraordinary amount of money in order to fight the revolution. And so France is desperate for money. And that is really the only reason why the Louisiana purchase takes place.

place. So for people who are interested in westward expansion and how the United States becomes what it becomes, they actually have the Haitians to thank for that. Because in the absence of the Haitian revolution, it's hard to know when or if France would have ever wanted to surrender that territory. Do you think Jefferson was aware of that situation? Did he know that it was the triggering event? He absolutely knew. Every U.S. president was following the Haitian revolution closely from the time, again, that it becomes clear that it's not just another slave revolt, right, but that it's actually becoming a revolution. Every American president was following very closely what was happening in what was then Sandomang and following every

aspect of the Haitian revolution at various points, actually sending military support to France in order to try to put down the rebellion. So every single leading U.S. politician knew what was happening and knew why France wanted to sell the territory. Isn't that the most delicious irony or pathetic irony? You have the American president celebrated for making the greatest real estate deal in history, basically because the enslaved population overthrows its oppressors, but he's an oppressor himself who owns a whole bunch of slaves, and it's just too weird. And who comes out the winner in the end, the United States? You'd think at that point we would hold Santa Dominga up in the air and say, Thank you, thank you, thank you. What can we do for you? But that's the opposite of what happens.

Right. That is 100% the opposite of what happens. And I think you're right that it is really sort of a bitter irony. And it's a bitter irony that Thomas Jefferson himself was keenly aware of. One of my favorite Thomas Jefferson quotes comes from a letter that he wrote in 1820, where he describes the conundrum of the institution of slavery. And he says, and I'm moderately paraphrasing him, but he says, as it is, we are holding a wolf by the ears. So he's imagining this situation where they know that they have this out of control system, which is raging for freedom. And they're just sort of holding it by its ears. And he says, on the one scale, we have justice. And on the other scale, we have self-preservation. So in his

mind, he's clear that the institution of slavery is unjust. And that, if justice prevailed, slavery would be destroyed, that they would let go of the wolf. And yet in his mind, self-preservation politically, socially, and economically demands that black people remain enslaved. Oh, so ugly. This conflict ends in 1803 in terms of the military aspect of things. At that point, I just want to understand this is when Haiti becomes named Haiti. I know this is a minor point really in the big scheme of things, but I just want to understand. this. It was Santa Dman under all those years with the French, but now it's 80 because the new leadership, the victors in this contest, want to go back to the native name of Aiti, and therefore

here we are today, calling it that. That's right. It's really the beginning of the story, though, because a whole other set of circumstances arise as a result. France does not give up. I mean, this is not their last show here. In fact, they come back within several decades to retake the island. at which point something really important happens, which is that they force a situation onto the Haitians. And please explain this. It's called the double debt. Yes, it's called the double debt. It's often also referred to as the indemnity. So what happens is that, as you indicated, Haiti declares its independence January 1st, 1804. They take the name IET, which becomes Haiti. And again, they become the first sovereign black nation.

in the Americas. The folks in France are not happy. The French crown is certainly not happy because it's lost, again, a third of its global trade profit, the wealthiest and most influential economic holding that they have in the world. They have lost control over. So the French politicians are not happy, but also the individual colonists who now have lost their territory, have lost their human property are not happy. And people who live in France, who were gaining their own individual wealth, either as absentee plantation owners or as traders relative to what's being produced in Sandomang, they're all unhappy too. So over the next 20 years or so, the French government is using a variety of strategies to try to figure out how to regain control over Haiti. So they're sending

diplomats over and they're trying to negotiate with the various leaders and how can we regain some trade power here. And there's this constant process whereby France is trying to figure out how to regain control over Haiti, potentially reimpose the institution of slavery, but try to recap what they perceive to be their financial losses in some way or another. This all comes to ahead in 1825. when King Charles the 10th finally decides he has to do something, right? He's under an extraordinary amount of pressure to resolve this thing one way or another. So he sends a couple of ships, followed by a whole other fleet of 12 more ships to Haiti. They arrive in the port at Port of Prince, and they point almost 500 cannons at the port city.

And then there is a diplomat who gets off the ship, goes and speaks to the Haitian president, who was then Jean-Pierre Boyer. And they say to Boyer, you have two choices. We can fight this out. Again, we can go back to war with each other. Or you can agree to the terms in this contract, which again ultimately becomes known as the indemnity. And what they have laid out in this agreement are kind of two big things. One is that they have made a financial assessment of what they perceive to be the value of the colony. It's physical land, but also its former human property. So how did they value the loss of the colony, both in terms of land and in terms of human property? And they've attached a dollar amount to it or an amount of francs in this case to it. And so they say, in order to maintain your independence, if you don't want to go to war again and you want to maintain your independence, you have to pay us in annual installments 150 million gold francs, which in contemporary U.S. dollars would be somewhere in the range of like

$20 billion. So they say, if you want to maintain your freedom and independence, you have to pay us essentially reparations for the loss of the colony and for the loss of your individual lives, which we felt like we owned. Now, the other stipulation to it was, a rider that said, in addition to that, we also only have to pay what we're then called half duties, which were taxes. So at the time, every ship that comes in and out of a port that's trading has to pay taxes to the country that they're trading with. So they're saying we're only going to pay half of the taxes that we would normally have to pay to come in here and trade with you. I point that out because that is a part of the indemnity that people tend to forget. They

fixate for understandable reasons on the 150 million gold francs. But that additional rider was extremely important because it does have a significant effect on the Haitian people's ability to repay the indemnity because what you're doing is agreeing to pay this absurdly huge amount. At the same time, you're reducing the amount of income that you can potentially earn. So what that creates then is a cycle of debt, which you have described as sort of this double debt. There's no possible way for Haiti or for any newly independent country anywhere in the world at that time to be able to pay back the amount of money that France is demanding on an annual basis. And I should say that even United States, politicians and newspapers observed that the whole concept of the indemnity was absurd.

American newspapers are even saying these folks have fought for their independence and freedom, just like we did. They shouldn't have to pay anything back. But even if they are going to pay something back, this amount of money is absurd. There's no possible way anyone can pay this back. And yet now Haiti has agreed to it because war is their only alternative. And so it creates cycles of debt where they're borrowing from French banks to try to pay the money back at these insanely high interest rates. And it's a cycle of debt from which Haiti has never been able to recover. Never. This is guts. that entire economy over and over again. Never mind the fact it creates a whole political fragility in the nation because you can't build a country if you don't have cash flow and you can't create

infrastructures and institutions and all the things that we take for granted in a prosperous country where you do have that kind of thing going on. It definitely snowballs into the 20th century and even today. Throw in tragedies, earthquakes and so forth. And you have a lot of effects on that land that are just devastating. But at the heart of it is really this incredibly cruel deal that they had to agree to just for self-preservation again. And here we are today. It is a remarkable thing to go there and to meet lovely people, to eat lovely food, to have really good times. Been there, done that. The last time I was there, I thought it was a foregone conclusion that this was going to be the greatest resort, seeing it through my own eyes, of course, to not understand the history

behind all of this stuff is to not understand how hard it's been for that island to create what it is, which is still a functioning nation and still doing what they plan to do. They're just still trying to make it work. And I think it is important that we revisit these historical realities because when the U.S. media hammers away at the idea that Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, they say that without any context and any contextual understanding of how Haiti became. the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. And it did it solely because of the indemnity, which first was a debt to France and later became a debt to the United States. Because the United States, over the course of the 20th century, steadily and increasingly replaces France as the nation to whom Haiti

is forced to repay this debt. And so I think it is important to understand, when we want to point fingers and call Haiti a failed nation or to call it, you know, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, that is a process that has happened by design. And it has happened as the result of the foreign policies executed by Western nations like France and the United States. The book is called Fear of a Black Republic, Haiti and the Birth of Black Internationalism in the United States. The author is Leslie M. Alexander, who once again, I am so honored to have. You tell a story well, Leslie. Well, hopefully that's the case. I got class in a little bit, so hopefully they're not tired of me. I envy your students. We'll see you again.

Thanks for listening to this episode of American History Hit. I hope you enjoyed it. Please don't forget to like, review, and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. I'll see you next time. This podcast includes music from Epidemic Sound.