{"id":304422,"date":"2025-10-06T12:00:48","date_gmt":"2025-10-06T11:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=304422"},"modified":"2025-10-05T17:40:46","modified_gmt":"2025-10-05T16:40:46","slug":"neocolonialism-through-debt-how-french-and-u-s-banks-underdeveloped-haiti","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2025\/10\/neocolonialism-through-debt-how-french-and-u-s-banks-underdeveloped-haiti\/","title":{"rendered":"Neocolonialism through Debt: How French and U.S. Banks Underdeveloped Haiti"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Caisse des Depots – France<\/p><\/div>\n

In 1825, fourteen French gunboats sailed into the harbor of the capital of Haiti, Port-au-Prince, and forced the government to pay an indemnity of 150 million francs. This threw Haiti into a cycle of debts that stymied development and reduced the majority of the population to a situation of abject poverty that survives to this day. Thomas Piketty has described this as \u201cneocolonialism through debt.\u201d1<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

The majority of the colonial states that abolished enslavement in the Americas during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries paid some form of compensation to the previous enslavers. The difference in the case of Haiti was that it was the formerly enslaved themselves who were expected to compensate their former masters, with money that could have been used to build schools, roads, and clinics or otherwise promoted economic development.<\/p>\n

Under the pressure of the Haitian revolution, which broke out in the French colony of Saint-Domingue in August 1791, slavery was abolished in all the overseas colonies in the French Empire in 1794. Napoleon Bonaparte attempted to restore slavery in 1802, but was unsuccessful. Having defeated a French invasion force and definitively taken power, the formerly enslaved Africans remained free. On January 1, 1804, Saint-Domingue proclaimed its independence and renamed itself by its old Indigenous name, Haiti.2<\/sup><\/a> The young republic was, however, not recognized by any of the imperialist powers for the next twenty years.<\/p>\n

The governments of France and Haiti engaged in three sets of inconclusive negotiations about formal independence between 1816 and 1824.<\/p>\n

The Indemnity<\/h2>\n

Alexandre Sab\u00e8s P\u00e9tion, the first president of the Republic of Haiti, had first suggested paying an indemnity in 1814, during his talks with Jean-Fran\u00e7ois Dauxion-Lavaysse, who had been sent by the government of Louis XVIII to negotiate a return of Haiti to French colonial rule.3<\/sup><\/a> P\u00e9tion likened the proposed transaction to Napoleon\u2019s sale of Louisiana to the United States. At that time, P\u00e9tion only controlled the southern portion of Haiti. The north, meanwhile, was ruled by Henri Christophe, who wrote:<\/p>\n

What rights, what arguments can the ex-colonists then allege to justify their claim for an indemnity? Is it that they wish to be recompensed for the loss of our persons? It is conceivable that Haitians who have escaped torture and massacre at the hands of these men, Haitians who have conquered their own country by the force of their arms and at the cost of their blood, that these same free Haitians should now purchase their property and persons once again with money paid to their former oppressors.4<\/sup><\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Article 38 of the Haitian constitution, which prohibited whites from owning real estate in Haiti, left the former colonists with only one means of recovering their properties: a large-scale military expedition to regain control of the \u201crebel\u201d colony.5<\/sup><\/a> By offering them compensation for the loss of their property, P\u00e9tion had hoped to \u201cdisarm\u201d them by removing any pretext for the reconquest of Haiti. In 1820, following the death of Christophe, the country was reunited under Jean-Pierre Boyer, who was the successor to P\u00e9tion and shared his political outlook.<\/p>\n

The accession of King Charles X to the throne of France in September 1824 changed the situation. The new king was even more reactionary and authoritarian than his predecessor, Louis XVIII, and wanted to restore the ancien<\/i> r\u00e9gime<\/i> that existed before the French Revolution. Yet, even he recognized that a reconquest of Haiti was impossible, and so he sought to extract as much as he could from people who he still considered rebellious slaves. He instructed an emissary, Ange Ren\u00e9 Armand, Baron de Mackau, to present the Haitian president with an ordinance, unilaterally drafted by the French government and dated April 17, 1825, \u201cgranting\u201d to his former colony an independence that had been held de facto<\/i> since the beginning of the century. The French emissary arrived with a substantial naval force that threatened to blockade the ports and bombard Port-au-Prince. The conditions of the ordinance included the payment of an indemnity of 150 million francs payable in five years to the Caisse des D\u00e9p\u00f4ts et Consignations (a state fund) for the former French colonists. This was not the original demand of the exiled plantation owners of Saint-Domingue. They wanted their lands back, the insurgent enslaved laborers exterminated, and new enslaved people brought in from Africa.<\/p>\n

In the eighteenth century, before the revolution, exports from Saint-Domingue had represented two-thirds of France\u2019s exterior trade, more than all the trade between Britain and its colonies combined. The colony had produced more than half the world\u2019s coffee and exported as much sugar as Jamaica, Cuba, and Brazil put together.6<\/sup><\/a> Remembering both their defeat at the hands of the soldiers of Haiti and the profits that had been extracted from the island, the government of France wanted to reach an agreement, particularly as Haiti had entered serious trading relationships with Great Britain and the United States, while banning French flagged ships from its ports.<\/p>\n

The amount of the compensation was set unilaterally by the French government when it imposed the ordinance granting Haiti independence on the condition of payment of a financial indemnity of 150 million francs payable in five annual installments, in addition to a reduction in customs taxes in favor of French trade. The ordinance was accepted by the Haitian government only five days after Baron Mackau\u2019s arrival, on July 8, 1825.7<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

Paying the Debt<\/h2>\n

The ordinance imposed requirements that bore no relationship to the financial situation of Haiti or its ability to pay, a situation made worse by the continual decline in the international price of coffee, which was Haiti\u2019s principal export and source of foreign exchange. One hundred kilograms of coffee fetched 291.2 French francs in 1821, but only 83.7 francs in 1830.<\/p>\n

To settle the first installment of 30 million francs, payable in December 1825, the Haitian government, now led by Boyer, had to seek a loan in Paris.8<\/sup><\/a> In October 1825, at the request of the Haitian government, the Parisian bank Ternaux and Gandolphe offered at auction a loan of 30 million francs over twenty-five years on behalf of the Republic of Haiti. This sum was divided into 30,000 bonds of 1,000 francs, each yielding an interest of 6 percent per annum. However, the bankers kept, as a commission, a percentage of the amount borrowed. The government of Haiti was therefore going to receive 24 million francs from the consortium, but would have to repay 30 million, plus interest, to the bondholders. To put this amount in perspective, a French franc in 1825 was worth less than a shilling in English money. The indemnity of 150 million francs that France imposed on Haiti was equal to around \u00a36 million, nearly a third of the \u00a320 million paid to the slave owners in the British Empire.<\/p>\n

The French banker Jacques Laffitte set up a syndicate, including the Rothschilds, which gave the Haitian government 800 francs for every 1,000 they were forced to repay. Thus, 24 million francs were paid to the Caisse des D\u00e9p\u00f4ts et Consignations. This led to a double debt, the Republic of Haiti still owed 126 million francs to the former slave owners and 30 million to the financial services industry in France, making a total debt of 156 million francs, even before interest. Meanwhile, between 2,000 and 3,000 French investors were convinced to purchase shares in the loan in lots of 1,000 francs.<\/p>\n

The government of Haiti could not afford to pay the next installment on the indemnity and failed to service the debt in 1826 and 1827. Laffitte, the banker behind the loan\u2014who himself owned one thousand shares, worth a total of one million francs\u2014persuaded the French government to assume responsibility for the debt and extracted himself from the deal. Nevertheless, most of the ordinary subscribers lost their money as the shares were traded at 660 francs in 1826, declining to 195 francs in 1848. This was considered scandalous at the time, as many of the investors were liberals who were hostile to the regime of Charles X and opponents of enslavement. These liberals had been convinced to support the scheme because they believed that their investment was intended to assist the economic development of independent Haiti and were shocked to discover that their money had been used to pay an indemnity to the former enslavers.9<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

One of the investors thus deceived, a disabled veteran of the Napoleonic wars, wrote that the colonists of Saint-Domingue were the descendants and successors of the European conquerors who had annihilated the first occupants of the island to appropriate their lands; and that the heirs to this legacy only accumulated their wealth thanks to the forced labor of unfortunates torn from the African continent. He argued that it is by virtue of the right of reprisals that these colonists were in turn driven out and dispossessed by those they had enslaved for too long; consequently, the formerly enslaved people owed them no compensation.10<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

Resistance and Collaboration<\/h2>\n

In Haiti, this indemnity was extremely unpopular and there was an armed uprising in the north of the country that was viciously repressed by the Boyer government. Among the propertied classes, and especially the landed aristocracy, many were not at all happy to see their rent or profit reduced for the benefit of French capitalism. Among the general population, it was commonly believed that the constant depreciation of paper money and the corresponding increase in the prices of everyday consumer goods were due to the annual shipments of Haitian gold and silver to France. The workers and peasants were the first to bear the cost of the financial commitments made by the government. In this agricultural country, where feudal exploitation methods were rife, the burden of paying the independence debt had to rest essentially on the shoulders of the poor peasants, who were either sharecroppers or small landowners. The peasant masses were burdened with an indirect tax on the export of coffee, made worse by the issue of paper money, which prevented farmers from knowing exactly what they were being offered for the product of their labor.11<\/sup><\/a> Import taxes had become the only reliable source of state revenue, as they were paid in hard currency, but this meant relying completely on the import and export taxes that were extremely vulnerable to external shocks.12<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

The governing oligarchy, of which Boyer was the principal representative, may be seen as an early example of the comprador bourgeoisie<\/i>, acting as intermediaries, and ultimately representing the interests of the ruling classes of the former colonizing power while corruptly enriching themselves. A modern example would be Hastings Banda of Malawi. The oligarchy grouped behind the autocratic Boyer sought legitimation from the former colonizers which, they hoped, would end its fears on the international level and give it the prestige necessary to more effectively impose its law on the lower classes, as well as on the anti-French and anticolonialist branch of the aristocracy that had its stronghold in the north of the country.13<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

Despite the Haitian government practicing a policy of coexistence and nonintervention in the affairs of neighboring islands still under colonial domination to the extent of writing such a commitment into the constitution, the French government and other imperialist powers in the region were worried by the example set by the enslaved workers of a colony liberating themselves and setting up an independent nation-state.14<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

The indemnity, known as the \u201cransom of the enslaved,\u201d overwhelmed the economy of the young Haitian republic. Following the ordinance of 1825, the country found itself held hostage economically, chained to the obligation to pay the indemnity and the loan contracted to honor the first payment. This double \u201cdebt of independence\u201d was the strategy put in place by the former colonial power to maintain an unofficial hegemony over a rebellious former colony that had become a sovereign state. Although no longer under direct political domination, Haiti was placed permanently under the economic domination of the French government. There was also the question of the sanctity of bourgeois property rights. \u201cViolence can give possession but never property,\u201d asserted the liberal newspaper Le Moniteur industriel<\/i>. This defended the idea that it was necessary to demand financial compensation from the Haitians for the serious attack on the principle of the legitimacy of colonial property represented by their having gained independence through an insurrection carried out by enslaved people and a national war against the colonial power.15<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

Former Enslavers<\/h2>\n

Needless to say, the former plantation owners were unhappy with this arrangement. The more reactionary amongst them still dreamed of reclaiming their property by military means. However, most sensible opinion in France was clear that this was impossible. Napoleon had sent the biggest military expedition ever to cross the Atlantic, and it had been soundly defeated. Since then, the people of Haiti had been organized into armed militias. A French invasion, despite the divisions caused by the varied interests of different social classes in the country, would have united the resistance. Threatening to bombard Port-au-Prince from the sea was one thing; a full-scale land invasion was a completely different matter.<\/p>\n

The majority of former enslavers were quite content to be paid for their loss. However, they considered 150 million francs to be far too little, claiming that the real value of their property was ten times that.16<\/sup><\/a> They also argued that it was the responsibility of the French state to compensate them and that they should not have to await the arrival of money from Haiti, which was slow in coming. The indemnity was, in theory, only to recompense the former French colonists for their real estate, not for their loss of human \u201cproperty.\u201d17<\/sup><\/a> However, it was well-known that real estate in the colonies of the Americas was of little value without the labor to work it, so the values placed on the former plantations were implicitly calculated in a way to recognize the number of enslaved laborers involved.<\/p>\n

The government of Charles X made great play of the poverty in which the former colonists now found themselves. Nearly fifteen thousand of them had perished in the upheavals of the Haitian Revolution. Approximately seven thousand others escaped, mainly to Cuba and the United States, where they took a large part of their property: money, dismantled installations, as well as transporting many of their enslaved workers in chains with them. This left around eight thousand former colonists who sought refuge in France, many of whom did live in reduced circumstances. However, historian Beno\u00eet Joachim, in going through the accounts, found that the largest sums of money went to already wealthy aristocrats and landowners, as well as the politically well connected.18<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

While France under Charles X was dominated by the landed aristocracy, the financial services industry nonetheless held an important place in the political and economic life of the country.19<\/sup><\/a> The indemnity from Haiti enabled the restored monarchy to help the nobility to restore its image, as well to accelerate its integration into a society increasingly dominated by the financial services industry.<\/p>\n

Moreover, most of the former enslavers were greatly indebted to banks and finance houses in France and, whether coincidence or not, their total debt was calculated at 150 million francs.20<\/sup><\/a> Thus, a considerable portion of the indemnity went to the financial bourgeoisie of Paris, Nantes, Bordeaux, and La Rochelle\u2014the same group who had dominated the trafficking of enslaved Africans to Saint-Domingue in the first place.<\/p>\n

Who Paid the Indemnity?<\/h2>\n

The second payment of 1826 was never honored, despite the enactment of a series of measures by the government of Haiti: foreign loans, patriotic subsidies, forced loans, sales of public lands, and tax increases. The Haitian bourgeoisie had tried, from Toussaint Louverture onward, to restore plantation monocrop agriculture. The peasants, having fought hard for their freedom from enslavement on the plantations, very strongly resisted this, clearly preferring farming their own lands as family farms. The need to pay the double debt gave the Haitian government a justification for its attempts to impose capitalist agriculture.21<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

Baron Mackau, in his report to the French government, presumed that the peasant masses could be made to work for the well-being of the political and military elite. In order to meet the deadlines for servicing the \u201cdebt of independence\u201d and the financial repercussions of customs relief granted to French goods, the Boyer government instituted a particularly restrictive rural code in the 1820s. The Code Rural of May 6, 1826, aimed to encourage peasants to work in capitalist agriculture. Anyone who did not have another job had to work the land. The peasants could not leave their commune<\/i> without the authorization of a Justice of the Peace. This attempt to strengthen the plantation economy was not a success. The rural masses were able to maintain their hold on the land and resist complete proletarianization, but were not able to take political power from the landowners and bourgeoisie. Michel Hector and Jean Casimir argue that the peasant farmers wanted to establish a version of the African village life from which they had been kidnapped and enslaved, while the bourgeoisie wanted to be part of the world capitalist system through which they sought to enrich themselves.22<\/sup><\/a> This stalemate inhibited the development of a fully capitalist economy without allowing for a viable alternative.23<\/sup><\/a> Sugar production continued to decline, and so it was coffee, more adapted to family farming, that would be the commodity that would provide tax revenues to pay the indemnity. Haiti became the third most important coffee exporter, behind Brazil and the Dutch East Indies.24<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

Under the supervision of the rural police, farmers were required to cultivate export commodities, mainly coffee. At the end of the chain, it was the export taxes on this commodity that ensured the servicing of the external debt. At first, these levies were extorted in kind\u2014but when international coffee prices collapsed, it was the small producer who saw his standard of living fall, rather than the incomes of speculators and exporters. In addition, since the payment of the domestic debt was ensured mainly from import taxes that were passed on by importers to the sale price of goods, the rural majority contributed heavily to these state revenues.25<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

This tax burden fell heavily on these peasant farmers, while the government and ruling class did not feel the weight of debt directly. Conversely, the urban bourgeoisie was precisely the group most at risk from the French Navy who, being unable to invade, could have bombarded and blockaded the main ports where the wealthy lived.26<\/sup><\/a> As always, the comprador bourgeoisie preferred to repress and extort their own fellow citizens, rather than to oppose the demands of the imperialists, particularly when they saw a way of corruptly enriching themselves in the process.<\/p>\n

Who gained from the 1825 double debt?<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. The former colonial landowners and enslavers.<\/li>\n
  2. The creditors to whom the former colonists owed considerable sums for the purchase of plantations or enslaved workers. These creditors were able to seize 10 percent of the compensation paid to the colonists in the event of a court order.<\/li>\n
  3. French commodity traders who profited from the opening of the Haitian market to French ships. They were able to also profit by paying their customs dues with bonds that they had purchased cheaply in Paris.<\/li>\n
  4. The real winners were the financial intermediaries who arranged the loans and took enormous commissions. For every bond costing 1,000 francs, the Haitian government only received 800 francs, and the rest disappeared into the commissions of the bankers. Laffitte, the man who set up the original loan, sold his bonds directly to the Haitian government for 1,000 francs each at a time when they were trading at 220 francs.27<\/sup><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Amongst the losers must be counted the subscribers to the loans who, tempted by high interest rates, invested in the bonds. The bonds rapidly decreased in value as it became increasingly unlikely that the Haitian government could meet its obligations. In the Bourse de Paris, a bond with a face value of 1,000 francs traded for 660 francs in 1826, but only 195 francs in 1848.<\/p>\n

    New Debts<\/h2>\n

    Following the July Revolution of 1830 in France, which removed King Charles X and replaced him with his cousin Louis-Philippe, Duke of Orl\u00e9ans, the debt was renegotiated, but only reduced to 90 million francs, leaving 60 million still to be paid. These negotiations took place in Port-au-Prince in February 1838. The French mission, Baron Emmanuel Pons de las Casas and Admiral Charles Baudin, was backed up, as ever, by the threat of blockade and bombardment.28<\/sup><\/a> Baudin went on to command the French naval blockade of Mexican ports and the attack on the city of Veracruz later that year. This was also part of a French government bid to extract money that they claimed was owed to French citizens. The blockade of Mexico ended in 1839, when the Mexican government agreed to pay an indemnity of 600,000 pesos. However, this was never paid\u2014a fact that was later used as one of the justifications for the second French intervention in Mexico in 1861.29<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

    Following these negotiations, a treaty dated February 1838 halved the balance of the indemnity, from 120 to 60 million francs, and spread out its payment over thirty years, from 1838 to 1867. Despite this new arrangement, Haiti did not pay the full amount of the indemnity and the 1825 loan until the 1880s.30<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

    After half a century, the crushing payments tied to the double debt had nearly been repaid in 1880. Then, a French bank, Cr\u00e9dit Industriel et Commercial (CIC), offered to help Haiti establish its own national bank. The Banque Nationale d\u2019Haiti (National Bank of Haiti) was Haitian in name only. It was owned and administered from Paris by CIC, which took a commission on nearly every transaction the Haitian government made. CIC siphoned tens of millions of dollars from Haiti while saddling the country with still more loans.31<\/sup><\/a> By the early twentieth century, half of the taxes on Haiti\u2019s coffee crop, which was by far its most important source of revenue, went to French investors in CIC. After Haiti\u2019s other debts were deducted, the government was left with just 2 percent of its taxation income with which to run the country.<\/p>\n

    Five years earlier, in 1875, CIC had loaned the Haitian government 36 million francs for major infrastructure projects, 20 percent of which was intended to pay off the last of the debt linked to the former enslavers\u2019 original compensation of 150 million francs. The French bankers took 40 percent of the loan in commissions and fees. The balance paid off old debts or disappeared into the pockets of corrupt Haitian politicians. Upon signing the loan contract, CIC committed in writing to paying the equivalent of 1.5 percent of the amount of the loan for the nonexistent \u201ccharitable works\u201d of Vice-President Septimus Rameau. When this corrupt deal became public, he was assassinated in Port-au-Prince on April 15, 1876.32<\/sup><\/a> Very little of the 1875 loan was used for any projects that might benefit ordinary Haitians.<\/p>\n

    This debt to CIC gave the bank a powerful lever and, when the National Bank of Haiti was established, CIC took over the country\u2019s treasury operations: printing money, receiving taxes, and paying government salaries. The National Bank of Haiti was chartered in France and thus exempt from Haitian taxes and laws. All decisions were made by the board of directors in Paris composed of French bankers and businessmen, including \u00c9douard Delessert, a great-grandson of one of the biggest slaveholders in French colonial history, Jean-Joseph de Laborde.33<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

    This disadvantageous arrangement was negotiated by Charles Laforestrie, a Haitian Minister of Finance. When the true picture became clear to the Haitian public, Laforestrie faced allegations of corruption. He resigned and, with a generous pension from the government of Haiti, retired to France, where he was appointed to the board of directors of the National Bank of Haiti.34<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

    In the second half of the nineteenth century, global demand for coffee was high, and Haiti\u2019s economy was built around it. However, the government lost much of its coffee taxes to its former slaveholders, and then to CIC. But when coffee prices plummeted in the 1890s, Haiti\u2019s export taxes on coffee were more than the market price of the coffee itself. The Haitian government borrowed its way out of this untenable situation with another loan, this time for 50 million francs from the National Bank of Haiti in 1897.<\/p>\n

    Public revenue might still have been sufficient in Haiti if the state had not faced an increase in expenditure on debt service. In order to meet this additional expenditure, the government increased the scale of customs duties, rather than try to diversify the tax base. This increase in taxation disappeared into debt-service, with the result that the Haitian people saw very little benefit.35<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

    Opposition to the power of the National Bank of Haiti was led by Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Marcelin, Minister of Finance in the years 1892\u20131895 and 1905\u20131908.36<\/sup><\/a> In October 1910, Haitian President Antoine Simon revoked the National Bank of Haiti\u2019s concession, causing it to close. He granted the concession for issuing currency and other government treasury operations to the newly formed Banque Nationale de la R\u00e9publique d\u2019Haiti (BNRH, National Bank of the Republic of Haiti), also established in Paris. The initial majority shareholder of BNRH was the Banque de l\u2019Union Parisienne, which led a consortium of French, German, Belgian, and U.S. financiers. The headquarters of BNRH were in Paris, but a New York committee was established in the headquarters of the National City Bank of New York on Wall Street in order to coordinate U.S. financial and diplomatic interests.<\/p>\n

    This new national bank continued charging the government for every deposit and expense while generating big profits for its shareholders abroad. It also issued a loan to the Haitian government.37<\/sup><\/a> After commissions and profits were deducted, the government of Haiti received about U.S. $9 million, but still had to repay the full face value of nearly $12.3 million. The government of Haiti complained that the bank, which was responsible for collecting customs revenue, was withholding government funds for their own speculations and manipulating the value of the gourde<\/i>, Haiti\u2019s national currency. Money collected from customs duties was used to first prioritize the payment of interest on debt and the commission of bankers, while the Haitian state had to be content with what remained. Moreover, auditors found considerable discrepancies between the amount of money listed on its deposit ledgers and the actual amounts held in its safes.38<\/sup><\/a> This was, however, successfully covered up when the U.S. government sent in the Marines in 1915.<\/p>\n

    \u201cSend in the Marines\u201d<\/h2>\n

    The U.S. government had long wanted to intervene in Haiti in order to rewrite the constitution, which forbade foreigners from owning property. A number of German businessmen had evaded this prohibition by marrying into prominent Haitian families of mixed African-French descent. These German businessmen controlled about 80 percent of the country\u2019s international commerce and were believed to have links with German military intelligence. In the lead-up to the First World War, the U.S. government feared a German presence near the Panama Canal. The U.S. Navy also wanted to secure control of the harbor at M\u00f4le-Saint-Nicolas, or at least to deny it to European powers. New York financial interests, led by the National City Bank, played on these fears to encourage U.S. military intervention.39<\/sup><\/a> Furthermore, there had been a series of coups in Haiti between 1911 and 1915, and the U.S. government used this political instability to invade and occupy Haiti.<\/p>\n

    The first move came on December 16, 1914. The USS Machias<\/i>, USS Brutus<\/i>, USS Hancock<\/i>, and USS Marietta<\/i> arrived in the harbor of Port-au-Prince. The staff of BNRH loaded gold valued at half a million dollars into seventeen wooden boxes. At 1 p.m., eight U.S. Marines, dressed in civilian clothes and armed with revolvers, disembarked from the ships. They loaded the gold onto a wagon and returned to the wharf, where armed Marines were waiting with a motorboat that took the gold to Machias<\/i>, which sailed for New York with the gold at 2 p.m. Two days later, it was in the vault of the National City Bank.40<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

    The overthrow of President Vilbrun Guillaume Sam on July 28, 1915, and subsequent civil disturbances gave U.S. President Woodrow Wilson the final excuse to order the invasion of Haiti to \u201cprotect American business interests and restore order.\u201d The invasion forces seized control of Haiti\u2019s customs houses, administrative institutions, banks, and the national treasury, using 40 percent of Haiti\u2019s national income to repay debts to North American and French banks until 1934. Haiti would pay its final indemnity remittance to National City Bank in 1947, with a United Nations report stating that the people of Haiti were \u201coften close to the starvation level.\u201d41<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

    The Full Cost<\/h2>\n

    Trying to establish when the double debt was finally paid is complicated, as other loans were taken out with other countries to service it. Technically, the double debt was indeed paid in full in 1883, but new loans could (and should) be seen as part of the same debt. New loans were contracted in 1874, 1875, 1896, and 1910. For each loan, excessive commission and excessive interest rates made repayment completely impossible. There was serious fraud in all these loan agreements, with the 1910 loan being particularly scandalous. This era of new loans came at a time when Haiti had managed to pay back most of the double debt, as there were only 7.7 million francs left to pay by the end of 1875 and 90 percent of the debt had already been paid over the previous fifty years. By the time of the U.S. invasion in 1915, the total external debt had increased to 121 million francs.42<\/sup><\/a> In 1922, BNRH was completely acquired by National City Bank and its headquarters moved to New York City. The repayment of Haiti\u2019s debt to French banks was thereafter paid to U.S. investors.43<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

    Two New York Times<\/i> journalists, Constant M\u00e9heut and Matt Apuzzo, have researched the full cost of the double debt between 1825 and 1957 in order to answer the questions of what kind of loss to Haiti\u2019s economic development that payout represented over time and how much this money would be worth today had it remained in Haiti. Assuming that this money had stayed in the Haitian economy, it would have, at a minimum, grown at a rate of return equal to Haiti\u2019s real GDP growth between 1825 and today. Using estimates of Haiti\u2019s GDP in the nineteenth century provided by Simon Henochsberg, a French banker who has studied Haiti\u2019s public debt, the journalists calculated the average annual growth rates and compared them with Haiti\u2019s annual payment flows. They found that the double debt would have been worth $21 billion to Haiti over time.44<\/sup><\/a> This $21 billion is exactly what Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide demanded in 2003\u2014and this is probably why the U.S. and French governments are thought to have been deeply involved in his removal. In interviews, a dozen French and Haitian political figures recounted how the French government worked quickly and with determination to stifle Aristide\u2019s call for reparations before siding with his opponents and collaborating with the United States to remove him from power.45<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

    Why Did the Government of Haiti Pay the Indemnity?<\/h2>\n

    The threat posed by French gunboats in Port-au-Prince harbor was of course a powerful incentive. However, once the ships had departed to bombard Veracruz, the Haitian government could have repudiated the deal.46<\/sup><\/a> This might have meant war, but, given the devastating effect of the double debt, it may have been less harmful in the long run. Be that as it may, we have also to look at the nature of the Haitian ruling class, particularly P\u00e9tion and Boyer, both of whom came from free mixed French-African families and had been sent to France to be educated. They both served in the French army, and, having gone into exile in France in 1800 following a rebellion against Toussaint L\u2019Ouverture, led by Andr\u00e9 Rigaud, they returned as part of the French army led by General Charles Leclerc in December 1801 that intended to restore colonialism and a slave economy. However, when Jean-Jacques Dessalines and Christophe restarted the war of liberation in October 1802, P\u00e9tion and Boyer joined them. The French forces were finally expelled the following year. Their commitment to Haitian independence can therefore be seen as partial and opportunist, being more interested in their own personal power and prestige.<\/p>\n

    P\u00e9tion and Boyer had long wanted to restore plantation agriculture and the need to pay the indemnity gave them the excuse to impose the Code Rural of 1826. Both presidents, having spent their youth in France and having been officers in the French army, had much more in common culturally and economically with the French bourgeoisie than with the poor Haitian peasantry. After he was removed from office by a peasant uprising in 1843, Boyer lived his remaining years in Paris.<\/p>\n

    The Haitian bourgeoisie and landowners wanted diplomatic recognition from France\u2014which would in turn lead to recognition from other imperialist countries\u2014in order to enable full commercial relations with Europe. The nature of the loans also gave them opportunities for graft. They would profit from such commerce and corruption, while the poor farmers paid the indemnity.<\/p>\n

    Conclusion<\/h2>\n

    The first debt was forced upon Haiti by French gunboats, but during the thirty years before the U.S. occupation, external and internal indebtedness was increased by loans contracted by corrupt governments resulting in a cumulative increase in total debt. Despite official promises, very little was spent on infrastructure or development. The need for hard currency to service and repay the debt forced the government of Haiti to concentrate on coffee production for export. This in turn made the country\u2019s finances vulnerable to the world market.<\/p>\n

    The French government\u2019s desire to exert neocolonial control over Haiti through financial demands backed up by armed force led the Haitian government to contract a debt they could not afford to service. The rapacious banks, particularly CIC and National City Bank, both supported by their respective governments, charged exorbitant interest and commissions. The setting up of the National Bank of Haiti and its successor, the NBRH, by these two banks was little more than a con to rob the country\u2019s exchequer. In this, they were aided by the corrupt ruling class of Haiti. When this scheme started to unravel, the U.S. government sent in the Marines.<\/p>\n

    The coup that removed Aristide over a century later may have silenced him, but the demand for restitution of the losses caused by the double debt will not go away. This demand rests at the door of the French government and the North American and French financial services industry. Between them, they owe the people of Haiti $21 billion.<\/p>\n

    It is their money, and they want it back.<\/p>\n

    Notes<\/h2>\n
      \n
    1. \u21a9<\/a> Eric Nagourney, \u201c6 Takeaways About Haiti\u2019s Reparations to France,\u201d New York Times<\/cite>, May 21, 2022.<\/li>\n
    2. \u21a9<\/a> For more details of the Haitian Revolution itself, see C. L. R. James, The Black Jacobins<\/cite> (New York: Vintage Books, 1989); and Mary Turner, Enslaved Worker Rebellions and Revolution in the Americas to 1804<\/cite> (London: Socialist History Society, 2025), chapter 5.<\/li>\n
    3. \u21a9<\/a> Simon Henochsberg, \u201cPublic Debt and Slavery: The Case of Haiti, 1760\u20131915,\u201d Master\u2019s thesis, Paris School of Economics, 2016, 12.<\/li>\n
    4. \u21a9<\/a> Henri Christophe to Thomas Clarkson, November 20, 1819, in Henri Christophe and Thomas Clarkson: A Correspondence<\/cite>, eds. Earl L. Griggs and Clifford H. Prator (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1952), 176.<\/li>\n
    5. \u21a9<\/a> In the context of Haiti at the time, Blanc<\/cite> (\u201cwhite\u201d) meant \u201cforeigner,\u201d while Noir<\/cite> (\u201cBlack\u201d) meant \u201ccitizen.\u201d Thus, the Polish troops from Napoleon\u2019s invading army who changed sides and fought with the revolutionaries were given citizenship in the new republic of Haiti and declared to be Noir<\/cite>. Some of their descendants still live in northern Haiti. See Jonathan North, \u201cSoldiers of Misfortune: Napoleon\u2019s Polish Deserters in the West Indies,\u201d in Treason: Rebel Warriors and Internationalist Traitors<\/cite>, eds. Steve Cushion and Christian H\u00f8gsbjerg (London: Socialist History, 2017).<\/li>\n
    6. \u21a9<\/a> David Geggus, The Impact of the Haitian Revolution in the Atlantic World<\/cite> (Columbia, South Carolina: University of South Carolina, 2001), 4.<\/li>\n
    7. \u21a9<\/a> Fr\u00e9d\u00e9rique Beauvois, \u201cL\u2019indemnit\u00e9 de Saint-Domingue: \u2018Dette d\u2019ind\u00e9pendance\u2019 ou \u2018ran\u00e7on de l\u2019esclavage\u2019?,\u201d French Colonial History<\/cite> 10, no. 1 (January 2009): 116.<\/li>\n
    8. \u21a9<\/a> Jean-Fran\u00e7ois Bri\u00e8re, \u201cL\u2019Emprunt de 1825 dans la dette de l\u2019ind\u00e9pendance ha\u00eftienne envers la france,\u201d Journal of Haitian Studies<\/cite> 12, no. 2 (Fall 2006): 126.<\/li>\n
    9. \u21a9<\/a> Bri\u00e8re, \u201cL\u2019Emprunt de 1825 dans la dette de l\u2019ind\u00e9pendance haitienne envers la france,\u201d 130.<\/li>\n
    10. \u21a9<\/a> Laurent, La v\u00e9rit\u00e9 sur l\u2019emprunt per\u00e7u par le gouvernement fran\u00e7ais pour le compte de la R\u00e9publique d\u2019Ha\u00efti<\/cite> (Paris, Imprimerie de A.-T. Breton, 1842), 8, cited in Beno\u00eet Joachim, \u201cL\u2019indemnit\u00e9 coloniale de Saint-Domingue et la question des rapatri\u00e9s,\u201d Revue Historique<\/cite> 246, no. 2 (500) (October\u2013December 1971): 362.<\/li>\n
    11. \u21a9<\/a> Joachim, \u201cL\u2019indemnit\u00e9 coloniale de Saint-Domingue et la question des rapatri\u00e9s,\u201d 363.<\/li>\n
    12. \u21a9<\/a> Henochsberg, \u201cPublic Debt and Slavery,\u201d 24.<\/li>\n
    13. \u21a9<\/a> Beno\u00eet Joachim, \u201cLa reconnaissance d\u2019ha\u00efti par La France (1825): naissance d\u2019un nouveau type de rapports internationaux,\u201d Revue d\u2019histoire Moderne et Contemporaine<\/cite> 22, no. 3 (July\u2013September 1975): 374.<\/li>\n
    14. \u21a9<\/a> Joachim, \u201cLa reconnaissance d\u2019ha\u00efti par la france (1825),\u201d 379.<\/li>\n
    15. \u21a9<\/a> Moniteur industriel<\/cite>, April 29, 1838.<\/li>\n
    16. \u21a9<\/a> Joachim, \u201cL\u2019indemnit\u00e9 coloniale de Saint-Domingue et la question des rapatri\u00e9s,\u201d 365.<\/li>\n
    17. \u21a9<\/a> Jean-Fran\u00e7ois Bri\u00e8re, \u201cLa France et La Reconnaissance de l\u2019Ind\u00e9pendance Ha\u00eftienne: Le D\u00e9bat Sur l\u2019Ordonnance de 1825,\u201d French Colonial History<\/cite> 5 (2004): 128.<\/li>\n
    18. \u21a9<\/a> Joachim, \u201cL\u2019indemnit\u00e9 coloniale de Saint-Domingue et la question des rapatri\u00e9s,\u201d 370.<\/li>\n
    19. \u21a9<\/a> Bertrand Gille, La banque et le cr\u00e9dit en France<\/cite> (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1959), 52.<\/li>\n
    20. \u21a9<\/a> Joachim, \u201cL\u2019indemnit\u00e9 coloniale de Saint-Domingue et la question des rapatri\u00e9s,\u201d 373.<\/li>\n
    21. \u21a9<\/a> Gusti-Klara Gaillard, \u201cCanonni\u00e8re et huis clos pour une ran\u00e7on n\u00e9ocoloniale,\u201d in Ha\u00efti-France: Les cha\u00eenes de la dette\u2014Le rapport Mackau, 1825<\/cite>, eds. Marcel Dorigny, Jean-Marie Th\u00e9odat, Gusti-Klara Gaillard, and Jean-Claude Bruffaerts (Paris: Maisonneuve et Larose, 2022), 96\u201397.<\/li>\n
    22. \u21a9<\/a> Michel Hector and Jean Casimir, \u201cLe long XIXe si\u00e8cle ha\u00eftien,\u201d Revue de la Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 Ha\u00eftienne d\u2019Histoire, de G\u00e9ographie et de G\u00e9ologie<\/cite> 216 (October 2003\u2013March 2004): 35\u201364.<\/li>\n
    23. \u21a9<\/a> Alex Dupuy, Haiti: From Revolutionary Slaves to Powerless Citizens\u2014Essays on the Politics and Economics of Underdevelopment, 1804\u20132013<\/cite> (Abingdon: Routledge, 2014), 54\u201362.<\/li>\n
    24. \u21a9<\/a> Victor Bulmer-Thomas, \u201cHaiti: From Independence to US Occupation,\u201d in The Economic History of the Caribbean since the Napoleonic Wars<\/cite> (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 161.<\/li>\n
    25. \u21a9<\/a> Gusti-Klara Gaillard-Pourchet, La corruption en Ha\u00efti: esquisse historique 1804\u20132004<\/cite> (Programme des Nations Unies pour le D\u00e9veloppement, 2005), 23\u201324.<\/li>\n
    26. \u21a9<\/a> Jean-Claude Bruffaerts, \u201cLe cercle vicieux de surendettment\u201d in Ha\u00efti-France: Les cha\u00eenes de la dette<\/cite>, 116.<\/li>\n
    27. \u21a9<\/a> Bruffaerts, \u201cLe cercle vicieux de surendettment,\u201d 117\u201320.<\/li>\n
    28. \u21a9<\/a> Fran\u00e7ois Blancpain and Bernard Gainot, \u201cLes n\u00e9gociations des trait\u00e9s de 1838<\/a>,\u201d La R\u00e9volution fran\u00e7aise<\/cite> 16 (2019).<\/li>\n
    29. \u21a9<\/a> Jacques Penot, \u201cL\u2019expansion commerciale fran\u00e7aise au Mexique et les causes du conflit franco-mexicain de 1838\u20131839,\u201d Bulletin Hispanique<\/cite> 75, no. 1\u20132 (1973): 169\u2013201.<\/li>\n
    30. \u21a9<\/a> Beauvois, \u201cL\u2019indemnit\u00e9 de Saint-Domingue,\u201d 119.<\/li>\n
    31. \u21a9<\/a> Nagourney, \u201c6 Takeaways About Haiti\u2019s Reparations to France.\u201d<\/li>\n
    32. \u21a9<\/a> Gusti-Klara Gaillard-Pourchet, La corruption en Ha\u00efti<\/cite>, 30.<\/li>\n
    33. \u21a9<\/a> Matt Apuzzo, Constant M\u00e9heut, Selam Gebrekidan, and Catherine Porter, \u201cA Bank Created for Haiti Funneled Wealth to France,\u201d\u2009New York Times<\/cite>, May 23, 2022.<\/li>\n
    34. \u21a9<\/a> Matt Apuzzo, Constant M\u00e9heut, Selam Gebrekidan, and Catherine Porter,\u2009\u201cHow a French Bank Captured Haiti,\u201d New York Times<\/cite>, May 20, 2022.<\/li>\n
    35. \u21a9<\/a> Bulmer-Thomas, \u201cHaiti: From Independence to US Occupation,\u201d 180.<\/li>\n
    36. \u21a9<\/a> Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Marcelin, La Banque nationale d\u2019Ha\u00efti: une page d\u2019histoire<\/a><\/cite> (Paris: Joseph Kugelmann, 1890), gallica.bnf.fr.<\/li>\n
    37. \u21a9<\/a> Selam Gebrekidan, Matt Apuzzo, Catherine Porter, and Constant M\u00e9heut,\u2009\u201cInvade Haiti, Wall Street Urged. The U.S. Obliged,\u201d New York Times<\/cite>, May 20, 2022.<\/li>\n
    38. \u21a9<\/a> Peter James Hudson, \u201cThe National City Bank of New York and Haiti, 1909\u20131922,\u201d Radical History Review<\/cite>, no. 115 (January 2013): 91\u2013114.<\/li>\n
    39. \u21a9<\/a> Gebrekidan, Apuzzo, Porter, and M\u00e9heut,\u2009\u201cInvade Haiti, Wall Street Urged. The U.S. Obliged.\u201d<\/li>\n
    40. \u21a9<\/a> Peter James Hudson, Bankers and Empire: How Wall Street Colonized the Caribbean<\/cite> (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2017), 105.<\/li>\n
    41. \u21a9<\/a> Westenley Alcenat, \u201cThe Case for Haitian Reparations,\u201d Jacobin<\/cite>, January 14, 2017.<\/li>\n
    42. \u21a9<\/a> Henochsberg, \u201cPublic Debt and Slavery,\u201d 27, 34.<\/li>\n
    43. \u21a9<\/a> Hudson, Bankers and Empire<\/cite>, 116.<\/li>\n
    44. \u21a9<\/a> Constant M\u00e9heut, \u201cCalculating Haiti\u2019s Payments to France,\u201d New York Times<\/cite>, May 25, 2022; Henochsberg, \u201cPublic Debt and Slavery,\u201d 50.<\/li>\n
    45. \u21a9<\/a> Constant M\u00e9heut, Catherine Porter, Selam Gebrekidan, and Matt Apuzzo, \u201cAristide Demanded French Pay Reparations to Haiti. He Ended Up in Exile,\u201d New York Times<\/cite>, May 20, 2022.<\/li>\n
    46. \u21a9<\/a> Bulmer-Thomas, \u201cHaiti: From Independence to US Occupation,\u201d 190\u201391.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      ___________________________________________________<\/p>\n

      October 2025, Volume 77, Issue #4 of<\/em> Monthly Review<\/p>\n

      Steve Cushion<\/span> is a senior research fellow at the Institute of the Americas, University College London. He is the author of <\/em>A Hidden History of the Cuban Revolution: How the Working Class Shaped the Guerillas\u2019 Victory<\/a> (2016) and <\/em>Slavery in the British Empire and Its Legacy in the Modern World<\/a> (2025), both published by <\/em>Monthly Review Press.<\/p>\n

      Go to Original – monthlyreview.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      In 1825, fourteen French gunboats sailed into the harbor of the capital of Haiti, Port-au-Prince, and forced the government to pay an indemnity of 150 million francs. This threw Haiti into a cycle of debts that reduced the majority of the population to an abject poverty that survives to this day. Thomas Piketty has described this as \u201cneocolonialism through debt.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":304423,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[532,433,2368,975,260,1050,610,541,551,949,647,70],"class_list":["post-304422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latin-america-and-the-caribbean","tag-colonialism","tag-europe","tag-french-empire","tag-haiti","tag-history","tag-imperialism","tag-inequality","tag-latin-america-caribbean","tag-neocolonialism","tag-slave-labor","tag-slavery","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=304422"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304422\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":304425,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304422\/revisions\/304425"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/304423"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=304422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=304422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=304422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}