No Agenda News: Haiti Then and Now

World capitalism has never forgiven Haiti for being the home to the only fully successful slave revolt nor for becoming the first independent nation of African peoples (1804). At the point of a gun (12 French warships with 200 cannons, to be exact) they forced Haiti to pay today's equivalent of $23 billion as the price for having liberated themselves. They instituted a boycott of Haiti and then the US invaded and occupied Haiti for decades. This is the reason why Haiti is the poorest nation in Latin America.

Also, partly due to the reparations forced upon Haiti, a repressive regime was instituted that organized outright feudal relations in the rural areas. This included legally binding people to the land and instituting a system of forced labor (corvee) for public works projects like roads. Urban Haiti was dominated by whites (including a German population) and the lighter skinned peoples of mixed ancestry.

Thus the Haitian workers and peasants have faced the double burden of super repression from both world imperialism as well as from their own super reactionary ruling class. Just as they did in the slave revolt, the Haitian masses have responded with heroic wave after wave of struggle.