By Dr. Marlene Daut, The University of Virginia — The Conversation US — June 30, 2020
After enduring decades of exploitation at the hands of the French, Haiti somehow ended up paying reparations — to the tune of nearly $30 billion in today’s money.
Haiti officially declared its independence from France in 1804. Yet in 1825, French King Charles X sent Baron de Mackau to Haiti with a squadron of 14 brigs of war carrying more than 500 cannons, demanding Haiti pay 150 million francs — 10 times the amount the US had paid for the Louisiana territory — to compensate former French colonists for their “lost revenues from slavery.” Rejection almost certainly meant war. This was not diplomacy. It was extortion.
Forced to borrow 30 million francs from French banks to make the first payments, Haiti defaulted, leading to further loans and crushing debt. With interest from all the loans, which were not completely paid off until 1947, Haitians ended up paying more than twice the value of the colonists’ claims. French economist Thomas Piketty acknowledged that France should repay at least US$28 billion to Haiti in restitution.
Researchers have found that the independence debt and the resulting drain on the Haitian treasury were directly responsible not only for the underfunding of education in 20th-century Haiti, but also lack of health care and the country’s inability to develop public infrastructure. Because the indemnity Haiti paid to France is the first and only time a formerly enslaved people were forced to compensate those who had once enslaved them, Haiti should be at the center of the global movement for reparations.