THE RANSOM: WHY FRANCE MUST REIMBURSE BILLIONS TO HAITI

             
         
          

    





 

  


 

 
  


 
   


 

      

 
 
   




 
   
 
 

 
 
   

 
  




 






   


 



  

  

 

 
 
   
   

 


 

     
  
      
!"#$
 
  

 
 % 
" 
&
' 


' ( 
($
 
  )*+
,
$ 
# 
- 
 
.*
/#%
0 
1 (
   
*23)

)
 
!%4*+)*
$ 

!   #  


 


    
5
6 
(7
-   
5
*+*8
% 
" 
&
' 


' ( 
($  
  The Ransom Why France must reimburse Billions to Haiti? JEAN SÉNAT FLEURY Copyright © 2023 by JEAN SÉNAT FLEURY All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, scanning, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner. Table of Contents Introduction The Pearl of the Antilles The Birth of a Nation The Ransom Paying the Price Helping Haiti Reimbursing Haiti Fixing Responsibility Epilogue Some Decrees Bibliography Introduction For nearly three centuries the Atlantic slave trade has taken from Africa about fifteen million Black whom it has sent to hell in the West Indies and all over America. Ten of thousands died each year during the crossing of the ocean. To find a pretext for this genocide, puritanical Europe presented Black people as sub-men, without religion, devoid of feeling, gathered in scattered hordes, always at war with each other. To deliver them against misery and suffering on the African continent, France and other European countries decided through the delinquent traffickers to transport them to America on large vessels called "Boat slaves", with the artificial pretexts that they will have a better existence. Those Blacks are chained and crammed into the hold of the ships. Once in the Caribbean, the boats are quarantined to prevent the spread of disease. Each ship is visited by a doctor. The slave traders take advantage of this expectation to make their cargo more presentable: they coat the bodies with palm oil, increase the food rations. Then, it’s the announcement of the auction. Sales take place aboard the ship, on land, on a plantation, or in a "slave" market. The buyers - the planters - increase the price to acquire "the most beautiful pieces" called "coins of India," - teenagers sold live. The other slaves go to the auction in batches while the recalcitrant are sent to the other colonies on smaller boats. In America, Black people are sold to the owners of a plantation who will use them as slaves in the fields. According to the studies from Ralph Austin reported by the Senegalese anthropologist and economist Tidiane N'Diaye, "only for the Sahara, more than 9 million African captives have been transported in inhumane conditions of which 2 million perished or remained on the edge of the desert. As for the eastern slave trade, which took place in the regions near the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea, the number of victims is estimated at more than 8 million. We arrive at an assessment close to 17 million deaths or deportees, most of whom were survivors castrated by the Arabs." As Tidiane N’Diane said in his book The Veiled Genocide (2008): "To get an idea of the evil, we must know that observers had found that to hunt down and forcibly remove five hundred thousand individuals, it was necessary to perish nearly two million others (resistant or fugitives). Colonial-style slavery appeared in the middle of the 15th century while the Portuguese, under the direction of Henry the Navigator, captured or bought African captives to deport them to the colonies of Madeira and Cape Verde. The Atlantic Treaty began in 1441 with the deportation of African captives to the Iberian Peninsula, which lasted several decades. This traffic was authorized by Pope Nicholas V. In the 16th century, companies of Spanish’s warriors trafficked the resold Indians in Cuba or Hispaniola. In the Spanish Crown, Catholic Queen Isabel repressed slavery, but allowed it when it came to the Taino Indians anthropophagi. Slavery was accepted as part of a just war. Thus, it is to the discovery of America that the origin of the black slave trade originated. The Spaniards, led by Christopher Columbus, having exhausted the mines and destroyed the immense population that contained the occupied lands, decided to call foreign hands to cultivate a soil they looted for two centuries for its mineral resources. After the decimation of the indigenous populations, to replace this lost workforce, the conquistadors brought African captives from the Arab slave trade. The slave trade that became widespread following the Valladolid controversy of 1550 and 1551 was soon to be practiced by several European countries. The European nations, especially Portugal, Spain, Denmark, France, Holland, Belgium, and England, embarked on the triangular trade between the ports of Europe, the Gulf of Guinea, and the Americas (Brazil, the West Indies). The first French ship, Esperance, left La Rochelle in 1594. It went to Gabon then continued to Brazil. The primary motivation of slavers was economic, as Blacks were considered merchandise. 5.5 million of them were deported to Brazil from the 16th century to the 18th century. English and Dutch began trading in the second half of the 1630s. The year 1674 marked the great turning point for slavery. Until then, for centuries, Africans were essentially taken across the Sahara to the countries of the Arab world, where they became slaves. The triangular trade took off from 1674, the year when the French and the English threw themselves on the market. They disputed with the Dutch the monopoly of the transport from the African coast towards the Americas. Two large islands, Jamaica and Santo Domingo, and three small ones, Martinique, Guadeloupe, and Barbados, became the main world slave import area. English Catholic King, James II, created the Royal Company of Africa in 1674. Louis XIV founded the company of the Senegal the same year. Louis XIV dissolved the East India Company of Colbert, one of the first French colonial companies, to which he reproached his inability to import slaves to make his business profitable and thus contributed to the financing of the Palace of Versailles. The Atlantic slave trade was developed in the late 1680s in France with the strengthening of the Irish community of Nantes. Jacobite religious refugees created powerful trading companies such as the Company d’Angola. The Atlantic slave trade continued on for about three centuries. During that period, millions and millions Black slaves were taken from Africa to America. The deportation of those men and women in the West Indies led to devastating chain effects: political chaos, wars, social disorganization, famines, and epidemics. To repeat the words of Cheikh Anta Diop: "The Atlantic Treaty appears as the triggering factor of a civilization collapse comparable to that caused by the Amerindian people’s conquest of the Americas." 1804, thanks to the armed struggle, Haiti has liberated itself from slavery. For the Black slave population around the continent, Haiti represents a symbol by its successful revolution. It inspired great slave rebellions in the United States such as the revolts of Denmark Vesey in Charleston (1822), and of Nat Turner (1831) in Virginia, followed by that of Gabriel Prosser a few years earlier. Haiti’s independence has been a source of political inspiration for black Americans. In the ranks of black abolitionists, Haiti particularly inspired Frederick Douglass and the claims of David Walker. The Haitian Revolution has had an extraordinary impact in the world especially in America. It is the most prominent revolution in history that has created a huge impact on the struggles of Black for freedom. The Haitian Revolution has changed the dynamics of slavery in the world. For Aimé Césaire, Haiti is the place: “where the blackness is standing for the first time.” Toussaint-Louverture, according to Césaire, was the restorer of the dignity of Blacks; while, Dessalines must be recognized as the founder of humanist and internationalist Pan-Americanism. He inspired several Latin American revolutionaries, especially Francisco de Miranda and Simón Bolívar. The question that must be asked is how a country with a so glorious history can be today one of the poorest countries in the world? The answer can be found by looking at the past. Christopher Columbus landed in Haiti in 1492. After the Treaty of Ryswick in 1697, Spain ceded the western part of the island to France. The French colonized Santo Domingo for over a century, from 1697 to 1803. On January 1, 1804, Haiti became the first independent black republic in the world. The attitude displayed by the colonial powers of the time was the quarantine of the new state. France, England, the United States, Spain, and continental countries had promised to keep Haiti out of international life and hinder its rise. Isolated politically and economically for nearly sixty years, from 1804 to 1862, an international embargo was decreed on the country by the colonial powers and the allies. In addition, the new state was forced to pay a ransom of ninety million gold francs to France for the recognition of its independence. The consequences of these two decisions had hindered and mortgaged the future of the nation. Chapter One The Pearl of the Antilles If Haiti is among the poorest countries in the world, that was not always the case. The coffee revolution in the 1700s century saw Saint-Domingue (Haiti’s first name before independence) became the world’s largest producer. Santo Domingo has become the "sugar factory" of France and Europe (7/8 of the production is exported to the countries of Northern Europe). Described as "the most beautiful colony in the world," SaintDomingue produced forty percent of the world’s sugar and sixty percent of the world’s coffee, as well as significant volumes of cocoa, cotton, and indigo. The name of Saint-Domingue (Haiti) had become synonymous with splendor and wealth. Everywhere people spoke with admiration of this piece of land, rightly called the Queen of the West Indies. The importance of Saint-Domingue’s Antillean possession is underscored by the famous word of Voltaire, during the Treaty of Paris in 1763 (February 10), where Louis XV does not hesitate to sacrifice "the few acres of snow in Canada to preserve the great sugar island, of which the Treaty of Ryswick of 1695, putting an end to the war of the League of Augsburg, attributed the western part of the island to France.” In 1788, Saint-Domingue became a flourishing economy. It was the pearl of the Antilles, a jewel at that time. Because of its wealth, it was the pride of France in the New World. While sugar was the top export from most of the Caribbean islands, Saint-Domingue was also a source of other high-value exports, particularly coffee and cotton. The rich soil and generally favorable environment made it ideal for growing a wide range of products that were difficult to grow on other continents. The island exported seventy-two million pounds of raw sugar and fifty-one million pounds of refined sugar or 40 percent of all sugar consumed throughout Europe, one million pounds of indigo, two million pounds of cotton and 60 percent of all coffee consumed worldwide. Economists estimate that in the 1750s Haiti provided as much as 50% of the Gross National Product of France. As the richest colony in the world, Saint-Domingue supplied France with more than half the wealth from all its colonies combined. This extraordinary productivity depended on some eight hundred thousand slaves, ruled by thirty-two thousand French settlers. C.L.R. James, in his remarkable book, Les Jacobins Noirs, written in 1938, explained the richest of Saint-Domingue: “If there was not one point of the globe that carried as much misery as a slave ship, no part of the world, given its surface, harbored so much wealth than the colony of Saint-Domingue.” To be “as rich as a creole” was a famous proverb of the time. At its peak, the economy of the island created a tax base of one billion livres, and annually sent goods worth 150 to 170 million pounds into France. Of the fifteen million Blacks who were snatched from their lands by the Atlantic slave trade France deported nearly five million Blacks to the West Indies. For Louis XIV, the region is primarily a base to attack the colonies of Spain, France’s great commercial rival. The colons also wanted to develop the tobacco culture, the new exotic plant that Europeans used on a large scale. After using the services of the "engaged," who played a large role in the clearing of natural expanses, the establishment of plantations, as well as in the transfer of technical and manufacturing skills from Europe to America, in 1670, the monarchy changed its strategy: developing the production of sugar more profitably, which requires more labor than tobacco. Whites called "engaged" did not have the stamina or the desire to do this kind of work. It was necessary to find a new sector of recruitment. Louis XIV, the French King, found the solution in Africa, a continent where local slave traders had been operating since the 7th century. France invested in the pursuit of the triangular trade. The investment was large and it showed a particular rationality. It first aimed at strengthening physical and military power through the appropriation of firearms: several thousands of units were annually imported into the Caribbean and other French possessions to secure settlements and protect the interests of the metropolis. The investment was then aimed at strengthening sociological and even cultural power through the creation of adequate religious structures to maintain black prisoners through the use of the precepts of the Bible. The slave trade, for example, in Nantes, is at the origin of the deportation of more than 600,000 Blacks from Africa to the French possessions in America, mainly in the West Indies. Chapter Two The Birth of a Nation The revolt of the slaves on August 22, 1791 in the North part of Saint-Domingue led the birth of Haiti. The revolt which came to be known as the Haitian Revolution, and ended at the Battle of Vertieres on November 18, 1803, is the only successful revolution carried out by enslaved people in history. It was the greatest revolution that the world has ever known recognized the historians. The Haitian Revolution not only destroyed the Atlantic slavery and French colonial rule, but it influenced a new concept of human rights, universal citizenship, and inspired many leaders in their revolutionary movements outside of Haiti particularly in Latin America. The revolution began under the leadership of Boukman Dutty, before the rise of Toussaint Louverture as a military commander. After Louverture’s arrest and imprisonment in France, the revolution was completed under the leadership of Jean-Jacques Dessalines. On January 1, 1804, Haiti declared its independence. The Haitian Declaration of Independence was proclaimed in Gonaives marking the end of 13-year long Haitian Revolution. Haiti became the first independent nation of Latin America and only the second in the Americas after the United States. On October 8, 1806, the country faced the first socio-political crisis in its history. This crisis reached its climax with the assassination of Jean-Jacques Dessalines, on October 17, 1806. The measures taken by the emperor in the south to straighten out the public administration provoked the discontent of the generals and the wealthy mulattoes who thwarted verification of title deeds. "... And the poor Blacks whose Fathers are in Africa, will they have nothing," Dessalines said after his visit to the South. This statement accelerated the start and rapid spread of the insurgency against his government. Thomas Madiou described the conspiratorial atmosphere as follows: “There are meetings in town every night, in many houses; we worked on the spirit of the troops whose loyalty was already shaken, by sending emissaries to the countryside, we corresponded with the North and the West, we finally prepared the insurrection”. The moment was marked by general discontent. The emperor’s decision to redistribute the land angered the mulattoes. Certain army officers, hoarders of state property, dispossessed by Inginac, on the instructions of Dessalines, were happy to participate in a conspiracy against the empire. Country landowners were worried about being dispossessed. On October 8, 1806, after the arrest and imprisonment of General Moreau, who remained loyal to Dessalines, the inhabitants of Port-Salut triggered an insurrection under the direction of Judge Mercerou. Between October 9 and 12, 1806, the military commanders of several southern districts joined the movement. Those who had remained loyal to the Emperor, such as General Moreau, Étienne Montès, crop inspector, and Guillaume Lafleur, were executed. On October 12, 1806, the general of division, Étienne Élie Gérin, at the same time Minister of War and of the Navy, responded favorably to a request from the conspirators of Les Cayes. He took the lead in the insurrection. On October 13, 1806, the conspirators wrote officially to Henri Christophe, the military commander of the Nord department, to announce to him the insurrection in the South and the decision taken to appoint him president of Haiti to replace Dessalines. Meanwhile, Alexandre Pétion, commander of the 2nd Western Military Division, encouraged General Magloire Ambroise to join the insurrection and asked him to raise Jacmel. He also invited Yayou, commander of the district of Léogâne, to participate in the uprising. On October 16, 1806, the indictment against Dessalines was published, an act called “Resistance to oppression”. On October 17, 1806, Dessalines fell into an ambush at Pont-Rouge, located at the northern entrance to Port-au-Prince. He is riddled with bullets by ambushed soldiers acting under the direction of Gérin. His mutilated body is handed over to the mob. The assassination of Jean-Jacques Dessalines, decided from a plot planned by his brothers in arms, is the first error leading to the downfall of the Haitian nation. This assassination was an unbearable tragedy. It was the first serious mistake made by the nation that assassinated the founder of the fatherland. Dessalines had taken care to warn that if one day we make the mistake of treason against his person, we would be forever damned. This was made clear during his independence proclamation speech. “People of Haiti, my fight and success represent a crucial benefit for all peoples and all forces fighting for social progress and the well-being of humanity. I symbolize freedom, equality between men and women of all colors, and also the end of a system. My fight for change is based on precise and concrete actions. I never hid my hostility towards the interference of colonizing countries in the internal affairs of my country. As the greatest revolutionary of all time, I knew that Black people would never truly be masters of their destiny as long as there was still on this earth, only one unfree, only one slave, only one oppressed. This is why I put my whole life at the service of humanity to defend it from the evil of the exploitation of man by man, from the contempt of the strongest for the weakest. » On October 21, 1806, the insurgent generals offered to join Henri Christophe, on the condition that a Constitution would limit the power of the Head of State. On October 23, Christophe and his staff adhered to the resolution. On October 24, he wrote a letter to the Haitian Senate saying that he refused his appointment as president under conditions. He proclaimed himself governor of the Northern Kingdom. General Pétion, who commanded in the West, did not recognize the government restored in the north by Christophe and called an assembly. This assembly adopted a republican Constitution which gave the essential power to a Senate of 24 members and entrusted the executive to a president elected for four years. On December 28, 1806, the assembly named Christophe president of Haiti. The latter refused the title under the Constitution, which left the Head of State only very limited power. On January 1, 1807, Christophe attacked Port-au-Prince, but the attack was repulsed. On January 27, 1807, the Senate passed a law outlawing him; and on March 9, 1807, the senators elected Pétion. Supported by his army, Christophe settled firmly in the northern part of Haiti. On February 17, 1807, he promulgated in Cape Town a constitutional act, deliberated in a privy council, which conferred on him the presidency for life, sovereign powers and the title of generalissimo of all the troops of Haiti. Then in 1811, not content with his powers, he took the title of King of Haiti, and he had himself crowned as such under the name of Henri 1er. The political crisis of 1806-1807, after the assassination of Dessalines, resulted in the division of the country. In Cap-Haitian reigned Henri Christophe, who represented the power of the Blacks; and in Port-au-Prince, there was Alexandre Pétion who governed the western and southern parts as a constitutional president, supported by the mulattoes. This policy buried the agreement signed between Blacks and mulattoes at the Congress of Arcahaie. This division which put Blacks face to face in one camp and mulattoes in the other camp seriously compromised the development of the country. One of the principal errors made by the government of Jean-Pierre Boyer was the acceptance to reimburse France 150 million gold francs, an agreement signed in 1825 by Haiti for the recognition of its independence. To force Haiti to sign the agreement, King Charles X imposed a maritime blockade. Haiti became then the first state in modern history to repay such a debt to the metropolis. To cope with the situation, loans were granted on unfavorable conditions and were mainly used to repay interest. Haiti had to borrow money between 1825 and 1946 in order to repay the ransom to France. The repayment of the independence debt placed Haiti in the hell of a financial rout. Chapter Three The Ransom “In 1825, French King Charles X demanded Haiti to reimburse and compensate France for the loss of money and trade from Haiti’s independence. France threatened to invade Haiti and sent 12 war ships to the island nation. On 17 April 1825 an agreement was made between the two nations.” In July 1825, twelve French warships with five hundred cannons were dispatched to Haiti. The French King, Charles X, sent this armed flotilla of warships with the request that Haiti would have to pay 150 million francs to secure its independence. France demanded five annual payments of 30 million francs. In addition to the payment, France required that Haiti provide a fifty percent discount on its exported goods to them. Under threat of invasion and the restoration of slavery, President Jean-Pierre Boyer agreed to pay French slaveholders 150 million francs for lost land and for the recognition of Haiti’s independence. Haiti became the only nation in modern time to pay reparations to its former masters and their descendants for generations. To pay the ransom, the government of Haiti levied heavy taxes. President Boyer implemented the 1826 rural code which placed agriculture as the most important source of income for the state. By exporting agricultural products and using the force of its labor, Haiti was able to pay the debt to France. To pay the debt, the new State borrowed considerable sums on the Paris market. A loan of 30 million francs was first contracted with the French bankers Laffitte and Rothschild to pay the first annuity. In 1838, King Louis-Philippe agreed to reduce the indemnity to 90 million gold francs. To solve it, the government of Haiti levied heavy taxes. The debt was repaid in 1883. But Haiti will not finish paying the banks of Paris until the middle of the 20th century. According to Beaubrun Ardouin, a famous Haitian historian to the 19th century, the first payment alone was six times Haiti’s entire revenue that year. This debt has considerably hampered the development of the country and is the cause of many problems that the Haitian nation is currently facing. According to the economists, $2.53 out of every $3 that Haiti earned from coffee taxes went to paying debts held by French investors. “The second half of the 19th century should have offered Haiti an enormous opportunity: Global demand for coffee was high, and Haiti’s economy was built around it. Across the Caribbean Sea, Costa Ricans were putting their coffee wealth to work building schools, sewage systems and the first municipal electrified lighting system in Latin America. Haiti, by contrast, obligated much of its coffee taxes to paying France – first to its former slaveholders, then to Crédit Industriel.” (The New Times, “The Ransom: Haiti’s Lost Billions,” May 20, 2022). Chapter Four Paying the Price The first act displayed by the Western powers after 1804 was a quarantine of Haiti. It was necessary to prevent the creation of an independent Black nation during a time where the slave trade made the wealth of most of the countries in Europe. England, the United States, France, Spain, and the allies took their distance to keep Haiti isolated and hinder its rise. For many decades after its birth, Haiti survived the international embargo. France and other allies decided to collapse the Haitian economy. They wanted to force Dessalines negotiate the independence. But the emperor swore that he would never accept the dictates of whites. Several years later, Henri Christophe who ruled the northern part of Haiti from 1806 to 1820 had the same position. At the moment when Pétion received in the West a delegation led by Dauxion Lavaysse, dispatched to negotiate independence, Christophe in the North made Augustin Franco, who was part of the same delegation, tried for treachery and publicly shot him. France, one of the great powers of the eighteenth century, was so angry with the young nation that, for more than half a century, under its intervention, Haiti remained totally isolated from the world. Isolated politically and economically, the country had so far been paying the price for the international blockade. Indeed, no country at the time had taken the first step to integrate Haiti in the concert of sovereign nations, which strengthened the weakening of the country and delivered the young republic to isolation. To the French chargé d’affaires Louis A. Pichon, sent to America by Talleyrand in 1805 to foment propaganda against Haiti, President Jefferson acceded, “The United States opposes with the strongest force to the independence of the island under black domination. I would like that the authority of France be restored in the island.” Up to that point, Haitian-American relations were essentially commercial, exchanging Haitian tropical products (coffee, sugar, cotton, cocoa, wood, skins of animals) for weapons and ammunition to deter and prepare for a possible return of the French. But it was unequal trade. Taking advantage of Haiti’s situation as a country without international recognition, the Americans bought Haitian products at low prices and sold their own at high prices. In addition, in the ports, American traders refused to pay taxes and corrupted the customs employees and local chiefs by giving gifts and bribes. In Les Cayes in 1806, foreign traders would provide the necessary money to pay the soldiers to revolt against Dessalines. At France’s request, on February 28, 1806, the U.S. Congress suspended and prohibited American trade with Haiti. Despite this vote, Haitian president Alexandre Pétion continued his diplomatic efforts, even going as far as maintaining military relations with the United States. In 1812, Pétion sent a Haitian contingent of 150 soldiers to Chalmette, Louisiana, to help the Americans in their second war of independence against England. He then granted special privileges to American ships at the request of US commercial agent W. Taylor. But these opportunities did not gain America’s official recognition of Haiti’s independence and statehood. To pressure the United States to help Haiti, the Haitian senate passed a law on October 15, 1814 that granted additional privileges to English products at the expense of US products. Nevertheless, the United States continued to refuse Haitian independence. Faced with this, on July 28, 1817, the Haitian senate passed a new law that renewed and kept in force the previouslygranted privileges on trade with England. When President Boyer came to power in 1818, he pursued two policies: The first one was to reunify the country and then the island (1822–1844) at the national level and the second one was to continue to advocate for the recognition of Haiti’s independence at the international level. In July 1822, Boyer’s secretary-general pleaded to president John Quincy Adams to formally recognize Haitian independence from France. The United States would not officially recognize Haitian independence until 1862. Also, Haiti paid at a high price the result of its successful revolution. The first independent Black Republic dragged behind the legacy of three hundred years of colonization. The war of independence that has caused a global embargo on the young nation is an important factor related to its underdevelopment. Haiti has been banished from 1804 to 1862 in the list of independent countries and then has suffered the worst abuse in its history. The great powers of the time – the United States, France, England, and Spain – have blocked all trade between her and other countries. Here is a statement from the French National Assembly: ”We declare to all those who will belong, that to retaliate against enemies and detractors of the Republic, all relations and communications by commercial or private buildings, between Haiti and the various islands of the Archipelago of the wind and leeward, are rigorously prohibited as from the first of May next. Consequently, all commercial or privately-owned vessels, which will enter the ports of the Republic, after the first of May, coming from the aforesaid islands or colonies, will be seized and confiscated, together with all that will exist on board, half for the benefit of the state, half for the benefit of anyone will make known the contravention”. This secret article of the text has been added to the Treaty of Paris concluded between France and England. It guaranteed to the former state the power to assert its rights over the young republic. The text is worded as follows: “In the event that His Majesty the Most Honorable Christian deems it appropriate to employ any means whatsoever, even that of arms, to recover Santo Domingo and bring back under his obedience the population of this colony, His Britannic Majesty undertakes not to put in it, or to allow it to be put by any of his subjects, directly or indirectly an obstacle. S. M. B., however, reserves to his subjects the right to trade in the ports of Santo Domingo, which would not be attacked or occupied by the French authorities.” Haiti was the only independent state of the Caribbean to evade colonial rule by its own means. As a result, it was necessary to prevent the deed of Haiti from being repeated on the continent where the slave trade has made the wealth of the metropolises. The first act displayed by the colonial powers following 1804 was a quarantine of the new state. England, the United States, France, Spain, and the allies had, so to speak, gone the distance to keep Haiti isolated, keep it out of international life, and hinder its rise. For more than sixty years Haiti survived the international embargo. The imperialist countries had in their plan to suffocate the Haitian economy in order to force Dessalines to negotiate independence. Isolated politically, diplomatically, and economically, the country had so far been paying the price for the international blockade. No country at the time had taken the first step to integrate her in the concert of sovereign nations, which strengthened the weakening of the country and delivered the young republic to isolation. Threatened by France and deceived by the promises of Spain and England, to save the gains of 1804, Dessalines fell back on the United States, whose independence had been declared on July 4, 1776. Continuing the foreign policy of Toussaint, Dessalines named Brunel (Toussaint’s former trusted agent) as Haiti’s representative to the United States. That appointment aimed to strengthen existing ties between the two countries and establish diplomatic and friendly relations with a view to officially recognize the Haitian independence. In February 1804, Dessalines wrote an official letter to Pres. Thomas Jefferson calling for the recognition of Haiti’s independence and the establishment of diplomatic relations with the United States. Jefferson, putting himself on the side of the European colonialist powers, had not given a favorable response to this correspondence. On the contrary, he forced the US Congress to vote for the US embargo on Haiti, what was imposed in 1805. Jefferson declared, “The United States opposes with the strongest force to the independence of the island under black domination. I would like that the authority of France be restored to Santo Domingo.” Despite the recognition of Haiti’s independence from France in 1825, the US Congress successfully opposed the country’s participation in the summit of independent countries of America held in Panama City in 1826. When US leaders received the invitation by Colombia to participate in the Congress, which was to bring together, for the first time, all the free states of the American continent, the American leaders protested as soon as they learned that the issue of the recognition of Haiti’s independence would be on the agenda. The Americans threatened to boycott the meeting in case the gathering included representatives from Haiti. Sen. Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri, for example, warned: “Our policy towards Haiti has been set for 33 years. We have established commercial relations with her, but no diplomatic relations. We do not receive his Mulatto Consuls or his Black Ambassadors. The Peace of eleven States will not allow the exhibition among them of the fruits of a successful Negro insurrection. It will not allow Black Ambassadors and Consuls to give their fellow Blacks in the United States proof of the honors that await them if they attempted a similar effort. It will not allow this fact to be seen and it is said that for the murder of their masters and their mistresses, they will find friends among the whites of the United States.” Sen. Edward Everett from Massachusetts added, “I will yield the whole continent to anyone who would take it: to England, to France, to Spain. I wish it were swallowed up in the heart of the ocean before I saw any part of the white America, be converted into a continental Haiti by this frightful process of bloodshed and desolation by which only such a catastrophe could have been achieved.” Since 1822, the United States recognized the independence of the new Hispanic republics of Argentina, Colombia, Chile, and Mexico. The Haitian independence would be recognized, however, in 1862 by the Americans. The Consequences As the consequences of the independence debt called a “double debt,” at the beginning of the twentieth century, Haiti was almost in a permanent insurrection. From 1910 to 1915, five Haitian presidents have replaced one another; this situation culminated with the execution of one hundred sixty-seven political prisoners on July 27, 1915, followed by a popular revolt that overthrew the government of Vilbrun Guillaume Sam and put to death the president. This revolt, led by Rosalvo Bobo, worried the United States, which was then considering its interests in the sugar company HASCO and the merchant bank Kuhn, Loeb & Co. Under the pretext of “restoring peace and order,” the Americans occupied Haiti in 1915 to diminish the influence of the Germans who were very present in the affairs. Washington policy was expressed by the Monroe Doctrine. This doctrine posed the principle “America to the Americans.” In 1889, The United States made every effort to set up a naval base at Mole Saint-Nicolas. In 1893, their troops occupied the Hawaiian Islands; and in 1898, they took control of Puerto Rico. In 1898, the United States went to war against Spain for the control of Cuba. In 1903, they established a naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The construction of the Panama Canal consolidated their intent to dominate the region. In 1904, President Theodore Roosevelt recognized that the United States had a right of intervention in American countries. In 1905, the Americans troops carried out an operation of the international police in Nicaragua. In 1907, they took control of the customs of the Dominican Republic; in 1909, it was Honduras’s turn. In 1912, their second intervention in Honduras turned into a military occupation of that country. In 1914, the marines invaded Mexico, landing at Veracruz. On July 28, 1915, it was the American occupation of Haiti, followed by that of the Dominican Republic in 1916. In 1917, the United States bought the Virgin Islands from Denmark. After establishing its protectorate in Cuba, annexing Puerto Rico and the Philippines, and obtaining control of Dominican and Haitian customs, the United States finalized the Monroe Doctrine. In 1915, Haitian President Jean Vilbrun Guillaune Sam was assassinated and the situation in Haiti quickly became unstable. In response, President Woodrow Wilson sent the Marines in Haiti. The American occupation of Haiti was facilitated by the government of Antoine Simon, who signed contracts with American firms on scandalous terms. In 1911, the National City Bank of New York, under the pressure of the State Department, bought 20 percent of the capital of the National Bank of the Republic of Haiti. This transaction opened the US government control of the country’s finance and customs. In 1929, a series of strikes led the United States to begin withdrawal from Haiti. In 1934, in concert with President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the occupation was ended. Chapter Five Helping Haiti Haiti is a great nation… A signatory to the charter of the United Nations before October 24, 1945, Haiti is in the list of founding members of this world organization. It has signed the charter even before the official creation of the UN, decided by the victors of the Second World War at the conferences of Dumbarton Oaks and Yalta on October 24, 1945. Haiti is also a member of the Organization of American States since its inception in 1948 and is one of the first countries to sign the charter of the organization in 1951. It was thanks to the cooperation between Ambassador Antoine Bervin of the Haitian delegation to the San Francisco Conference in 1945 and Joseph Paul-Boncour, a member of the French delegation at the same conference that French was adopted as one of the five official languages of the United Nations and became, after English, the second working language. To guarantee the vote, Ambassador Bervin (who died in 1979) lobbied many Latin American colleagues to constitute a majority of votes in favor of French. Seventy-one years ago, in 1947, the United Nations decided to recognize a Jewish state. Haiti participated in the two world wars (1914–1918 and 1939–1945) with troops in the fighting forces, especially during the First World War against Germany. The country had also taken part in other armed conflicts outside the national territory in the name of the ideal of freedom that your ancestors had traced to Vertières. For example, when the war broke out between France and Prussia in 1870, Haitians volunteered to fight the Germans in the French ranks. The young state did not yet have seventy years of independence and had barely emerged from an international embargo decreed by France herself and her allies (1804–1862). The war was short and the Haitians who joined the French forces were a few. France was defeated by Germany and lost Alsace and a good part of Lorraine. However, history would remember that Haiti had helped the former metropolis to protect its territory. World War I was unleashed in 1914 after the Sarajevo bombing that killed the Austrian archduke Franz Ferdinand. Haiti declared war on imperial Germany on July 12, 1918, and was thus among the victorious powers of the Treaty of Versailles of 1919. During the First World War, Haitians fought with the French forces. Among the volunteers was Mr. Léandre Daniel Sr., owner of Magic Ciné in Port-au-Prince. Mr. Daniel had his fingers burned in 1915 with mustard gas. He was wounded again on the battlefield with a bayonet that opened his stomach. He returned a few months later to fight. When he died in the 1980s, France’s ambassador to Haiti came to pay homage to the mortal remains of Mr. Léandre Daniel Sr. at the funeral home of the Blue Angel Company Celcis as a veteran of the First World War. Mr. Victor Comeau-Montasse, grandson of Gen. Morin Montasse and one of the post-Salnave war ministers, was also a Haitian veteran of the First World War. In honor of his participation in the war, Mr. Montasse was decorated with the cross of the Legion of Honor with a red ribbon without rosette and a rank of knight, the military medal with green and yellow ribbon, and cross of the 1914–1918 war with its green ribbon striped with fine red lines with the inscription “French Republic: Honor and Fatherland.” Mr. Gaston Blanchard, who died in Port-au-Prince in 1968, was another fighter in the 1914–1918 war. His younger brother, Marcel Blanchard, was killed on the battlefield during the same war. The French Ministry of Defense had counted in its archives thirty-three Haitians who died for France during the First World War. Five Haitians were reported missing on March 24, 1917, after the torpedoing of the French ship Montreal of Compagnie Générale Transatlantique. This incident served as a pretext for Pres. Sudre Dartiguenave to ask the Haitian Parliament to declare war on Germany. These victims were Joseph Jean-Baptiste, Charles Dorelus, Gabriel Hilaire, Laurent Fojuger, and Frederic Jalonton. In 1939, during the Second World War and the persecutions of Jews by Adolf Hitler, Haiti was the rare country in the world to adopt a decree-law granting immediate Haitian naturalization to all Jews wishing to obtain it. During the Holocaust, Haiti delivered innumerable passports to Jews fleeing Nazi Europe. Already, from 1830, Jews fleeing Polish pogroms and many others (Lebanon, Syria, Egypt) found refuge in Haiti. The country received more than three hundred families who resided there to work mainly in the trade. Under the Lend-Lease Act, during the Second World War, the Haitian Navy was reinforced by several units, and the number of its personnel increased. The artillery service of the Haitian Coast Guard was organized, and an artillery unit was installed at Môle Saint-Nicolas. Several guns had repeatedly opened fire on German submarines that crossed the Canal du Vent upon surfacing, forcing them to dive. Many airfields were built by surveyor René Lerebours across the country, including Anse-àPitres and Trou-Caiman, or expanded like that of Belladère to allow US aircraft to supply Allied troops. The Port-auPrince/Malpasse/Jimani road was also built in 1943 to facilitate a reliable road link between Haiti and the Dominican Republic during the Second World War. As for Haitian volunteers in the French armies during the Second World War, there was not enough. We must mention the presence of Dr. Pierre Clermont (1917–1973), an orthopedic surgeon who volunteered for the French Army in the last years of the war. He made the German campaign in the army of Gen. Jean de Lattre de Tassigny, and he left active service to the rank of captain after the victory to go to Canada to improve in orthopedics and finally to return to Haiti to open his clinic. There was also Frédéric Auxila, son of Pierre Auxila, who joined the French forces during the war and settled in Metz after the conflict. We can also mention the case of the only son of Adm. Henri Laraque, half-brother of Dr. Rosalvo Bobo, who fought as a pilot of the Royal Air Force. We cannot forget either the Franco-Haitian Philippe Kieffer, who fought heroically at the landing of June 6, 1944. He was the head of the only small French unit that participated in this landing. The commander Kieffer was remembered by history as the winner of the battle of the Ouistreham Casino, which was won over the Germans who were entrenched in this casino. He was wounded twice during the action, and despite this, he refused to be evacuated, continuing to fight. Commander Kieffer was born in Port-au-Prince on October 24, 1899, of an Alsatian French father and a Haitian mother. His parents ran a large business house in Port-au-Prince, which later went bankrupt. Philippe Kieffer had been a senior executive of the Royal Bank of Canada in Haiti before the war. He had married a young lady from the Scott family. A volunteer at age forty, on September 2, 1939, he was one of the first to respond to the call of General de Gaulle, and he joined the Free French Naval Forces on June 19, 1940. He died in France on November 20, 1962. His eighteen-year-old Haitian-born son, who had just returned to the resistance, was killed in 1944 by the Germans. Other facts had marked Haiti’s contribution to world history. In 2009, a statue was unveiled at Franklin Square, Savannah, in honor of the Haitian soldiers who had participated in the American Revolutionary War. Indeed, on October 9, 1779, a number exceeding five hundred soldiers left the port of Cap-Français to join the American revolutionary forces that fought the English army in Georgia. The presence of the fighter volunteers of Santo Domingo had had a huge contribution in the capture of Savannah. Henri Christophe was not yet sixteen when he participated as a drummer in this battle. On September 2, 1930, there was a hurricane that devastated Santo Domingo and caused the deaths of more than twenty thousand people. The city was almost completely destroyed. Haiti was the first country to be mobilized to help the victims. President Trujillo sent three thank-you messages to Pres. Eugene Roy at that time. This did not prevent Trujillo from murdering more than fifteen thousand Haitian immigrants in 1937 on the Haitian-Dominican border. Haiti is a great nation that has contributed immensely to the promotion of human rights around the world. The country is the mother of freedom. Helping her now is not a gift. * After a magnitude 7.2 earthquake hit Haiti on January 12, 2010, a group of international academics and authors has written to Nicolas Sarkozy calling on France to reimburse the "independence debt" that his country imposed on Haiti in 1825. The open letter to the French president says the debt, now worth more than €17bn (£14bn), would cover the rebuilding of the country after the devastating earthquake that killed more than 250,000 people seven months ago. Its signatories – including Noam Chomsky, the American linguist, Naomi Klein, the Canadian author and activist, Cornel West, the African-American author and civil rights activist, and several renowned French philosophers – say that if France repays the money it would be a solution to the shortfall in international donations promised following the earthquake. The pertinent question is: Do Western countries – France and Spain which looted Haiti for three centuries and the United States, which occupied Haiti for nineteen years (1915–1934) – have an obligation to help the nation rebuild its infrastructures and strengthen its economy? For those who know well the subject, the answer is yes. Because it was thanks to the Treaty of alliance in 1778 that France and England were able to considerably increase their production of sugar, coffee, cocoa, and cotton in the colonies. The slave trade increased their economic growth as never before. It was thanks to the interests of slavery, reinvested in factories, that the English favored the rise of the industrial revolution and capitalism. Thanks to the slave trade, France has become part of the world’s economic circuits, becoming a leading commercial powerhouse. From the sixteenth century to the beginning of the nineteenth century, the slave trade and commerce in slave-based agriculture attracted and employed hundreds of thousands of French to live in the coastal cities. Triangular trade (Europe-Africa-America) employed not only to seafarers and shipyard workers, but also workers in the metal and textile industries, employees of sugar refineries, forges and foundries, and arms manufacturers. In France, slavery enriched the nobles and the bourgeoisie of the 17th and 18th centuries. The same is true in Belgium, England, Spain, Holland, and Portugal. These colonialist and slave countries have built their wealth on a very lucrative economic model based on "triangular trade.” France built the Palace of Versailles and financed all the Napoleonic wars from the trade of the slave trade. Ships departing from French ports (Nantes, Marseilles, Bordeaux, La Rochelle, Le Havre), loaded with mediocre quality goods (weapons, wine, alcohol, hats or collars) return to America with their cargoes of slaves. With the money raised from the sale of the Negroes, the slave traders bought and brought the products of the Caribbean plantations (sugar, indigo, cocoa, and coffee) back to France. This constrained trading practice was known as “Exclusive” or “Colbertism” after Jean-Baptiste Colbert, a French statesman who served as First Minister of State from 1661 until his death in 1683 under the rule of King Louis XIV. The Colbertism forbids the colonies from trading with each other, but only with certain private traders. That having been said, all European countries that have made their wealth in the slave trade are responsible to help Haiti. All must contribute to it recovery. Looking at the historical facts it is necessary that France, Spain, England, Portugal, Belgium, all these rich countries of the West that have built their wealth from slavery help restore the socioeconomic stability of Haiti. It is a moral obligation for the United States to help the Haitian nation build its economy without which there will be no stability in the Southern border between Mexico and the United States. Haitians will continue to flee misery and challenge the U.S. immigration laws. As the United States secretary of state, Gen. George Marshall said in a speech at Harvard University on June 5, 1947, “It makes sense for the United States to do everything to help restore the world’s economic health, without which there can be no political stability and no assured peace. Chapter Six Reimbursing Haiti On May 20, 2022, The New York Times published its recent series of research articles, “The Ransom: Haiti’s Lost Billions.” The articles recount what happened after the former slaves in Santo Domingo under Jean-Jacques Dessalines’ leadership won an armed revolution against France and tried to form and maintain a sovereign nation. Haitians first had to pay for their freedom in blood, and then had to repeatedly pay for it again in cash to France. As The Times chronicled and calculated, those payments over more than sixty years amounted to more than half-billion dollars in today’s equivalent. According to experts interviewed, if that money had remained in Haiti, it could have added more than twenty billion to the country’s economy from the 1800s to now, and perhaps Haiti would not be the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. “We found that Haitians paid about $560 million in today’s dollars. But that doesn’t nearly capture the true loss. If that money had simply stayed in the Haitian economy and grown at the nation’s actual pace over the last two centuries – rather than being shipped off to France, without any goods or services being provided in return – it would have added a staggering $21 billion to Haiti over time, even accounting for its notorious corruption and waste.” (The New York Times, “The Ransom: Haiti’s Lost Billions,” May 20, 2022). Many historians, economists, journalists, human rights activists, have agreed that France must reimburse the “double debt” that Haiti has paid for its independence. A 200-word Journal de Montréal introduction to Haiti’s vulnerability to earthquakes noted: “Earthquakes devastating as that of Saturday in Haiti have already occurred in 2010, 1887, 1842, 1872, 1770 and 1751…This poverty is due in large part to the exorbitant debt Haiti had to pay France for its independence. Converted into today’s money, the debt is equivalent to $30 billion Canadian.” France 24 declared: “France must return the billion exhorted from Haiti.” ABC News explained “how Colonial-era debt helped shape Haiti’s poverty and political unrest.” The University of Virginia scholar Marlene Daut calls the agreement between France and Haiti on the debt as “the greatest heist in history.” “By forcing Haiti to pay for its freedom, France essentially ensured that the Haitian people would continue to suffer the economic effects of slavery for generations to come,” said Marlene Daut, a professor at University of Virginia specializing in pre-20th century French colonial literary and historical studies. “Money that could have gone toward erecting a country was channeled to France, Daut said. And France had already profited immensely from slaves producing sugar and coffee. France has “amnesia” when it comes to dealing with its past about slavery, said Alyssa Sepinwall, a history professor at California State University San Marcos.” In 2003, President Jean-Bertrand Aristide demanded that France pay Haiti 21 billion U.S. dollars, the equivalent in today’s money of the 90 million gold francs that Haiti was forced to pay for reparations. With the help of Washington, Paris moved Aristide from office. On May 10, 2015, French president, François Hollande, during a speech in Martinique, admitted that France imposed a “ransom” on Haiti, and that his country would pay it back. “In 2016, the French parliament repealed the 1825 ordinance of Charles X though no reparation has been offered by France. Today, forcing France to reimburse Haiti what so-called “The Ransom” would set an example for all those criminal organizations that control human trafficking around the world. This form of slavery, according to the UN's independent expert on contemporary forms of slavery, Gulnara Shahinian, is taking place all over the world. Domestic workers are beaten, raped, forced to life, and deprived of food and contact with others. Migrant workers are particularly vulnerable because of their unstable legal status, and domestic jobs are often a pretext for attracting women and girls abroad, deceiving them about the real nature of work. More than two million children are sexually abused each year. The exploitation of children via the internet is constantly increasing. For girls and young women from Eastern Europe, Asia, Latin America and Africa, prostitution is another form of slavery. The growing involvement of organized crime and mafias in the trafficking of children in Africa is like a new slave trade. These modern slaves constitute manpower that voiceless, defenseless, and exploitable. The misery and hope of a better life push minors, children, men and women into the hands of ruthless criminals, who starve, mistreat, rape, and terrorize them. This exploitation of minors, particularly vulnerable ones, is one of the most repugnant forms of slavery. This form of exploitation drives young women into forced sex. In some countries, such as Mauritania, Niger, Sudan, and various countries of the Persian Gulf, there remains ancestral slavery, where a group of people in the population or individuals are enslaved by birth. By pushing France to reimburse the ransom to Haiti, this decision would give a voice to those left behind, to those tens of millions of people living in despair and servitude. The International Labor Organization estimates that 215 million children between 15 and 17 are doing particularly dangerous work. More than 8 million are slaves either in debt bondage, forced to forced labor, recruited into armed conflict or prostitutes. There are 30 million slaves in the world today. Modern slavery is present everywhere, but most political and religious leaders tolerate it or ignore it. Trafficking in human beings, debt bondage and forced domestic labor are just some examples of modern slaver. Slavery is not a remnant of the past but a current reality. Beyond the sale of men and women in Libya, human trafficking for economic purposes always exists in Europe, Asia, Africa, and America. These new forms of slavery must be eradicated. Also, forcing France to reimburse the independence debt called “The ransom” to Haiti will play an important role in this eradication. This ongoing request to ask France to reimburse billions dollars paid by Haiti for its independence would set a genuine example and make jurisprudence on the problem of slavery in the world. What matters is the memory of the crimes that were committed against Blacks during the crossing of the Atlantic until their arrival in America, and the crimes committed after on the plantations of sugar cane, of coffee, cotton, tobacco, and indigo. Ironically, it is the former farmers, the settlers, who have asked for compensation to make up for the shortfall caused by the abolition of slavery! We often forget that Haiti had to pay France a ransom of 90 million gold francs starting in 1825. The country went into debt until 1946 to honor it. France voted the law of 21 May 2001 to recognize slavery as a crime against humanity. This so-called "Taubira" law, named after Christiane Taubira, member of the French Parliament, 1st district of Guyana, condemns the slavery practiced from the 15th century on the African populations, Amerindian, Malagasy, and Indian. The law was adopted by the French Parliament on May 10, 2001, and promulgated on May 21, 2001. The "Taubira" law simply recognizes that slavery and the slave trade constitute crimes against humanity. However, no article in the law deals with the question of reparations that former slavery metropolises must pay to the victim nations. Analyzing the facts from the payment made to France by Haiti it is logical that the Haitian people are perfectly entitled to a refund for the harm that has caused, during its history, three centuries of slavery. In order to make things easier, the two governments - Port-au-Prince and Paris must open talks on how France will repay Haiti. Through cooperation is a first solution, especially in the areas of education, culture, higher education and research, public health, agriculture, and sustainable development. In addition, France must help Haiti in the process of a total revision of ultraliberal economic policies that strangle it for years and years. Policies dictated by international institutions such as the IMF, the World Bank, and the WTO in which France plays a leading role.” I say to the French, that it is not by refusing to teach the epic of Vertières in theirs schools, nor by refusing to mention the name of Dessalines in the Larousse’s dictionary, that would erase the shame of the slave trade. On the contrary, by making these omissions, the world’s conscience is even more difficult. Paris must start from the spirit of the law of May 10, 2001 passed by the French Parliament recognizing slavery and trafficking as crimes against humanity to reimburse the ransom paid by Haiti. The French government must be honest by reimbursing Haiti billions of dollars debt of independence. Chapter Seven Fixing Responsibility Europeans hide themselves from the veil of humanity to more surely achieve their goal: depopulate Africa of its population to have slaves in the colonies. Traffickers English, Spanish, French, Danish, Dutch, Belgian and Portuguese, expose Blacks to the worst misery. Louis XIV, Louis XV, Louis XVI, Napoleon, Louis XVIII, Charles X, Colbert and Talleyrand, are the spiritual fathers of the slave trade. They legalize by their authority this infamous trade. They granted the slave traders the protection of their authorities. For nearly three centuries the slave trade has taken from Africa about fifteen million people whom it has sent to hell in the West Indies and all over America. Tens of thousands died each year during the crossing of the Atlantic. Blacks are chained and crammed into the hold of the ship. Once in the Caribbean, slave ships are quarantined to prevent the spread of disease. There, the ship is visited by a doctor. The slave traders take advantage of this expectation to make their cargo more presentable; they coat the bodies with palm oil, they increase the food rations. Then, it's the announcement of the auction. Sales take place aboard the ship, on land, on a plantation, or in a "slave" market. The buyers - the planters - increase the price to acquire "the most beautiful pieces" called "coins of India," - teenagers sold live. Those men and women are sold to the owners of a plantation who will use them as slaves in the fields. The other slaves go to the auction in batches while the recalcitrant are sent to the other colonies on smaller boats. As soon as the slave is handed over to a new master, a stamping with a red iron was printed on his shoulder. This is a necessary precaution to identify the Negro in case he fled to the dwelling. How to imagine that a living man can indulge himself to work every day from dawn to night, under the constant eye of a master who would shoot him with no remorse as a rabbit, or a commander who whips him for doing nothing, without being able to afford a single act of his own free will, constantly applied to the same tiresome and sterile task, all for two trousers and a pair of sandals a year. Is not this the gravest of the crimes of man on man? Imagine the torments that await those unfortunate Black in the fields of sugar cane, cotton, coffee, and indigo. Do not tell us that those White folks who controlled the Atlantic slave trade and their allies in power in Europe were not murderers! Instead of teaching Black Africans how to extract the riches in their subsoil, the progress of medicine in Europe, the knowledge in books and make them more open to the outside world, they reduce them rather to slavery and transform them into commodities. They set up a system that they defended in a vile and barbarous way. They said that there could not be wealth for metropolises without Black slavery. A subaltern class, devoted to physical work and limited to animal life, was needed to enrich both the planters in the colonies, the bourgeois in the metropolis, and the aristocrats in the circle of Versailles. Such were the arguments of these gentlemen to prove slavery. They bought a man like one would buy a horse after examining his teeth, his joints, and penetrating with their fingers all the private parts of his body. That attitude must reveal in his most striking form the ignorance of a class of men who claim to be civilized, but who, on the contrary, act like delinquents with little regard for the well-being of the confiscated class. Some would even say that their legislation - the articles in the Black Code - to regulate slavery was the most daring and blatant. On March 23, 2010, the National Assembly of Senegal passed a bill declaring slavery and the slave trade as crimes against humanity. Senegal became the first African country to adopt such legislation. The law has three articles. The first stipulates that, "The Republic of Senegal solemnly declares that slavery and the slave trade, in all their forms, constitute a crime against humanity." The article provides for a national commemoration each year on April 27 corresponding to the date of the abolition of the slave trade in the French colonies, April 27, 1848, on the initiative of Victor Schœlcher. On December 2, 2010, on the occasion of the International Day for the Abolition of Slavery, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon recalled that victims and survivors of slavery "must have remedies and the possibility of obtaining redress" and called on States to contribute generously to the United Nations Voluntary Contribution Fund for Contemporary Forms of Slavery. The message of the UN Secretary-General was categorical. "Slavery is a crime. Those who commit it, ignore it, or favor it must be brought to justice. Victims and survivors must have remedies and the possibility of obtaining redress. It's a right.” Article 4 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that, "no one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade are prohibited in all their forms.” The UN chief also said that the International Court of Justice has helped to make slavery a crime against humanity. For its part, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia has issued an indictment to the head of slavery considered a crime against humanity for rape and slavery. The Court of Justice of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) recently issued decision making slavery a crime against humanity. Slavery is expressly prohibited by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the UN has reaffirmed this principle on several occasions, including in the Durban Declaration adopted at the 2001 World Conference against Racism. The UN General Assembly celebrated this Day for the first time in 2007 to pay tribute to the 28 million Africans who have been victims of the transatlantic trade and in order to condemn slavery. "Because of its duration, breadth and legitimacy, the Atlantic slave trade is unique, perhaps the first example of globalization," said the President of the General Assembly of the United Nations Ali Treki. "We must never forget that, this is the biggest deportation in history," he added. Those who controlled the transatlantic slave trade have reaped enormous benefits from the death, misery and exploitation of the niggers, said former UN president Ban Ki-moon. "Merchants and slave owners have subjected these migrants in spite of themselves and their descendants to the most abominable physical, psychological and emotional abuse." A French historian, Mr. Olivier Pétré-Grenouilleau, in his book, The slave trade - Essay of global history, reported the evolution of slave trade in the sixteenth century. According to the historian: “… The publication of the captives was a purely African affair. The terms of enslavement were everywhere the same, borrowing from the main categories of enslavement listed by Orlando Patterson: capture to war, kidnapping, tribal and tax regulations, debts, punishment for crimes, abandonment and sale of children, voluntary bondage and birth. Poverty and famine could force some people to sell themselves or sell part of their family. " According to Joseph Miller, who studied the Angolan slave trade, which was of considerable importance in the Atlantic slave trade, the role of ecological factors (drought, famine, disease) was far from negligible in the process of producing captives. Certain faults could also be sanctioned by servitude and deportation: acts of adultery committed with royal wives, non-payment of debts, etc. Some people were accused by him of witchcraft and were condemned to be devoured by the god, actually sent to the slave traders of the coast. Owners of pirogues, the Iogho, Ijaw, and Ibidjo ethnic groups were in charge of the actual milking operations, going up the rivers with the help of long canoes of about thirty paddlers, with rifles, banners and drums of war. The company Ekpe controlled the regularity of transactions ..." Some tried to explain that the Atlantic slave trade was an African affair. White slavers only profit from divisions between Blacks. This is a false argument. It was Mercantilist Europe, with most of these nations interested in the slave trade, which has regulated the traffic. Each European country had its own companies, and each enjoyed a quasi-monopoly from the state. For example, the Dutch West India Company, established in 1625, established itself in Africa: Elmina, Arguin, and Goree. This company had huge redistribution warehouses in the West Indies, St. Eustatius, and Curacao. It provided captives for French and English settlers. We also note the Swedish Company of Africa (1649-1655), the Companies of Glücktadt and West Indies, in Denmark, which merged in 1671 or even the African Company of Brandenburg (1682). In France, the West India Company (1664) had a monopoly on an area extending from Cape Blanc to the Cape of Good Hope. Western colonialist countries have made the slave trade profitable, sometimes even subsidize it. European traders involved in slave trade activities were protected by their governments. Freedoms and privileges were generally the two claims of the slave traders and their demands were often taken into consideration by mercantilist states. Credit facilities were opened to anyone embarking on the trade of the slave trade. Let’s ask some questions. Who gave weapons and ordination to Black hunters? It was those authorities in Europe who were friends with some African Kings. They armed the latter to encourage them to attack their neighbors. Louis XIV, Louis XV, Louis XVI, Louis XVIII, Napoleon Bonaparte, and Charles X adopted the same strategy. They maneuvered and controlled the commerce at distance. They supervised the policy of the markets and fixed the amount of the taxes which the slave traders had to pay in order to be able to trade, as well as they fixed the price of the slaves. The question is not to point the fingers at African responsibility in the horror of the slave trade, but rather to blame Western mercenaries who arm Blacks in Africa, from ancient times until now, to destroy each other. While certain African Kings did play an important role in the Atlantic Treaty, the truth is that it is the European governments politically, economically, and legally controlled the slave trade. Who wrote the Black code? Jean-Baptiste Colbert was the author, and the decree was signed by Louis XIV. Who had restored slavery by the decree of May 20, 1801? It was Napoleon Bonaparte. The French authorities at that time entertained the trade for economic, financial or even political reasons. The slave trade mobilized considerable capital; it mobilized local and remote work, it was the main source of production of several French cities such as Nantes, Marseille, Bordeaux, La Rochelle, Le Havre ... to the point that slavers of the late eighteenth century did not hesitate to predict that the cessation of trade in Guinea would lead six million French to ruin or misery. The Atlantic slave trade, for example, in Nantes is at the origin of the deportation, from the end of the 17th century to the beginning of the 19th century, of more than 600,000 Black slaves from Africa to the French possessions in America, mainly in the West Indies. With nearly 1,800 shipments, Nantes is in first position of the French slave ports for the entire period concerned. The city is the last stronghold of the slave trade in France, since it is practiced until 1831, the year of promulgation of the law prohibiting the slave trade. Of the fifteen million Blacks who were snatched from their lands to be deported to America, France deported nearly five million to the West Indies (including Martinique, Guadeloupe and especially in Santo Domingo, but also to Louisiana, Guyana, Bourbon Island (Reunion) or the island of France (Mauritius). The question is, why did France need so many slaves in the West Indies? For Louis XIV, the region is primarily a base to attack the colonies of Spain, France’s great commercial rival. He also wanted to develop the tobacco culture, the new exotic plant that Europeans used on a large scale. After using the services of the "engaged," who played a large role in the clearing of natural expanses, the establishment of plantations, as well as in the transfer of technical and manufacturing skills from Europe to America, in 1670, the monarchy changed its strategy: it wanted to develop the production of sugar more profitably, which requires more labor than tobacco. Whites called "engaged" did not have the stamina or the desire to do this kind of work, it would be necessary to find a new sector of recruitment. French Kings, especially Louis XIV, found the solution in Africa, a continent where local slave traders had been operating since the 7th century. The way in which France was making the most of the trafficking was by investing in the pursuit of triangular trade. The investment was large, and it showed a particular rationality. It first aimed at strengthening physical and military power through the appropriation of firearms: several tens of thousands of units were annually imported into the Caribbean and other French possessions to secure settlements and protect the interests of the metropolis. The investment was then aimed at strengthening sociological and even cultural power through the creation of adequate religious structures to maintain Black prisoners through the use of the precepts of the Bible. This ongoing request to asking France to reimburse billions dollars paid by Haiti to its independence must set a genuine example and make jurisprudence on the problem of slavery in the world. What matters is the memory of the crimes that were committed against Blacks during the crossing of the Atlantic until their arrival in America, and the crimes committed after on the plantations. Ironically, it is the former farmers, the settlers, who have asked for compensation to make up for the shortfall caused by the abolition of slavery! We must never forget that Haiti had to pay France a ransom of 90 million gold francs starting in 1825. The country went into debt until 1946 to honor it. It must be recognized that contemporary forms of slavery around the world remain a serious problem that has yet to be solved. The list of new forms of slavery is shocking, debt bondage, serfdom, forced marriage, the exploitation of prostitutes, or the use of child soldiers. While the majority of victims from the fifteenth to the early nineteenth century during the slave trade were Africans, today the majority of those who suffer are the poor and those who are socially excluded. Indeed, the factors of poverty, class and race create structural problems and cycles of marginalization that are difficult to break. These slaves of modern times are workers who are overworked, underpaid, and abused; whether physically, psychologically, or sexually. They are in field work, in mines, in factories, and elsewhere. Failed in its practice of exclusion by omission, France must now recognize its guilt to finally ask forgiveness from Haitians in particular, and the people of Africa, in general. Paris must put an end to hypocrisy. In the French collective memory, there is a forgiveness of the past of France as a colonial state preaching the virtue of slavery: A national amnesia. The victory of Vertières is above all the victory of all Blacks. Because, the first defeat of Napoleon, it is neither Baïlen in Spain, nor Moscow, but Vertières in Haiti, on November 18, 1803. Thanks to the armed struggle, Haiti has liberated itself from the colonial system by its own means. This revolution in Saint-Domingue prompted the French National Assembly to vote for the abolition of slavery in 1794. It was the general hypocrisy in the French parliament at that time that some parliamentarians could only tolerate the word slave appeared in a revolutionary decree. These gentlemen spoke of the status of "non-free people" but at the same time slavery was nonetheless recognized, confirmed and enshrined in the law. The French army defied at Santo Domingo, in the face of this accomplished fact, France had to ratify and extend the end of slavery in the other colonies, in 1848, after having finally thrown off the masks. Whites have bet on the concept of the superiority of race and color to steal or buy Blacks in Africa. They tore them from their native land with all the objects of their affections to transport them to the West Indies, and then to sell them. The riches from their work will be used to finance wars in Europe or enrich countries as France, Spain, England, Belgium, Holland, Denmark, and Portugal. Let’s fix the responsibility. The French government must explain Bonaparte’s decision when he signed the decree of May 20, 1801 restoring slavery. Paris must accept that one of his citizens, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, former Minister of State and Comptroller General of Finance, wrote the articles of the Black Code. Colbert has thought them, wrote them. "Everything by and for the metropolis”, said the code. This economic doctrine, which corresponds to the French variant of mercantilism, proposed by Colbert, has been applied in France at the end of the seventeenth century. It transformed the mercantilist logic of the accumulation of precious metals into a meticulous organization of the state that will be a vector of power and greatness for France. These metals were drawn from the basements of the colonies and transferred to Paris. For example, gold from Haiti's subsoil, during Spanish colonization (1492-1697), and French colonization (16971803), built the most sumptuous palaces in the world and several majestic cathedrals. France must explain Rochambeau’s acts of torturing Blacks in Saint-Domingue. King Charles X, who replaced Louis XVIII, signed on April 17, 1825, a decree granting independence to Haiti against the payment of compensation of 150 million gold francs payable in five years. For that purpose, he sent a fleet of 14 warships. Charles X must resuscitate to confess the abuse that he has done by demanding Haiti to pay that ransom. In order to pay this debt, the country newly independent had become indebted to the same French bankers who looted its resources from generation to generation. Three loans have been given, the first of 30 million in 1825, the second of 15 million in 1874, and the third of 50 million in 1875. This compensation will be paid until 1897 (and even in 1913 Haiti still pays interest to Parisian bankers). The French, far from being ashamed of having imposed on the country the payment of this debt, demanded a reduction of 30% of the customs duties for all the ships of French flag which go to a port in Haiti. In total, more than ten missions were sent by France between 1816 and 1823 to negotiate the recognition of the independence of Haiti. Epilogue In writing this book, I have asked several Haiti-support colleagues to comment and expand on the subject: Why France has an obligation to reimburse billions to Haiti? Among of them was Stuart Leiderman, a senior scholar, writer, and activist with whom I have worked for several years. In part, Stuart offered the following: “I am glad the New York Times did the series. There may be a little in it that is not already published somewhere, but it’s good to have the story in one place. However, I found some serious problems with the articles. For example, there is confusion about a) how Haiti became poor and b) why Haiti is still poor?” “Although it never explicitly says it, the Times’ take-homemessage result of the confusion implies that Haitian poverty today is a direct consequence of the residue from two centuries ago. To me, this is like attributing today’s high farm bankruptcy rate to the 1930s Dust Bowl era or to “Custer’s Last Stand” in 1876. Neither would be believed by historians or economists as the causes for modern farm bankruptcies.” “For another example, the Times stop its chronology at 2003. But since then, one generation of perpetrators and victims had died and another generation of both has grown up. Why didn’t the Times continue to the present day? To me not doing so is biased, irresponsible and simplistic, as the most recent twenty years have added many new and fatal factors and cast of characters contributing to Haitian poverty. Why did the Times ignore all of Haiti’s recent history? Note that the Times never explained its motivation for the articles, nor the timing. But all the same it used modern-day photos of poor Haitians in the context of what happened hundreds of years ago. That’s propaganda.” “Continuing, every time in every article in the series where the Times alludes to the ever-present parallel factors of murderous Haitian corruption, royalty, elitism, and Church/State/private sector collusion that accompanied, fed off of and abetted colonial robbery and blackmail, and American military intervention, it passes right over them and does not go into detail on even one of those internal causes of poverty at a particular time in history.” “If, for example, we were to make a set of pie charts that attributes all the major causes of Haitian poverty in say 1750, 1850, 1950, and 2020, would the pie charts be identical? If not, how would they be different and change over time? My hypothesis is that the chart for 2020 would not contain a very big slice of what the Marines did in the early 1900s. But there might be big slices with the names of a sizable cast of Haitian nationals attached. And of course, other slices will have the names of non-Haitians.” “Then, as seen by those who follow the money, “Haitians” are impoverished but “Haiti” doesn’t seem to be at least not on a per capita or on a per family basis. This distinction and disconnect is not developed in the Times series. For example, we know that total cash, grants, loans, charity, equipment, supplies, medicines, nongovernmental organizations, religious institutions, international bank inputs and private remittances is in the billions of dollars annually…The impoverishment comes when the cash is not equally or equitably distributed, but instead unfairly, uneconomically and unsustainably spent to benefit a very small part of the population, or worse… embezzled.” “Finally, I would say, that it is one thing for a people to know their history. But overall, what good or practical purpose does it serve to agitate a deprived population that wants to flee the country altogether? What good is it to imply that their plight is the cause of French colonialism and that their redemption is to be gotten from the same French, although ten generations later? First, I think is a lie. Second, I think it is a diversion. I believe the pie charts will tell a different story…” “In sum, it could be argued that the ransom paid by Haiti to France cannot be used to mask, excuse or exonerate the culpability of Haitian leadership over more than two centuries. The unique achievement of Haitian independence was not, or ever, followed by Haitian democracy, justice, public safety, honest governance, human rights and the pursuit of happiness as it is commonly understood and advocated over the free world.” As an expert in development I would say: – – – – – – Why Haiti is so poor? Let’s talk about the here and now, not three hundred years ago. Haiti is so poor today because it is unsafe and too corrupt for people to make a living. Why Haiti is a failed country? Again, let’s talk about the here and now. Haiti is a failed country because it is neither safe, honest to govern properly, and the form of government is inappropriate for a small country. What to do to fix Haiti? Establish safety, security and round the clock electricity nationwide. Confiscate and ban all firearms. Prepare everything necessary to identify, capture, try and imprison at least 10,000. As a Haitian citizen, a former educator, a former judge, a writer, a scholar, I concur with and at the same time reject some of Stuart’s remarks. As he said, the ransom paid by Haiti to France cannot be used to mask, excuse or exonerate the culpability of Haitian leadership over more than two centuries. The Haitian elite – intellectual and economic – contribute greatly to the descent into hell of the nation by protecting their personal interests and do not care about collective interests. However, it must be recognized that there are other reasons that explain why Haiti is so poor and vulnerable. Haiti’s underdevelopment is certainly linked to its historical past. Isolated for half a century, the country could not develop trade and diplomatic relations with other nations. More than that, it had to pay for the recognition of its independence. There is no doubt, that the ransom paid has a share of responsibility in the misfortunes of the country. Haitians’ loss and impoverishment caused by French domination and subsequent (even contemporary) adverse foreign interventions are part of the causes of Haiti’s underdevelopment. Some Historical Documents The Black Code Seen as the symbol of the slave trade and slavery practiced by France, the Black Code (or edict on the police of slaves), was promulgated in March 1685, the same year as the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, under the reign of Louis XIV. Established by Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Marquis de Seignelay, he sets the legal status of slaves in the French West Indies. The ordinance is a royal act, which will be duly registered and will have the force of law in the French colonies. Applied first in the Caribbean, the Black Code affects Guadeloupe and Martinique in 1685, Santo Domingo in 1687, Guyana in 1704, Mauritius and Reunion in 1723. First regulation of slavery, it will be little modified and will remain in force until the decree of abolition of slavery of April 27, 1848. There are articles about physical punishment, and declaring that the slave is a piece of furniture. Article 1 Let us wish that the Edict of the late king of glorious memory, our most honored lord and father, of April 23, 1615, be executed in our islands; In doing so, let all our officers drive out of our islands all the Jews who have established their residence, to whom, as to the declared enemies of the Christian name, we command to leave it in three months from the day of publication hereof, on pain of confiscation of bodies and property. Article 2 All the slaves who will be in our islands will be baptized and educated in the Catholic, Apostolic and Roman religion. Let the inhabitants who buy newly arrived negroes warn the governors and stewards of the said islands within eight days at the latest, on pain of an arbitrary fine, which will give the necessary orders to have them instructed and baptized in due time. Article 3 We forbid any public exercise of religion other than Catholic, Apostolic and Roman. We want offenders to be punished as rebellious and disobedient to our commandments. Let us forbid all assemblies for this purpose, which we declare conventicates, illicit and seditious, subject to the same penalty which will take place against the masters who will allow it and suffer with regard to their slaves. Article 4 Will not be proposed commanders to the direction of the Negroes, who do not make profession of the Catholic Apostolic and Roman religion, under penalty of confiscation of said Negroes against the masters who have proposed them and of arbitrary punishment against the commanders who will have accepted the said direction. Article 5 Let us forbid our subjects of the Protestant religion from bringing any trouble or impediment to our other subjects, even to their slaves, in the free exercise of the Catholic, Apostolic and Roman religion, on pain of exemplary punishment. Article 6 Let us enjoin all our subjects, of whatever quality and condition, to observe the days of Sundays and feasts, which are guarded by our subjects of the Catholic, Apostolic and Roman religion. We forbid them to work, or to have their slaves work on the said days, from midnight to midnight until the cultivation of the earth, the manufacture of sugar, and all other works, on pain of a fine and arbitrary punishment against masters and confiscation of both sugars and slaves who will be surprised by our officers in the work. Article 7 They also forbid them to keep the Negro market and all other goods on the said days, on the same penalty of confiscation of the goods which will then be at the market, and arbitrary fine against the merchants. Article 8 Let us declare our subjects who are not of Catholic, Apostolic and Roman religion unable to contract in the future any valid marriages, declare bastards the children who will be born of such conjunctions, that we want to be held and reputed, hold and repute for true cohabitings. Article 9 Free men who have had one or more children of their concubinage with slaves, together the masters who have suffered, will each be fined 2,000 pounds of sugar, and, if they are the masters of the slave of which they have had said children, want, besides the fine, that they are deprived of the slave and the children and that they and they are adjudged to the hospital, without being able to be emancipated. However, let us not understand this article to take place when the free man who was not married to another person during his concubinage with his slave, will marry in the forms observed by the Church said slave, who will be freed by this means and children made free and legitimate. Article 10 The solemnities prescribed by the Ordinance of Blois and the Declaration of 1639 for marriages will be observed both with regard to free persons and slaves, without, however, requiring the consent of the father and mother of the slave. but that of the master only. Article 11 Let us expressly forbid the priests to proceed to the marriages of slaves, if they do not show the consent of their masters. Also forbid the masters to use any constraints on their slaves to marry them against their will. Article 12 The children born of slave marriages will be slaves and will belong to the masters of slave women and not to those of their husbands, if the husband and wife have different masters. Article 13 If the slave husband has married a free woman, the children, both male and female, must follow the condition of their mother and be free like her, notwithstanding the servitude of their father, and if the father is free and mother slave, children are slaves alike. Article 14 The masters will be required to have their baptized slaves buried in the holy land in the cemeteries intended for this purpose. And, with regard to those who die without having received baptism, they will be buried in some field near the place where they will have died. Article 15 Let us forbid the slaves to carry any offensive weapons or big sticks, scarcely whipping and confiscating weapons for the benefit of the person who will seize them, except only those who are sent to hunt by their masters and who will carry their tickets or known brands. Article 16 Let us also forbid slaves belonging to different masters to gather together day or night under the pretext of weddings or otherwise, either at one of their masters or elsewhere, let alone in the highways or remote places, on pain of punishment. body which cannot be less than whip and fleur de lys; and, in case of frequent recidivism and other aggravating circumstances, may be punished with death, which we leave to the arbitration of the judges. Let us enjoin all our subjects to run to the offenders, and arrest them and bring them to prison, though they are not officers and there is no decree against them. Article 17 Masters who are convinced of having allowed or tolerated such assemblies composed of other slaves as of those who belong to them will be condemned in their own and private names to repair all the damage that will have been done to their neighbors on the occasion of said assemblies and in fine of 10 ECU for the first time and twice in case of recidivism. Article 18 Let us forbid the slaves to sell canes of sugar for any reason or occasion whatsoever, even with the permission of their masters, barely whipping slaves, 10 livres tournaments against the master who has allowed it and such a fine against the buyer. Article 19 They are also forbidden to display for sale at the market or to wear in private houses to sell any kind of foodstuff, even fruits, vegetables, firewood, grasses for the food of animals and their manufactures, without the express permission of their masters. by a ticket or by known marks; barely claims of things so sold, without refund of price, for masters and 6 pounds fine tournaments to their profit against buyers. Article 20 To this end we want two persons to be appointed by our officers in each market to examine the goods and merchandise to be brought there by the slaves, together with the notes and marks of their masters, which they will carry. Article 21 Allow all our inhabitants of the islands to seize all the things of which they will find the loaded slaves, when they will not have any notes of their masters, nor known marks, to be rendered incessantly to their masters, if their The house is near the place where their slaves have been found guilty: otherwise they will be sent to the hospital to be in custody until their masters have been notified. Article 22 The masters will be required to have their slaves, aged ten years and up, two and a half pots, measure of Paris, of cassava flour, or three cassaves each weighing two pounds, and at least half, gold equivalent, with 2 pounds of salted beef, or 3 pounds of fish, or other things in proportion: and to children, since they were weaned to the age of ten, half of food above. Article 23 We forbid them to give the slaved brandy of gold or guildive, to take the place of the substance mentioned in the previous article. Article 24 They likewise forbid them to discharge the food and stuff of their slaves. Article 25 The masters will be required to provide each slave, each year, with two cloths of canvas or according to the masters. Article 26 Slaves, who are not fed, clothed and maintained by their masters, may be instructed in their hands, will be prosecuted at their request and without charge; what we want to be observed for the barbaric and inhuman crimes and treatments of the masters towards their slaves. Article 27 Disabled slaves through old age, sickness or otherwise, incurable or not conditional, they will be abandoned, said slaves will be sold to the hospital, to which the masters will be condensed to pay 6 sols per day each, for the food and upkeep of each slave. Article 28 Declare the slaves to be able to have anything that is not their masters; and all that comes to them, by the liberality of other persons, or otherwise, in any capacity, to be acquired in full ownership of their masters, without the children of slaves, their fathers and mothers, their parents and others inheritance, inter vivos dispositions or because of death; which provisions they are null, together with the promises and obligations which they have made, being made by people incapable of disposing and contracting on their own. Article 29 Nevertheless, they will be able to have their masters, by which they have managed and negotiated in the shops, and by the particular kind of business to which their masters have assigned, and If it is not the case, the nest egg of the said slaves that the masters would have allowed them to be held, after the masters except that the nest egg would be used in other countries, but it would not be possible to pay for it. Article 30 May not be arbitrators, experts, or witnesses, both in civil and criminal matters, and in the event that they are heard in their testimony, their testimony to others, able to draw any presumption to the form of proof. Article 31 Slavs may be tried by civil-legal means, but they are not liable to be punished by the law or the law and excesses that will have been committed against their slaves. Article 32 The slaves can be prosecuted criminally, without the need to render their masters part (if not) in case of complicity: and will be the accused slaves, judges in first instance by the ordinary judges and by appeal to the Sovereign Council, on the same instruction and with the same formalities as free persons. Article 33 The slave who has struck his master, his mistress or the husband of his mistress, or their children with contusion or bloodshed, or in the face, will be punished with death. Article 34 And as to the excesses and acts of slavery committed against slaves, they want them to be severely punished, even if they are dead. Article 35 The robberies, even those of horses, caval, mules, oxen or cows, which have been made by slaves or freedmen, will be punished with punishments, even death, if the case so requires. Article 36 Theft of sheep, goats, pigs, poultry, sugar canes, peas, millets, manioc, or other vegetables, made by slaves, will be punished according to the quality of the flight, by the judges who, if it is a waste, condemning them to be beaten by the executor of the high justice and marked with a fleurde-lis. Article 37 The masters will be held, in case of theft or other damage caused by their slaves, besides the corporal punishment of slaves, to repair the wrong on their behalf, if they do not prefer to abandon the slave to the one to whom the wrong was done; what they will be obliged to choose in three days, starting from that of the condemnation, otherwise they will be deposed. Article 38 The fugitive slave who has been on the run for a month from the day his master denounces him in court, will have his ears cut off and will be marked with a fleur-de-lis on one shoulder; if he reoffends another month to count equally from the day of the denunciation, he will have the ham cut off, and he will be marked with a fleur-de-lis on the other shoulder; and the third time he will be punished with death. Article 39 The freedmen who have given retreat to their homes to runaway slaves, will be condemned by body to the masters by fine of 300 pounds of sugar for each day of detention, and other free persons who have given them such a retreat, in 10 pounds fine tournaments by each day of retention. Article 40 The slave punished by death on the denunciation of his non-accomplice master of the crime of which he has been condemned will be estimated before execution by two of the principal inhabitants of the island, who will be appointed by the judge, and the price the estimate will be paid to the master; and, for what to satisfy, it will be imposed by the intendant on each head of the paying negroes rights the amount carried by the estimate, which will be feasted on each of the said negroes and raised by the farmer of the royal domain to avoid expenses. Article 41 Let us prevent judges, prosecutors, and clerks from taking any tax in criminal trials against slaves, barely conceded. Article 42 Only for the masters, when they believe that their slaves have deserved to be chained and beat them or ropes. They forbid them to be tortured, or to do them any mutilation of limbs, on pain of confiscation of slaves, and to proceed against the masters extraordinarily. Article 43 Let us enjoin our officers to criminally prosecute the masters or the commanders who will have killed a slave being under their power or under their direction and to punish the murder according to the atrocity of the circumstances; and, in the event of absolution, let our officers dismiss both the masters and the commanders, without their having to obtain from us letters of grace. Article 44 Declare the slaves to be moveable and as such to enter the community, to have no follow-up by mortgage, to be equally divided between the coheirs, without haste and birthright, to be subject to customary dower, feudal withdrawal and lineage, feudal and seigniorial rights, the formalities of decrees, or the entrenchment of the four fifths, in case of disposition because of death and testamentary. Article 45 However, we do not intend to deprive our subjects of the faculty of stipulating them peculiar to their persons and theirs on their side and line, as it is practiced for sums of money and other moveable things. Article 46 In the seizures of the slaves observed will be the forms prescribed by our ordinances and the customs for the seizures of movable things. We want the money coming from it to be distributed by order of seizures; or in case of collapse, on the ground the pound, after the privileged debts have been paid, and generally that the condition of the slaves is regulated in all cases like that of the other movable things, with the following exceptions. Article 47 The husband, the wife, and their immoveable children cannot be seized and sold separately, if they are all under the power of the same master; declare void the seizures and separate sales which are made of them, which we wish to take place in voluntary alienations on sentence, against those who make the disposals, to be deprived of the one or those which they have kept, which will be adjudged buyers, without being required to make any additional price. Article 48 Also slaves who are currently working in sugar mills, indigo farms and dwellings, aged fourteen and up to sixty years old, cannot be seized for debts, except for what will be due from the price of their purchase, or that the sugar factory , indigence, habitation, in which they work, is really seized; forbid, under penalty of nullity, to proceed by real seizure and adjudication by decree on the sweets, indigestible and dwellings, without including the negroes of the aforesaid age currently working there. Article 49 The judicial farmer of the sugar mills, indigo plantations, or dwellings actually seized jointly with the slaves, will be required to pay the full price of his lease, without being able to count among the fruits he perceives the children who will be born slaves during his lease. Article 50 We wish, notwithstanding all contrary conventions, that we declare null, that the said children belong to the party seized, if the creditors are satisfied elsewhere, or to the purchaser, if a decree intervenes; and, for this purpose, mention will be made in the last poster, before the interposition of the decree, of these children born to slaves since the actual seizure. Slaves who have died since the actual seizure in which they were understood will be mentioned in the same poster. Article 51 In order to avoid the expense and the length of proceedings, it is necessary to ensure that the full price of the joint award of funds and slaves, and of what will come from the price of legal leases, is made between the creditors according to the order and their privileges and mortgages, without distinguishing what is for the price of funds from what is for the price of slaves. Article 53 The feudal lineages and lords will not be allowed to withdraw the funds ordered, if they do not remove the slaves sold jointly with funds nor the successful tenderer to retain the slaves without the funds. Article 54 Let us enjoin the noble and bourgeois usufructuaries, amodiators and other benefactors of the funds to which are attached slaves who work there, to govern said slaves like good fathers of family, without they being held, after their finished administration, to make the price of those who have died or been reduced by sickness, old age or otherwise, without their fault, and without being able to retain for their benefit the children born of the said slaves during their administration, who we want to be preserved and returned to those who are masters and owners. Article 55 Twenty-year-old masters will be able to free their slaves by any act of life or death, without their being obliged to give reasons for postage, or to require the advice of parents, although they are under twenty-five years old. Article 56 Slaves who have been made universal legatees by their masters or appointed executors of their wills or guardians of their children, will be held and reputed, hold them and repute for emancipation. Article 57 Let us declare their enfranchisements made in our islands, take them place of birth in our said islands, and the freed slaves do not need our letters of naturalness to enjoy the advantages of our natural subjects of our royalty, lands and countries of our obedience, yet that they were born in foreign countries. Article 58 Let the freedmen pay special respect to their old masters, their widows and their children, so that the injury they have done to them will be punished more severely than if it were done to another person and free from them all other useful offices, services and rights which their former masters would like to claim over their persons as well as their property and estates as bosses. Article 59 Let us give the freedmen the same rights, privileges and immunities enjoyed by the free-born; want the merit of an acquired freedom to produce in them, for the persons as well as for their goods, the same effects that the happiness of the natural freedom causes to our subjects. Article 60 Declare confiscations and fines which have no particular purpose, by these present we belong, to be paid to those who are in charge of the recipe of our rights and our revenues; Nevertheless, it is desired that distraction be made of one-third of the said confiscations and fines for the benefit of the hospital established on the island where they have been adjudicated. Abolition of Slavery The decree of the abolition of slavery in France was signed on April 27, 1848 by the Provisional Government of the Second Republic; it was adopted under the leadership of Victor Schœlcher. This decree is the result of a long struggle started with the controversy of Valladolid in 1550, continued in the eighteenth century with the Societies of Black Friends in particular. The action of Victor Schœlcher is remarkable in this victory. From 1831, after a trip to Cuba, he says in the Revue de Paris that slaves are men and therefore are free of rights. In 1833, in From Slavery and Colonial Legalization, he proposed a progressive liberation avoiding racial vengeance and allowing slaves to gain economic and intellectual autonomy. In 1838, participating in the literary contest organized by the Christian Moral Society, he advocated an immediate release without a transitional period. In 1841, returning from the West Indies, he dedicated to the planters his work, immediate abolition of slavery and proposed to ban cane sugar to replace it with sugar beet. In April 1847, he coordinated the petitions campaign of the Christian Moral Society which collected 11,000 signatures (including those of three bishops, nineteen vicars general, more than eight hundred and fifty priests, nearly ninety presidents of the consistory or pastors, six thousand merchants. During his investigative trip to Senegal at the end of February 1848, Schœlcher learned of the fall of King Louis-Philippe. He returned quickly to Paris, contacts François Arago, Minister of Marine and Colonies, who appointed Deputy Secretary of State for Colonies and Measures relating to slavery. On March 4th, 1848, the Provisional Government signed the decree appointing Schœlcher as President of the Committee on the Abolition of Slavery, charged with preparing emancipation. On March 5th, the commission is born. It is composed of Victor Schœlcher, president, a chief of a naval artillery battalion (officer of the legion of honor) Auguste-François Perrinon, the director of the colonies, the lawyer of the court of cassation, Adolphe Gatine and a watchmaker, Charles Jean-Baptiste Gaumont. The commission held its first meeting on March 6 and April 27; it proposes a series of twelve decrees that emancipate slaves. Nearly 250,000 slaves are liberated (more than 87,000 in Guadeloupe, nearly 75,000 in Martinique, more than 62,000 in Reunion, nearly 12,500 in French Guiana, more than 10,000 in Senegal according to the compensation claims presented by the owners. Decree of 27 April 1848 The Provisional Government, Whereas slavery is an attack against human dignity; that in destroying the free will of man he suppresses the natural principle of right and duty; that it is a flagrant violation of republican dogma: Liberty, Equality, Fraternity. Considering that, if effective measures did not follow very closely the proclamation already made of the principle of abolition, it might result in the colonies the most deplorable disorders, Decrees: Article 1 Slavery will be abolished entirely in all French colonies and possessions, two months after the promulgation of this decree in each of them. From the promulgation of this decree in the colonies, all corporal punishment, any sale of non-free people, will be absolutely prohibited. Article 2 The established time commitment system in Senegal is abolished. Article 3 The governors or commissioners general of the Republic are responsible for applying all measures to ensure freedom to Martinique, Guadeloupe and dependencies, the island of Reunion, Guyana, Senegal and other institutions French on the west coast of Africa, Mayotte Island and dependencies and Algeria. Article 4 The former slaves are amnestied, condemned to punitive or penal sanctions for acts which, imputed to free men, would not have brought about this punishment. The individuals deported by administrative measure are recalled. Article 5 The National Assembly will settle the amount of compensation to be paid to the settlers. Article 6 The colonies, purified from servitude, and the possessions of India will be represented in the National Assembly. Article 7 The principle that the soil of France liberates the slave who touches it is applied to the colonies and possessions of the Republic. Article 8 In the future, even in foreign countries, it is forbidden for any French person to possess, buy or sell slaves, and to participate, directly or indirectly, in any such traffic or exploitation. Any breach of these provisions will result in the loss of the status of French citizen. Nevertheless the French who are affected by these prohibitions, at the time of the promulgation of this decree, will have a period of three years to comply with them. Those who will become possessors of slaves in foreign lands, by inheritance, gift of marriage, shall, under the same penalty, enfranchise them or alienate them within the same period, from the day on which their possession begins. Article 9 The Minister of Marine and Colonies and the Minister of War are responsible, each in his respective capacity, for the execution of this decree. Done at Paris, in Council of Government, April 27, 1848 Bibliography 1. Alcenat, Westenley. The Case for Haitian Reparations. Jacobin Archived from the original on 2021-02-26. 2. Ashli, White. Encountering Revolution: Haiti and the Making of the Early Republic, 2010. 3. Barnes, Joslyn, 2010-01-19, “Haiti: The Pearl of the Antilles.” The Nation. 4. Baur, John. “International Repercussions of the Haitian Revolution”, The Americas, 1970. 5. De Cordoba, Jose, 2004-01-02, “Impoverished Haiti Pins Hopes for Future On a Very Old Debt.” The Wall Street Journal. 6. Dubois, Laurent. Avengers of the New World, Harvard University Press, 2005. 7. Fick, Carolyn E. The Making of Haiti: The Saint-Domingue Revolution From Below. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1990. 8. Gamio, Lazaro; Méheut, Constant; Porter, Catherine; Gebrekidan, Selam; McCann, Alisson; Apuzzo, Matt. “Haiti’s Lost Billions.” The New York Times, May, 2022. 9. Garrigus, John, (2002). Before Haiti: Race and Citizenship in Saint-Domingue. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. 10. Méheut, Constant; Porter, Catherine; Gebrekidan, Selam; McCann, Alisson; Apuzzo, Matt. “Demanding Reparations, and Ending Up in Exile.” The New York Times, May, 2022. 11. Gusti-Klara Gaillard, L’Expérience Haïtienne de la Dette Extérieure 18-19 (Imprimerie Henri Deschamps, 1988). 12. “Haiti the Land where Children eat mud.” The Times. London. 17 May 2009. 13. Is it time for France to pay its real debt to Haiti. Washington Post, May 13, 2015. 14. Jean Metellus, Abolition de l’Esclavage 2 (L’Humanité, 1989). 15. Jean, Sénat Fleury. Haiti: A Mystical Country (2014) 16. Jean, Sénat Fleury. Jean-Jacques Dessalines: Words From Beyond the Grave. Xlibris, 2018. 17. Jean, Sénat Fleury. Toussaint Louverture: The trial of the Slave Trafficking. Xlibris, 2019. 18. Jeremy, Popkin. The Haitian Revolution (1791-1804): A Different Route to Emancipation, University of Kentucky, 2003. 19. Matthewson, Tim (1996). Jefferson and the No recognition of Haiti. 20. McKey Colin. The Economic Consequences of the Haitian Revolution, University of Oregon, 2016. 21. McLellan, Janes May (2010). Colonialism and Science: Saint Domingue and the Old Regime. University of Chicago Press. p.63. 22. Morsolin, Christians (2022-03-10). “Repay historic debt to Haiti.” CADTM. Retrieved 2022-03-10 23. Robert Stein, Revolution, Land Reform, and Plantation Discipline in Saint-Domingue, published by Pan American Institute of Geography and History. 24. Sommers, Jeffrey. Race, Reality, and Realpolitik: US-Haiti Relations in the Lead Up to the 1915 Occupation 2015. 25. Thomas Madiou, Histoire d’Haïti Tome VI, 1819-1826 473 (Editions Henri Deschamps 1988). 26. World Bank Cancels Haiti debt. AFP, 29 May, 2010. 27. Yves, Engler, “Haiti and the Debt of Independence”. CounterCurrents.org, 04/09/2021. Author A former judge with a passion for history, Jean Sénat Fleury was born in Haiti and currently lives in Boston. He wrote several historical books. In The Ransom Fleury explained how France has forced Haiti to pay ninety million gold francs for the recognition of its independence, and how the payment of this debt had hindered and mortgaged the future of the nation. The author concluded that France must reimburse the “double debt” that Haiti has paid. Through cooperation is a first solution, especially in the areas of education, culture, higher education and research, public health, agriculture, and sustainable development. In addition, said the author, France must help Haiti in the process of a total revision of ultraliberal economic policies that strangle it for years and years. Policies dictated by international institutions such as the IMF, the World Bank, and the WTO in which France plays a leading role. Buy your books fast and straightforward online - at one of world’s fastest growing online book stores! Environmentally sound due to Print-on-Demand technologies. Buy your books online at www.morebooks.shop Kaufen Sie Ihre Bücher schnell und unkompliziert online – auf einer der am schnellsten wachsenden Buchhandelsplattformen weltweit! Dank Print-On-Demand umwelt- und ressourcenschonend produzi ert. Bücher schneller online kaufen www.morebooks.shop [email protected] www.omniscriptum.com