How France extorted Haiti for one of the greatest heists in geopolitical history
By Marlene Daut, University of Virginia
In the wake of George Floyd’s killing, there have been calls for defunding police departments and demands for the removal of statues. The issue of reparations for slavery has also resurfaced.
Much of the reparations debate has revolved around whether the United States and the United Kingdom should finally compensate some of their citizens for the economic and social costs of slavery that still linger today.
But to me, there’s never been a more clear-cut case for reparations than that of Haiti.
I’m a specialist on colonialism and slavery,
and what France did to the Haitian people after the Haitian Revolution
is a particularly notorious example of colonial theft. France instituted
slavery on the island in the 17th century, but, in the late 18th
century, the enslaved population rebelled and eventually declared
independence. Yet, somehow, in the 19th century, the thinking went that
the former enslavers of the Haitian people needed to be compensated,
rather than the other way around.
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