Dissecting the Haitian Ransom!
New York, 05/28/2022 – The New York Times, one of the most prestigious newspapers in the United States, if not the world, has dedicated a whole section of Sunday, May 22/2022 to the Ransom, a detailed account of “the double debt” imposed by France to Haiti after it has won the independence from the battlefields on November 18, 1803, at Vertières, Cap Haitian.
The New York Times has deputized four researchers (Catherine Porter, Constant Méheut, Matt Apuzzo, and Selam Gebukidan) to comb the archives of banks, museums, and universities to shed the light on this ignominious ransom paid by Haiti for more than a century to gain its international recognition from a world that still practiced slavery at that time.
It is a monumental exercise compared to the 1619 Project available freely for the first time to non-subscribers in French and Creole. There is a current dictum if the New York Times zeroed in on an issue nine times, it will win the cause on the tenth.
Haiti, after thirteen years of a ferocious battle with the French, finished by crushing the soldiers of Napoleon Bonaparte in the battle of Vertières where the General Capois La Mort distinguished himself so well, that the cruel General Rochambeau stopped the battle to salute the bravado of Capois La Mort.
Haiti proclaimed its independence, on January 1st, 1804, and swore to never let the French citizens own one inch of the territory in the future. It was a hollow proposition because fate and the world were united against Haiti for its daring gusto, the black man and woman were to be chained in slavery and bondage for eternity.
Some years earlier, in 1796, Toussaint Louverture, the precursor of Haiti’s independence had pacified the island of St Domingue/Haiti, liberated the slaves, and ruled the territory à la St Louis king of France which means he was good and fair to everybody, black, white and mulattoes. His governance was so benevolent that he drew the attention of John Adams who came to power as the second President of the United States almost at the same time.
Their relations and their commerce were so cordial that Ronald Angelo Johnson in Diplomacy in Black and White said the last time Haiti enjoyed an equal diplomatic relationship with the United States was during the government of John Adams. “Since then, the two nations never again share an equal footing.”
Toussaint had shared with John Adams the proposition that “a ruler must bring happiness to his people and happiness to humanity”. John Adams was on the point of applying that directive in his next term but in the election of 1800, the delegates of one party ran against the delegates of the same party to elect Thomas Jefferson reversing the Adams agenda. I am submitting the proposition that slavery would not have waited sixty years to be abolished had John Adams won the election of 1800. Haiti, the United States, and the whole world took a wrong turn with the election of Thomas Jefferson.
Napoleon Bonaparte with the support of Jefferson invaded Haiti with the aim of re-establishing slavery. Toussaint was kidnapped and sent to “Fort de Joux “where he died one year later of tuberculosis. But Haiti, led by Jean Jacques Dessalines and with the help of the yellow fever epidemic decimated the French army giving way to the first black Republic in the world.
The celebration of January 1st, 1804, was of short duration. Dessalines was assassinated by his peers, two years after the independence, on October 17, 1806. Haiti was ruled by King Henry in the north and Alexander Petion, President of the Republic in the West.
A first attempt by France to request an indemnity was rebuked vehemently by Henry Christophe. Louis XVIII in 1814 sent two commissioners to Christophe to negotiate; through his financial adviser, Baron de Vastey, the emissaries were notified that “our independence will be guaranteed by the tips of our bayonets”.
At the death of Henry Christophe, France tried again with Alexandre Petion who was more conciliatory to the proposition; finally, at his death, Jean Pierre Boyer in 1825 submitted to the pressure of Charles X to negotiate an indemnity upon Haiti for the recognition of its independence to the value of 150 million gold francs, ten times the amount that was paid for the purchase of Louisiana.
That amount being above the budget of Haiti, a loan of 30 million from France was arranged to pay the first two payments. Later the indemnity was reduced to 60 million francs; it took Haiti until 1947, under the presidency of Dumarsais Estime to finally clear the debt.
A moral debt or a legal one, this issue has not been dealt with, in the lengthy article of the New York Times yet it is at the fulcrum of the deliberations on the ransom issue. In 2015 Francois Hollande, the first president to officially visit Haiti offered to settle the debt issue but his advisers corrected his “faux-pas” by offering 50 million francs as a moral obligation for education.
The Haitian ransom is a legal obligation as per the Taubira legislation. It all began in August 2001, when French former Minister of Justice Christine Taubira then French Guyana Representative urged his colleagues to adopt a law stating that slavery was cruel and inhuman treatment inflicted on a group of people. My legal mind (schooled in Law at the State University of Haiti and Tulane University) told me that France has ventured into a region that no other former slave nation would.
Based on the legal concept of retroactivity for criminal acts, there is no prescription either in common or civil law. France could not with impunity demand from the Haitian nation compensation on behalf of the loss of service of the former slaves. It would be like a killer demanding reparation for his crimes.
Jean H. Charles
Photo: https://www.picturepalacemovieposters.com/vintage_movie_poster/ransom/
