Haitian American Revolution
Critically examine the factors which impeded the development of a Haitian state after 1804 The American Revolution of 1776 proclaimed that all men have “inalienable rights,” but the revolutionaries did not draw what seems to us the logical conclusion from this statement: that slavery and racial discrimination cannot be justified. It took the Civil War of 1861-65 to bring about emancipation. Just when the American constitution was going into effect in 1789, a revolution broke out in France. Like the American revolutionaries, the French immediately proclaimed that “men are born and remain free and equal in rights.” But did this apply to the slaves in France’s overseas colonies? The question was an important one. Even though France’s colonies
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There were no longer official slaves, but Toussaint, Dessalines, Christophe and Boyer all tried to re-introduce the plantation system, but failed to get the former slaves to return to the plantations. Rather, the newly freed Haitians retreated to subsistence farming and small-plot coffee exporting. This weak internal economy enforced the underdevelopment. The primary problem was the lack of any integrated economy, that is, producing raw materials or agricultural products which fed into manufacturing, which, in turn, returned goods to the local market. Instead Haiti had small local food markets, raw coffee exports, and relied on the importation of all manufactured goods and many foodstuffs.
Because of this import-centered economy, the international community earned more profits from Haiti than Haitians, even the rich ones. It marketed expensive manufactured goods in Haiti, and added the lucrative processing to Haitian coffee and other export crops. The Haitian power elite retreated to the outside of the economy and jockeyed for governmental power in order to expropriate whatever profits they could from the mechanisms of the state (taxation, import/export levies) and the graft that came with government offices, especially the
There were no longer official slaves, but Toussaint, Dessalines, Christophe and Boyer all tried to re-introduce the plantation system, but failed to get the former slaves to return to the plantations. Rather, the newly freed Haitians retreated to subsistence farming and small-plot coffee exporting. This weak internal economy enforced the underdevelopment. The primary problem was the lack of any integrated economy, that is, producing raw materials or agricultural products which fed into manufacturing, which, in turn, returned goods to the local market. Instead Haiti had small local food markets, raw coffee exports, and relied on the importation of all manufactured goods and many foodstuffs.
Because of this import-centered economy, the international community earned more profits from Haiti than Haitians, even the rich ones. It marketed expensive manufactured goods in Haiti, and added the lucrative processing to Haitian coffee and other export crops. The Haitian power elite retreated to the outside of the economy and jockeyed for governmental power in order to expropriate whatever profits they could from the mechanisms of the state (taxation, import/export levies) and the graft that came with government offices, especially the