But what few Americans know is that they owe this
Caribbean nation a profound historical debt. Indeed, perhaps no nation
has done more for the United States than Haiti and been treated as badly
If not for Haiti – which in the 1700s rivaled the
American colonies as the most valuable European possession in the
Western Hemisphere – the course of U.S. history would have been very
different. It is possible that the United States might never have
expanded much beyond the Appalachian Mountains.
What altered this early American history was the
Haitian slave uprising against France near the end of the 18th
Century. This second great anti-colonial revolution in the New World
both alarmed and ultimately benefited the leaders of the newly born
At the time, Haiti – then known as St. Domingue and
covering the western third of the island of Hispaniola – ranked as
perhaps the richest colony in the world. Its carefully cultivated
plantations produced nearly one-half the world’s coffee and sugar, and
its profits helped build many of the grandest cities of France.
But the human price was unspeakably high. The
French had devised a fiendishly cruel slave system that imported
enslaved Africans for work in the fields with accounting procedures for
their amortization. They were literally worked to death.
The American colonists may have rebelled against
Great Britain over issues such as representation in Parliament and
arbitrary actions by King George III. But the Haitians took up arms
against a brutal system of slavery. One French method for executing
troublesome slaves was to insert explosives into their rectums and
detonate the bomb.
So, when revolution swept France in 1789, the
Jacobins’ cry of “liberty, equality and fraternity” resonated with
special force in St. Domingue. African slaves demanded that the concepts
of freedom be applied universally, but the plantation system continued,
leading to violent slave uprisings.
Hundreds of white plantation owners were slain as
the rebels overran the colony. A self-educated slave named Toussaint
L’Ouverture emerged as the revolution’s leader, demonstrating skills on
the battlefield and in the complexities of politics.
Despite the brutality on both sides, the rebels –
known as the “Black Jacobins” – gained the sympathy of the American
Federalist Party and particularly Alexander Hamilton, a native of the
Caribbean himself. Hamilton, the first U.S. Treasury Secretary, helped
L’Ouverture draft a constitution for the new nation.
But events in Paris and Washington conspired to
undo the promise of Haiti’s new freedom.
The chaos and excesses of the French Revolution led
to the ascendance of Napoleon Bonaparte, a brilliant military commander
possessed of legendary ambition. As he expanded his power across Europe,
Napoleon also dreamed of rebuilding a French empire in the Americas.
In 1801, Thomas Jefferson – an owner of 180 slaves
himself – became the third President of the United States. Jefferson,
who was deeply troubled by the slaughter of plantation owners in St.
Domingue, feared that the example of African slaves fighting for their
liberties might spread northward.
“If something is not done, and soon done,”
Jefferson wrote about the violence in St. Domingue in 1797, “we shall be
the murderers of our own children.”
So, in 1801, the interests of Napoleon and
Jefferson temporarily intersected. Napoleon was determined to restore
French control of St. Domingue and Jefferson was eager to see the slave
Through secret diplomatic channels, Napoleon asked
Jefferson if the United States would help a French army traveling by sea
to St. Domingue. Jefferson replied that “nothing will be easier than to
furnish your army and fleet with everything and reduce Toussaint [L’Ouverture]
But Napoleon had a secret second phase of his plan.
Once a French army had subdued L’Ouverture and his slave army, Napoleon
intended to move his forces to the North American mainland, basing a new
French empire in New Orleans and settling the vast territory west of the
In May 1801, Jefferson picked up the first inklings
of Napoleon’s other agenda. Alarmed at the prospect of a major European
power controlling New Orleans and thus the mouth of the strategic
Mississippi River, Jefferson backpedaled on his commitment to Napoleon,
retreating to a posture of neutrality.
Still – terrified at the prospect of a successful
republic organized by freed African slaves – Jefferson took no action to
block Napoleon’s thrust into the New World.
In 1802, a French expeditionary force achieved
initial success against the slave army in St. Domingue, driving
L’Ouverture’s forces back into the mountains. But, as they retreated,
the ex-slaves torched the cities and the plantations, destroying the
colony’s once-thriving economic infrastructure.
L’Ouverture, hoping to bring the war to an end,
accepted Napoleon’s promise of a negotiated settlement that would ban
future slavery in the country. As part of the agreement, L’Ouverture
turned himself in.
Napoleon, however, broke his word. Jealous of
L’Ouverture, who was regarded by some admirers as a general with skills
rivaling Napoleon’s, the French dictator had L’Ouverture shipped in
chains back to Europe where he died in prison.
Infuriated by the betrayal, L’Ouverture’s young
generals resumed the war with a vengeance. In the months that followed,
the French army – already decimated by disease – was overwhelmed by a
fierce enemy fighting in familiar terrain and determined not to be put
back into slavery.
Napoleon sent a second French army, but it too was
destroyed. Though the famed general had conquered much of Europe, he
lost 24,000 men, including some of his best troops, in St. Domingue
before abandoning his campaign. The death toll among the ex-slaves was
much higher, but they had prevailed, albeit over a devastated land.
In 1804, Jean-Jacques Dessalines, the radical slave
leader who had replaced L’Ouverture, formally declared the nation’s
independence and returned it to its original Indian name, Haiti. A year
later, apparently fearing a return of the French and a
counterrevolution, Dessalines ordered the massacre of the remaining
French whites on the island.
Though the Haitian resistance had blunted
Napoleon’s planned penetration of the American mainland, Jefferson
reacted to the bloodshed by imposing a stiff economic embargo on the
island nation. In 1806, Dessalines was brutally assassinated, touching
off a cycle of political violence that would haunt Haiti for the next
By 1803, a frustrated Napoleon – denied his
foothold in the New World – agreed to sell New Orleans and the Louisiana
territories to Jefferson. Ironically, the Louisiana Purchase, which
opened the heart of the present United States to American settlement,
had been made possible despite Jefferson’s misguided collaboration with
“By their long and bitter struggle for
independence, St. Domingue’s blacks were instrumental in allowing the
United States to more than double the size of its territory,” wrote
Stanford University professor John Chester Miller in his book, The
Wolf by the Ears: Thomas Jefferson and Slavery.
But, Miller observed, “the decisive contribution
made by the black freedom fighters … went almost unnoticed by the
The loss of L’Ouverture’s leadership dealt another
blow to Haiti’s prospects, according to Jefferson scholar Paul Finkelman
of Virginia Polytechnic Institute.
“Had Toussaint lived, it’s very likely that he
would have remained in power long enough to put the nation on a firm
footing, to establish an order of succession,” Finkelman told me in an
interview. “The entire subsequent history of Haiti might have been
For some scholars, Jefferson’s vengeful policy
toward Haiti – like his personal ownership of slaves – represented an
ugly blemish on his legacy as a historic advocate of freedom.
Even in his final years, Jefferson remained
obsessed with Haiti and its link to the issue of American slavery.
In the 1820s, the former President proposed a
scheme for taking away the children born to black slaves in the United
States and shipping them to Haiti. In that way, Jefferson posited that
both slavery and America’s black population would be phased out.
Eventually, Haiti would be all black and the United States white.
Jefferson’s deportation scheme never was taken very
seriously and American slavery would continue for another four decades
until it was ended by the Civil War. The official hostility of the
United States toward Haiti extended almost as long, ending in 1862 when
President Abraham Lincoln finally granted diplomatic recognition.
By then, however, Haiti’s destructive patterns of
political violence and economic chaos had been long established –
continuing up to the present time. Personal and political connections
between Haiti’s light-skinned elite and power centers of Washington also
have lasted through today.
Recent Republican administrations have been
particularly hostile to the popular will of the impoverished Haitian
masses. When leftist priest Jean-Bertrand Aristide was twice elected by
overwhelming margins, he was ousted both times – first during the
presidency of George H.W. Bush and again under President George W. Bush.
Washington’s conventional wisdom on Haiti holds
that the country is a hopeless basket case that would best be governed
by business-oriented technocrats who would take their marching orders
from the United States.
However, the Haitian people have other ideas, much
as they did two centuries ago. Their continued support for the
twice-ousted Aristide reflects a recognition that the Big Powers often
don’t have the interests of Third World countries at heart.
Also, unlike most Americans who have no idea about
their historic debt to Haiti, many Haitians know this history quite
well. The bitter memories of Jefferson and Napoleon still feed the
distrust that Haitians of all classes feel toward the outside world.
“In Haiti, we became the first black independent
country,” Aristide told me in an interview 15 years ago. “We understand,
as we still understand, it wasn’t easy for them – American, French and
others – to accept our independence.”