When a massive earthquake crushed Haiti in January, 2010, killing 230,000, people, injuring 300,000 and leaving 1.5 million homeless, people the world over reacted with shock, sorrow, beginning a genuine effort to help the impoverished island nation. The global relief effort, lead by the United States, more than a billion dollars into relief for the island formerly known, under French rule, as Saint-Domingue.
WHAT WAS AND WASN’T SAID ABOUT HAITI
But there was an undertone- it was an unspoken kind of silent pity, bordering on scorn and contempt for the “poor” Haitians! The island is a nation full of the most “African” people in the western hemisphere! The marketplace in Port-Au-Prince looks, sounds, and smells, like any place in West Africa. Haiti is also the poorest country in the western hemisphere. So many Americans, have an “attitude “about Haiti. It’s somewhat like the disgust they have toward a poor relative who can never get his or herself together- that embarrassing cousin who is always “broke and beggin”.
This silent condemnation of Haiti was followed by blatantly ignorant, racist comments from America’s resident bigots! Rush Limbaugh said people shouldn’t donate to the White House Haiti Fund, using the tragedy to take a sideways swipe at President Barack Obama. Limbaugh said the earthquake was “made to order” for Obama because it would allow the president to “burnish his credibility … with both light-skinned and black-skinned”. The so-called Christian, Reverend Pat Robertson came up with a farcical explanation for Haiti’s “punishment” from God. He referenced its successful slave revolt against France in the early 19th century saying the Haitian people “got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, we will serve you if you’ll get us free from the French. True story. And so, the devil said, OK it’s a deal.”
What most Americans don’t know is how much Haiti has impacted this country! The U.S. not only owes Haiti for its brave revolution against slavery and for liberty, but for other contributions, which enhanced the freedom and expansion of the United States.
CHASSEURS VOLONTAIRES DE SAINT-DOMINGUE
There’s a series of statues at Franklin Square in Savannah, Georgia dedicated to the Chasseurs Volontaires de Saint-Domingue. It was a corps of Haitian soldiers, free men of color, who volunteered to fight for America during the Revolutionary War! On October 9, 1779, more than 500 Haitians fought alongside American and French troops against the British during the bloody siege Battle of Savannah. The Haitians covered the Colonist and the French as they retreated from the city. In other words they were the last ones to leave a losing battle. The British were eventually forced out of the south and driven from American soil. The Haitians went on to fight in many more battles (including the Battle of Charleston) during the War for Independence. A footnote here, the British either killed or sold captured Haitian into slavery as revenge for helping us.
The Haitian-American Historical Society raised money for the statue in Savannah. The Chasseurs Volontaires de Saint-Domingue was the largest single unit of soldiers of African descent to fight in the Revolutionary War. For more than 200 years, most American Historians never mentioned them. Haitian school children have always been taught about these heroes, but American children don’t know about their contribution to our history.
Ironically, the Haitians fought in a southern state, that decades later in the Civil War, turned on its own government to preserve the right to enslave African-Americans, just like the French did in Haiti.
Successful Slave Revolution
For centuries African slaves on Saint Domingue were subjected to one of the most brutal slave system in the Americas. Slaves died at such a high rate, being worked to death by the French, that they were constantly resupplied from Africa. Blacks hated the white French and eventually erupted into a 13- year war, which cost an estimated 100,000 black lives. The slave revolt was lead by the Toussaint L’Ouverture, Jean-Jacques Dessalines, and Henri Christophe. Victory was finally won through fierce guerilla fighting, and the good fortune of the rainy season, which brought malaria devastating the invading French military in 1803. Napoleon pulled his remaining army back to France and on January 1, 1804, Haiti (the new name meaning mountainous place) became an in dependence nation. Haiti became the second republic in the western hemisphere.
Hell to Pain
Pro slavery, colonial countries, which included most of Europe, the United States, and South America nations made a concerted effort to punish Haiti for daring to defeat their white French repressors. Later in 1838 France crippled Haiti by charging it 150 million francs to recognize its independence.
The Haitians were also cursed with poor leadership, every head of state wanted to be a military dictator or emperor. Toussaint L’Ouverture died in a French prison, Dessalines was assassinated, and Henri Christophe declared himself emperor becoming the first of a long series of unstable dictators. Thus Haiti has been plagued since 1804!
HAITIAN VICTORY INSPIRE U.S. BLACKS
Despite white America’s broad efforts to keep word about Haiti’s rebellion away its own slaves, like all things true, news of what was happening on the island spread with consequences. In January 1811 a slave revolt in Louisiana led by Charles Deslondes, a free mulatto from Haiti, terrorized whites. After killing two whites, the uprising was crushed by nearly 700 troops.
In December 1821, Demark Vesey led the largest slave conspiracy in history near Charleston, South Carolina. Informers led to his capture but before he died Vesey said his plan was to take freed slaves to Haiti.
Twenty-nine slaves being shipped from Maryland to Georgia killed two crew members and ordered the third to land in Haiti. The boat was eventually seized and one of the rebels was executed. Haiti was a part the psyche of enslaved black folk in America!
In 1862 the U.S. granted Haiti diplomatic recognition sending Frederick Douglass as its Consular Minister. Years later Douglass toyed with the idea of a mass Black exodus to Haiti, to gain full freedom, which could not be obtained here.
The buccaneer Jean Laffite, another foreign hero, this time in the War of 1812 was reportedly born in Haiti. Several American cities are named in his honor, such as Lafayette, Louisiana, Fayetteville, Arkansas, and Fayetteville, North Carolina. The founder of Chicago, one of the world’s great cities, was the black Haitian explorer Jean Baptiste Du Sable.
The Whole Middle of America
However, the biggest gift we received from Haiti is the whole centerpiece of the continental United States. The Louisiana Purchase, which Thomas Jefferson had the good fortune of buying from Napoleon Bonaparte for $15 million dollars. The French dictator lost Haiti during the slave revolt. Haiti had been Frances’ cash crop! By 1780 European consumers bought 40% of its sugar and 60% of its coffee was produced Haiti. But Haiti’s slave army defeated the French in 1803. Napoleon needed money for a pending war with England thus the sale of the mid section of America. The Louisiana Purchase included all or parts of 15 current states; Arkansas, Colorado, Kansas, Iowa, Louisiana, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, and Wyoming. America gained all that land from the Gulf of Mexico to the Canadian border, without a shot being fired, thanks to Haiti’s slave revolution.
