During the French Revolution the enslaved people in Haiti rose
up and won their freedom in a bloody war against the French army
that lasted from 1791-1804. In 1825 the government of France
sent a military expedition to Haiti, demanding that the country
pay compensation for the "property" that had been lost during
the war. (The "property" was the labor of the enslaved people
who had been captured in Africa and forced to work in the French
sugar plantations.) This debt continued until 1947.In May of 2022 the New York Times wrote a series on how this debt and other financial and diplomatic manipulations by first France and then the United States devastated the Haitian economy and produced some of the worst economic and social conditions on the planet. The article linked below explored how financial manipulations by French banks in the late 
nineteenth century helped pay for many of the phenomena that we
have been studying.(Note the article is rather long, but, if you are having trouble getting through it in the time allotted, you should feel free to base part of your research report on the initial sections. If you have any difficulty accessing the article, email me and I will send it to you.) "How a French Bank Captured Haiti" |