219 Years of Haitian Independence: the first

EPISODE:  219 Years of Haitian Independence, a history of
the first revolution in The Americas


GUESTS:  Pierre LaBossiere, Judith “Mirk” Mirkinson and Seth
Donnelly of The Haiti Action Committee


BACKGROUND:


On January 1, 1804, Haiti became an independent republic,
following the revolution which had begun 13 years earlier as a
rebellion of enslaved people against slavery and French
colonialism.


Previously known as Saint-Domingue, it was the most profitable
colony in the world, generating greater revenue than all of the
continental North American colonies combined. This immense wealth
was generated by the sweat and blood of enslaved Africans who
were being worked to death in their tens of thousands on coffee
and sugar plantations.


Shortly after the French revolution, which supposedly espoused
the ideals of "liberty, equality and fraternity," on August 22,
1791 enslaved people rose up, demanding those ideals be realized,
and slavery and colonialism abolished. Over the coming years, the
rebels successfully defeated the combined armies of the world's
biggest colonial powers: France, Spain and Britain. The 1804
declaration of independence abolished the colony of
Saint-Domingue and reinstated the Indigenous Taíno name of Hayti.
Europe and the US then promptly ostracized the fledgling
republic, causing severe economic hardship.


In 1825, France finally agreed to recognise Haiti's independence,
provided it compensate former enslavers to the tune of 150
million gold francs ($21 billion today) - a ransom which deeply
impoverished the government and was not fully repaid until 1947.
The United States only recognised Haitian independence in 1862,
but this did not prevent it from invading and occupying it in
1915.





FOLLOW HAITI ACTION COMMITTEE:


Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/HaitiActionCommittee


Twitter:  https://twitter.com/HaitiAction1


 


ADDITIONAL LINKS:


Haiti Action Committee  https://haitisolidarity.net


Haiti Emergency Relief Fund 
https://haitiemergencyrelief.org/


 The Lasalin Massacre and the Human Rights Crisis in Haiti


https://haitiliberte.com/the-lasalin-massacre-and-the-human-rights-crisis-in-haiti/


 


WTF is Going on in Latin America & the Caribbean is a Popular
Resistance broadcast in partnership with Black Alliance for Peace
Haiti/Americas Team, CODEPINK, Common Frontiers, Council on
Hemispheric Affairs, Friends of Latin America, InterReligious
Task Force on Central America, Massachusetts Peace Action and
Task Force on the Americas.