Introduction

The Haitian earthquake of January 2010 not only devastated an already impoverished country but also reawakened issues deriving from that country’s revolution against slavery and French colonial rule, which finally succeeded in 1804. Twenty-one years later, the French government demanded from Haiti a payment of 150 million gold francs in compensation for the loss of its richest colony and its “property” in slaves. With French warships hovering offshore, Haitian authorities agreed. To make the heavy payments, even after they were somewhat reduced, Haiti took out major loans from French, German, and North American banks. Repaying those loans, finally accomplished only in 1947, represented a huge drain on the country’s budget, costing 80 percent of the government’s revenue in 1915. Now in 2010, with the country in ruins, an international petition signed by over 100 prominent people, called on the French government to repay some $17 billion, effectively returning the “independence debt” extorted from Haiti 185 years earlier. While the French government dismissed those claims, the issue provided a reminder of the continuing echoes of events from an earlier age of revolution.