The NY Times on the Rape of Haiti by France Two Centuries Ago; “Moral” Debts and Reparations
I urge everyone to read the Times articles; they represent a tremendous combination of history and investigative reporting. I am grateful that the Times has the resources to research and publish articles that can influence how we see and interact with the world.
Here’s the summary.
Slaves in Haiti carried out a successful revolution against their French masters around 1800. About twenty years later, a vengeful France threatened Haiti with invasion unless Haiti agreed to pay a huge financial indemnity to compensate the French for the loss of their former Haitian slaves and the loss of their plantations where the Haitian slaves had been brutally exploited.
There was no chance Haiti could repulse the large, menacing fleet France had sent to the Haitian coast to enforce their demands. So, Haiti agreed to pay an indemnity amount they could not come close to affording. Part was paid in cash, the larger part in a debt that was the first in a series of usurious loans with unconscionable transaction costs.
Lots of French bankers got rich; Haiti became one of the poorest countries in the world.
The Times attempted to quantify the role that the French indemnity and subsequent French financial depredations has played in the misery of the Haitian people. I think that’s an impossible task. Certainly, other factors, including a series of corrupt and brutal Haitian governments, have also taken a toll on the Haitian people. That said, it’s indisputable that the French indemnity was a disaster for Haiti and probably eliminated any chance for Haitian prosperity.
In 2015, French President Hollande gave a speech in Guadeloupe to commemorate the anniversary of the French abolition of the slave trade. In that speech, Hollande acknowledged France’s sins against Haiti. Hollande said, “When I come to Haiti, I will for my part, pay off the debt we have.”
It was an authentically wonderful moment, greeted with a spontaneous standing ovation. Wonderful, until hours after the speech, Hollande’s use of the word “debt” was clarified (stripped of any meaning) to mean a “moral debt.” As in no payment to be made in anything of material value. No euros, no dollars, no cryptocurrency. Perhaps what was meant was something on the order of “prayers and best wishes.”
What is a Moral Debt as Opposed to a Financial One?
A moral debt can arise when an institution or an individual does a kindness for another with no strings attached. In that case, the recipient of that kindness may look for an opportunity to express their gratitude through a means of their choice.
In the case of France and Haiti, we have the opposite situation. France committed a cruel act of revenge and if France wants to repay their “moral” debt, it is up to their creditor, Haiti, to decide what might suffice for some measure of reconciliation.
Can the Current Citizens of France owe a Debt to Haiti for Acts Committed Long Ago?
I would hold harmless a descendent of one of the French officials who carried out the extortion of Haiti as well as a French descendent of one of the extortion’s financial beneficiaries. We rarely assign blame to individuals on an intergenerational basis. As for seizing initially ill-gotten assets passed down among multiple generations, a strict tracing of those assets is practically impossible.
However, France is a country, not an individual. I think it is fair in this context to think of a country as similar to another familiar institution, the corporation. Corporations can be held responsible for the damage they do as long as the statute of limitations has not run out. If many decades ago, a corporation polluted water and is presently found liable for the resulting damage, it is the corporation’s current shareholders who suffer when their company pays restitution and fines, even to the point where the value of their shares may be reduced to zero.
In contrast, the shareholders at the time the damage occurred may escape liability completely if, between damage and discovery, they sold their shares. It’s possible for there to be zero overlap between the two sets of shareholders separated by time.
So, my answer is yes, the citizens of France, through no fault of their own, can be liable for what France did in the past.
The Question of American Reparations
Both Haitians and African Americans were enslaved against their will. Both were freed through war. Both continued to be exploited long after emancipation. These similarities between the two groups may be far exceeded by their differences, but how can one read about one group’s suffering without thinking of the other’s?
Interestingly, it is the post-emancipation indemnity imposed by France on Haiti that is the exclusive focus of the NY Times’ various calculations of what France may owe to Haiti. No attempt is made to calculate any liability France may owe for enslaving the Haitians in the first place.
In “The Fire Next Time,” James Baldwin referred to the successive generations of black Americans as a “long line of improbable aristocrats,” for their persistence in surviving and improving their lot against innumerable obstacles to body and spirit.
It seems to me that the question of what France owes to Haiti should remind us of America’s own great unanswered question: What do we owe to Baldwin’s ‘improbable aristocrats?”
An attempt to answer that question would unleash passions, controversies, possibly even acts of violence by those who find bitter disappointment either in the answer itself or the failure to act upon it.
It is a question that Congress has refused to take up for political reasons, but also because of the fear that the answer may, as Baldwin wrote, “reveal more about America to Americans than Americans wish to know.”
(1) H.R. 40, introduced biannually in every Congress since 1989, would establish a commission to study and develop reparation proposals. It has never been put to a vote.