What is the relationship between Haiti and France?
Post Independence
On 17 April 1825 an agreement was made between the two nations. France renounced all attempts to re-conquer Haiti and recognized Haiti as an independent nation after Haiti agreed to pay France 150 million gold francs in indemnity to the former colonists within five years.
Prior to gaining its independence in 1804, Haiti was the French colony of Saint-Domingue. Under French rule, Saint-Domingue grew to be the wealthiest colony in the French empire and, perhaps, the richest colony in the world.
In France the peasant and middle classes fought to overthrow their monarch and restructure a government that was already in place, whereas in Haiti the slaves sought to extinguish the aggressive French colonial government. In the year 1791 The French and Haitian revolutions coexisted.
Napoleon sent General Charles Leclerc to overthrow him and restore French rule, but Haitians, led by Jean-Jacques Dessalines and Henry Christophe, prevailed over the French, and Dessalines declared Haiti independent in 1804.
In the 18th century, Saint Dominigue, as Haiti was then known, became France's wealthiest overseas colony, largely because of its production of sugar, coffee, indigo, and cotton generated by an enslaved labor force.
France had several colonies in the Caribbean in which slavery supported a plantation economy that produced sugar, coffee, and cotton. The most important of these colonies was Saint Domingue (later Haiti), which had 500,000 slaves, 32,000 whites, and 28,000 free blacks (which included both blacks and mulattos).
Comparisons between both. Both relied on equality, liberalism, ideas from the enlightenment against authoritarian power, democracy; Empowered by the success of American revolution; Relied on the declaration of man from the French revolution.
The French Revolution, however became the spark for the Haitian Revolution after the French revolutionaries declared that all men be free and equal and when word spread to Haiti, a French colony, the African slaves of the island agreed and decided to rise up.
How did the French Revolution influence the Haitian Revolution? The French Revolution consisted of protests to have equal rights. These mobs influenced the revolts in Haiti for freedom of the enslaved, free blacks, and the maroons.
Taiwan is one of Haiti's major trading partners and the two countries maintain very friendly relations. Haiti has also re-established very warm relations with Cuba in which a major act of bilateral cooperation has resulted in Cuba's large contribution of doctors to the country.
Why does Haiti owe France?
In 1825, Haiti was forced to pay millions of French francs to France in exchange for that country's recognition of its sovereignty.
The resumption of war in Europe compelled France to withdraw in November 1803. After 300 years of colonial rule, the new nation of Haiti was declared an independent republic. It was only the second nation in the Americas to gain its independence and the first modern state governed by people of African descent.
France controlled the entirety of Hispaniola from 1795 to 1802, when a renewed rebellion began. The last French troops withdrew from the western portion of the island in late 1803, and the colony later declared its independence as Haiti, the Taino Indian name for the island, the following year.
Historically, the United States viewed Haiti as a counterbalance to Communist leaders in Cuba. Haiti's potential as a trading partner and an actor in the drug trade makes the nation strategically important to the United States. Moreover, the two are tied by a large Haitian diaspora residing in the United States.
Haiti became the first modern state to abolish slavery, the first state in the world to be formed from a successful revolt of the lower classes (in this case slaves), and the second republic in the Western Hemisphere, only twenty-eight years behind the United States (Reinhardt 247).
Lescot commonly said that Haiti's declared state-of-war against the Axis powers during World War II justified his repressive actions. Haiti, however, played no role in the war except for supplying the United States with raw materials and serving as a base for a United States Coast Guard detachment.