AHC: Stable Haiti

Ceranthor

Banned
It's pretty well known that Haiti, for most of its history, has essentially been a massive shitstorm of barbarism, poverty, and economic and environmental degradation. While it did have some potential to stabilize in the interval between the second and third French invasion of the island, the death of Toussaint Loverture and the bloodbath that followed basically ruined the entire country and made any attempts at uplifting it nearly impossible.

Now I don't think Haiti was ever really destined to become so degraded; the island of Hispaniola was obviously rich and fertile(the ruling French considered it the "Jewel of the Caribbean") and they had Toussaint Loverture, who was a canny leader and a great general. I personally believe that the two factors that did them in were Toussaint's capture and the ascension of Jean-Jacques Dessalines, who essentially kicked off a genocide against the resident French and proceeded to run the whole country into the ground. If those two things hadn't happened, and Toussaint had been smart enough not to allow French agents to double-cross him, then Haiti wouldn't have done nearly as badly as it did OTL.

This also opens up some interesting scenarios for international diplomacy. The Americans and the Europeans were already wary of an independent black republic in the Caribbean and the implications it held for their slave economies, but the ensuing ruination of the island made them lose interest; while Toussaint was still in power, Napolean schemed to unseat him, reinstate slavery, and use Hispaniola as a power base in the Americas. The combination of Dessalines and the war in Europe scrapped those plans, and essentially minimized Haiti's role on the international stage. However, an extant Toussaint would likely butterfly away the massacres that marked the end of the Haitian Revolution, allowing the country to maintain its stability, and, by extension, its importance as a piece in the Caribbean.

So, if given the right circumstances, could we see Haiti stabilize and consolidate, and perhaps maintain its independence till the present day? Might it become a puppet for the various powers, or could Toussaint(and similarly able successors) maneuver their way out of being returned to a colonial state? Could we see Haiti actually prospering, even becoming a regional power?
 

Ceranthor

Banned
That thread was more about making Haiti a first-world power on the scale of something like Germany or Britain, which is unlikely considering the diplomatic and economic hurdles a black nation in the 19th century would have to surmount. I was talking more about simply stabilizing Haiti and possibly keeping it independent. It was more a "Toussaint lives" WI than one of making Haiti some kind of international powerhouse.
 

Warsie

Banned
Haiti can invade the dominician republic and NOT be dickish in it'd treatment of the dominicians allowing them to identify as blacks or Haitians and not for them to uncle Tom away their blackness (the dominicians). honestly I don't think killing off all the whites will be bad economically if the blacks are stable in their post genocide society.
 
It would be nice to have this timeline. Just bear in mind--Toussaint's capture was not exactly an accident. His defeat at that particular time and place may have been, but not the determination of various European and American powers that his regime should fail. As you say, once it passed over to less astute hands, Haiti became a bad example rather than a good one and thus neutralized its own threat; had the new nation continued to be well-run and prosperous, maneuvering against it would not cease. This does not mean it was doomed but it does mean it had some rough, narrow straits ahead on its course. It would be helpful if Haiti could find some allies--to last long enough for the revolutions against Spanish rule in the Americas to come to their aid, for instance (these revolutionary regimes often abolishing slavery, for instance). Of course the material aid they could offer would not be much, but insofar as they distracted other powers and drew resources away from designs against Haiti they would have helped, and perhaps a desire to defend Haiti as an outpost of their own broader movement of American independence might have stimulated some effective organization of naval force and coordinated policy and perhaps federation of the various Central American republics? The more I think about this the longer the long shot becomes to be sure!
 
A major mistake early on was to allow the mahogany forests to be cut down. Selling the wood was a term of the treaty to get independence recognized, but the economic and environmental consequences were very bad and are still felt.
 
That 150 million gold francs the french required them to pay, which led to loans, instabilities, more loans, etc. It took 140 years to pay off that debt, and it represents more gold than there is currently in the Brazilian reserves (45 tons of pure gold give or take). Let's face it, the peace treaty between France and Haiti was basically scorched earth.
 
While Haiti had a lot of shit luck its most basic problem was its population. While skin colour doesn't determine ability and potential prosperity the nature of pre-Revolution Haitian society (like most of the other sugar islands) doomed it to poverty.

At the top you had a tiny white elite who were primarily plantation managers with only a tiny number of lawyers, doctors, merchants etc. ruling over a mass of brutalised slaves whose skill set was confined to what was needed to keep a sugar plantation going. This was because Haiti didn't exist in isolation, it didn't matter that there were no universities, students could go to France, it didn't matter that there was no native civil service, they could be imported from France, it didn't matter when Haiti was part of a larger whole, it mattered a great deal when Haiti became independent.
 

Ceranthor

Banned
Haiti can invade the dominician republic and NOT be dickish in it'd treatment of the dominicians allowing them to identify as blacks or Haitians and not for them to uncle Tom away their blackness (the dominicians). honestly I don't think killing off all the whites will be bad economically if the blacks are stable in their post genocide society.

That's...kind of retarded. How exactly did the Dominicans "Uncle Tom" their "blackness" away? What does that even mean? Furthermore, how on earth would a complete genocide be in any way beneficial to a country? The last stages of the Haitian revolution were essentially a full-on race war, which ended in the deaths of almost as many blacks as whites. What you ended up with was an island that had been ravaged by ten years of war, a pretty large percentage of Haiti's educated population(most of which were white or mulatto) lying six feet under, and a complete demagogue in charge of hundreds of thousands of former slaves who had little to no experience in anything necessary to run a nation.

Now while Haiti's higher and middle classes weren't at all comparable to the massive numbers of former slaves, they weren't exactly miniscule either. If they had somehow been induced to stay in Haiti(which would probably mean no Dessalines), and if the Haitian government had managed to attract some educated foreigners, you could see a decent portion of the country's society occupied in higher positions, which might win it some international prestige. I think if a powerful Toussaint had plundered Spanish Dominica, killed or imprisoned all of his bloodthirsty officers(and there were many of them), and protected the whites, mulattos, and educated blacks, then Haiti wouldn't have been reduced to having a population that consisted solely of unlettered rebel slaves. If Toussaint had become more dictatorial, and if he had recieved a better run of luck than he did OTL, the country could have consolidated and avoided being run through the mud.
 
Keep The Dominican Republic a part of Haiti.

Get rid of the French Debt. Get the UK or someone of equal power to forces the French to release them without the debt.

Centralise Haiti. Paraguay was a great example of this at the time. One thing they did was focus on making what they had work.

Focus on education, or encourage foreign investment. Let them build factories etc, in Haiti. Provide a cheaper work force and lighter tax rates. This should in theory create a growing economy. Fromt he increase income set up schools and public education system. Fifty years later and this will start showing huge benefits.

Above all else. Get things democratic.
 

Warsie

Banned
That's...kind of retarded. How exactly did the Dominicans "Uncle Tom" their "blackness" away? What does that even mean?

Dominican society emphasizes the spanish aspects of their ancestry and culture to the detriment of their black culture. IF haiti invades the dominican republic and throws out the whites and kills them off there WON'T be such a colorism practice in dominican society and a denial of their african aspects. Compare that to Haiti where the haitian population is more proud of their blackness and speak haitian creole, not 'standard' french and proudly practice voodoo etc. There was a dominican dictator who killed haitian immigrants and used skin lightening creams and i think also shat on the darker-colored dominicans culturally, before he was overthrown.

Furthermore, how on earth would a complete genocide be in any way beneficial to a country?

It's beneficial for the black population as they won't be disposessed and on the bottom of a post-revolution social order. It doesn't have to be genocide; it can be expulsions of whites from Haiti, for example.

Now while Haiti's higher and middle classes weren't at all comparable to the massive numbers of former slaves, they weren't exactly miniscule either. If they had somehow been induced to stay in Haiti(which would probably mean no Dessalines), and if the Haitian government had managed to attract some educated foreigners, you could see a decent portion of the country's society occupied in higher positions, which might win it some international prestige. I think if a powerful Toussaint had plundered Spanish Dominica, killed or imprisoned all of his bloodthirsty officers(and there were many of them), and protected the whites, mulattos, and educated blacks, then Haiti wouldn't have been reduced to having a population that consisted solely of unlettered rebel slaves. If Toussaint had become more dictatorial, and if he had recieved a better run of luck than he did OTL, the country could have consolidated and avoided being run through the mud.

Depending on the history toussaint can keep the educated blacks and mullatoes, but expel the whites. There runs a risk of having whites take over the country economically if they stay in power. Also, there were educated blacks abroad who could have intervened.
 
I wouldn't condone such a thing, but... peoples don't understand how BAD was slavery at times, like the horrendous caraibans slavery...

It's uderstandable an HATRED for whiteys would appears, no? It is not going to end prettyly.
 

Warsie

Banned
Weren't the Polish soldiers left in Haiti treated well?

also, remember this quote:

"For the Haitian declaration of independence, we should have the skin of a white man for parchment, his skull for an inkwell, his blood for ink, and a bayonet for a pen!” -Dessalines.
 
I am very unfamiliar with the history of Haiti, french colonies out of here, so.. Was there any abolitionist movements, figures, allies Haitians could have had? Maybe it could have been a way to lessen the bloodiness of it all, for everyone...
 
Fewer debts to France and avoiding the complete destruction of the upper class might do the trick. Keeping Jean-Jacques Dessalines out of power would prevent the last one, though I don't know how the first one might be pulled off.

One big thing to consider is that Haiti is going to have much of the world against it for a very long time. In OTL's US, recognition of Haitian independence was consistently blocked by the Southern planter class until the Civil War due to fears that their own slaves would be emboldened by such recognition. In OTL, Haiti's failure to remain stable after independence meant that nobody cared about it. But if Haiti gets its act together, then the example of a successful black republic is going to be downright terrifying to many of the powers in the region, who are all invested in labor-intensive plantation agriculture. It will face at least one invasion attempt by the US or a European power in the early-mid 19th century, and probably more than one.

On the other hand, should Haiti maintain its good streak, the example set by a successful Haiti could, later on, defuse a lot of the virulent racism of the late 19th/early 20th centuries.
 

Warsie

Banned
^remember OTL Haiti was still enough of a threat for the US to invade it, and the Dominican Republic post-independence was also invaded by Spain too. Also for some reason I doubt an intact haiti will make whites less racist. Did it work in the case of East Asians?
 
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