CthulhuFhtagn
Banned
Would it be possible for abolitionists in the US to encourage black migration to Haiti, rather than Liberia?
Don't really see how. Language would be a major issue.
OTL's Americo-Liberians had quite a few mixed-race individuals among them, and I could see all light-skinned immigrants moving on up into the gens; the darker people might get pulled down into the noir.
A larger divider in Haitian society than skin color is culture; even if you're light skinned, if you don't speak French you can't be in the gens du couleur. And it works the other way too; my grandfather went to medical school with a very dark skinned man considered part of the gens du couleur because of his French upbringing and prominent social status. Most immigrants would probably join the noirs just because most of them would not speak French. The religious divide also works against the favor of the immigrants. Within Haitian society, the gens du couleur tend to be strict Catholics, while the noirs practice syncretic Catholic-Voudou. Because the immigrants aren't Catholic (and because the Haitian upper class is extremely anti-Protestant), Protestant migrants, even the light-skinned ones, are not joining the upper class.
Ah, gotcha. Thanks for the insights.
(Soverihn) You'll probably need a Haiti that's not an economic basketcase and a failed state to make an attractive destination. Now there's a number of POD's for that but the easiest would be to not have Toussaint killed and to butterfly away the debt to France.
Huh. I did not know that. I thought Toussaint wanted to get Haiti as an autonomous oversees region with slavery ended and not much else. Granted, that could easily mean having the region as a personal fiefdom, which is depressingly common, historically speaking.The first POD might not work because Toussaint was more interested in increasing his own power rather than that of Haiti, meaning that he was perfectly willing to be an autonomous French governor of Haiti. Haiti might never gain independence in that scenario, although I suppose it has a small chance of still doing so. But the second POD might work if France finds something better to do than get involved in the Caribbean. Other than that, I'd argue that even as an economic basketcase, Haiti's still more attractive than Liberia, where the colonists had a huge death rate (~70%) and many of them actually returned to America as soon as they could.
There's no POD for that where in which Liberia wouldn't have been established and wouldn't have been known as a place to send free'd slaves. Then there's the whole question of would the US even want to keep Santo Domingo after revolts break out.If the US annexed The Dominican Republic would that make Haiti a destination which would also seem popular?