WI - Haiti as a German Hawaii?

I know this sounds strange, but hear me out. In 1910 Germans in Haiti, despite only consisting of a few hundred, controlled 80% of Haiti’s International Commerce. What if these German businessmen pull a Hawaii and ask Germany to become a protectorate, or even annexation?

To have this work let us assume 2 POD's; 1, No Monroe Doctrine or any similar treaty, and 2, far better US German relations.

What might the effects of a German colony in the Caribbean affect the region?
 
German-Haitian here! I don’t think this is very likely. In order to monopolize commerce, the Germans married into already well-off Haitian families and essentially assimilated very quickly into Haitian culture. So the cultural/nationalist impetus to ask for German annexation is not there. German-Haitian trade also was not as significant so there is no economic motivation.

The best outcome for Germany in Haiti imo is a deepening of the OTL situation, with a larger German migration (OTL was less than 1000) resulting in German displacing French as the elite prestige language and resulting in closer ties.
 
German-Haitian here! I don’t think this is very likely. In order to monopolize commerce, the Germans married into already well-off Haitian families and essentially assimilated very quickly into Haitian culture. So the cultural/nationalist impetus to ask for German annexation is not there. German-Haitian trade also was not as significant so there is no economic motivation.

The best outcome for Germany in Haiti imo is a deepening of the OTL situation, with a larger German migration (OTL was less than 1000) resulting in German displacing French as the elite prestige language and resulting in closer ties.

So we're more likely to see Haiti as an Argentina than a Hawaii then?
 
So we're more likely to see Haiti as an Argentina than a Hawaii then?

If you mean like the equivalent of Italians in Argentina, where something like 1/3 of the population is of Italian descent, then that’s unlikely because I doubt that many Germans wanted to move to Haiti. You could just see a larger German descended/affiliated upper class that probably wouldn’t exceed 5% of the population.
 

Deleted member 67076

The issue with that is theres no reason to ask for a protectorate. Nor would it go well among the general population. Due to the curious nature of landowning in Haiti, usually what happened was most traders who wanted property just married a local woman and put the property down in her name, giving a very convenient loophole.

But this also encouraged people to go local and assimilate to the local elite
 
Although on the implausible side as far as I can tell, it would be interesting if Germany gains very close ties to Haiti by maybe removing their "debt" to France in 1871 or something like that, not sure how it can happen and if it would be alright for the German nobility or if Germany even could have the foresight of doing something like that in 1871 but I find the idea of a nation gaining a favourable footing through this method pretty interesting.
 
I know this sounds strange, but hear me out. In 1910 Germans in Haiti, despite only consisting of a few hundred, controlled 80% of Haiti’s International Commerce. What if these German businessmen pull a Hawaii and ask Germany to become a protectorate, or even annexation?

To have this work let us assume 2 POD's; 1, No Monroe Doctrine or any similar treaty, and 2, far better US German relations.

What might the effects of a German colony in the Caribbean affect the region?

It liberated by an Anglo French task force in 1914. Or more likely and Anglo French us force

Incidentally if there is no monroe doctrine there is no monroe doctrine al all.
 
German-Haitian here! I don’t think this is very likely. In order to monopolize commerce, the Germans married into already well-off Haitian families and essentially assimilated very quickly into Haitian culture. So the cultural/nationalist impetus to ask for German annexation is not there. German-Haitian trade also was not as significant so there is no economic motivation.

The best outcome for Germany in Haiti imo is a deepening of the OTL situation, with a larger German migration (OTL was less than 1000) resulting in German displacing French as the elite prestige language and resulting in closer ties.

The Milat elite also wouldn't seem keen on being colonized either, no matter how much they saw themselves distinct from the black masses and so close to Europeans.

Germans are the only likely group of Europeans be able to migrate through. They were made legally Neg in the Constitution and thus eligible for citizenship.

But I worry it would only exasperate income inequity and glass ceilings for the black masses.
 
The Milat elite also wouldn't seem keen on being colonized either, no matter how much they saw themselves distinct from the black masses and so close to Europeans.

Germans are the only likely group of Europeans be able to migrate through. They were made legally Neg in the Constitution and thus eligible for citizenship.

But I worry it would only exasperate income inequity and glass ceilings for the black masses.

This is a little flawed. There was no “legally Neg” because kreyol was not a written language then. It would be “legally nègre.” And in that regard the Germans were not legally neg and were not eligible for citizenship unless they married into a neg family to my knowledge. All of my ancestors from Germany had to marry into existing mulatre families in order to hold property in Haiti, otherwise they are treated like any other white foreigner and prohibited from owning property. Some even were forced to change names; for example one of my ancestors had to change husband name from Müeller to Mullère and marry a Haitian woman in order to gain property rights.
 
This is a little flawed. There was no “legally Neg” because kreyol was not a written language then. It would be “legally nègre.” And in that regard the Germans were not legally neg and were not eligible for citizenship unless they married into a neg family to my knowledge. All of my ancestors from Germany had to marry into existing mulatre families in order to hold property in Haiti, otherwise they are treated like any other white foreigner and prohibited from owning property. Some even were forced to change names; for example one of my ancestors had to change husband name from Müeller to Mullère and marry a Haitian woman in order to gain property rights.


Article thirteen stated all white women can be made into Haitian citizens through marriage but Dessalines put down that Germans and Poles as a whole were to be legally "noir" regardless.

The following article states
uniquehaiti4.jpg


I know that there were men who married into the Haitian elite to some extent by force but I never was able to find records that all 1000 immigrants were German men or they all married it seems like there were German couples and families with children that were made citizens as well.

I say "neg" because as someone who also descends (partially) from a creolophone people further north I prefer that to standard French in regards to race terminology It is however anachronistic :p
 
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Article thirteen stated all white women can be made into Haitian citizens through marriage but Dessalines put down that Germans and Poles as a whole were to be legally "noir" regardless.

The following article states
uniquehaiti4.jpg


I know that there were men who married into the Haitian elite to some extent by force but I never was able to find records that all 1000 immigrants were German men or they all married it seems like there were German couples and families with children that were made citizens as well.

I say "neg" because as someone who also descends (partially) from a creolophone people further north I prefer that to standard French in regards to race terminology It is however anachronistic :p

I agree they weren't all German men; one of my ancestors was a German woman who married into a mulatre family. However IIRC these marriages were in order to secure property rights. For instance her marriage was actually set up by her father, because the mulatre family wanted to keep their last name, common in quite a few cases, and refused to have one of their women marry him.

With what you said, it's true that Dessalines made exceptions for Germans and Poles, but by the time of the German-Haitian domination it had been a long time since Dessalines and Haitians had evolved towards having antipathy towards foreign blan in general, with no regard as to where they came from. The Germans and Poles that were accepted completely were only those that were in Haiti at the time of independence, and they rapidly married into black families and assimilated, leaving behind no trace except for a population of light skinned rural Haitians in the village of Cazale.

Because Haitians by the late 19th century were generally not-accepting of foreign whites (and frankly foreign blacks too), this was reflected in a fairly even application of the law with regards to not allowing German immigrants or other white immigrants to own property. The 1902 gunboat incident definitely didn't help in that regard.There was also an issue of social acceptance that had to be overcome by marrying into an established mulatre family. Something you can ask pretty much any German-Haitian immigrant is why their German ancestors married into the family and none of them would say it was for love, it was always to gain acceptance into Haitian society. Having said that, at this point in time the definition of neg had shifted but not in how you put it; neg in modern Kreyol means "Haitian," and blan means "foreigner." A white Haitian is a neg, and a Ghanaian is a blan, the color doesn't matter. So at this time Haiti's property laws still had a racial context but were also very anti-immigrant in general, somewhat similar to contemporary United States Chinese Exclusion Act.
 

Deleted member 67076

Perhaps instead of a direct protectorate, a close alliance or a Haitian client state is possible?
Thats arguably how it was historically until the American occupation in WW1. You could certainly make the relationship closer with a bit of changes in the previous decades, but the German Empire was generally amicable and seen as better in Latin America than contemporary European states.
 
I know this sounds strange, but hear me out. In 1910 Germans in Haiti, despite only consisting of a few hundred, controlled 80% of Haiti’s International Commerce. What if these German businessmen pull a Hawaii and ask Germany to become a protectorate, or even annexation?

To have this work let us assume 2 POD's; 1, No Monroe Doctrine or any similar treaty, and 2, far better US German relations.

What might the effects of a German colony in the Caribbean affect the region?

(1) The Monroe Doctrine was not a treaty but a unilateral policy of the United States.

(2) It's hard for me to see the US look with indifference on any European power, however friendly, getting control of Haiti. Quite apart from the Monroe Doctrine, which theoretically applied to the whole hemisphere, there was the very specific interest of the US in the Caribbean area--which was only intensified by the construction of the Panama Canal.
 
(2) It's hard for me to see the US look with indifference on any European power, however friendly, getting control of Haiti. Quite apart from the Monroe Doctrine, which theoretically applied to the whole hemisphere, there was the very specific interest of the US in the Caribbean area--which was only intensified by the construction of the Panama Canal.

To add to this, OTL the US was interested in protecting the sea approach to the Panama canal. They wanted to acquire the Mole St. Nicholas in Haiti, a natural harbor, but ended up with Guantanamo bay (on the other side of the strait) instead. The US wouldn't look kindly on a German client state threatening the Panama canal.
 
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