{"id":238724,"date":"2019-03-04T17:52:37","date_gmt":"2019-03-04T22:52:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rael.org\/?p=238724"},"modified":"2020-07-12T17:55:14","modified_gmt":"2020-07-12T21:55:14","slug":"in-1825-haiti-paid-france-21-billion-to-preserve-its-independence-time-for-france-to-pay-it-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/noproxy.rael.org\/da\/in-1825-haiti-paid-france-21-billion-to-preserve-its-independence-time-for-france-to-pay-it-back\/","title":{"rendered":"In 1825, Haiti paid France $21 billion to preserve its independence \u2014 Time for France to pay it back"},"content":{"rendered":"<h5><span style=\"color: #008080\"><strong>RAEL\u2019S COMMENT: <\/strong><\/span><\/h5>\n<h5><span style=\"color: #008080\"><strong>\u201cReparation to the slaves&#8217; owners \u201d \u2026 Am I having a bad dream? What kind of country is that? Not only France must pay it back but should also pay at least the same amount in reparation to the slaves&#8217; descendants!<\/strong><\/span><\/h5>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>The devastation wreaked on Haiti by Hurricane Matthew last fall was just the latest in a seemingly endless string of misfortunes that have befallen that country, which in March concluded a year-long interlude of caretaker governance by installing banana exporter Jovenel Mo\u00efse as its 58th\u00a0president. Mo\u00efse faces a daunting task; Haiti\u2019s chronic status as the Western hemisphere\u2019s poorest nation is due to a litany of afflictions that range from widespread illiteracy, to endemic corruption, to woefully inadequate infrastructure. But while these would be hard enough for any country to overcome, for more than a century of its existence Haiti carried an additional but little-known millstone, the effects of which are still being felt.<\/p>\n<p>In 1825, barely two decades after winning its independence against all odds, Haiti was forced to begin paying enormous \u201creparations\u201d to the French slaveholders it had overthrown. Those payments would have been a staggering burden for any fledgling nation, but Haiti wasn\u2019t just any fledgling nation; it was a republic formed and led by blacks who\u2019d risen up against the institution of slavery. As such, Haiti\u2019s independence was viewed as a threat by all slave-owning countries \u2013 the United States included \u2013 and its very existence rankled racist sensibilities globally. Thus Haiti \u2013 tiny, impoverished and all alone in a hostile world \u2013 had little choice but to accede to France\u2019s reparation demands, which were delivered to Port-au-Prince by a fleet of heavily armed warships in 1825.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/realspin\/2017\/12\/06\/in-1825-haiti-gained-independence-from-france-for-21-billion-its-time-for-france-to-pay-it-back\/?fbclid=IwAR21wq4B24TOEWaNYxca1ZTCeoHHcagMwypiLYkeGBTtzf8LhRFyKoVY7G0#781459c2312b\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"color: #0000ff\">https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/realspin\/2017\/12\/06\/in-1825-haiti-gained-independence-from-france-for-21-billion-its-time-for-france-to-pay-it-back\/?fbclid=IwAR21wq4B24TOEWaNYxca1ZTCeoHHcagMwypiLYkeGBTtzf8LhRFyKoVY7G0#781459c2312b<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>RAEL\u2019S COMMENT: \u201cReparation to the slaves&#8217; owners \u201d \u2026 Am I having a bad dream? What kind of country is that? Not only France must pay it back but should also pay at least the same amount in reparation to the slaves&#8217; descendants! &nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":71,"featured_media":238725,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-238724","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/noproxy.rael.org\/da\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238724","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/noproxy.rael.org\/da\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/noproxy.rael.org\/da\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noproxy.rael.org\/da\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/71"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noproxy.rael.org\/da\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=238724"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/noproxy.rael.org\/da\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238724\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noproxy.rael.org\/da\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/238725"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/noproxy.rael.org\/da\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=238724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noproxy.rael.org\/da\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=238724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noproxy.rael.org\/da\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=238724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}