Last month, The New York Times made headlines with its front-page series about the billions (in today’s dollars) that France forced Haiti to pay following centuries of slavery. Despite the terrors and tortures of French colonialism, the Haitian revolutionaries won their independence from France in 1804 to become the first modern nation to permanently abolish slavery. Yet, in 1825, the French returned to Haitian shores to demand 150 million francs in exchange for recognition of Haitian independence—21 years after the fact—and to compensate enslavers for their lost “property.”
Dozens of manuscripts and pamphlets from early-19th-century France show that what the French really wanted wasn’t money at all, though. Rather they sought, in their words, to “restore Saint-Domingue,” which meant to bring back slavery. The French began planning the reconquest of Haiti soon after the Haitian Declaration of Independence on January 1, 1804, and threatened the new nation under all its first leaders from its founder, Emperor Jean-Jacques Dessalines (who was assassinated in 1806) to both King Henry Christophe (who ruled after Dessalines in the north until he committed suicide in 1820) and Alexandre Pétion who was simultaneously president
— source thenation.com | Marlene Daut | Jun 13, 2022