When Haiti won its independence nearly 200 years ago, it came at a hefty price -- an estimated $21 billion today. The country spent the next century paying off the debt to its former slave owners, France. It's a financial conundrum that those experts and historians say have helped keep some formerly colonized countries impoverished: the demand by former slave owners and colonizers for pay in exchange for independence. The French recognized Haiti's independence in 1825 but in return demanded a hefty indemnity of 100 million francs, approximately $21 billion (USD) today. It took Haitians more than a century to pay off the debt to its former slave owners and lenders including the City Bank of New York, experts who spoke with ABC News said."By forcing Haiti to pay for its freedom, France essentially ensured that the Haitian people would continue to suffer the economic effects of slavery for generations to come," said Marlene Daut, a professor at University of Virginia specializing in pre-20th century French colonial literary and historical studies. Money that could have gone toward erecting a country was channeled to France, Daut said. And France had already profited immensely from slaves producing sugar and coffee, said Alyssa Sepinwall, a history professor at California State University San Marcos. Since 2004, the bicentennial of the Haitian Revolution, Haiti has unsuccessfully sought compensation from France. After Haiti was hit by a devastating earthquake in 2010 that left approximately 250,000 people dead, international activists urged the French president to reimburse Haiti's "independence debt" in the form of disaster relief -- an amount totaling $20 billion. The government has yet to respond to these requests. The Elysee, the official residence of the President of the French Republic, told ABC News in a request for comment: "there’ll be no reaction from Elysee on that matter."The country's GDP remains extremely low at $1,149.50 per capita and nearly 60% of Haitians currently live in poverty. Even though the country has finished paying off its debt and interest by 1947, its economy has not advanced significantly because it is particularly vulnerable to natural disasters and corruption. Ralph Emmanuel Francois, a Haitian and CEO of a social enterprise in Haiti, said the debt left a gaping hole in Haiti's economy and believes France should pay reparations to Haiti. "I'm saying that they also have a responsibility about what they did to us and how they, you know, stole our economy that we could use for our benefit," Francois said. A similar tale: Jamaica asking to zero out the balanceJamaica, another Caribbean island that was a British colony from 1707 until it gained independence in 1962, is also preparing a petition asking Britain to compensate an estimate of 7.6 billion pounds to descendants of former indentured African slaves who were forced to work on sugar plantations, according to Mike Henry, a member of Jamaican Parliament.
All data is taken from the source: http://abcnews.go.com
Article Link: https://abcnews.go.com/US/colonial-era-debt-helped-shape-haitis-poverty-political/story?id=78851735
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