LIfe after Slavery

In Haiti, slavery ended when the Revolution ended and the French were driven off the island. No longer would the black people be controlled by the white people in that country. To help ensure that the Haitians did not become reenslaved, Dessalines, the new leader of Haiti, ordered all Frenchmen on the island killed. These mass murders created a precedence of violence in Haiti. Leaders were quickly overthrown and killed, including Dessalines. The never ending rise and fall of leaders threw Haiti into a cycle of turmoil for several years.

The murders also caused problems with other nations around the world.  Countries such as the United States and especially France refused to recognize them as a country and would not trade with them.

A problem that arose out of the Revolution was what do we do now.  The country was made up of largely uneducated slaves. It also needed a way to put people to work and create a profit, yet no one could think of a way to accomplish that goal. The only solution the early leaders could think of was putting the people back on plantations to grow sugar. The citizens would not stand for it. To them if it looked like slavery and acted like slavery, it was putting them back into slavery. The only difference between the old and new orders was that now they received a portion of the crop.

The former slaves rose up and overthrew Dessalines in 1806. They refused to be treated like slaves in the new order. Now another economic system and set of laws was again in the works. The leaders Henri Christophe and Alexandre Pétion could not agree on how to govern the island. They fought for many months and eventually ended their differences by splitting the country in half, North and South.

Christophe governed in the North, and he continued the new forced labor system.  He ruled with a heavy hand. The one beneficially thing he did for Haiti was  set up new schools for the children to attend. His subjects did not like him. To the South, Pétion created a new order. He divided up the former plantations and gave some land to each of the former slaves. The new landowners usually just grew small farms and provided enough for their family. It was a poor life, but the former slaves were much happier than their Northern counterparts.

In 1820 after both Christophe and Pétion died, Boyer rose to power and reunited the country. He instated Pétion’s policies in the North. Haiti was now a happy country with each man working for himself, but it was still a very poor country.

Haiti still was not recognized by other countries. To gain France’s recognition, Haiti had to pay France 150 million francs. The money was basically a payment to the planters for the property and profits they had lost through the Revolution.

Throughout the years after the Revolution, Haiti struggled to become reestablished and find its place in the world.

Sources:     

Girard, Philippe R,. Paradise Lost Haiti's Tumultuous Journey from Pearl of the Caribbean to Third World Hot Spot. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.

Robinson, Randall. An Unbroken Agony: Haiti from Revolution to the Kidnapping of a President. New York: Basic Civitas Books, 2007.