it could be valued at $115 billion
On July 3, 1825, a French warship, accompanied by two other ships, sailed into the port of Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s capital.
They were sent by Charles X, the newly installed king of France, to enforce an ordinance: In exchange for 150 million francs, and an enormous reduction in custom taxes on French goods, France would recognize its former colony’s independence.
trying to make socialism work, and voting for liberals
Is there any discussion of the Dominican republic for comparison?
The Third World needs birth control and sterilizations. It’s the only way to defeat the cruel intergenerational cycle of poverty,
Everything bad in the world can be ultimately be traced back to the French.
Too far back. Haitians should have picked a better path long ago.
Hati, Chicago etc........ Black rule is no rule
A franc was about 4.5 grams of silver.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_franc
So 150 million francs would be 675 million grams of silver, or about 1.5 million pounds of silver. Silver is about $32/ounce so a pound of silver would be worth about $512.
So the price was about $770 million based on silver.
The gold/silver ratio was about 15 to 1. The current ratio is about 85 to 1.
So the 150 million francs would be about $4 billion based on gold.
If Haiti sold coffee for foreign exchange, then Haiti could not pay more in foreign exchange than what it would receive in five years.
“On April 16, 1862, President Lincoln signed the District of Columbia Compensated Emancipation Act. This law prohibited slavery in the District, forcing its 900-odd slaveholders to free their slaves, with the federal government paying owners an average of about $300 (equivalent to $9,000 in 2023) for each.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compensated_emancipation
Haiti had about 400,000 slaves. At $9,000 a head each on average, that would come to $3.6 billion.
DNA. The older I get the clearer that is.
WIKI
The French indemnity was the indemnity the French Third Republic paid to the German Empire after the French defeat in the Franco-Prussian War in 1871.
The indemnity was 5 billion francs, with German troops occupying France until it was paid. The 5 billion gold marks, converted using the retail price index in 2011, was worth 342 billion. Converted using the GDP deflater it amounted to 479 billion and substantially more according to other comparisons such as GDP per capita. The indemnity was proportioned, according to population, to be equivalent to the indemnity imposed by Napoleon on Prussia in the Treaties of Tilsit in 1807.
The last payment of the indemnity was paid in early September 1873, two years before the deadline, and the German army of occupation was withdrawn in mid-September.
It was generally assumed at the time that the indemnity would cripple France for thirty or fifty years. However, the Third Republic that emerged after the war embarked on an ambitious programme of reforms: it introduced banks, built schools (reducing illiteracy), improved roads, increased railways into rural areas, encouraged industry and promoted French national identity rather than regional identities. France also reformed the army, adopting conscription.
In Germany the swift payment of the indemnity caused a stock market boom, along with an asset bubble in the form of a property boom. This lasted until the Panic of 1873 which ushered in the Long Depression until 1896.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_indemnity
The Haitians massacred every white person in Haiti, men, women and children, during their revolution.
I have known some good Americans whose parents or grandparents came form Haiti. I think the best ones get out, which is understandable while it also increases the portion of the remaineder who are not so good. Each remainder generation just gets worse.
I didn’t realize coffee was so important to Haiti. I thought of it as a sugar island. Most of Haiti’s coffee went to Europe, so I wonder if many Americans were aware of Haitian coffee.
A large part of Haiti’s problem was that the revolution chased the people who had some competence and ability out of the island. A more peaceful transition, if possible, might have been preferable.
One note: to pay off France, Haiti had to borrow money at high interest rates, so that debt to the bank wasn’t fully paid off until well after 1883.