Transcription
Haiti's origin story is the craziest financial heist you've never heard of. Between 1791 and 1804, Haitian slaves led a successful slave revolution, ousting their French masters and sending them back to France. In 1825, the French came back, armed to the brim, and threatened war unless Haiti paid reparations. Haiti's president, scared, relented, meaning former slaves were going to have to pay slave masters 150 million dollars in reparations—way more than Haiti had. But that's kind of the point; we'll get there.
This was their independent step, but in reality, it was a ransom. You see, the French king gave his squadron a second mission: ensure Haiti took out a loan from fledgling French banks to make the payments. This became Haiti's double debt: the ransom and the loan to pay it off. Haiti took out a 30 million franc loan, but after the banks took their commissions, Haiti only saw 24 million instead of 150 million. Haiti suddenly owed 156 million plus interest. Haiti paid about 560 million in today's dollars, and had that money stayed on the island, it would have added about 21 billion to the Haitian economy. Haiti was robbed, and we should be talking about it.