Quote:
Originally Posted by Lune
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Haiti has been deep in debt to the French since their independence back around Napoleonic times, and has been making payments that comprise a large portion of their GDP for hundreds of years. Which imo explains why they can't get their shit together as well as Dominican Republic at least. Super corrupt and a one dimensional economy (coffee) for most of history.
The condition of their independence and recognition was that they had to reimburse France for the value of their property, which included themselves as they were slaves lol. Super fucked up thing to still be paying for.
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Crazy. When UK abolished slavery in its territories circa 200 years ago they did it by purchasing the freedom of the enslaved people from their ‘owners’. It cost about six billion pounds in today’s money. The loan to do so was so huge it only finished repayment in my life time (so my taxes went toward buying people’s freedom 200 years ago - yw if that was your ancestor’s sitch).
Pretty messed up that the process massively enriched the already wealthy (through paying off the owners and interest on the loan). Glad our pals and their descendants across the world got to be ‘free’, even if it enriched a bunch of old money tho.
Shame on Fr*nce for making slaves and their descendants pay for their own freedom. Sounds a lot like indentured servitude in itself imo.