0:00

From New York Times, I'm

0:02

Michael Bolbaro. This is

0:04

a daily.

0:14

In seventeen ninety one, enslaved

0:16

nations did the seemingly impossible,

0:20

ousting their French masters and

0:23

founding a nation. But

0:25

France made generations of nations

0:28

pay for that freedom in cash.

0:31

Just how much has remained a

0:33

mystery until now.

0:41

Today, My colleague, Katherine

0:44

Porter, on what a team

0:46

of times reporters, has

0:49

found It's

0:58

Friday. June

1:01

third.

1:07

Kevin, just to begin, how and

1:09

why? Did this project

1:12

come to be?

1:14

Well, I started going to Haiti

1:16

in two thousand and ten after the Earth quake as a

1:19

journalist for a different paper at that time.

1:21

Mhmm. And was upset

1:24

by what I saw because of the deaths and

1:26

destruction. And I kept going

1:29

back to report on the

1:31

rebuilding of Haiti. And over

1:33

time, I came to see that that

1:36

destruction, that state of damage

1:38

was a constant

1:39

there.

1:40

Mhmm. It wasn't getting better. And

1:42

at one point, I was doing a story about maternal

1:45

health and I was in a hospital in

1:48

Hash in Central Haitis, and there

1:50

was a sixteen year old girl on a

1:52

hospital bed giving birth.

1:54

And Her baby was lodged

1:56

sideways and the doctor said to me like

1:58

she's gonna die. We can't get her out because

2:00

we have no electricity. And

2:04

last time I tried to do an operation,

2:07

I passed out in the OR because there's

2:09

no AC, so we can't do

2:11

it. You know, this is a type

2:13

of reporting you do when you're in Haiti.

2:15

Mhmm. So you're not only struck

2:18

by the poverty and the pain,

2:20

but also the lack of infrastructure structure is

2:22

just quite haunting while you're there. And,

2:24

you know, Haiti shares

2:26

an island. On the other half of the island, it's a Dominican

2:29

Republic where they have like

2:32

subsidize healthcare, and education,

2:36

and a functioning subway

2:38

system And meanwhile, on

2:40

the other side of the island, they don't have

2:42

electricity -- Mhmm. -- or running water.

2:45

And it's a resounding I think

2:47

any foreign correspondent spending time

2:49

and he has to ask themselves,

2:52

like, why why why is

2:54

the country like this? And the

2:56

answer you normally get when you ask

2:58

people about this deeper why is

3:00

corruption. Mhmm. And we've seen

3:02

lots of stories of corruption the corruption

3:05

does play a huge role. But

3:08

the more I read about Haiti, I started

3:10

to learn about this thing called the

3:12

independents dead -- Mhmm. -- which was

3:15

a series of payments, former

3:18

slaves of Haiti paid to

3:20

their French colonists for their freedom -- Mhmm.

3:23

-- for generations, for their independence,

3:26

unlike like anything I'd ever heard

3:28

of before or any country had done.

3:30

And I wanted to learn more and

3:33

to learn everything I could about it, to see

3:35

what effect it had on the

3:38

country's trajectory. So trying to

3:40

get to the bottom of how much they paid, who

3:42

they paid, what was this thing the independents

3:44

did. And the more we dug

3:46

into it, the more we came to understand that

3:49

the context of these payments is

3:51

really critical in

3:54

understanding the

3:56

bigger story about why Haiti is

3:59

as impoverished and underdeveloped as

4:01

it is today.

4:08

And so, Katherine, what is the story

4:11

behind these payments,

4:13

this independence

4:15

debt? As it's called, what what is

4:17

that history? So to understand

4:19

the story of the payments, you need

4:22

to understand the story of colonial

4:25

sentiment. So before Haiti was Haiti,

4:27

it was the most important colony of

4:29

France. It was a small little nub of

4:31

an island in the middle of the Caribbean that reduced

4:35

the bulk of sugar and coffee

4:37

being consumed in all of Europe

4:39

and made huge amount of fortunes

4:41

for people in France but it was also

4:44

considered one of most brutal places

4:46

for enslaved people. And ninety percent

4:48

of the population were kidnapped Africans

4:51

that did not survive very long

4:53

once they were there. They they didn't reproduce.

4:55

They were just simply replaced. Mhmm.

4:57

A couple of years after the French revolution, there

5:00

was this revolution started

5:02

by slaves in Haitis, in

5:05

which they overthrew their white masters.

5:07

They set fire to the plantations

5:10

where they had been was subjugated,

5:13

and the former slaves win. It's

5:15

an it's incredible. In eighteen o four,

5:18

They form the country, they call Haitis,

5:20

and it was the first modern slave

5:22

rebellion that created, the first black

5:25

Republic of the Americas. Wow.

5:28

So it's just an amazing story. So, you know,

5:30

what happened though after is instead

5:32

of being celebrated,

5:34

Haitis became a pariah. So

5:36

Haitis is free, but totally

5:38

on its own, very much isolated. Totally

5:40

on its own, very much isolated and completely

5:43

freaked out, worried that France is gonna come back

5:45

and reconquer. In fact, you know, in eighteen

5:47

twenty five, that finally happened. A

5:50

Italian warship show up. With

5:52

an emissary of a new king in France,

5:55

and the emissaries in Guy named Baron

5:57

de Macau, and he says, look, I'm not a negotiator.

5:59

You have two choices. Either

6:02

you pay us reparations for

6:04

what we've lost

6:06

or we declare war.

6:08

Can you explain, like, having reparations for

6:10

what we've lost? You

6:12

know, what they had lost was the

6:15

land and their slaves.

6:17

So they're talking about both human

6:20

and physical property. And normally, when we

6:22

talk about reparations in today's context,

6:25

it's the opposite. It's reparations for slavery.

6:27

In this case, was reparations for

6:30

lost property.

6:32

And how much

6:33

is France demanding from Haiti?

6:37

France is demanding a hundred and

6:39

fifty million francs

6:41

to be paid over five years. Which

6:44

is just impossible, would

6:46

be impossible for Haiti to

6:48

pay its budget. It was just like a small fraction

6:51

of that. And yet, like, after just three

6:53

days of talks, the president of Haitis,

6:56

There's still a huge debate among

6:58

historians as to why. Mhmm.

7:01

But for whatever reason, president

7:03

at the time agreed that this would be better

7:05

than going to war.

7:07

Mhmm. So how does

7:09

Haiti begin to

7:12

tackle this enormous

7:14

debt that they have disagreed to? Well,

7:18

you know, they couldn't. They

7:20

couldn't even make the first payment. France

7:23

knew that Haitis wouldn't be able

7:25

to pay. And so, you know, the French Kang.

7:27

The second order he gave to his emissary

7:30

was not just to get them to sign this

7:32

deal, but also to make sure that

7:35

they took out a loan from a group of

7:37

young French Parisian

7:39

banks. I mean, that's what happened.

7:42

They took out a really

7:44

bad loan from a consortium

7:47

of French banks to cover

7:50

the bulk of just the first payment.

7:52

And that is what became

7:54

known as the double

7:56

dead. And

7:57

why is it called the double dead? Well,

8:00

there's the money that Haitis is paying

8:03

France and the former French colonists

8:05

for its independence. Mhmm. And then there's

8:07

a money it pays back to

8:09

the banks and the bondholders of that

8:12

loan. Right. And late

8:14

fees and payments, you know,

8:16

so essentially there's two debts

8:18

here. That's why it's called the double debt.

8:20

Got it. A

8:21

debt to France and now a

8:24

debt to French banks. So

8:27

what does Haiti do.

8:30

Literally, MPs' treasury to try and

8:32

finish that first payment. And afterwards, it

8:34

defaults. And then

8:36

the Haitian government basically tries

8:39

everything. They passed laws for

8:41

individuals to pay a kind

8:43

of personal income tax -- Oh. -- didn't

8:46

last very long. They have taxes

8:48

on stamps. They

8:50

try property tax. They

8:53

try a whole bunch of different taxes. But

8:55

in the end, they end up relying really

8:57

on one thing. And that is

9:00

coffee. Coffee became

9:02

the number one port in Haiti for

9:04

more than a century. They tax

9:06

coffee exports from

9:09

coffee farmers that are generally small

9:12

subsistent farmers, growing

9:14

coffee trees on small plots of land

9:16

up on in the mountains, and that

9:19

is what pays year after

9:21

year for the double debt.

9:28

So the way Haiti ultimately decides

9:31

to tackle this dead is

9:34

to take its most profitable

9:37

an important product

9:40

coffee, tax the heck

9:42

out of it, and ship the

9:44

bulk of those taxes

9:48

straight over to France. Right.

9:50

You have to remember that the thing that's most egregious

9:53

about the double debt is that

9:56

Haiti got nothing in return. It's not like

9:58

this was an investment. Like, when we think

10:00

about debt, international debt

10:03

today that countries developing countries

10:05

take on in order to invest in something

10:07

like schools or or for that

10:09

matter, agriculture, which would have

10:11

been brilliant at the time, this

10:14

money was just simply like a giant

10:16

drain sucking onto the side of Haiti

10:18

and going across the ocean to

10:20

France --

10:21

Mhmm. -- for nothing in return.

10:24

But Haiti does make good. On

10:26

these payments? Yeah.

10:28

When we were going through the archives, we

10:30

found that it eventually

10:33

paid the last part of

10:35

the double debt in eighteen eighty eight.

10:38

But Michael, in order to make

10:40

those payments, the Haitian

10:42

government in the eighteen seventies

10:44

took out two more disastrous

10:47

loans. And so it's kind

10:49

of like, yeah, they paid their hospital bill,

10:52

but with their credit card. Like, the debt

10:54

was formally finished, but

10:56

it continued in another form

10:59

and it continued for decades and

11:02

it essentially set Haiti on a course

11:04

of indebtedness to foreign

11:06

banks that didn't end until

11:09

really the late nineteen fifties.

11:12

Catherine,

11:12

at the beginning of this conversation, you said

11:14

that so much of Haiti's modern

11:18

woes are tied to these payments.

11:20

So by the time this

11:22

double debt is finally

11:24

paid

11:25

off. Just how much

11:27

has it cost payday?

11:31

So what we found by going

11:33

through archives and collecting actual

11:36

payments and tabulating them

11:39

was that Haiti had paid in total

11:42

five sixty million dollars.

11:44

Wow. Then working with economists

11:47

we figured that if that money had just stayed

11:49

in Haiti instead of flowing across

11:52

the ocean to France and

11:54

just been tucked into people's pockets,

11:57

it would amount to twenty one

11:59

billion dollars today. A

12:01

huge sum of money. That's the

12:04

modest end. That's the bottom

12:06

of the range. Because it's

12:08

unlikely that that money would have

12:10

just stayed in people's pockets. Right?

12:12

They would have used it to send

12:14

their kids a school, and the government might

12:17

have used some of it to build

12:19

roads and bridges, and it would have

12:21

grown the economy. So

12:23

in the other scenario, we worked with

12:25

economists and figured that

12:27

if the Asian economy had grown

12:29

at the same rate as neighboring

12:31

countries, in Latin America, that

12:34

money would add up to a hundred and

12:36

fifteen billion dollars

12:38

today. Wow.

12:40

So a transformative level

12:42

of money for a country like

12:44

Yeah. I mean, one to eight times

12:47

the size of the entire economy today.

12:49

So when we think about what France took

12:52

from Haiti when it demanded that original

12:55

payment for Haiti's freedom, we

12:58

should think about it as this

13:00

much, much bigger number

13:03

in the billions. Which is really,

13:06

from what you're saying, the economy that Haiti

13:08

would have had if all

13:11

that money had stayed in the country.

13:14

Right. You know, like, it's

13:16

really just that opportunity cost

13:18

that when Haiti was this young

13:21

country trying to grow

13:23

and make something of itself.

13:26

It was hamstrung and we

13:28

did not have the opportunity to

13:30

do so. But we had to look

13:32

at this as, you know, almost

13:35

like magical thinking what Haitis might have

13:37

been had it not. Been

13:39

saddled with this huge burden

13:42

from basically its birth. It

13:45

would hady look more like the Dominican

13:47

Republic Now, like,

13:50

would there be electricity? Would

13:52

there be more public schools?

13:55

Would I have gone to that hospital where

13:58

that girl was facing

14:00

death over a difficult pregnancy?

14:03

And found a doctor who had

14:05

no problem doing an

14:07

operation on her because --

14:09

Mhmm. -- the hospital had water

14:11

and had electricity and had every

14:14

medication that doctor needed to

14:16

do it.

14:19

We don't know what Haiti would look like

14:21

now. Of course, this is magical thinking,

14:23

but to me, that

14:25

is the cost. That Haitis

14:27

was forced to pay for this debt

14:30

that really it should have never

14:32

have had to pay in

14:35

the first place.

14:41

We'll do it back.

14:46

Debt creation and money printing leading

14:48

to inflation, internal fighting threatening

14:51

to cause a type of civil war, and

14:53

external conflict with other countries.

14:56

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15:22

Right now I'm sitting alone in the press room

15:24

at the US Navy basic Guantanamo Bay.

15:27

I've probably spent around two thousand

15:29

nights at this Navy base. I've

15:32

been coming here since four months after

15:34

the nine eleven attacks. I watched

15:36

the first prisoners arrive in those Orange

15:38

jumpsuits from faraway Afghanistan. Some

15:41

of these prisoners, they still don't

15:43

have a trial date. It's

15:45

hard to get here. It's hard to get news

15:47

from the prison. Often, you know,

15:49

I'm the only reporter here. If

15:52

you build a military court

15:54

in prison out of reach of the

15:56

American people. It should not be out of

15:58

reach of American journalism. We

16:00

have a duty to keep coming back and

16:02

explain what's going on here. The

16:04

New York Times takes you to difficult

16:07

and controversial places. It

16:09

keeps you informed about unpopular and

16:11

hard to report developments. And

16:14

that takes resources. You can power

16:16

that kind of journalism by subscribing to The New

16:18

York

16:18

Times. So, Catherine,

16:20

we have been focused on the staggering

16:22

cost of this double debt, this independence

16:25

debt to Haitis. But of course, on

16:27

the other side of this debt was

16:30

France. So where did that money

16:32

go within

16:33

France? And what impact did

16:36

it have there? Well,

16:38

the bulk of that money went

16:40

to the descendants of former French

16:42

colonists and slave holders

16:45

in France. You know, some

16:47

of whom were still fabulously

16:49

rich families, you know, merchant

16:52

families, aristocrats that

16:54

had invested in Haiti. We

16:56

did some genealogy to look at

16:58

who they are, In fact, you know,

17:00

we found the records from a commission

17:02

that was set up in

17:05

France to decide how

17:07

much money each property owner was

17:10

do. Mhmm. And it was

17:13

amazing to look through the handwritten notes

17:15

because most of the worth of sentiment

17:18

of the old colony was in a slave

17:21

labor, that land was only producing

17:23

anything because of the slaves, and they literally

17:25

calculated the worth of the land

17:28

based per head

17:30

of slaves. So this is making very

17:32

clear that these payments are one hundred

17:34

percent tied to enslaved

17:38

people in Haiti and

17:40

what France regards as their value to

17:43

the ex slaveholders.

17:45

Right. And we found some

17:47

evidence that there were complaints

17:49

at the time that this money didn't amount

17:51

to much because generation,

17:54

after generation, it was

17:56

divvied up between grandchildren and great

17:58

grandchildren, more and more and more of them.

18:00

Mhmm. But many of these families, you

18:02

know, already had made so much money on

18:04

the slave trade. These were just almost

18:06

like small dividends long after

18:09

entering their bank accounts.

18:11

So this money that of course would have meant so

18:13

much to the people of Haiti felt

18:16

like kind of crumbs to these wealthy French

18:18

families who were getting them generation after generation.

18:21

Right. It was just like sort of something extra

18:23

that came in the mail as imposed

18:25

as something you wait for. The other

18:28

winners on the French side were the French

18:30

banks. Now, this international

18:33

loan became a model and Paris

18:35

became known around the world for

18:38

international banking. Right. But

18:40

I think, like, what this double

18:43

debt did was exactly what

18:45

the Baron of Macau, that French

18:48

Emissary of the King,

18:50

hoped it would do. When

18:52

he left the colony, and

18:54

he wrote his reports to the king, he said,

18:57

under this regime, Haiti would

18:59

undoubtedly become a highly

19:01

profitable and cost list province

19:04

of France. It was basically

19:07

a continuing colonization

19:09

without having to have people

19:11

on the ground. Mhmm. But you could still reap

19:14

the profits long after

19:16

the colony had become independent. Right.

19:18

So the irony is that this arrangement is

19:21

draining Haiti's economy

19:23

to use your word and simultaneously

19:26

kind of seeding the future

19:29

of the French economy in the form of

19:31

international banking. And what

19:33

it so clearly demonstrates is

19:35

how powerful money on this

19:37

scale can be in creating

19:40

institutions. Right? And wealth over

19:42

time But in this case,

19:44

not in

19:45

Haitis, but in France.

19:46

Right. That's that's really well put, Michael.

19:49

So given how upside down all

19:51

this is, have there been

19:54

any meaningful efforts since

19:57

the establishment of the double dead

19:59

to get France, to

20:01

pay

20:02

sum or all of this money back

20:04

to Haitis. In two

20:06

thousand and three, around

20:09

Haiti's two hundredth anniversary. A

20:15

president at the time was a former priest

20:17

named Jean Bertrand Aristides He

20:24

launched this campaign for

20:27

reparations. For reparations. Demand

20:36

in for twenty one billion

20:38

dollars in reparations.

20:46

And it was this remarkable speech in which

20:48

he just sort of surprised everyone

20:50

in the audience, including the French ambassador.

20:55

And that was the beginning. It became this

20:57

huge campaign with

20:59

television ads and street banners, you

21:01

know, raw raw bands, even a legal

21:04

team, international legal team was putting

21:06

together elements of a lawsuit. But

21:09

a year later before any of this

21:11

could come to fruition.

21:13

Rebel forces rolled into Haitis capital

21:15

today, a day after President Iris

21:18

died fled the country. At the same

21:20

time, several hundred US marines along

21:22

with French troops began securing

21:24

key areas in port Aristide

21:27

was removed from the country by the

21:29

French Americans.

21:33

By the French and the Americans. Yeah.

21:36

And there's lots of reasons for that. At the

21:38

time the country was roiling with

21:41

problems, there was huge opposition to Aristides.

21:45

He was facing allegations of human rights

21:47

abuses, of drug trafficking, There

21:49

was group of rebels, armed rebels that

21:51

were literally bearing down on the capital.

21:53

So on the record that both the French

21:56

and the Americans said that they were removing him

21:58

to avoid bloodshed and it was at his

22:00

request or he left willingly. Yet

22:03

years later, speaking to former

22:05

French ambassadors, they say that

22:08

the demands for Reparation, this

22:10

drumbeat, and campaign that

22:12

ERC had launched, had

22:14

a part to play too that

22:16

had really rankled the French.

22:19

They saw it as a trap. That

22:21

wrist opening floodgates of

22:23

demands from all former colonies

22:25

and they just wanted to shut it down.

22:28

So France acknowledges that Aristides

22:31

demands

22:32

that France write this historic wrong

22:34

of the Independence Day. It is

22:36

some factor in

22:38

the decision to remove it from power?

22:40

Right. Like almost twenty years later,

22:43

former French ambassador at the time said yes,

22:45

this was not the full reason,

22:47

but it was part of the reason too. Wow. And

22:49

that was the end of the demand for

22:51

preparations. It went with

22:53

So this very much highlights how much France

22:56

wants this to be a

22:59

forgotten chapter of its past.

23:01

Right. No. The story of the

23:03

Haitian Revolution is taught

23:05

very rarely, only ten percent of French

23:07

schools teach anything about

23:09

the Haiti's Revolution. And -- Mhmm. -- the story

23:12

about the double deck, like, that is not on

23:14

the French curriculum at any level.

23:16

Interesting. This is history that France

23:18

has worked to ignore,

23:21

to smothered silence because

23:24

it's expensive and it's painful.

23:26

But of course, Catherine, because of this

23:28

project that you and our colleagues undertook,

23:32

this subject is being discussed very

23:34

widely at this very moment. So

23:37

when The Times published everything that

23:39

you and our colleagues found

23:42

about this double dead. What

23:44

was the response inside France?

23:46

Well, this has stirred a lot of media coverage

23:48

in France. There are columnist writing

23:50

about it. Radio shows talking about it.

23:53

One of the French banks, we highlighted that

23:55

was very involved in later years.

23:58

It's now goes by the name of Credit Mutual.

24:01

It it put out a statement that it was horrified.

24:04

And that it was hiring a

24:06

team of scholars, including researchers,

24:09

to bring the full history to light

24:12

But from the French government, there's

24:15

been nothing but silence. Total

24:17

silence. We have not had a

24:19

reaction whatsoever from

24:21

them. So it does not seem

24:23

like the possibility of France

24:25

paying reparations

24:27

has really changed here. That possibility

24:29

still seems very small.

24:32

Yeah. I I see no indication that

24:34

that has changed. And

24:36

what about the reaction in

24:39

Haiti? The reaction has been huge.

24:48

The Asian media has really been

24:50

running with the story. And

24:57

so in the airways of the radio, on TV,

25:00

talk show hosts have been talking about

25:02

it. The newspaper has been printing

25:04

parts of the story. Wow. But the

25:06

most amazing reaction to me has

25:08

been the emotional reaction among both

25:11

Asians and Haiti and the Haitian Diaspora,

25:14

particularly in the United States,

25:17

you know, one Haitian American

25:19

told me that she felt like she was a person

25:21

who had suffered abuse for years and

25:23

that the series kind of was

25:25

an acknowledgement of the abuse. So that up

25:27

until now, It was almost like

25:30

this history that had been so

25:32

silenced that you feel like you're stupid or insane

25:34

to think it. Yeah. And that it had really

25:36

been Haiti's themselves have been blamed

25:38

for their own lack of development. And this was kind

25:41

of like a vindication that the

25:43

the story that they knew to be true

25:45

and they had told themselves was like,

25:48

was recognized by outsiders. Mhmm.

25:51

I'm curious, Catherine, how you

25:55

think about the

25:57

value of

25:59

this project. I mean, if it's not gonna

26:01

result in France

26:04

repaying this

26:07

vast sum of money to

26:09

Haiti. If it's not gonna allow

26:12

Haiti to reclaim this hundred

26:15

and fifteen billion dollars in economic activity

26:17

that it was deprived of. What

26:19

is the value of having

26:22

determined

26:23

the cost of this to Haiti. Now,

26:27

I interviewed this really interesting PhD,

26:29

history student who's studying Cendemang,

26:32

the colony of Haiti before it was Haitis.

26:35

And he told me he thought

26:37

about the double debt every week. I

26:40

asked him, like, why? Because he was

26:42

studying colonial Haiti like

26:44

Santa Mung before it became independent. And,

26:47

you know, his response has really

26:49

stuck with me. He said he thought

26:51

it was just so unfair that France

26:54

has this motto, and it's known around

26:56

the world for it, of

26:59

being a country of liberty, a fraternity

27:02

of equality, like that since theme.

27:05

But Haiti is known

27:08

for corruption, for poverty,

27:10

for despair. Right.

27:12

You know what? This this year

27:15

we spent looking deeply at this

27:17

really calls both of those things into

27:19

question. Mhmm. Like, when it

27:21

comes to Haiti, I do not think

27:24

France's tagline has been liberty,

27:27

fraternity, or equality.

27:29

Quite the opposite. Quite the opposite.

27:32

You know, and when you look at the history

27:34

of Haiti,

27:36

among the taglines we should be including

27:38

is that this was

27:41

the first place

27:43

in the Americas that

27:45

threw off slavery and declared black

27:49

people free, and

27:51

it was made to pay for that

27:54

for generations. Well,

28:02

Catherine. Thank you very much.

28:04

We appreciate unit. And

28:05

thanks for having me on Michael. We'll

28:16

be right back.

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Day. After Columbine,

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After Parkland, nothing

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can't fail the America people again.

30:25

Today's episode was produced

30:27

by Muji Zady, Rob Zipco,

30:30

Will Reed and Eric Krueppke. It

30:32

was edited by MJ Davis Lynn

30:35

and Patricia Willett's, contains

30:37

original music by Mary and Lozano

30:40

and Roni Mist and

30:42

was engineered by Dan Powell.

30:45

Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg

30:47

and Ben Lanfer of Winderley. Special

30:50

thanks to Constancia, Matt

30:53

Apuso, Solon Gebriquida,

30:55

and Harold Isaac. That's

30:59

it for The Daily. I'm Michael Alvaro.

31:02

See you on Monday.

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