The Fox of France - Chapter 272: The Haitian Question

Jacques Galarde and his crew did indeed have vast tracts of land in Louisiana. In fact, the land in Louisiana was hardly worth much. What was always in short supply there was not land but people.

In 1762, as part of their alliance to resist British expansion in North America, the French transferred sovereignty over Louisiana to the Spanish. From that point onwards, the Spanish became the rulers of Louisiana.

However, the Spanish faced a significant challenge – a shortage of population. They couldn’t provide many immigrants. As a result, despite being under Spanish rule, Louisiana remained predominantly French.

After the French Revolution, Spain briefly joined the anti-French coalition to fight against France, but they soon switched sides and became allies of France. Louisiana continued to be a Spanish colony, but it was still inhabited by French-speaking people.

Recently, the Spanish had encountered economic difficulties (it seemed that the Spanish were always struggling economically), and they were facing pressure from the United States in North America. In Florida, Americans had already started making some moves, and in the capital of Louisiana, they used the weakness of the Spanish to force them to acknowledge American “special interests” in New Orleans.

The increasingly weakened Spanish were finding it difficult to maintain control over the vast land of Louisiana. Napoleon saw an opportunity and proposed to the Spanish that he would be willing to trade some of his interests in Italy for sovereignty over Louisiana.

In Napoleon’s vision, using Louisiana, along with Haiti, which was still under French control, could help maintain considerable influence in the New World. This idea received the support of Joseph , who had a clearer understanding of the significance of the New World for the future compared to most others.

However, to strengthen their control over Louisiana, the most crucial factor was the population. But due to recent prosperity in France, there were fewer people willing to venture thousands of miles away. So, the number of French immigrants was limited. Although the government encouraged childbirth and even awarded “Heroic Mother” medals to mothers with many children, this couldn’t change the situation in the short term.

Therefore, the French mainly relied on immigrants from other European regions to move to Louisiana.

Theoretically, ensuring that French people remained the majority of immigrants would be better for the cohesion of overseas territories and the homeland. However, the events of the American War of Independence showed that blood relations were not always reliable. Unlike Napoleon, who envisioned a new empire where the sun never set, Joseph had much lower expectations. His minimum expectation was only a divided North American continent.

Joseph believed that with the existence of the United States, Louisiana might actually become more loyal to France in some sense, just as Canada remained loyal to Britain due to the existence of the United States.

With the presence of the United States, controlling distant Louisiana seemed feasible. Of course, to achieve this, especially to maintain long-term control over Louisiana, there was a problem that needed to be solved, known as Saint-Domingue (Haiti at the time).

Because, in future times, Haiti would be one of the poorest countries in the world, with very little global influence. Most people wouldn’t even know it existed, unless something significant happened. So, initially, Joseph didn’t pay much attention to Haiti.

But soon, Joseph realized that Haiti in this era was not something to be underestimated. In fact, in terms of its importance to the French economy, it was even more significant than the whole of Louisiana.

In 1780, 40% of sugar and 60% of coffee on the European market came from Haiti. Haiti’s production of these agricultural products exceeded that of the entire West Indies. By 1791, Haiti’s sugar production had already ranked first in the world. Haiti became the wealthiest colony of France and was known as the “Pearl of the Caribbean.”

Of course, the wealth of Haiti had no connection with most of its people. On the contrary, because of Haiti’s wealth, the slaveholders in Haiti drove the black slaves to work intensively. In comparison to the slaves in the southern United States, the intensity of labor by the black slaves in Haiti was almost comparable to that of British workers.

In 1791, taking advantage of the opportunity presented by the French Revolution, the black slaves in Haiti launched a major uprising. Initially, they fought against the British and the Spanish, who were part of the anti-French alliance, and then joined forces with the French against the Spanish and the British. To keep Haiti in French hands, the revolutionary government even made a move that stunned all of Europe: they emancipated the slaves, granting black people citizenship and voting rights and appointing Toussaint Louverture, a black leader of the uprising, as Governor-General of Saint-Domingue.

However, this didn’t solve the fundamental problem – the issue of land. So, under the governance of the French revolutionary government, black people in Haiti evolved from “private slaves” into “free laborers,” or more accurately, “free agricultural workers.” All the developed land in Haiti was owned by white people, and the condition of black people after gaining their so-called “citizenship” was not even better than before the revolution.

In the original timeline, in 1801, black leader Toussaint declared Haiti’s independence, completely abolished slavery, and enacted land nationalization, taking the land from white colonialists. In response, Napoleon sent an expeditionary force of thirty thousand troops in 1802 to attempt to retake Haiti. However, the expedition faced many challenges in Haiti, coupled with the outbreak of yellow fever and American support for the Haitian rebels, from material aid to naval bombardment against the French. The French expeditionary force faced a precarious situation. Even though Toussaint was deceived, lured into negotiations, and arrested by General Leclerc, the Haitian rebels still had the upper hand and eventually forced the remaining French troops to surrender in 1803, establishing the first independent black republic.

However, after the establishment of the independent black republic, Haiti’s former wealth seemed to vanish with the departure of the colonizers. Haiti quickly became one of the poorest and most underdeveloped countries in the world, a status it still holds today, despite having similar institutions and laws to the United States.

This outcome naturally led many white supremacists to draw a conclusion: “White people are superior, black people are inferior, and without the leadership of outstanding white people, black people can only make a mess of themselves.” Similar “evidence” included statements like “Mandela turned South Africa from a developed country into a developing country,” but these white supremacists seemed to count only white people as human and excluded black people from consideration. According to their calculations, even India would be a developed country.

Haiti’s “downfall” – let’s call it “downfall” for now, although in reality, even during Haiti’s “most prosperous” times, the average black person’s life was not significantly better – is actually quite straightforward. It was simply a highly replaceable link in the economic chain. When Haiti became independent, it not only achieved political independence but also economic independence.

In other words, it was isolated from the colonial economic chain. Its position in this chain was quickly replaced by other colonies, and the production costs in these other colonies were certainly far lower than in Haiti’s. Unless independent Haiti could concentrate land and use the black people as “free laborers,” what would be the meaning of the revolution?

However, for France, for Napoleon’s dream of a new empire where the sun never sets, the failure of Haiti was decisive. Losing Haiti not only resulted in significant economic losses (although some of this was recovered by demanding ransom from the Haitian Republic), but it also meant losing a crucial foothold in the Americas. This was one of the reasons why Napoleon sold the entirety of Louisiana to the United States.

Now, in this alternate timeline, the issue of Haiti was once again before Napoleon.

“Santo Domingo is bound to have problems sooner or later,” Napoleon was well aware of this. “That Toussaint Louverture has become the absolute ruler of Haiti. Well, Joseph, how did you phrase it?”

“Mountains are high, and the Emperor is far away,” Joseph answered.

“Yes, ‘mountains are high, and the Emperor is far away.’ This place is too far from France. I just received reports that Toussaint has started implementing ‘land nationalization’—essentially, confiscating white people’s land. Damn it, five cents per acre, that’s just outright confiscation. Many French people have already been forced to flee, or even killed. What do you think we should do?” Napoleon asked.

If Joseph had been educated according to his past life’s experiences, he would undoubtedly have cheered and applauded the anti-colonial and righteous actions in Haiti. But this approach damaged the French people, or more plainly, the interests of the Bonapartes! So, if they could suppress it directly, Joseph would certainly approve of directly suppressing the Haitian uprising.

But would suppression work? Joseph couldn’t help but ask himself this question.

Steamships couldn’t yet reach Haiti, and the British and Americans had the advantage at sea. Joseph wondered, if he were a Briton or an American, what would he do when he discovered that the French were fighting against the local Haitian rebels?