Month: February 2023

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Correspondents Desks

The Afterlives of Colonialism: The Haitian Debt Crisis

By: Kayla McManus-Viana, Kannu Taylor, and Ahmed El-Halabi

A significant event in both Haitian and global history was the Haitian Revolution (1791-1804), which was a successful rebellion of enslaved Africans and Afro-Caribbeans against their French oppressors and resulted in the island of Haiti achieving formal independence in 1804.1 In this blog post, we will explore the following question: Did the Haitian Revolution provide Haiti with “true” decolonial liberation if it was forced to pay its former colonizer reparations, which kept Haiti locked in a subordinate, “colonial” position for over a century after its “independence”?

Technologies of Colonialism and Coloniality

By technologies of colonialism, we are referring to the tools – physical, scientific, intellectual, cultural, social, etc. – wielded by colonizers to transform the world at global, regional, local, and individual scales. In this blog post, we are specifically concerned with the tool of economic domination/capitalism.

Historical research demonstrates that contemporary “underdevelopment” is in large part the historical product of colonial and continuing economic exploitation of the “underdeveloped” Global South (made up largely of former colonies) by the now “developed,” metropolitan Global North (consisting largely of former colonizers). This exploitative relationship has been an essential part of the structure, development, and maintenance of the global capitalist system as a whole.2 In the case of Haiti, though the island was able to break-free of colonialism proper, capitalism and debt were used as a technology of continuing colonial control/power relations (i.e. “coloniality”) by France even after formal colonization ended, which has resulted in the island being viewed as chronically “underdeveloped,” impoverished, and in a perpetual state of crisis.  

The History of the Haitian Debt Crisis

On April 17, 1825, King Charles X decreed that France would recognize Haiti’s independence if and only if the Haitian state compensated the French colonists for their “lost revenues from slavery” – to the tune of 150 million francs (which, for comparison, was around “10 times the amount the U.S. had paid for the Louisiana territory”).3 There was very little room for Haiti to negotiate or resist the imposition of this bill as Baron de Mackau, the individual whom Charles X sent to deliver the ordinance, “arrived in Haiti… accompanied by a squadron of 14 brigs of war carrying more than 500 cannons” (emphasis added).4 Under the threat of (yet another) war, the then-Haitian president Jean-Pierre Boyer agreed to pay “in five equal installments … the sum of 150,000,000 francs, destined to indemnify the former colonists.”5 Through this action Haiti gained immunity from French military invasion and relief from political and economic isolation – but was saddled with a crippling debt that took 122 years to pay off. Though this debt was eventually settled in 1947, “decades of making regular payments rendered the Haitian government chronically insolvent, helping to create a pervasive climate of instability from which the country still hasn’t recovered.”6 

We argue that through the imposition of unreasonable reparations (part of the technology of economic domination) France was able to maintain a colonial relationship with Haiti, which is directly responsible for Haiti’s current position in the global world order and a continuation of its former “formal” colonial subjugation. 

Interestingly, the weaponization of capitalism and debt was not only utilized by Haiti’s former colonizer but also by the United States. In 1915, the U.S. military invaded Haiti under the guise of “keeping the peace” in America’s “backyard.” In reality, U.S. Marines would remain on the island for almost twenty years (until 1934) protecting the interests of Wall Street, specifically the National City Bank of New York (aka Citibank).7 The National City Bank of New York would go on to completely control the National Bank of Haiti and reap significant gains from this endeavor – to such a degree that James Weldon Johnson, a representative from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, argued in 1920, “to understand why the United States landed and has for five years maintained military forces in that country, why some three thousand Haitian men, women, and children have been shot down by American rifles and machine guns, it is necessary, among other things, to know that the National City Bank of New York is very much interested in Haiti.”8 Here, Johnson is putting forth the contention – with which contemporary historians agree – that the U.S’s occupation of Haiti was motivated by economic interests more so than any “strategic” military or diplomatic concerns. This argument is further supported by one of Johnson’s contemporaries, Smedley Butler, a former general in the U.S. Marine Corps. In 1933, Butler claimed, “During that period [the U.S. occupation of Haiti], I spent most of my time being a high class muscle-man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism…I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street” (emphasis added).9

Conclusion

The histories of Haiti, France, and the United States are intertwined through the shared experience of colonialism and the weaponization of capitalism. The Haitian Revolution, while an incredible achievement in the fight against slavery and colonialism, was met with economic sanctions that would burden the country with a significant and crippling debt for over a century. This debt, along with the subsequent military occupation of Haiti by the United States, was driven by economic interests and resulted in a state of “coloniality” for Haiti.  This history highlights the ways in which colonial powers have used economic systems to maintain control and exploit the resources of colonized nations even after colonialism ends. Moreover, it underscores the importance of understanding the legacies of colonialism and how they continue to shape our world today. Only by acknowledging and grappling with this complex history can we hope to build a more just and equitable future to fully practice decolonization.

Questions from the Desk:

  1. So what do you think: Did the Haitian Revolution provide Haiti with “true” decolonial liberation if it was forced to pay its former colonizer reparations?
  2. What constitutes “true” decolonial liberation?
    1. What can be done to assist formerly colonized nations finding their place in the current world order? 
    2. What is the role of violence in decolonial liberation?
  3. How many of us found out about Haiti’s debt crisis (read: coerced reparations to France) and the US’s intervention through The New York Times exposé published in 2022? How does this relate to “the problem of history”?
  4. Where else do we see the continued use of economic systems to maintain control and exploit the resources of (formerly) colonized nations even after “formal” colonization ends? 

Footnote Citations

  1. Claudia Sutherland, “Haitian Revolution (1791-1804),” BlackPast, July 16, 2007. https://www.blackpast.org/global-african-history/haitian-revolution-1791-1804/.
  2.  Lucile H. Brockway, “The British Empire,” in Science and Colonial Expansion (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1979).
  3. Marlene Daunt, “When France extorted Haiti – the greatest heist in history,” National African American Reparations Committee, June 17, 2022. https://reparationscomm.org/reparations-news/when-france-extorted-haiti-the-greatest-heist-in-history/.
  4. Ibid.
  5. Ibid.
  6.  Dan Sperling, “In 1825, Haiti Paid France $21 Billion To Preserve Its Independence — Time For France To Pay It Back,” Forbes, December 6, 2017. https://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2017/12/06/in-1825-haiti-gained-independence-from-france-for-21-billion-its-time-for-france-to-pay-it-back/?sh=24dbd777312b.
  7. Peter James Hudson, “The National City Bank of New York and Haiti, 1909–1922,” Radical History Review 115 (Winter 2013): 91-92.
  8. Hudson, 92.
  9.  David Suggs, “The long legacy of the U.S. occupation of Haiti,” The Washington Post, August 6, 2021. https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2021/08/06/haiti-us-occupation-1915/.
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Correspondents Desks

“Exploring the Duality of Scottish Independence: Scotland’s Role as Both Colonizer and Colonized”

By: Ila and Katelin

With an ever-growing body of post-colonialist thought surrounding European colonization of non-European entities, it is important to reflect inward to see how such nations have and continue to colonize peoples within their own borders. In the case of Scotland, independence has been, and continues to be, a centuries-long dilemma. Through which England’s rule has controlled national identity and expression, as witnessed through the erasure of the laird system and outlawing of various cultural practices. However, the history of Scottish colonization is anything but clear-cut. Throughout its history, it has carried out its own forms of colonial rule, with the encroachment on Indigenous territory in North America and the Darien Scheme serving as but two examples. From this, we must ask ourselves how to contextualize Scotland as a subject of colonization. In what ways has colonization been forced upon Scotland? What technologies perpetrated its rule? How did Scotland use these technologies to colonize other peoples? What is the state of Scottish existence today? How should we go about reconciling Scotland’s place as both a colonized and colonizing entity?

Scotland as colonized

While Scotland was first declared as a feudal dependency of England in the late 13th century, active oversight by the English crown and its subjugation under the “imperial” throne of “Great Britain” was not imposed until 1603. Since then, several failed rebellions against the British Empire resulted in legislation intended to culturally erase Scottish heritage and establish hegemony with the English governing body. Through the Statues of Iona and Heritable Jurisdictions Act 1746, the British government dismantled the Highlands chiefdoms, disenfranchised the Scottish judicial system, and outlawed tartan and kilts, the speaking of Gaelic, and several other cultural practices.[1] However, by far, one of the most insidious practices was the control of presumably neutral industries for the enforcement of colonial rule. Similar to the Nil Darpan Affair, the British government systematically targeted and abolished anti-colonial media in order to force civil opinion, at least superficially, in favor of the colonialist regime.[2] From this existed “the relation between the state and those relatively autonomous institutions of public life that are supposed to constitute the domain of civil society.” [3]

Scotland as colonizer

While Scotland may have a deep history of subjugation under the British Empire and the systems of colonization which went with it, “Scotland itself became an imperial nation within the British state.” [4] Most notably with the spread and influence of Scottish colonists throughout North America during the 18-19th century and the Darién Scheme. In North America, the purchase of land surveyed by the English planted newly arriving Scottish colonists on land occupied by Native Americans, who were then dispossessed of their territory.[5] In North Carolina, Cherokee, Tuscarora, and Lumbee are some of the surviving nations who directly experienced Scottish colonization.[6] Furthermore, Scottish educators and missionaries established “assimilative efforts among Native Americans” as traders and merchants skewed markets in their favor.[7] While these actions may not have been directly sanctioned by the Scottish Parliament, it can still be said that many Scots found advancement in the British Empire, became avid colonizers themselves, and forged new opportunities” through colonization.[8]

[9]

Avenues of Settlement

While bottom-up colonization remained prevalent throughout North America, top-down colonization was also prevalent. The attempted establishment of New Caledonia on the Isthmus of Panama, commonly referred to as the Darién Scheme, serves as an instance of state-organized colonialism by the Kingdom of Scotland. From 1698-1700 the established Company of Scotland Trading to Africa and the Indies, a rival to the English East India Company, sanctioned and funded expeditionary efforts to establish a colony at Darién in Panama for the purposes of establishing military and economic control of the region.[10] While famine and Spanish military intervention resulted in the colony’s failure, it still stands as one of the most blatant examples of a Scottish state-organized colonial effort.

Furthermore, the Darién scheme and North American enterprises serve as two examples of Scottish colonization, as evidenced by colonial efforts in the Caribbean, Asia, and Africa; they are by no means stand-alone phenomena.[11] From this arises several questions. As subjects of the British Empire, to what degree should Scottish colonialism be separated from that of its colonizer? What degree of agency should be afforded to Scottish colonists themselves, the institutions they represented, and the state that oversaw it all? As Scotland seeks referendums for its own independence, how, if at all, should its colonial history bear influence?

21st-century independence movements

Over half a decade after the Brexit referendum and what many, including the present prime minister, described as a “once-in-a-generation opportunity,” there has been some discussion surrounding the mobilization of indyref2, another referendum. Originally, the people of Scotland had voted 55-45 in 2014 to stay in the UK, but this was prior to Brexit.[12] As a result of Brexit, the prevalence of economic, trade, education, and government harm has increased in Scotland. Yet from an article published this past November, statistics show split support for indyref2, with 49% supporting independence and 51% against it when “don’t know” votes are included.[13] With further complications coming from a recent supreme court case stating that Scotland cannot unilaterally hold a second referendum, pro-independence parties view this as a block to Scottish democracy. The current prime minister Nicola Sturgeon stated on Twitter that “A law that doesn’t allow Scotland to choose our own future without Westminster consent exposes as myth any notion of the UK as a voluntary partnership & makes (a) case” for independence.”[14] Yet she hasn’t lost hope for the referendum and believes that the 2025 election cycle will be a single-issue vote for independence.[15] However, the prevailing political climate surrounding the furtherance of the referendum is generally pessimistic, with the odds of people being swayed one way or the other unlikely, with fewer undecided voters now than there were in 2014.

Protestors Rallying in Support for Indyref2

[16]

In the past, the unique history of Scotland as both a colonizer and the colonized has shaped Scottish society in a way that is dissimilar to any other to nearly any other place in the world. Scotland’s past as a colonizer and the colonized continues to permeate society through language, religion, and art, as it is a mixture of what has been imposed on the Scottish people and what has been taken via imperialism. This creates significant issues when it comes to complicated ties between Scotland and the UK, especially financially, as Scotland would be under no legal bounds to bear the weight of the UK’s debt following independence. Yet the supreme court ruling in November barred most hope of independence at least until 2025. We will likely continue to see Scotland separating itself from the UK in other ways by not giving into Westminster whims and continuing to rally in support for a second referendum until the next election in 2025, where the now prime minister believes that the referendum could gain some real traction.

[1] Tom M. Devine, Clanship to Crofters’ War: The social transformation of the Scottish Highlands, (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1994), 11-17; Michael Lynch, Scotland: a New History (London; Pimlico, 1992) 304.

[2] Partha Chatterjee, “The Colonial State” in The Nation and Its Fragments (Princeton: Princeton University Press; 2003) 22.

[3] Partha Chatterjee, “The Colonial State” in The Nation and Its Fragments, 22.

[4] Colin Galloway, “‘Have the Scotch no Claim upon the Cherokees?’ Scots, Indians and Scots Indians in the American South,” in Global migrations; the Scottish diaspora since 1600 (Edinburgh; Edinburgh University Press, 2017), 77.

[5] Charles R. Holloman, “John Lawson 1674-1711,” in Documenting the American South, UNC press, accessed February 6, 2023, https://docsouth.unc.edu/nc/lawson/bio.html.

[6] Colin Galloway, “‘Have the Scotch no Claim upon the Cherokees?’,” in Global migrations, 78.

[7] Colin Galloway, “‘Have the Scotch no Claim upon the Cherokees?’,” in Global migrations, 77.

[8] Colin Galloway, “‘Have the Scotch no Claim upon the Cherokees?’,” in Global migrations, 77.

[9] David Goldfield, “Early Settlement,” NCpedia, October 2022, https://www.ncpedia.org/history/colonial/early-settlement

[10] Dennis Hidalgo, “To Get Rich for Our Homeland: The Company of Scotland and the Colonizaiton of the Darién,”Colonial Latin American Historical Review (2001): 5.

[11] Angela McCarthy and John MacKenzie, “Introduction Global Migrations: The Scottish Diaspora since 1600” in Global migrations; the Scottish diaspora since 1600 (Edinburgh; Edinburgh University Press, 2017), 20.

[12] Meilan Solly, “A Not-So-Brief History of Scottish Independence,” Smithsonian Magazine, January 30, 2020. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/brief-history-scottish-independence-180973928/.

[13] BBC News, “Scottish Independence: Will There Be a Second Referendum?,” November 23, 2022. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-50813510.

[14] Rob Picheta, “Scotland Blocked from Holding Independence Vote by UK’s Supreme Court.” CNN, November 23, 2022. https://edition.cnn.com/2022/11/23/uk/scottish-indepedence-court-ruling-gbr-intl/index.html.

[15] Rob Picheta, “Scotland Blocked from Holding Independence Vote by UK’s Supreme Court.”

[16]Petere Davidson, “Scottish Independence Supporters to Consider Holding Indyref2 Protests in London.” Daily Record, May 27, 2021. https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/scottish-independence-supporters-consider-holding-24197271.

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Correspondents Desks

Colonial Photography in Algeria

By Saisha, Nathanaël, and Andrew

During the French colonization of Algeria, photography was used at an unprecedented scale as a form of domination over Algerian women, strengthening the colonizer’s power over the colonized. French army draftee Marc Garanger’s photographic essay Algerian Women serves as an example of the use of photography to establish colonial dominion (Garanger 1960). Ordered by his commander to create an identification system of citizens of colonized villages, Garanger captured countless pictures of Algerian women who had recently been forced into concentration camps, the result of a traumatic Algerian War fought in the 1950s and 1960s. Photography could hence be used as a tool of colonial control. 

Beyond this, however, photography came to be understood by colonial administrators as a way to address the “roots” of resistance to colonial power. Thomas-Robert Bugeaud, who came to play an instrumental role in the colonization of the country and later occupied the position of general governor, noted in the early years of the colonization of Algeria that “the Arabs are escaping us because they hide their women from our sights” (Smith and Armengaud 2006, 25-40). Such a perspective was of yet uncommon: writings from colonial administrators in the 1830s show that there was a greater concern for “political Islam,” perceived as the essence of Algerian identity and the source of their rebellion and resistance (Smith and Armengaud 2006, 25-40). In the 1870s however, as military authority gradually winded down, colonial discourse shifted to focus on the perceived cultural and moral superiority of the colonial power. Islam was understood as a rigid institution ruling over familial and sociosexual relations, putting in place rules that subjected women to great oppression (Vatin and Lucas 1982). The veil, a common adornment for women in many Muslim-majority societies such as colonial Algeria, became the center of a perceived clash of gender roles between the Algerian and French society (Seferdjeli 2018). The Muslim woman was used as a “negative symbol,” a proof of French cultural dominance that justified its colonial rule and the necessity of its civilizing mission in Algeria while denying its people political rights (Smith and Armengaud 2006, 25-40). Removing the veil, as Frantz Fanon describes in his work, was becoming a prerequisite to colonial domination. The destruction of the “structure of Algerian society” required the “conquer [of] the woman”: it was necessary to “find them behind the veil” (Fanon 1972).

In The Colonial Harem, Algerian writer Malek Alloula argues that the use of photography in Algeria was a manifestation of colonial violence, through which the photographer achieved his voyeuristic pleasures of seeing the women without their veil (Alloula 1986). Alloula studied several hundreds of postcards, sent between the early 1900s to the mid-20th century, which circulated pictures taken by French photographers of Algerian women, unveiled and given various props and costumes. The study of these postcards reveals a common thread to each photograph: the photographer’s desire to possess and control the subject of the image, rendering the women powerless and without agency. Through the intentional staging of the women in the studio, the photographer fulfills a particular phantasm prominent in France at the time, but also comes to produce a convenient stereotype of oriental women that aids in the conquering of Algerian society. 

The colonial desire in the French photography of Algerian women is representative of the concept of Orientalism, in which colonizers’ documentations of the colonized are representations, instead of “natural depictions of the Orient” (Said 1978, 21). This is because the images are filtered through the colonizer’s gaze — they do not represent the Algerian women themselves, but rather the French men’s idea of the “Oriental female,” seen as exotic, vulnerable, and weak. The photography itself is inherently a form of colonialism, stripping the subject of all power.  

The French thus weaponized the veiling of Algerian women as an excuse to colonize, effectively arguing that unveiling liberated women and freed them from “traditional” understandings of gender roles (Seferdjeli 2018). Reminiscent of the work of Antonio Gramsci and cultural hegemony, such argumentation is thematic across other instances of colonialism and has become encapsulated by the term “colonial feminism,” which consists of veiling inhumane colonial intentions under a “humanitarian” guise (Young 2003, 97). 

Beyond the photograph, the specific medium of the postcard carries with it implications for the colonial power dynamic in Algeria. Termed by Alloula as the “fertilizer of the colonial vision,” the postcard is the exact representation of “travel” and “expedition,” that, when weaponized, becomes the basis for colonial domination (Alloula 1986, 4). It reminds recipients of the ideals of exploration and nature, compounded with the obsession of the French with the Algerian woman (Alloula 1986, 4). Furthermore, the postcard medium empowers the colonizer to access the Orientalized form of the Algerian woman subject with permanence and ease that is unsettling, weaponizing a “realistic” art form in photography to smear the image of these women to fit the French gaze.

The use of photography as studied in the corpus The Colonial Harem also demonstrates subtle forms of resistance to colonial domination. For instance, the veil women would wear in these photographs was often colored white. This whiteness helped to “invisibilize” the woman, symbolizing through the “blindness,” as Alloula describes it, the way these photographs dehumanized Algerian women by rendering it difficult to differentiate one from another (Alloula 1965, 7). At the same time, white veils also served to resist the view of the camera — while it could sometimes capture the outline of a woman, it could not grasp the specific details and features that were the object of the French phantasm (Alloula 1986, 5). 

The ubiquity of photography used as a colonizing technology by the French serves as an important reminder of the multidimensionality of colonization. The prerogative of the colonized in every instance to define their own identity and narrative from the bottom up is not simply about the words they speak or the text they write — it is also about the pictures taken on their behalf. When said depiction is controlled by an outside party with perverse (colonial, sexualized) interests, the colonized are helpless to speak up, and the colonizer is free to co-opt a superficially “realistic” technology and turn it into a technology of rule.

At which point, the colonized are spoken over.

(Alloula 1986, 9)

“Typical image of an Algerian woman on a postcard” (Alloula 1986, 15)

(Alloula 1986, 19)

(Alloula 1986, 126)

Works Cited

Alloula, Malek. The Colonial Harem. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1986.

Clancy Smith, Julia, and Françoise Armengaud. “Le Regard Colonial : Islam, Genre Et Identités Dans La Fabrication De l’Algérie Française, 1830-1962.” Nouvelles Questions Féministes Vol. 25, no. 1 (2006): 25–40. https://doi.org/10.3917/nqf.251.0025.

Fanon, Frantz. Sociologie D’une Revolution. Paris: F. Maspero, 1972.

Naggar, Carole. “Women Unveiled: Marc Garanger’s Contested Portraits of 1960s Algeria.” Time, April 23, 2013. https://time.com/69351/women-unveiled-marc-garangers-contested-portraits-of-1960s-algeria/.

Said, Edward. Orientalism. Pantheon Books, 1978. p.21

“The Veil in Colonial Algeria: The Politics of Unveiling Women.” The Funambulist Magazine, March 24, 2022. https://thefunambulist.net/magazine/15-clothing-politics/the-veil-in-colonial-algeria-the-politics-of-unveiling-women-by-ryme-seferdjeli.

Vatin, Jean-Claude, and Pierre Lucas. L’Algérie Des Anthropologues. Paris: Maspero, 1982.

Young, Robert. Post-Colonialism. Oxford: University, 2003. p.97