“Why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?”
Donald Trump, comments made during a White House meeting, 11 January 2018
“Wouldn’t it be an irony, an irony of all ironies, if on election eve, it turned out Haitians literally delivered a coup de grâce in this election?”
Joe Biden, Miami rally, 5 October 2020
If Haitian Americans do indeed deliver Florida for Joe Biden — and with it, the Presidency — the power of their votes will certainly be a suitable riposte to his predecessor.
But Trump’s words on Haiti are not such a break with precedent as we might like to suppose. Haitians immigrants have long been America’s bogeymen. In fact, white Americans have been pouring vitriol on Haitians — especially Haitians in America — since the revolutionary birth of both nations over 200 years ago.
To understand why, we have to go back to the beginning, to a newly-independent United States. In 1789, the island of Sainte-Domingue was a French colony grown rich on sugar and slaves. But in 1791 Saint-Domingue’s slaves — inspired by the French Revolution’s promises of liberté, égalité et fraternité — revolted.
Thirteen years of bloody war and insurrection followed. Ultimately, the self-liberated slaves defeated Napoleon, declaring the newly renamed Republic of Haiti independent. To this day, The Haitian Revolution remains the only successful slave uprising in history.
To modern liberal ears, this is a heroic story of resistance. But for contemporary (white) American observers, the unfolding of the Haitian revolution was terrifying. The slaves had overthrown their masters. The white colonists who were not killed by Haitian mobs had been forced to flee. Thousands sought refuge in Philadelphia and New Orleans, bringing with them the slaves they still ‘possessed’ — and a yellow fever epidemic.
Thomas Jefferson was among those alarmed by the threat posed by Haiti’s black revolutionaries, men and women he called the “cannibals of the terrible republic”. Any white American sympathy for the plight of the white Sainte-Domingue refugees was outweighed by a pervasive fear of what might accompany these refugees. What if Haiti’s rebellion spread, bringing the same disease, disorder, and destruction to the United States of America?
In response, southern states — determined to protect their slave economies at all cost — enacted the United States’ very first travel bans. In 1793 Georgia barred the entry of free people of color from the West Indies; South Carolina followed suit in 1794; North Carolina in 1795; Maryland in 1797. In 1820 Missouri attempted to join the Union under a Constitution that expressly forbade free blacks from entering.
These state-level travel bans initially faced outwards, as slave states sought to assert their rights to secure their borders from the dangerous foreign revolutionaries. But over time the scope of such laws was expanded. In the most extreme example, in 1859 Arkansas passed legislation that required its free population of color to choose between expulsion and re-enslavement. Although never enforced, nearly all of Arkansas’ free black population fled the state.
Similar prohibitions were also put in place in the newly-American territory of Louisiana. In 1806 legislation was introduced that outlawed the arrival of free men of color from the French Caribbean, and in 1807 it was extended to cover all free men of color. The intention was not just to exclude but also to expel: the laws contained provisions allowing the authorities to re-enslave those who had arrived without proper documentation.
Almost inevitably, the imposition of immigration controls helped fuel the business of people smuggling. By 1808, the notorious pirate Jean Lafitte — beloved of New Orleans’ tour guides— had established himself on the island of Barataria, a coastal settlement just west of the Mississippi River. Many of the men who joined him in his attacks upon Caribbean shipping were Haitian refugees. My 1810, Bataria was home to at least 800 free black veterans of the Haitian revolution. The immigration laws intended to eradicate the problem of free blacks in America contributed to the realization of white slaveholders’ worst fears: the presence, just beyond the border, of a group of armed and angry black men.
Accounts — often sensationalized — of Haitian slave violence against white civilians terrified White Americans.
The specter of Haiti haunted American politics even after America’s own Civil War saw the end of slavery in the United States. In 1868, US President Andrew Johnson — a white Southern Democrat — suggested that the US annex Haiti in order to extend its influence into the Caribbean. Twenty-five years later, the celebrated abolitionist and US Ambassador to Haiti, Frederick Douglass, reflected on the reasons why the United States remained so ambivalent in its attitude towards Haiti. Acknowledging Haiti’s Francophone roots, he nonetheless argued that “a deeper reason for coolness between the countries is this: Haiti is black, and we have not yet forgiven Haiti for being black, or forgiven the Almighty for making her black.”
From 1915 to 1934, following complaints from the American banks to which Haiti was grossly indebted, Haiti was occupied by the US military. The US Government retained control of Haiti’s external finances until 1947. A decade later, American support for the Haitian dictator “Papa” Doc Duvalier (and later for his son “Baby” Doc) reflected US anti-communist anxieties, but also left Haiti to endure three decades of oppressive authoritarian rule, during which an estimated 40,000 Haitians were tortured, jailed or killed.
Yet despite this evidence of persecution, Haitians continued to be viewed as “bad refugees” by successive American governments. While Cubans fleeing Fidel Castro’s communist regime for the US received automatic political asylum, Haitian “boat people” arriving in Florida in search of sanctuary from the Duvalier’s regime were characterized as economic migrants. Then, from May 1981, all undocumented Haitians were placed in indefinite detention. Initially, this policy applied only to Haitian migrants, though it was later extend to include other Central Americans.
Then came another crisis. In 1991, the first elected President of Haiti, Jean Aristide, was overthrown in a military coup. At least 34,000 Haitians fled by boat to the US, only to be intercepted by the US Coast Guard on the high seas and forcibly returned to Haiti before they could claim asylum. Two years later, in an 8-1 decision, the US Supreme Court confirmed the right of the government to intercept and return the Haitian migrants without assessing their claims for refugee status. The Haitians, it seems, have always been at the vanguard of American immigration policy.
Very little has changed since 1993. Following the devastating 2010 Haitian earthquake — which left at least 100,000 dead and destroyed much of Haiti’s fragile economy — attempts to provide Haitians with temporary US work visas met with short shrift. The Obama administration obfuscated; finally, the Trump Administration barred Haitians from receiving any short-term work visas. Michael Clemens, an advocate for this scheme, was left reflecting that ‘throughout the 8 years of our work, it was clear that most US policymakers had a gut-level aversion to any form of mobility from Haiti’.
When I’ve asked Haitian Americans why they think this is, they often reply that it’s not just about the color of their skin — though an average Haitian immigrant is blacker and poorer than one from Cuba or Venezuela. They believe it’s also a question of history.
For Haiti’s Revolution exposed all the deception of its American cousin. Its radicalism underlined everything that was not revolutionary about slaverholders and merchants fighting a war for independence; it betrayed the white fragility inherent in slaveowners’ hollow promises about liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
The United States has been running from that hypocrisy for 200 years now. So yes: given the white supremacist who sits in the White House now, in 2020, it would be fitting if Haitian Americans’ votes win Florida for Biden. Perhaps it might even be a sign that sometimes — if you wait long enough — the moral arc of the universe will finally bend towards justice.
We can hope.
Read More
On Haitian refugees in America: Foreman, N., ‘The History of the United States’ First Refugee Crisis’, Smithsonian Magazine, 5 January 2016
Lachance, P. F. "The 1809 Immigration of Saint-Domingue Refugees to New Orleans: Reception, Integration and Impact." Louisiana History: The Journal of the Louisiana Historical Association 29, no. 2 (1988): 109-41
On Thomas Jefferson and the Haitian Revolution: Matthewson, T., 1995. ‘Jefferson and Haiti’. The Journal of Southern History, 61(2), pp.209-248
On American Attitudes to Haiti: Frederick Douglass, at the Haitian Pavilion Dedication Ceremonies at the Chicago World Fair, 1893, at https://canada-haiti.ca/sites/default/files/Douglass%201893.pdf
On US asylum policy and Haiti:Blackmun Dissent, Sale v. Haitian Centers Council, Inc., 509 U.S. 155 (1993)
On the impact of Haitian work visas: Clemens, M.A., and Postel, H. "Temporary work visas as US-Haiti development cooperation: a preliminary impact evaluation." IZA Journal of Labor & Development 6, no. 1 (2017): 4.
Listen
Duncan, M., Podcast: Revolutions, Series 4 - The Haitian Revolution http://www.sal.wisc.edu/~jwp/revolutions-episode-index.html
Tripod, WWNO, Haiti and New Orleans: Is the Feeling Mutual? https://www.wwno.org/post/haiti-new-orleans-feeling-mutual