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Black Republic of Letters

"France et Haïti" / "France and Haiti"

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"France et Haïti" / "France and Haiti" Translation:

Excerpt from a conference made at the French Catholic Youth Alliance, 25 January 1890.

We regret that the framework of this newspaper will not allow us to reprint in extenso the very important conference that Mr. Georges Sylvain gave, at the start of this year, at the French Catholic Youth Alliance (Olivaint Conference) on the relations between France and Haiti. This conference has already appeared, in the form of an article, in the Parisian newspaper, l'Indépendance (iss. from 15 June and 1 July 1890). But it translates so perfectly the sentiments that so many Haitians feel toward France, our second fatherland, that we have not been able to avoid the temptation of reprinting some of its principal passages. We hope that all of our reader, whether French or Haitian, will discover in reading it, a bit of the pleasure that we ourselves felt in hearing it.
Sirs,

The colonial question is, so to speak, on the agenda. Without wanting to take a part in the controversies that it provokes, we can affirm that in France the average opinion right now is hostile to the spirit of conquest and adventure, whether one fears, by dividing their forces, not being ready when it is needed; or whether the discredit attached to the gruelling occupation of Tonkin has widely attached to the policy of faraway enterprises.

Yet, how to reconcile this sentiment of wise reservation with the legitimate expansion that a great State must pursue for its civilization, its commerce and its industry? Furthermore, how can it not seek new outlets, while rival nations, taken with the protectionist dogma, are working harder and harder to annihilate competition with foreign products?

In order to respond to these diverse preoccupations, it is proposed to improve the regime of the current colonies, in order to augment the services that they are called to render to the metropole, all the while decrease the expense that they impose.

Another solution, which could be linked to precedents, would consist of a greater emphasis on relations between France and certain countries, which are predisposed to France by of affinities of race, or by commercial relations that are already established.

Among these countries, devoted to French sympathy, with which France would have an interest in increasing the figures of its business and strengthening ties of friends, is the little Republic of Haiti, formerly a French possession, today a sovereign state, free and very jealous of its liberty, but still French in its heart, its customs and its language.
To decide what development would be fitting for an accord between France and Haiti, the speaker examines from a triple point of view the political, economic and social aspects of relations that, since the emancipation of Haiti, have connected France to its former colony.

Speaking about the history of the relations between France and Haiti, he concludes thus:
In sum, for the past fifty years, Haitians could reproach France for not always being lucky in its choice of agents; for too often being subject to the councils and calculations of egotistical England; and in a word, of having harmed rather than helped the political evolution of its former colony. But it is also fair to recognize that, from other point of view, the French people have been able to repair the errors of their diplomats. The economic and social relations were what they should have been between the two counties, which is to say full of candour and cordiality. France generously lent us priests for our churches, religious and lay professors for our schools. They allowed us to draw with open hands from the incomparable treasures of science. With cheerful good grace, which is like the jewellery of its hospitality, it gave us the honours of its genius; and we thus formed a youth keen for progress, because it was aware of what it lacked, and ready for all dedication, because it was conscious of its duty.

Certain, Haitians as much as any others, have their faults. But—to their credit—they are free from ingratitude. From the day that fear of a French invasion stopped stirring up their minds, our young nation, whatever the ill-informed publicists might have said about it, is honoured to have professed for France the sentiments of a loving daughter—loving in the sense of the strong and vigorous children that Montaigne described, who can sometimes, while playing, bite the hand that feeds them; but who, when they see her is suffering, they cry to see her crying, and when she is mistreated, they take up arms in her defence. Haitians remembered the debt they owed her in 1870; they will remember it again, if (God forbid!) France is threatened with new dangers.
Haiti's economic situation led Mr. Georges Sylvain to the following reflections:
The dispositions of the Rural Code were never really carried out. All discipline was relaxed as the fear of a foreign invasion receded, and an agricultural regime became a sort of anachronism. It never came back. As it is, the Haitian farmer only works according to his own inclination. He is not as indolent or as in love with leisure as has often been said. But just as his legendary sobriety leads him easily to the first needs, he has not yet felt the need to make the earth produce all that it possibly can. His agricultural processes, his farming tools, are ingeniously rudimentary. Allow me to note three large factories instituted by foreign merchants (two French, one German) for the shelling and sorting of coffee. It was calculated that if Haitian coffee did not suffer, when arriving in France, waste resulting from its defective preparation, not only would its market value triple, but our country, without increasing by one pound the current weight of its expeditions, would be the top exporter of coffee in Le Havre (see Paul Déléage, Haïti en 1886).

Discouraged by the failure of these preceding attempts, the State was not able to give consistent help to private initiative to improve our agriculture. There were many questions to introduce religious farms into our mornes, to found farm schools, to make rural education obligatory. But all of these programs had the same value as electoral programs. By contrast, we did not refrain from increasing customs that were already too high and which hindered agricultural production. Poorly maintained roads paralyzed the transportation industry. Every insurrection took a certain number of workers from the fields.

To summarize the state of our agriculture, we would say that the people are good, but they are the victims of a bad organization; the soil is good, but it is subject to an insufficient exploitation. The one needs instruction, the other needs capital.

Petty industry, without being completely in decline, like our great sugar industry, is losing ground each day, because, having neglected to renew its outdated equipment, it is not responding to the new habits of luxury and comfort. "Once," said the newspaper La Verité in 1887, "most citizen worked in manual labour. Our fathers saw it as a guarantee of independence. Our shoes, our clothes, our furniture, our table utensils, our pottery, etc. generally came from our workshops. Today we get most of these things from outside of the home." Finished goods account for at least half of the growth of French imports in the last thirty years. Some new industries have been born, but the movement is far from general.

The problem is that industry is no longer a source of pride: the artisan no longer love his craft. The Haitian worker, one of the happiest in the world, instead of seeking, by intelligence, activity and foresight, to improve his position, prefers to seek a quicker fortune in political speculation or in petty trade with limited diversity.

In Haiti, everyone is a merchant. Forty year ago Mr. Schœlcher, travelling to our country, remarked: "Soldiers, lawyers, deputies, senators, administrators, proprietors, themselves or through their wives, keep their shops opened; and this immense competition does nothing but increase the universal discomfort, not allowing anyone to benefit."

Things have hardly changed since that time, apart from the fact that by an unrelenting effort, a few Haitian petty retailers have managed to secure credit on the European markets; and becoming merchants in their own right, they have claimed their place in the sun, beside the great foreign firms established in the country. But the foreigner comes, protected, furthermore, by his nationality against malevolence and arbitrary rule, and the Haitian, designated by his social elevation to the envy of his compatriots and the vexations of his governors, the battle is no doubt unequal. He objects, referring to the famous article of our Constitution, which, in the interest of foresight justified by numerous recent dispossessions, banning foreigners from the right to own property. But this much criticized ban, has nothing but a theoretical reserved right. In fact, foreigners twist the law, according to their convenience, with the help of Haitian dummy corporations.

The new Constitution of 1889, in article 185, declares that in the case of a loss in the wake of civil or political troubles, foreigners, just like Haitians, can hope for no indemnity, apart from recourse to the tribunals, in conformity with the law.

Although this disposition, which conforms with those in every civilized country, is justified in strict law (1.), we do not see any problem with the Haitian government distributing relief to foreign victims of our civil wars. Because we personally do not believe we go far enough to offer guarantees to honest and conscientious men who cross the sea to bring the support of their knowledge or their industry to the work of sociological rehabilitation that we are pursuing for our race. But such an equitable measure must not be exploited against its authors by powers nevertheless interested in finding a pretext for intervention. There must also be no question of choosing between victims, so that foreign merchants and indemnified to the exclusion of Haitian merchants; since the foreigner who comes to establish himself in Haiti is fully aware that he is exposed to our incessant revolutions. We must also prevent the indemnity system from becoming a new source of profit for rogues without faith nor fatherland, who, under the mask of one nationality, are the makers of our ruin, opposing our vague hopes of progress, enriching themselves from our discord, and booming, once they leave our country, our most determined detractors—when they do not simply remain to serve as agents of provocation who prevent charitable nations from taking us under their wing...!
Taking stock of what Haiti owes to France from the social point of view, the speaker is led to sketch a picture of the whole of Haitian society. He touches on the government, the army, the clergy, the teaching corps, the magistrature, and finishes by saying:
The three principle representatives of national activity are: the merchant, the artisan and the farmer. We have already encountered them. But allow me to respectfully acknowledge once again the Haitian peasant, the guardian of the soil, on whose shoulders the public fortune rests; who practices in the mornes, where brigandage is unknown, a timeless hospitality, and who, crushed by custom duties, decimated an ruined by other people's insurrections, has been able to conserve unaltered, and despite social injustices, his native honesty, the secret of his traditions, and his touching bonhomie, made of cleverness and candour...!

I could, no doubt, include in this framework that I've traced for myself, a sketch of the Haitian family. But here, the influence of French mores has been such that it has swept away primitive distinctions. Thus there was once, in our country, outside of legal marriage, a sort of union that was not dissimilar from Roman concubinage; it is no longer esteemed, thanks to the teaching of our missionaries. It is true that, beside this progress, we can lament the importation of so-called marriages of convenience or of interest, which were unknown to our forefathers. Paternal pressure has removed itself from its ancient severity; but it has softened without going soft.

Will I speak of the mother of the family? I would worry that I'm beneath my subject. However, I would like to show her to you, among her servants who grew up under her instruction, presiding over a household and over the education of her children; having an eye on everything, foreseeing everything; tireless and devoted; combining Creole grace vivacity with French intelligence; finding, by miraculous activity, in the midst of diverse occupations, the time to help her husband, in the shop, to earn their daily bread! But to depict them in their natural element, what's the use all this eloquence? There are few French mothers, it is my intimate conviction, who, in similar conditions, who would not be capable of the same efforts. Whatever the climate, and whatever the needs of life: the heart of mothers doesn't change!

Now, Sirs, if this study has led you to join me in inevitable conclusions, you will recognize that, besides questions of generosity and sentiment, there is for France an immediate and positive interest in promoting the prosperity of the Republic of Haiti.

France has made us what we are; we speak its language; we practice its customs, its institutions and its laws. We are the direct products of French genius. Our progress cannot but serve as an extension of French civilization. It is incontestable!

Furthermore, Haiti, blocked from development by political disruptions and financial difficulties, has never been able to derive profit from freely from its immense resources. The mines, the thermal springs which nature has abundantly provided, still wait to be exploited. Major industry has yet to be created or reconstituted. We need factories; we need railways; our roads need to be repaired and our towns need beautification and sanitation; revive former crops while introducing new ones—easy enough to do in a country to which most European product can be adapted.

Yet, French commerce with Haiti represents on average a sum of more than 76 million; and if we don't take care, this figure, far from increasing, will begin to decrease before long. The merchants of the United States have, in effect, no less considerable business with us. With benefit of being neighbours, they are keen to lower prices as much as possible. From New York depots, our merchants acquire more cost effectively, the same article that they once sought in Marseille, Saint-Nazaire or Le Havre. Boston is almost entirely monopolizing our lumber industry. Finally, the Germans, with their natural tenacity, are slowly succeeding in replacing their merchandise for ours. Here are the rivals that you must supplant! Here are the conquests that you must undertake!

Political interest overlaps, to push you to act, with economic interest. The last Haitian insurrection, which led to the current government, had, if not the declared support, at least the practical sympathy of the North Americans. The latter even boasted at the time (2.), of having received, in exchange for their cooperation, promises of what was to be done. The federal government, to comply, would only be, furthermore, in the policy pursued in Haiti, driven by the idea of foiling French projects,

Sirs, I do not believe that France, given the opportunity, would go back on the treaty of 1825. Nobody believes it sincerely in Haiti: we love France too much to worry about that.

I do not think that the United States, despite their newfound deep affection for us, will ever impose themselves on any part of the Haitian territory. Whatever the intensity of our internal quarrels, in the face of a foreign invasion, the Haitian people would still rise en masse to repel a common enemy.

But between the Anglo-Saxon, egotistical and brutal, hard on the weak, lenient to the rich; between the Anglo-Saxon, tyrant and executioner of the Black race, who enriched themselves by the slave trade and treat nègres like dogs; between those people, and the children of those who, in 1794, proclaimed the abolition of slavery in Saint-Domingue, if it is only a matter of sympathy, by heart and by reason a Haitian would not hesitate...!

However, it is certain that the solution of the events of 1889 was—fairly or not—presented as a failure for French influence in Haiti, the flattering caresses that the Cabinet in Washington has been ceaselessly surrounding our government with no doubt have their significance and their purpose (3.).

We cannot repeat it enough: the independence of Haiti is the safeguard of the European colonies of the New World. If you allow the Monroe Doctrine, translated in the manner of Mr. Blaine, which is to say "America for the (North) Americans," be applied at Môle Saint-Nicholas, you will see what will happen the next day to Guadeloupe and Martinique; we will see what will happen to the neutrality of the Panama Canal, which will come to be with or without France.

Michelet said, "Haiti is Black France." If, by some impossibility, Haiti is lost, it will be a bit of France that is lost!

Georges Sylvain
25 January 1890

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Notes (from original):
1. See J. V. Léger (La Politique extérieure d'Haïti.
2. See the newspapers Le Word and Le New-York Herald (collections from August and September 1889).
3. The latest news from the United States seems to indicate that faced with the vigilant attitude of the Haitian people, Mr. Blaine will have recognized the impossibility of immediately accomplishing his ambitious aims.