Haiti since 1804

Alex Dupuy is John E. Andrus Professor of Sociology, Emeritus at Wesleyan University. He is an internationally recognized scholar and specialist on Haiti and has given interviews and written commentaries on local, national, and international radio and television networks, including Anderson Cooper 360 on CNN and The Agenda with Steve Parkin on Toronto Public TV.

This very important book revises Haiti's history. Dupuy cogently argues that Haiti's first presidents agreed to France's demand for a large indemnity for the ousted slave owners, not because they feared further war but because they wanted to secure the transfer of property rights from former plantation owners to the new Haitian elite. Thus, he contends that it was not the large ransom Haiti paid France that incapacitated its economic growth prospects; rather, it was the failure of the Haitian upper classes to re-create Haiti's prerevolutionary plantation system (mostly sugar and indigo). Moreover, the ruling elites fought among themselves so much throughout the long 19th century, seeking enrichment by aggrandizing the state, that economic development prospects were sidelined. Dupuy also arrestingly analyzes the 20th-century battle for power between Black Haitians and mulatto interests, which led almost directly to the 29-year dictatorship of François and Jean-Claude Duvalier, Papa Doc and Baby Doc, respectively, which consumed the energies of the people and greatly retarded Haiti's prosperous emergence in modern times. Dupuy's final chapter deals with the 2023–24 eruption of gang violence, which destroyed Port-au-Prince and plunged Haiti into deep hunger and despair. Recommended. Advanced undergraduates through faculty.

• Table of ContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroductionChapter 1: Indemnity, Debt, and Development: A RepriseChapter 2: The U.S. Occupation, Foreign Capital, and the Transformation of the Haitian EconomyChapter 3: The Political Economy of Class and Gender in HaitiChapter 4: Whither Haiti After Moïse?EpilogueAbout the AuthorBibliography