From: [identity profile] wcg.livejournal.com


I don't know every bit of Haitian history, but I know enough (and enough of the history of British, French, and Spanish colonialism in North America) to recognize a lot of misinformation and seemingly deliberate lies in that account.

I'm quite well acquainted with the history of US Marine Corps involvement in Haiti. I know that we didn't always act from the most noble of purposes. I also know that the US did have a concern about the Haitian government going back to 1802, and that it was in no small part due to the government including former slaves. But the story as told in that piece you linked to attempts to put the history into a cartoonish, one dimensional narrative which serves no good purpose.

From: [identity profile] uncledark.livejournal.com


You can also check out a longer account in Lies My Teacher Told Me, where the story is still rather nasty, but a bit more balanced.
aegidian: (cultural divide)

From: [personal profile] aegidian


Cartoonish is spot on. Darn, I hate when a plain simple reason ('Haiti must fail' as guiding policy), is wrong when the real, more confusing and complex reasons are so much more difficult to understand.
ext_12726: (Harlech castle)

From: [identity profile] heleninwales.livejournal.com


I can't comment on the US history side of things, but to the best of my knowledge, the British have had no vested interest in wanting Haiti to fail. As far as I know, it's been a case of None of Our Business, probably since US independence. A bit of Googling reveals that we did help the French try to suppress the slave revolt, but we withdrew in 1793.

The French may have retained an interest in Haiti, seeing as it was their colony, but I found it annoying that the blog article lumped all the European countries together as though we had the same history and the same attitude to foreign policy. It just isn't like that as all the wars, revolutions and political change in Europe since the end of the eighteenth century will testify.

It is always more complicated...
.

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