1883-00-00: (Haiti Makes Its Final Indemnity Payment to France, Completing Fifty-Eight Years of Ransom Payments for the Crime of Having Liberated Itself From…

1883-00-00: (Haiti Makes Its Final Indemnity Payment to France, Completing Fifty-Eight Years of Ransom Payments for the Crime of Having Liberated Itself From Slavery, Though the Bank Loans Contracted to Finance Those Payments Would Not Be Repaid Until 1947): In 1883, Haiti made its final indemnity payment to France, completing the obscene financial obligation that Boyer had accepted in 1825. The payments had consumed over half of all government revenue for nearly six decades, starving the nation of investment in infrastructure, education, health care, and every other pillar of development. The completion of the indemnity payments, however, did not end Haiti’s financial bondage. The bank loans that Boyer and subsequent presidents had contracted from private French banks to meet the annual payment schedule were still outstanding, and those loans would not be fully repaid until 1947, one hundred and twenty-two years after the original agreement. The total cost of the indemnity, including interest on the loans, dwarfed the original 90-million-franc demand. France had extracted from the first Black republic in the world a financial penalty for the crime of self-liberation, and that penalty shaped every aspect of Haitian underdevelopment for over a century. High inflation during Salomon’s presidency was directly exacerbated by the final push to complete these payments.