HAITI IN THE WORLD ECONOMY: CLASS, RACE, AND UNDERDEVELOPMENT SINCE 1700

By Alex Dupuy
Westview Press
1989 (hard back)

Bob Corbett
1990

Conditions of the exclusif

1. Purchase all manufactured goods from France
2. Ship all exports to France
3. Use only French ships
4. Balance of trade must be in favor of FRance.

• Depopulation of Hispaniola: the discovery of gold in South America and the lure of profits changed life in 1508.

• On island: there were 14,000 Spanish household in 1508. there were 500 households in 1574.

• slavery 1506 the Spanish king gave rights.

• p. 20. Both French and Spanish preferred non-slave labor and used indentured slaves. The chnage came with sugar. The labor intensitivity required slaves. About 1680 it was introduced.

• Planters were in competition with small holders. Planters won. Thus sugar was feasible. Had the small holders won, as the did in New England, manufacturing would have likely sprung-up.

• p. 23. The slave system of San Domingue was more capitalist that mercantilist in nature. It was intimately related to the growing bourgeoroisie of maritime France.

• p. 27. Coffee growers were largely mulatto. It rivaled sugar after 1760s.

• p. 58. Need for whites: they have --capital --technological know how --links to foreign markets --loans

• p. 60 Toussaint acquired many properties and so did many black military officers, thus creating a new black propertied class.

• p. 81 Dupuy criticizes account of Nicholls. I agree with Dupuy!

• p. 105 Dupuy criticizes Lundahl that causes of peasantry's empoverishment are not found in the market system.

• p. 127. List of foreing gun-boat diplomacy situations.

• p. 130 U.S. intervention in 1888/1891/1914

• p. 131. 3 long-term changes because of American occupation
  1. "The fiscal and legal reforms that allowed foreigners to own property in Haiti.
  2. "The creation of a modern and centralized army and bureaucratic administration that reinforced the authoritarian tendencies of the state.
  3. "The attempt to reintroduce plantation production for export."

• p. 139. Aims of occupation:
  1. Establish U.S. economic domination of Haiti.
  2. Ward off European interests.
  3. To establish conditions for continuance of # 1 and 2 with army, changed economy and the establishment of middle class.

• p. 145 story + sources of rubber in WWII days. also story and sources of bauxite mining.

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