Why did they agree to pay France? Can they ask for the money back?

Haiti won its revolution on the battlefield in 1804. What it could not win was recognition. France forcibly imposed a treaty on the Haitian Republic in which, in exchange for recognition of its independence, Haiti undertook to pay 150 million francs in compensation to the former owners of Saint-Domingue who had left the island during the Haitian Revolution.

The coercion was not subtle. French King Charles X sent an armed flotilla of warships to Haiti with the message that the young nation would have to pay France 150 million francs to secure its independence, or suffer the consequences. The sum was ten times Haiti's annual budget and equivalent to the amount the US had paid for the Louisiana territory.

Think about what was being demanded here. The people who had been enslaved, who had fought and bled and died to free themselves, were now being told to compensate the people who had enslaved them for the loss of their labor. It was the former enslaved people of Haiti, not the French slaveholders, who were forced to pay reparations. Haitians compensated their oppressors and their oppressors' descendants for the privilege of being free.

What it cost them

The Haitian state was only able to pay this sum by borrowing from French banks, and this colossal loan took decades to repay and weighed heavily on Haiti's history. This price for independence was financed by French banks and the American Citibank, and was finally paid off in 1947. That is 143 years of payments.

A 2022 analysis by The New York Times revealed that Haitians ended up paying more than 112 million francs over seven decades, or $560 million, estimated between $22 billion and $44 billion in today's dollars. While the US officially left Haiti in 1934, it continued to control Haiti's public finances until 1947, siphoning away around 40% of Haiti's national income to service debt repayments to the US and France.

Can they ask for it back?

They already are, and the demand is escalating. The now-former president of Haiti's Transitional Presidential Council, Leslie Voltaire, requested that France "repay the debt of independence and reparations for slavery." A Haitian government committee wants France to pay an estimated $115 billion in restitution to invest in Haiti's development.

The legal and moral arguments are not fringe ones. French economist Thomas Piketty resurrected the idea, arguing that France owes Haiti at least $28 billion. Campaigners including Noam Chomsky and Naomi Klein described the debt as "patently illegitimate and illegal."

Where France stands

Then-president François Hollande acknowledged the payments as "the ransom of independence," but the government quickly walked back his vow to "pay off the debt," saying he meant only a moral debt and not a financial one. French President Emmanuel Macron said a joint commission of French and Haitian historians would investigate the legacy of the "heavy price" Haiti was made to pay for its independence, but his statement made no mention of Haitian demands for reparations.

The French government, under multiple presidents, has balked at the idea, and it is unlikely to pay Haiti back anytime soon.

The honest bottom line: the legal case exists, the moral case is overwhelming, the historical record is unambiguous, and France keeps offering history commissions instead of checks. Haiti launched a lawsuit in 2004 to recover the money, but it was abandoned after France backed the overthrow of Haiti's government. That last sentence tells you everything about the gap between what is just and what powerful nations are willing to do.