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Yet the U.S. benefited greatly from the colonial strife next door. Broke after its Haitian defeat--"Damn sugar, damn coffee, damn colonies!" Napoleon exclaimed--France sold a large region, 828,000 square miles, from the western banks of the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains, to the U.S. for $15 million. The Louisiana Purchase would prove to be one of the most profitable real estate transactions ever made, nearly doubling the size of the U.S. at a cost of about 4ยข an acre. Alexander Hamilton said Napoleon would not have sold his claims except for the "courage and obstinate resistance [of the] black inhabitants" of Haiti.
It would take six decades for the U.S. to acknowledge Haiti's independence. By the time Abraham Lincoln did so in 1862, America was already at war with itself over the issue of slavery. Haiti, burdened by its postindependence isolation and the 100 million francs in payment it was forced to give France for official recognition--an amount estimated to be worth nearly $22 billion today, which some Haitians insist should be repaid--began its perilous slide toward turmoil and dependency, resulting in a 19-year U.S. occupation and two subsequent interventions in the past 100 years. In Notes on the State of Virginia, Jefferson presented dire warnings about what might happen to the U.S. political system in a worst-case scenario, but his words turned out to be a more accurate prophecy for America's plundered neighbor: "The spirit of the times ... will alter. Our rulers will become corrupt ... The shackles ... which shall not be knocked off at the conclusion of war will remain on long, will be made heavier and heavier." Given a fair chance, Haiti could have flourished and prospered. If that had been the case, this year Haiti would be celebrating the bicentennial of its independence with fewer and lighter shackles.