In the Shadow of Powers by Patrick Bellegarde-Smith

Author:Patrick Bellegarde-Smith [Bellegarde-Smith, Patrick]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Caribbean & West Indies, General, Political Science, International Relations, Social Science, Discrimination
ISBN: 9780826504142
Google: f7wpEAAAQBAJ
Publisher: Vanderbilt University Press
Published: 2021-04-30T00:45:46+00:00

CHAPTER 6

PERSPECTIVES ON SOCIAL CONFLICT AND CULTURE

Uh homme sans espoir el conscient de l’être n’appartient plus à l’avenir.

—Albert Camus, Le Mythe de sysyphe

Dantès Bellegarde was a product of the nineteenth century. By birth he was a member of the petite bourgeoisie. At the time of his adolescence, twenty-six Haitian seaports, serviced by nine steamship companies, were open to foreign and domestic commerce; only one of these was under Haitian control. Ships from these ports linked Haiti to ports in the Caribbean, in Central and South America, in the United States, and in Western Europe, traveling on a regular basis.1 Earlier, Haiti had signed the Universal Postal Convention (1880). A submarine telegraphic cable allowed for rapid international communication, but inland communications were not as well established. No domestic telegraph existed in the late 1800s, roads were nonexistent, except as horse trails and footpaths, and it was easier for wealthy inhabitants of Jéremie or Jacmel to sojourn to Paris than to reach Port-au-Prince. Provincial capitals were often on the same level as Port-au-Prince in their ease of contacts with Europe.2

During Dantès Bellegarde’s youth, Haiti maintained more than fifty legations and consulates throughout the world. The Bureau of American Republics Bulletin states that all the Haitian diplomats spoke the language of the country to which they were accredited.3 Significant Haitian foreign relations questions of the time included negotiations with the United States for an American naval station to be established at Môle Saint-Nicolas. There were also constant questions relating to the as yet unsettled land boundaries with the Dominican Republic, and claims by the United States, Germany, and the United Kingdom on behalf of their citizens concerning alleged losses during Haitian domestic turmoil. Internationally, Haitian policy was most cautious, as illustrated by this passage from an 1893 Bulletin of the Bureau of American Republics:

It may be stated that, in the long run and in her own way, Haiti always met every financial obligation, and it is confessedly a fact that she has sometimes consented to pay and has paid claims which no great powers like France or Great Britain would have been expected to recognize. It is believed that she has taken this course in order to avoid what seemed at the moment like possible complications with foreign powers which, at times, as she has thought, have appeared to be only too ready to take advantage of her comparative isolation and weakness.4

In this connection, Dantès Bellegarde related with bitterness the story of the 1897 crisis between Haiti and Germany. In this case, two German gunboats, acting in support of the claim of a Germano-Haitian,5 named Emile Luders, presented the Haitian government with an ultimatum. Within four hours, Haiti was to pay the sum of $20,000 (in U.S. dollars) to the businessman, was to promise that the latter could return freely to Haiti from where he had been deported, was to address a letter of apology to the Berlin government, and was to salute the German flag with a twenty-one-gun salute. These were Germany’s nonnegotiable demands.

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