"WHY IS HAITI SO POOR??" Haitians fought in our Revolutionary War.We turned our backs on HAITI
Channel: CARLO ST JEAN
Date: 2018-02-02

"WHY IS HAITI SO POOR??" "why is Haiti so poor?"

    From the outset Haiti inherited the wrath of the colonial powers, which knew what a disastrous example a Haitian success story would be. In the words of Napoleon Bonaparte: "The freedom of the negroes, if recognised in St Domingue [as Haiti was then known] and legalised by France, would at all times be a rallying point for freedom-seekers of the New World." He sent 22,000 soldiers to recapture the "Pearl of the Antilles".
    France, backed by the US, later ordered Haiti to pay 150m francs in gold as reparations to compensate former plantation and slave owners as well as for the costs of the war in return for international recognition. At today's prices that would amount to $18bn. By the end of the 19th century, 80% of Haiti's national budget was going to pay off the loan and its interest, and the country was locked into the role of a debtor nation - where it remains today.

    Any prospect of planting a stable political culture foundered on the barren soil of economic impoverishment, military siege and international isolation (for the first 58 years the US refused even to recognise Haiti's existence). In 1915, fearing that internal strife would compromise its interests, the US invaded, and remained until 1934. If those who now preach compromise had practised those values in the past, Haiti might have nurtured the kind of political traditions that could withstand its divisions today. Haiti is a reminder of how Western democracies have wil fully amassed their wealth on the backs of impoverished dictatorships.

Haitians fought in our Revolutionary War..( AMERICAN REVOLUTIONARY WAR) 
.we turned our backs on HAITI AND ON HAITIANS PEOPLE
The history of Haiti, and its relationship to the United States is as old as the American Revolution, not withstanding the spews of bigots. 
In October 1779, a force of more than 500 Haitian free blacks joined American colonists and French troops in an unsuccessful push to drive the British from Savannah in coastal Georgia. More than 300 allied soldiers were gunned down charging British fortifications Oct. 9, making the siege the second-most lopsided British victory of the war after Bunker Hill. Though not well known in the U.S., Haiti's role in the American Revolution is a point of national pride for Haitians. After returning home from the war, Haitian veterans soon led their own rebellion that won Haiti's independence from France in 1804.