Haiti was one of the richest colonies in the world. In 1789, Haiti produced 75% of the world’s sugar and was the leading producer of cotton.
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That plan was dropped after the South was given authority to institute a system that was, in many ways, worse than slavery: convict leasing.
The first US prison boom resulted from convict leasing, where millions of mostly Black men were arrested & thrown in mines & cotton fields.
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In the 1870s, the US took over from France in torturing Haiti. In the late 19th century there were dozens of military interventions.
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The worst, led by Woodrow Wilson (Nobel Laureate), was in 1915, when the US military brutally attacked Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
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Can we focus on the numbers for a sec? Millions arrested? There were only 4 million freed slaves in 1865
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I'm referring not to a point in history but to the entirety of convict leasing that lasted over half a century.
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I have a B.A. in history with a focus on the Early American Republic and never learned a thing about convict leasing. That's pretty telling.
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If you're interested in learning more, read Slavery by Another Name by Douglas Blackmon
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*Millions* arrested & turned into convict labor?
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History Thread on this wld be awesome
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