Academic Affinities

Diplomatic History, Colonial Studies, Post-Colonial Studies, Imperialism

Chapter 1

“The Booming Kingdom” explores the colonial relationship between Haiti and France, with comparisons to the American colonial relationship with Britain. This chapter examines the extraordinary success of colonial coffee and sugar from both environmental and economic viewpoints. Narrative in style, this chapter also introduces the civil rights struggle of free people of color, whose story was interwoven with the great movements of Paris during the French Revolution

Chapters 4 and 5

“An Unwelcome Guest,” illuminates the opportunities of independent Haiti in the world market, and challenges the prevailing view of young Haiti as a victim of major powers. “The Coffin Has Three Nails” pursues the Haitian indemnity, the delay of international recognition, and the American occupation of 1915. Responsibility for the disastrous bargain of recognition is placed, at last, squarely on the desk of President Boyer.

Atlantic History, Caribbean Studies, African Diaspora

Chapter 2

“The Peculiar Trade” delves into the underexplored world of the West African slave industry. Rare sources expose the participation of West African monarchs in the sale of African people to European slave traders. The enduring school of thought in slavery scholarship, “the arms race theory,” is frontally challenged by contrary documentary evidence. The chapter places Haitian slavery in the context of the Caribbean and wider Americas, and challenges the idea that its slave population alone was the source of its great riches.

Environmental History, Economic History

Coffee and sugar cultivation occupy an important part of the first chapter, since they were the source of great riches for colonials. The devastating price of land mismanagement, rarely discussed among Haitian historians, is discussed in Chapter 7. In the same chapter the cholera epidemic of 2010 is framed as Haiti’s failure to embrace the public health revolution of the early 20th century.

An overwhelming theme of the The Devil Lives in Haiti is “the Haitian reversal.” In the colonial era, sugar and coffee were produced in great abundance to the pleasure of consumers worldwide, as prices were low. As volumes declined in the modern era due to disastrous mismanagement, prices of basic necessities climbed higher than most Haitians can afford. The reversal is also expressed in the posture of Haiti to the world market. Integration into the trans-Atlantic economy was the soul of colonial affluence. Isolation has been the soul of modern Haiti’s disaster.