Haiti’s Permanent Resistance | Jacobin

6.1.17

Haiti’s Permanent Resistance | Jacobin: Haiti, after all, has a long history of resistance. All Haitian children learn how their ancestors carried out history’s only successful slave revolution and, in 1804, founded the first independent nation in Latin America (the second in the Western Hemisphere) and the first black republic. These accomplishments are the core of the Haitian identity.

From the beginning, the small Caribbean nation clashed with elites in the United States. During the early nineteenth century, US slave owners were deeply alarmed by this neighboring nation founded by self-liberated former slaves. Its existence and survival inspired and emboldened slave uprisings throughout the United States and Caribbean. US governments embargoed Haiti and did not recognize it until 1862, during the Civil War.