It is one of the tragic ironies of global history that Haitians, the people of the first independent Black republic, the nation that inspired the Black world to fight for freedom, are so frequently treated as belonging at the bottom of social hierarchies in American nations. But it is precisely because Haiti has always been made to pay for being free. Their national debt, and recurrent economic suffering, began in the demand that they repay France for its loss of a profitable slave society. They were punished with military occupation and dominion that impoverished Haiti and Haitians. They are
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