New York Times | USA – France: Historical Data on Haiti's Independence Debt

The New York Times is publishing a set of historical data on the payments Haiti made to France, collected as part of a project on Haiti's 'double debt.' This debt, which started in 1825, includes the compensation France demanded from Haiti to reimburse former colonists and the loan Haiti took out to start paying it. Using archival sources, we calculated how much money Haitians paid to the families of their former colonial lords and to the French banks and investors who controlled the loan.

LDOUBLE-DETTE-DRAWDOWN: The remaining debt each year, in French francs, after Haiti has paid the indemnity, the principal and interest on the 1825 loan, and the late payment penalties on both. The values are not adjusted for inflation and do not include future interest on the loan or future late fees. The starting value for 1825 is equal to the indemnity demanded by France (150 million francs) plus the 1825 loan (30 million francs), minus the amount Haiti repaid with the money it received from the loan (24 million francs).

DOUBLE-DEBT PAYMENTS-FRANCS: The amount that Haitians paid for the double debt, in French francs. Haiti paid 24 million francs of the indemnity with money borrowed through the 1825 loan. This is reflected in the payments on this loan, to avoid double counting.

PAYMENTS-COMPENSATION: Payments made on the 150 million

franc compensation, which was later reduced to 90 million francs. The amounts are in French francs and are not adjusted for inflation.

LATE FEES: France introduced late fees on arrears after 1870. Payments of late fees are listed here. The values are in French francs and are not adjusted for inflation.

CONSUMER-PRICE-INDEX-USD: We got the 19th-century consumer price index data for US dollars from the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.

EXCHANGE-RATE-USD-TO-FRANC: The data on historical exchange rates comes from historian Victor Bulmer-Thomas. It is reproduced here with the author's permission.

HAITI-HISTORICAL-GDP-USD: We have obtained general estimates of historical nominal GDP figures for Haiti taken from Simon Henochsberg's thesis, 'Public Debt and Slavery: The Case of Haiti (1760-1915),' published in December 2016. They are reproduced here with the author's permission.

DOUBLE-DEBT-IN-2021-USD: We converted the total amount of double debt paid each year into U.S. dollars using historical exchange rates. We then accounted for inflation by adjusting the 2021 U.S. dollar value using historical Consumer Price Index data. The following formula was used: (Total double debt paid that year / Exchange rate, franc to USD) * (2021 Consumer Price Index / Consumer Price Index of that year)

HOW WE CALCULATED THE DEBT

For a full description of how we calculated the debt and estimated its long-term economic impact, see the project's bibliography.

 

 

 

Payment History

To pay the indemnity, Haiti borrowed 30 million francs from a consortium of banks, including the Rothschilds, in 1825. The bankers kept six million francs as a commission, leaving Haiti with only 24 million francs to make the first payment on the compensation debt.

Yet, Haiti couldn't pay the double debt from 1827 to 1830. France threatened war.

 

In 1828, Jacques Laffitte, a French banker, offered to advance funds to pay part of the principal and interest on the 1825 loan. Mr. Laffitte handled these debt payments after getting a payment guarantee from the French government, and he made a killing when Haiti bought back some of the bonds from him at a premium.

The bonds of the 1825 loan, once valued at a thousand francs on the Paris Stock Exchange, fell to 200 francs in 1833.

 

For the period 1833-1838, we calculated the annual figures for the repayment of the principal of the 1825 loan using the number of bonds that were redeemed during the six-year period. We calculated the average annual interest payment on the 1825 loan for the period 1831-35 using the lump sum declared by the French Parliament in 1835.

A report from French bondholders stated that, from 1827 to 1838, the bonds were redeemed at an average value of 550 francs, while another report from the French Parliament set the maximum value of the bonds at 550 francs. We used an average value of 500 francs for the bonds redeemed during this period up to

1839, when Haiti and France renegotiated the loan payment. 

 

In 1838, after years of negotiations, France and Haiti signed a new treaty that reduced the remaining unpaid compensation debt to 60 million francs, plus the 700,000 francs Haiti still owed from the first installment of the indemnity. The treaty introduced a new payment schedule and recognized Haiti's independence, even before Haiti settled its debt.

The following year, Haiti agreed to pay the bondholders of the 1825 loan one million francs each year until the principal was fully paid off. The bondholders agreed to give up the 6% interest on the 1825 loan, which hadn’t been paid for a decade. They also cut the interest rate on the loan to 3%.

We estimated the annual interest payments for the period 1839-1842 at 3% of the outstanding bonds from the 1825 loan.

 

In 1843, Haiti defaulted on the payment of the compensation and the principal and interest of the 1825 loan after its president was ousted. In response, the French consul in Port-au-Prince threatened to annex strategic ports.

Haiti paid off part of its compensation debt in 1844 but stopped paying its debt for six years. It started paying the compensation debt again in 1851, but kept defaulting on the principal and interest of the 1825 loan until 1854.

In 1854, Haiti and France signed another treaty regarding the repayment of debt. Haiti agreed to pay 800,000 francs each year towards the principal and interest of the 1825 loan and to settle the unpaid interest from previous years.

 

Records held by the Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations, the French public bank that collected Haiti’s payments, show that Haiti met its financial obligations on the loan from 1855 to 1865. We thus calculated the average annual payments based on the lump sums that were paid during that period.

Haiti partially stopped paying the compensation debt from 1866 to 1870.

 

In December 1870, a new agreement between France and Haiti consolidated the compensation debt with the loan debt from 1825. The agreement also introduced late fees on overdue payments.

 

In 1878, the Haitian government made the last payment on the compensation. Then, in 1887, it declared that it had repaid the loan—although a final small amount of interest and late fees was paid the following year. The French government disagreed and argued that Haiti still owed 1,124 outstanding bonds on the loan, along with interest. Finally, after years of back and forth, in 1893, the Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations admitted its mistake and closed the chapter on the double debt.

The double debt was therefore paid off in 1888.

Sources

 

The following list describes the sources we relied on to build the historical dataset. For a complete account of the sources behind the Haiti project, see the project's bibliography.

 

Archive sources

Archives de la Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations, la banque publique française qui a traité les paiements d’Haïti

Documents d’archives détenus par le ministère des Affaires étrangères, à La Courneuve, France, y compris les rapports d’une commission parlementaire française sur Haïti (1835)

Archives conservées dans les Landes, France : Journaux et lettres du capitaine qui a transporté les coffres vidés du Trésor haïtien dans son navire en 1826

Volumes des États Detaillés des Liquidations conservés aux Archives Nationales d’Outre-Mer à Aix-en-Provence, France.

Documents parlementaires conservés aux Archives nationales françaises [Projet de Loi Relatif à l’Exécution du Traité Fait Entre la France et le Gouvernement d’Haïti le 12 Février 1838]

Sources secondaires

Ardouin, Beaubrun. « Études Sur l’Histoire d’Haïti : Suivies de la Vie du Général », Vol. 10, Dezobry, E. Magdeleine et Co, Libraires-Editeurs, Paris (1860), consulté depuis Bibliothèque Nationale de France, département philosophie, histoire, sciences de l’homme, 8-PU-10 (10))

Auteur inconnu, « Précis Historique des Faits Relatif à l’Emprunt d’Haïti et des Derniers Arrangements Financiers Conclus Entre le Gouvernement Haïtien et le Comité des Porteurs de Titres Dudit Emprunt », Imprimerie de Guiraudet et Jouaust, Paris (1849), consulté à partir de Bibliothèque nationale de France, département philosophie, histoire, sciences de l’homme, 8-PU-181)

Beauvois, Frédérique. « Monnayer l’Incalculable ? L’Indemnité de Saint-Domingue, Entre Approximations et Bricolage. Revue Historique 3, n° 655 (2010), pp. 609-636.

Blancpain, François. « Un Siècle de Relations Financières Entre Haïti et la France (1825-1922) ». L’Harmattan, Paris (2001)

Brière, Jean-François, « Haïti et la France 1804-1848 : Le Rêve Brisé », Karthala, Paris (2008)

Brière, Jean-François, « L’Emprunt de 1825 Dans la Dette de l’Indépendance Haïtienne Envers la France. » Le Journal des études haïtiennes, Vol. 12, n° 2 (2006), p. 126-134

Brière, Jean-François. « La France et la Reconnaissance de l’Indépendance Haïtienne : Le Débat Sur l’Ordonnance de 1825. » Histoire coloniale française, 2004, vol. 5 (2004), p. 125-138

Esmangard, Charles. « La Vérité Sur les Affaires d’Haïti », Imprimerie de Carpentier-Méricourt, Paris (1833), accessible depuis la Bibliothèque Natio

nale de France, département philosophie, histoire, sciences de l’homme, 8-LK12-669)

Gaillard, Gusti-Klara. “Haïti-France. Permanences, Évolutions et Incidences d’une Pratique de Relations Inégales au XIXe Siècle.” La Révolution Française

Gaillard, Gusti-Klara. “L’Expérience Haïtienne de la Dette Extérieure, ou Une Production Caféière Pillée (1875-1915).” Maison Henri Deschamps (1990)

Joachim, Benoît. “La Reconnaissance d’Haïti par la France (1825): Naissance d’un Nouveau Type de Rapports Internationaux.” Revue d’Histoire Moderne et Contemporaine XXII (July-September 1975), pp. 369-396

Laurent (militaire invalide). “La Vérité Sur l’Emprunt Perçu par le Gouvernement Français Pour le Compte de la République d’Haïti, ou MM. Jacques Laffitte et Autres Dévoilés.” Imprimerie de A.-T. Breton, Paris (1842), accessed from Bibliothèque Nationale de France, département philosophie, histoire, sciences de l’homme, 4-LK12-688)

Lepelletier de Saint-Remy, Romuald. “Saint-Domingue: Étude et Solution Nouvelle de la Question Haītienne.” Arthus Bertrand, France (1846), p. 121

Marcelin, Frédéric. “Haïti et L’Indemnité Française.” Société Anonyme de L’Imprimerie Kugelmann, Paris (1897)

Mathon, Alix, Turnier, Alain, Haïti, un cas. La Société des Baïonnettes, Port au Prince (1985)

Yates, Alexia. Research notes from unpublished work (2021