“Surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the north and the Caribbean Sea on the south, our lush tropical island paradise boasts the world’s top beaches, magnificent resorts and hotels, and a variety of sports, recreation and entertainment options,” reads the Dominican Republic’s official tourism website. Images of tourists drinking cocktails, sunbathing on sandy beaches, and snorkeling in the clear blue waters of the Caribbean is in stark contrast to the harrowing state of the DR’s neighboring nation: Haiti. Millions of Haitians live in deep poverty, and any semblance of government authority has collapsed.As a result, gangs roam the streets, imposing their will on the population. The roots of the socioeconomic disparities between the two countries on the island of Hispaniola are irrevocably intertwined with the consequences of imperialism that persisted long after Haiti gained its independence. 

The island of Hispaniola is small—roughly half the size of the state of Georgia. Yet, when comparing the economic status of the two nations that inhabit it, they may very well be on different continents. The Dominican Republic is a relatively prosperous island nation, boasting the largest economy in the Caribbean and the ninth largest in Latin America. Comparatively, Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Over the last two decades the Dominican Republic has been one of the fastest growing economies in the region. This growth has led it to have a GDP that is six times that of Haiti’s and a purchasing power parity that is seven times larger. The average Haitian is nearly 10 times poorer than the average Dominican, and far more likely to be unemployed. Additionally, more than half of Haitians live on less than $3.70 per day, compared to less than 4% of Dominicans living under these same conditions. Life expectancy in the Dominican Republic is a full decade longer than in Haiti. When it comes to education, Haiti does not fare any better, with a literacy rate that is thirty percent lower than the regional average. In virtually every single socioeconomic measurement, Haiti ranks close to the bottom. These statistics are the manifestation of centuries of colonial rule that began with the arrival of Christopher Columbus on the beaches of Hispaniola and have since persisted, even after Haiti achieved its independence. 

Christopher Columbus first landed in Hispaniola on December 6th, 1492 in what is now northern Haiti, and claimed the entire island for the Spanish crown. Hispaniola was just the second island that Columbus had discovered in the New World, and the Spanish quickly set up outposts on the island, enslaving the indigenous Taino people in the process. However, the Taino people were soon decimated by European diseases and brutal labor practices, who were replaced by the first African slaves in 1501. Almost simultaneously, the French laid claim to the mostly empty western half of Hispaniola and began their own settlements. In 1697, Spain, as a provision of a European treaty that resolved the Nine Years War, formally ceded the western half of Hispaniola to the French. This division, though simple at the time, led to numerous implications that continue to define the fates of two nations. The Spanish and the French had two different approaches in how to utilize their colonial holdings of Hispaniola. While the Spanish used their holdings to mine some minerals, their colony of Santo Domingo was primarily used to support the expansion of Spanish colonies in the mainland and search for the mystical golden city of El Dorado. Thus, there were fewer plantations and slaves in the eastern, Spanish-occupied portion of the island. On the other hand, the French used an extensive system of plantations to export vast quantities of sugar and coffee from their western portion of the island back to Europe. To accomplish this, they imported nearly 800,000 slaves—almost double the amount brought to North America. These French plantations were notoriously harsh with high levels of mortality and violence. 

Ironically, the revolution that led to the end of slavery in Haiti was inspired in part by the ideals espoused by the French themselves in the Declaration of the Rights of Man of the French revolution. The Haitian Revolution was an extremely callous affair, with the French resorting to committing atrocities in an attempt to bring their colony under control, and the slaves doing the same to the white population on the island, regardless of whether or not they were slaveholders. Eventually, after a brutal struggle, the French were driven from the island, marking the first and only time in history that a slave uprising had been successful. 

The end of French control, however, was only the beginning of Haiti’s struggles. Shortly thereafter, in 1825, fourteen French warships armed with a total of 528 cannons arrived off the shore of the Haitian capital. They demanded a staggering indemnity of 150 million francs to compensate for the loss of slaves after independence, threatening military conquest if Haiti did not comply. This was a sum that the nascent nation could not pay off, as the first installment of payments alone was six times Haiti’s national income that year. Thus, Haiti was forced to take out loans from French and American banks with incredibly predatory interest rates; thus, a “double debt” forever shackled Haiti’s economy. The crippling nature of these payments cannot be overstated. By 1911, 2.53 out of every 3 dollars Haitians made went towards paying off this debt. Additionally, a New York Times investigation found that had the payments Haiti made to the French and American banks been invested into its economy from the start, a conservative estimate of at least 21 billion dollars would be added to the Haitian economy, a figure far larger than the nation’s current economy. This would have put Haiti on a trajectory of economic growth similar to that of the Dominican Republic. 

This contrast is visible even from space, where the border between the two nations is marked clearly by the lush forests of the Dominican Republic and deforestation on the Haitian side, a result of the vast quantities of lumber cut down and sold in a desperate effort to pay off the debt. 

This double debt has come to define the Haitian political landscape. After a tumultuous period of Haitian history that included nearly two decades of American military occupation, military control of the government, and the brutal dictatorship of “Papa Doc” Duvalier, Jean-Bertrand Aristide was elected in what was considered the first truly free and fair election in Haitian history. However, Aristide made it a major point of contention that France should pay Haiti back the modern day equivalent of the billions it had extorted from Haiti in the centuries since 1825. The audacity to demand reparations is one the reasons why the subsequent coup that removed Aristide in 2004 is shrouded with suspicion that the United States and France were involved, given that Aristide’s successor promptly withdrew the demand for reparations, and the former French ambassador admitted decades later in 2022 that the two countries had “effectively orchestrated ‘a coup’ against Mr. Aristide”. Since then, the Haitian government has been plagued by political instability and gang violence. 

The tragedy of Haiti is a microcosm of the consequences imperialism has imposed on the Global South. It is a country that never had a fair shot at being a prosperous nation. It is why, to this day, nearly two centuries since the imposition of double debt, hundreds of thousands of Haitians seek a better life in other countries. Centuries of predatory, racist, foreign policy has prevented Haiti from ever having a fair shot at becoming a prosperous nation, and a peek across the border into the Dominican Republic represents what could have been.