What a warped version of history
The Aug. 21 letter to the editor that you published (“Haiti seems to have forgotten its own history”), by Robin Reid, is profoundly and disturbingly historically uninformed, leading to a sort of white nationalist misinterpretation of historical events.
Gen. Jean-jacques Dessalines came into a position of power through his leadership in securing Haitian independence through the largest and most successful slave revolt in history. While, as in the First World War, disease probably killed more people on both sides of the conflict than those that died directly in fighting, it was that slave revolution that caused Napoleon’s army — the strongest in the world — to surrender, not disease in the French army. To say that Napoleon sent his armies to Haiti to “restore order” makes his mission sound noble, but in reality it’s hard to find nobility in a mission to restore an “order” which includes the enslavement of Africans, including their torture, rape and murder, with impunity.
Reid asks for an apology for the killing of several thousand French people. Why not ask for an apology from France for the enslavement of Haitians, which probably killed hundreds or thousands of times more innocent people? Reid notes that Dessalines is celebrated in Haiti, implying, falsely, that he is celebrated for slaughtering white people, rather than for proudly leading the country from the tyranny of slavery to independence. Reid also implies, deceitfully, that Haitians crossing from the U.S. to Canada are seeking asylum from the U.S. Let’s be clear: they are refugees from Haiti who fear deportation to Haiti under the Trump administration. They are not refugees “from the U.S.A.” Amazingly, this short letter also attempts to minimize the suffering of native populations in Canada, implying, again falsely, that their suffering ended 400 years ago.
Reid writes “those who do not know history are at a bigger risk of having its misfortunes visited upon them.” It’s a pity that Reid is one of those who does not know history — or, at least, who chooses to present a chillingly incomplete and horrifyingly misleading version of it.