U.S. Elite and Haiti Elite

When our founding fathers fought the Revolutionary War and won, an American elite of rich, white males replaced the British elite of rich, white males.  White, Anglo-Saxon ethnocentrism and oppression against Native Americans, African slaves, women and the poor continued; the Revolution, supposedly fought for freedom for all, did not end ethnocentrism and oppression.

Much the same thing happened in Haiti.  Haitian oppressors replaced French oppressors.  The plantation/slave economic system the French established---sugar and coffee as export crops---and the taxation system set up, tariffs on exports and imports, was continued by the victorious Haitian General Dessalines.  Apart from garden crops for subsistence, there was no other economic system---only the one the French had established.  There was no other taxation system for the new Haitian government to use to buy arms to prevent the French from reinvading Haiti. Neocolonials continued the economic and tax system the French colonialist had set up.

Next, some quotations from the book Haiti: State Against Nation:

"Up to 1802, in the name of the state, revolutionary generals brought back into cultivation many plantations abandoned by their white owners, encouraged white planters to remain on others, and imposed on a population devoted to the peasant labor process a repressive labor system the Haitian historians have baptized ("militarized agriculture."). To the newly liberated masses, the work regime instituted by the revolutionary state was not so different from the slavery they thought they had left behind."

"The leaders wanted export crops; the [peasant] cultivators wanted land and food.  The leaders wanted a country with plantations expanding on hundreds of acres; the cultivators dreamed simply of larger garden crops."

"If Haitian leaders showed contempt for the [peasant] masses, European and U.S. leaders showed contempt for all Haitians, leaders and masses alike, and a total disdain for the independence they had so courageously won."

"Haiti was an agricultural exporter, yet imported primarily agricultural products. . . .  It was a country born of a revolutionary war, yet one subordinated to the military powers of Europe and the United States."

During the 1700s, the French colonists set up an export-import oriented economy; the same with the tax system.

During the 1800s, the Haitian elite, generals, dictators continued the same economic and taxation system.

During the 2000s, Haiti imports around 50 percent of its food, and most of its taxes come from customs duties.

Conclusion

1.  The oppressive historical past haunts the sociological present.
2.  In most cases, systems of oppression don't really end; they merely get redesigned and run by new oppressors.