In the earliest part of the 19th Century, Napoleon had determined to try and retake French military control of Haiti. Napoleon had had a dream of expanding the French Empire in North America. For this dream to be realized, Haiti was essential. This was because the retention of Haiti as a French territory was understood as the key military link for defending the huge territory of Louisiana, an area encompassing 2 million square kilometers.
After 1802, as Napoleon and his military cronies came to understand that France's dream of rebuilding the French Empire around the globe had been greatly diminished by the military successes of the mulatto- and black (former slave) rebels of Hispaniola, Napoleon began to change his plans for conquest. He turned his back on a North American Empire and began to plan more wars with many of his European neighbors.
http://www.gatewayno.com/history/LaPurchase.html
To their joy and surprise, Napoleon was not only willing to sell the city of New Orleans to the U.S.A., but he was willing to sell the rest of most of France's North American Empire: the Louisiana Territory.
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By 1804, the U.S. Congress had voted to accept that purchase of the entire 800,000 square miles of the French owned-Louisiana Territory for 15 million dollars. This purchase immediately created massive migration movement westward across the Mississippi River.
Ideas of American manifest destiny grew and a march to the Pacific Ocean was on!
HAITI's SECONDARY EFFECT ON PRE-CIVIL WAR HISTORY
Well, despite the fact that for decades and centuries Haitian-government-after government was being toppled time-and-again (from the early 1800s till today, 2010), Haiti continued to play a haunting role for those who supported the idea of slavery in America until the 1860s.
Haiti, by its very existence as a nation of freed-slaves who had militarily rebelled and overthrown their masters, posed a direct threat to the ideals of U.S. Southern state identity, and its continued existence threatened constantly the entire Southern Society as it progressed right up to the actual American Civil War in 1861-1865. (In response to fears of being isolated politically, southern society and slavery proponents eventually sprang across the Mississippi River from the Southeast corner of the USA to the territories Texas and Arkansas in the decades after the Louisiana territory was purchased by the U.S.A.)
As some historians note, "[i]t was not until 1862 that the United States [actually] acknowledged Haiti's independence. The country had become a dangerous symbol of redemption for African peoples, of racial equality and most unforgivable of anti-colonialism. So Haiti became a pariah, excluded from the family of nations and trapped in a time warp where there was little room for progress. Haitians were thought to be incapable of self-government because they were black. In fact, Haiti may yet prove to be ungovernable."
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GET TO KNOW REAL U.S. HISTORY WITH ITS NEIGHBOR, HAITI
Ian Thomson writes, "Democracy could hardly arrive overnight for a people whose ancestors were snatched from Africa to slave for Europe. Duplicity or cunning are considered heroic virtues in Haiti. To overcome your adversity is the great affair in life and the pity of the country is that it thrives on the survival of the fittest."
Such a narration of history misses the point. Randall Robinson points out, "The American people know almost nothing about what happened in 2004, about the abduction of President Aristide, about the destruction of Haiti's democracy as a result of the efforts of both the United States and the French government. We need to know that."
This contrasts with the right wingers, like Rush Limbaugh, who blame the former dictators of Haiti for the current earthquake, etc.
Robinson also says, "And in the last analysis, Haitians have at their disposal a vigorous, creative, industrious and successful community in the United States, in France, in Canada. The Haitian Diaspora is very much engaged with Haiti. They need to be given an opportunity to help Haiti rebuild itself. [Meanwhile] we need to go away from what we've been doing in support, a sort of an unconditional support, for wealthy Haitians that are running sweatshops in the country, that pay people appallingly low wages. That is not the way to any bright future for Haiti. And that is that -- the idea that former President Clinton has been advancing for Haiti. I think it is sad. It can't work. It won't work. It will brew a further resentment of the United States."
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