April 4th 2025,

Today is the last day of classes!

Canadian history was just a prep class for the final, going over the structure of the exam which was identification and an essay. The identification part was exactly like the midterm, he provides us with terms/events/concepts and we have to detail them regarding the whole/what/where/when/how. He is the type of professor that also does not require specifics, and if we forget a name or date we can just describes the person or the time period. The essay was new but he would give us a list of topics to choose from.

French Revolution was the only class left that had an actual lecture and this is mainly because this course does not have a final exam, it also did not have midterms, only quizzes. The “final” is a research paper. Anyway, the lecture began with the 1802 betrayal where France repeals the abolition of slavery and re-opens the slave trade. Saint-Domingue is not specifically mentioned in the decree but the re-opening, alongside finding out about Napoleon’s secret instructions regarding Toussaint, just confirmed the fears of black colonial subjects and sparked the most violent phase of independence. Saint-Domingue rebels against France again when Toussaint dies in prison (due to severe neglect). Yellow fever decimates the French forces and a racial war is waged against all sides in 1803. She softly mentions that maybe what happened to the white people in Haiti during this time was a genocide, some academics say it is but she doesn’t necessarily support that hypothesis (nor does she oppose it).

Now we get into Dessalines, I was worried he wouldn’t be mentioned which is a silly thought since you cannot talk about Haiti without talking about him. He was Toussaint’s successor although Toussaint distrusted him. He turns on French allies after they renege on abolition and he leads the black army to victory (there were atrocities on both sides and a lot of extermination rhetoric). The Haitian flag was created, it removes the white of the French flag and keeps the red and blue which represented unity of Haiti’s mixed-race and black populations. On January 1, 1804, Napoleon is thwarted by Dessaline’s forces and an independent Haiti is founded, the name comes from the Taino-Arawak. Although Haiti was able to get independence, its Caribbean neighbours were not so lucky. She then makes a comparison to Napoleon as Dessalines went from a victorious general to an emperor. Is this comparison fair?

After Haiti’s victory Napoleon gives up on a North American empire and just sells Louisiana. Because of this embarrassing loss, France demands “indemnity” from Haiti is exchange for recognition. In 1825, two decades of extortion, Haiti agrees to pay. More like forced to pay reparations to the loser, they had to borrow interest payments from French banks which pretty much amounts to ransom, Haiti is also unable to declare bankruptcy either. The liberty bond is considered the greatest heist in history ass Haiti was forced to borrow 30 million Francs from France Banks to make its first payment on a 150 million indemnity. This is just a cycle of debt bondage as Haiti’s “draconian” taxes were used to pay off interest instead of being invested in education, healthcare, and infrastructure in its first 150 years of independence. The Citadelle was built to protect the island from any future French invasions and it reflects the “precarity of existence” and the military origin of Haiti.

This debt is still an issue to this day and she shows us a Haitian bumper sticker that demands restitution for the debt. In 2003 Haiti was the first country to demand reparations; France rejects this but acknowledges the “moral” debt but not “material.” This rejection was supported by the USA, which makes sense because if it supported France paying reparations that would mean the US would also have to ope their own can of worms. In spring 2022 the New Yorks Times did a piece on “Haiti’s lost Billions.” Taubira Law, brought in 2001, had France formally acknowledge the slave trade as a crime against humanity. The law requires slavery as a topic in the school curriculum and established Slavery Remembrance Day.

Although my work placement was completed, the course itself was not and I had to do a presentation on my time a the agency I was assigned to and what the projects we had to do were. I cannot detail much of what I said I did make some mild, minor, jokes poking fun at my lack of public speaking skills. When I was finished a student told me I needed to give myself more credit considering at the beginning of the semester I absolutely refused to even answer a question, now I am doing a presentation.

My professor tried to courage others to ask my questions so I wasn’t let off the hook but nobody did, so I jokingly said “I think they’re letting me off the hook.” When I went to sit down my professor did ask me what challenges I would face if I was conducting an oral history of the town I researched. I said my main problem would be the lack of sources since most of the people involved are dead, and I also do not want to get jumped (the people of that town tried really hard to bury their communist past). After everyone was done with their presentations my professor asked me if I would be willing to send him my project write up as he was very interested in it.

So that’s the end of classes for semester 6 but I have one more post left as some weird stuff happened the day of my final exams. Yes, I had two finals back to back.