In association with the Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slavery, University College London (UCL) continues its series in honour of the late trailblazing Caribbean Studies scholar, Elsa V. Goveia. The March 2026 event, with guest speaker Prof. Charles Forsdick, is a reflection on colonial economic legacies and how these have (mis)shaped Haiti’s development over the centuries.

Introduced by UCL History Professor Matthew J. Smith, the lecture is presented as a ‘snapshot’ of the guest speaker’s work on the former French colony. Forsdick avers ruefully that the case of Haiti ‘allows a certain understanding of the afterlives of slavery’.  He simultaneously warns against commemorative events as an end in themselves – a fait accompli to assuage the (neo)colonial conscience – whilst suggesting that we should look to the past to inform the reparative policies of the present.

Later, amongst several themes addressed during the Q&A, Forsdick admits his lecture title should have been followed by a question mark rather than a full stop. Discussion about what forms reparative justice could or should take for Haiti are ongoing.

Forsdick is keen to call to attention the seldom-discussed historical links between the UK and Haiti, including the doomed attempt to take over what was then known as Saint Domingue in 1793. British forces were roundly defeated by disease and the guerrilla tactics overseen by ex-slave-turned-freedom-fighter and Haiti’s founding father, Toussaint L’Ouverture.

Forsdick decries the ‘historical amnesia’ related to both Britain’s imperial ambitions in the nascent Haitian Republic, as well as that of former colonial power France.  Erstwhile right-wing French president, Jacques Chirac, apparently suffered a memory lapse about the country’s stronghold over the Caribbean island, indicative of what Forsdick describes as a disavowal of France’s colonial transgressions.

‘…Haiti has never really been a French colony, but we have effectively enjoyed, for a long time, friendly relations with Haiti in that most notably we share the use of the same language…’ Jacques Chirac, 2000.

Forsdick nevertheless considers that the political omerta has become less deafening in the intervening years, citing numerous memorials to the Haitian Revolution across Paris alone. The introduction of L’Ouverture into the Panthéon in the late 1990s, has probably more to do with the French establishment wanting to appropriate and absorb his achievements into the national narrative of revolutionary spirit, rather than unreserved recognition, Forsdick concedes.

From its inception, a free Haiti was beset by threats within and without; hanging in the balance between being re-colonised by the French or Spanish and internal divisions. It was Haiti’s second president, Jean-Pierre Boyer who mortgaged the country’s economic destiny to France in 1825 by way of a debt repayment which effectively punished the Caribbean island for self-liberation.

This was the coup-de-grâce by a malevolent confluence of counter-revolutionary forces on and beyond the island. Western states, especially those with imperial interests, treated Haiti like a pariah state after the conflicts that ended in its hard-fought freedom. 10 times the country’s GDP, the so-called indemnity took well over a century to repay and came to be known (controversially) as a double-debt. A fledgling nation, the Haitian state was pressured into borrowing from French banks and eventually the US to cover payments of the original ‘indemnity’, hobbling the country’s social and economic development. The continuing aftershock of this grave historical injustice is well documented.

Like most stories, that of Haiti’s has abounded with contradictions. The historical ties with its former coloniser are hidden in plain sight across the Hexagon, says Forsdick. Princeton professor, Nick Nesbitt claims that both decolonisation (through the revolution led by Toussaint and others, including several women) and neocolonialism (through the aforementioned Western-led debt racket) were invented in Haiti.

In 2025, current French premier, Emmanuel Macron launched a bilateral commission on the impact of the ‘double-debt’. If it sounds good on paper, it’s likely to be little more than a sticking plaster – or ‘car park’ measure, as Forsdick calls it – given that there are no concrete efforts towards wealth restitution for Haiti. Moreover, considering Macron’s attitude towards France’ military interventions in former African colonies, and other comments related to historical reckonings, doubt is understandably cast on his sincerity.

However, sometimes too charitably, Forsdick regards this as a far cry from the days of Chirac or even Nicolas Sarkozy.  The various legal proposals and commissions on Franco-Haitian relations, Forsdick argues, are at least helping to mainstream the history of the first Black republic in France and beyond. He is favourable towards drawing a direct link between the French and Haitian revolutions as a means of dispelling much historical ignorance.

Furthermore, Forsdick expresses tentative hope in regards to Haiti’s claim for reparations. He believes that cases brought under France’ contentious Taubira Law (2001), recognising slavery as a crime against humanity, could be a potentially fruitful line of enquiry. Perhaps even more significant, former Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide has made a decent argument for the quantifiability of compensation from Western states which have enriched themselves at Haiti’s expense. If these claims were to succeed eventually, it would have far-reaching ramifications for other ex-colonies. For that very reason, the idea of reparations is vehemently resisted in some powerful quarters.