The plundering of Haiti

“Haiti was, on the eve of the French Revolution, the richest of the Euopean colonies, for it accounted for no less than two-thirds of the overseas trade of France. Its wealth, drawn from the plantations of sugar, cotton and coffee, was derived from the merciless exploitation of half a million slaves. This island has always reeked of cruelty. The Spaniards exterminated a million natives before they had recourse to the Afican slave trade. The French were able organisers, but they, too, relied on the lash and reckoned that it paid to work a negro to death in seven years.”.
— H. N. Brailsford, Observer, June 17th, 1945.