It's true that the loss of Saint-Domingue, as the French called their colony, was a huge blow to their interests in the "New World". But in fact French chances of dominating the North American continent had been scotched almost a half-century earlier by defeat in the Seven Years' War (known in America as the French and Indian War). Hopes of meaningfully linking and settling French territory from the Gulf to Canada were put an end to then, by the British victory in Quebec and the fall of strategic forts like Frontenac and Duquesne. US settlers were moving into the gap before the end of the century: the states of Kentucky, Tennessee, and Ohio were admitted to the Union in 1792, 1796, and 1803 respectively.
All of which takes nothing away, imho, from your point that Haiti has been a scandalously neglected and mistreated country since it became the first independent black republic in history.
My Significant Other was forced to eat grass to survive after US troops had come to her parents farm in the mountains of Haiti and pre-emptively culled all their pigs because of fear that American soldiers could bring a pig desease back home to Wisconsin. Her family was never paid for their loss and suffered hunger because of it.
Read also (16 years after the fact!):
2 Mar 2006 16:45 GMT
...Grassroots International, joining forces with a national peasant movement, to reintroduce the Creole pig to Haiti after the United States, to protect its own swine industry following a 1980 outbreak of swine flu, pressured Haiti to kill its entire pig population. "The USA appears destined by fate to plague America with misery in the name of liberty." Simon Bolivar, Caracas, 1819
Creole pig:
"The USA appears destined by fate to plague America with misery in the name of liberty." Simon Bolivar, Caracas, 1819
