Its a shame that Haiti is still feeling the effects of the French colonization. Its such a beautiful country but its over shadowed by its poverty. Its surrounded by the most beautiful turquoise water that I have ever seen but its being over shadowed by poverty. France for many years extorted it will take a few more centuries to ever recover. Having visited Haiti its hard to ignore the impoverishment of the country. Although my family and I were in the tourist part, there were plenty of citizens begging for money or asking to purchase little trinkets. I do admire the Haitian resiliency in kicking the French out of there and reclaiming their land. Unfortunately it came at a cost. The French imposed a tax that the Haitians could never pay off. Once a rich country, now in deep poverty. As the book illustrates, "Widely regarded as the richest colony in the world, Saint Domingue boasted 8,000 plantations which in the late eighteenth century produced some 40 percent of the worlds sugar and perhaps half of its coffee." The only coveat that I see is that the so-called "wealth" did not benefit the native people. He land was rich but the native people were not. At present day Haiti is still trying to find there way. The neigboring Dominican Republic whom they share the island even with distance themselves from Haiti. Now that a natural disater occurs, there has to have world wide aid to help with the devestation. No thanks to France on assisting.
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