Protesters gather in Montreal holding the Haitian flag and placards advocating for social justice. Image Credits: Dorothy Mombrun
From the United States to the Dominican Republic to the Bahamas, the violence, collective scapegoating, and mass deportation of Haitians lay bare a particular kind of anti-Blackness. Anti-Haitianism not only denies the humanity of Haitians, but originates in tandem with the West’s fears of independent Black states, which were realized first in the Western Hemisphere after the Haitian Revolution.
Originally published in Pambazuka News.
Anti-Haitianism consists of actions, beliefs, outcomes, policies, political strategies, and practices that reify the negative connotations associated with Blackness and Haitian identity. Recent anti-Haitian examples should remind us of this unique anti-Black phenomenon that occurs with systemic regularity in the United States and elsewhere.
On 23 June 2026, a group of Democratic Socialist candidates endorsed by Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani, New York City Mayor, won all of their primaries against incumbent Democrats signaling a political shift towards policies supporting housing for all New Yorkers, the abolition of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the federal law enforcement agency primarily tasked with carrying out President Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda, quality education, and economic security for all New Yorkers.
One race in particular, NY-13, pitted the incumbent Democrat Adriano Espaillat against Darializa Chevalier, a Muslim Afro-Latina Democratic Socialist. Elected to Congress in 2016, Espaillat was the first Dominican American to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives and the first formerly undocumented immigrant elected to the United States Congress.[1]
During the race, Chevalier, born in the Dominican Republic and raised in New York City, was subjected to relentless political attacks by Espaillat loyalists and campaign workers. But it was one attack in particular which angered progressive Americans of Dominican descent, people of Haitian descent, and even Mayor Mamdani: that Chevalier was a Haitian. Specifically, “Haitian” was used by her opponents as a pejorative anti-Black slur to activate animus among Dominican American voters with the hopes of catapulting Espaillat to another primary win. Anti-Haitianism used as a political strategy to garner votes is nothing new. Most recently, in the leadup to the 2024 Presidential election Donald Trump and his running mate JD Vance amplified the white supremacist lie that Haitian immigrants were eating pets in Springfield, Ohio – an election that Trump would win despite his criminal record and the January 6, 2021, coup d’etat attempt at the Washington, D.C. Capitol that he incited.
Then on 25 June 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in Mullin vs. Doe that the Trump administration should move forward with cancelling Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haitians and Syrians. Created in 1990 by the U.S. Congress, TPS provides protection from deportation for people, regardless of legal status, whose countries are unsafe to return to because of political instability, war, natural disasters, and other factors. The homeland security secretary can grant this designation to people from specific countries for a period of six to 18 months; those granted TPS also receive a permit to work in the U.S. with documentation.[2] This decision affects approximately 350,000 Haitians who can potentially be deported once the 32-day window from the June 25 ruling ends. Contrasted with the Trump administration announcement that they would admit up to 17,500 white South Africans (Afrikaners - a group of white South Africans descended from Dutch, French, and German settlers) as refugees this year, the treatment of Haitians can be interpreted as racist and anti-Black.
Anti-Haitianism: Theory and Reality
Why are Haitians repeatedly denigrated, expelled, and humiliated in the United States and across borders and contexts? The use of “Haitian” as an anti-Black slur in a U.S. congressional campaign, the potential ending of Temporary Protected Status and deportation of thousands, the mass deportation of Haitians at the U.S./Mexico border in 2021 (the largest in recent American history), and the 2024 Trump and Vance lie that the Haitians of Springfield, Ohio were eating the pets of its American residents[3] are examples of a larger pattern in which Haitians and people of Haitian descent are rejected when they migrate and exist in other countries due to their race (Black) and their nationality (Haitian). The continued marginalization and exploitation of Haiti and its citizens are also part of this pattern. I refer to these phenomena under the larger category, theory, and reality of anti-Haitianism.
Anti-Haitianism, a stigma which follows Haitians where they migrate, of course, is not limited to the United States. It is a regional and hemispheric phenomenon and its repeated occurrences reflect its structural qualities. Within scholarly and informed circles, the best-known example of this form of political domination, marginalization, racism, and anti-Blackness is in the Dominican Republic. In his study of race and politics, political scientist Ernesto Sagás analyzes how Dominican political elites use race and antihaitianismo to “construct national myths and then use these myths to stymie challenges to their hegemony.”
As Sagás explores, the national myth undergirding Dominican statehood was that the Dominican Republic was the most Spanish colony in the so-called New World. After Haiti’s occupation of Santo Domingo from 1822 to 1844 which liberated enslaved people, guaranteed Haitian freedom and independence, and culminated in Dominican independence, the Dominican Republic solidified its distance from Blackness and Haitian identity. Antihaitianismo then developed as an ideology based on anti-Black prejudices, stereotypes, and myths about Haitians and people of Haitian descent. Antihaitianismo, Sagás writes, scapegoats Haitians for problems within Dominican society and considers Haitians to be culturally and racially inferior Black sub-humans.
Antihaitianismo was violently on display in Dominican society in the 1937 genocidal massacre of tens of thousands of Haitians at the orders of Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo. More recently, in 2013, the country’s highest court issued a ruling, locally known simply as la sentencia, that not only upheld a constitutional amendment that abolished birthright citizenship but also retroactively stripped the citizenship of more than 200,000 Black Dominicans of Haitian descent, rendering them stateless. Beginning in 2015, tens of thousands were forced out of the country. Now, Dominican President Luis Abinader has announced plans for a new round of mass deportations.
In my forthcoming book, Anti-Haitianism in Paradise: Marginalization, Stigma, and Anti-Blackness in The Bahamas (2027), part of the “Black Lives and Liberation” series from Vanderbilt University Press, I build on Sagás’s work and use anti-Haitianism to articulate the unique form of oppression Haiti and people of Haitian descent experience. In other words, I am wrestling the idea and reality of anti-Haitianism in the Dominican Republic, applying it to varying social contexts, and broadening the theory to explain what anthropologist Gina Athena Ulysse in reference to the racist treatment and degradation of Haitians in other parts of the world refers to as “the rejection of a certain kind of Black.”
Anti-Haitianism in The Bahamas
The Bahamas, a small, predominantly Black Caribbean archipelago nation, also has a history of anti-Haitian actions. Haitians have migrated there since the era of the Haitian Revolution (1791-1803). Yet on 9 November 2019, members of a Bahamian nationalist group called Operation Sovereign Bahamas protested outside a gymnasium housing hundreds of victims of Hurricane Dorian. The devastating Category 5 hurricane hovered over Grand Bahama for 24 hours starting on 1 September 2019, flooded much of the island, and mostly submerged the Abaco Islands, rendering these areas uninhabitable. Haitians who had been living in informal settlements in Abaco were displaced.
The Free National Movement (FNM)-led Bahamian government at the time stated that no one would be deported. But not too long after this announcement, Attorney General Carl Bethel called for migrant storm victims who lost their jobs to go home even though the work permits of some, which regularized their legal status in the country, had not yet expired.[4] During a visit to Abaco, then Bahamian Prime Minister Hubert Minnis dramatically kicked a door at an informal settlement.[5] This forceful display came after the prime minister announced in his first address to parliament after the hurricane that “we will eradicate shantytowns…I send a notice to illegals that they can leave voluntarily, or they will be forced to leave.”[6] According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM)’s Giuseppe Loprete, the chief of the IOM’s mission in Haiti, 228 Haitian migrants were then repatriated to Haiti after 11 November 2019 with 153 of those migrants from hurricane-ravaged Abaco, many of which lived in informal settlements (shanty towns). While these actions received some criticism from local and international human rights organizations such as Rights Bahamas and the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights organization, these actions and the news received less attention and criticism internationally.
The Origins of Anti-Haitianism
How did anti-Haitianism begin in the first place? I argue that anti-Haitianism, a foundational hemispheric form of anti-Blackness, can be traced to the inception of Haiti and all that the creation of Haiti birthed. The founding of Haiti as the world’s first free Black Republic in 1804 occurred after a bloody and violent revolution (1791-1803), which, at the time, was unanticipated and unsuspected by the Saint-Domingue planter class, the political left of France and England, and other actors. The late anthropologist Michel-Rolph Trouillot argued that the events of the Haitian Revolution were “unthinkable” in the framework of Western thought.[7] The Haitian Revolution inspired admiration, resistance and hope for Black people who were chattel slaves. It spawned unrest throughout the Caribbean region, in maroon communities in Jamaica and St. Kitts, and throughout the slaveholding South of the USA. And as historian Michael O. West and sociologist William G. Martin argue, the founding of Haiti gave birth to Black internationalism in the sense that Haiti served as a model of Black liberation for other enslaved Africans.[8] Black internationalism is an ideology rooted in a consciousness of—and a commitment to—the global Black struggle for freedom. A common sense of identity, specifically Blackness, emerges from this context. Active resistance is the key to understanding and defining Black internationalism, which is why the Haitian Revolution and the formation of independent Haiti represent the origins of Black internationalism, as historian Brandon Byrd observes.[9] But, as I argue here and in my book, the birth of Haiti went hand-in-hand with the birth of anti-Haitianism, the reality of this provocative statement becomes clearer when we view the practices, policies and actions which sought to limit and undermine the power and potentialities of the fledgling Black nation.
As a colony, Saint Domingue, the area that became present-day Haiti, was referred to as “the pearl of the Antilles” because it was one of the greatest wealth-producing colonies in history – mainly due to sugar production. How does a territory go from being “the pearl of the Antilles” during colonial times to becoming “the poorest country in the Western hemisphere,” as the mainstream media so often reminds us, in the 21st century? The answer lies partly in the earliest manifestations of anti-Haitianism.
At its inception, Haiti was surrounded by white-led colonies and nations whose economic and societal functioning was based on the enslaved labor of Africans and threatened by the newly formed Black nation’s existence. And with good reason. The late historian Julius S. Scott shows with great detail how word of the Haitian Revolution was spread throughout the Atlantic world by runaway slaves, pirates, free people of color, market women, maroons, and other figures.[10] The Haitian revolution also spawned unrest elsewhere, including inspiring Denmark Vesey and other enslaved Africans to agitate, conspire, organize, and plot towards freedom from bondage in Charleston, South Carolina. The revolution also influenced other Western Hemispheric liberation movements as essayist and political commentator Pascal Robert observes.[11] Venezuelan military and political leader Simon Bolivar, for example, went to Haiti in late 1815 and early 1816, specifically visiting Haiti on December 28, 1815, and arriving again on January 1, 1816, seeking aid to fight Spanish colonial rule. Bolivar asked for military assistance and material support from Haiti’s then President Alexandre Petion. Bolivar then used those Haitian connections to liberate colonial territories from Spanish rule.[12] Fear of Haiti exporting its revolution led the British and other powers to contain the fledgling Black nation.
We can use anti-Haitianism as a theoretical lens to reanalyze Haitian history and to understand how different historical events have contributed to the formation and durability of anti-Haitianism. For example, after the founding of Haiti in 1804, a series of anti-Haitian global manifestations took place that undermined the fledgling nation’s sovereignty and put the country on a path of enduring economic and political challenges that persist today. From 1804 to 1825, post-revolution Haiti was not recognized diplomatically by the United States nor France, its former colonial master. But in 1825, to gain diplomatic recognition and secure entrance to a larger, transnational trade arena, Haiti acceded to an anti-Haitian agreement with France. What made this agreement anti-Haitian was that instead of Haiti and Haitians being compensated with reparations for years of unpaid forced labor (chattel slavery) and death at the hands of the French and Saint-Domingue colonists, Haiti was forced to pay France reparations for losses sustained as the result of the Revolution.
In other words, this type of economic cruelty, imposed in exchange for diplomatic recognition, was unique to Haiti. Historian Leslie Alexander writes that the French government sent a team of accountants to Haiti to place a value on all lands and physical assets, including the 500,000 citizens who were formerly chattel slaves, and declared the value at 150 million gold francs, an ordinance issued by King Charles X of France, which in contemporary terms equated to well over $20 billion.[13] President Jean-Pierre Boyer agreed to make the payments to avoid a French invasion. Although Haiti gained diplomatic recognition from this extortive agreement, the debt of 150 million francs, 10 times the annual revenue of Haiti at the time (Robert 2013), hampered the young nation’s development.[14] The accompanying high interest loans from French banks for its servicing lasted until 1950. Capital that could have been used to develop infrastructure and other diverse nation-building projects went to servicing the debt. This debt was paid to France for 97 years from 1825 to 1922.[15] Overall, this “independence debt” frustrated the reconstruction and transformation of the conditions of Haiti as well as other Black nations and Global Africa. The French leaders also positioned themselves as anti-Haitian alongside other Western forces, like the United States of America.
Conclusion: Embracing the Humanity of Haitians
An important aspect of the Haitian revolution that has been silenced in Western historiography, and is central not only to struggles in the past but also to the struggles of Haitian people and other people of African descent in the 21st century, is that the revolution demonstrated that Black people (people of African descent) are human beings with the right to live dignified lives, not sub-human animals as white supremacist and racial logics dictated at the time and dictate in the contemporary period. Haiti became the first nation in human history to articulate a general principle of common, unqualified equality for all its citizens. Common and unqualified equality for all citizens was absent and purposely unresolved in the American and French revolutions and was not embodied in the Declaration of Independence or the Declaration of the Rights of Man. The fundamental concept of a common humanity also ran deeply through early versions of Haitian constitutions. African people living in bondage outside of Haiti were inspired to self-manumit and agitate for their freedom from the psychological and physical violence to which they were subjected, including regularized disposability. White people depended on Black bondage for their own prosperity and colluded to deny freedom to slaves but also to deny the growth and prosperity of the nascent island nation of Haiti.
Therefore, when actions occur that adversely affect Haitians and other Haitian-descended peoples, it requires analysis and resistance to the incessant disrespect and degradation that has come to characterize the Haitian experience throughout the Western Hemisphere. When the organizing body of the 2026 Winter Olympic games ordered the Haitian participants to remove a revolutionary Haitian historical figure from their uniforms, it is an affront to the radical Black history of the Haitian revolution, a humanizing revolution, and reflects a form of symbolic anti-Haitianism. The Bahamas case is an example of Black-sponsored anti-Haitianism reflecting the realities of hierarchicalized Blackness and how Black people can be the architects and beneficiaries of anti-Black policies and actions. Anti-Haitianism in The Bahamas results in the statelessness of thousands of Bahamian-born people of Haitian descent.
Therefore, to reduce the harm that anti-Haitianism causes Haitians, Haitians must resist and work against it. Additionally, Haitians need allies and co-conspirators to aid in their seemingly never-ending quest for dignity and equality. Plátano Progressives in the US,[16]Bahamian co-conspirators for equal rights for Haitians, and allies of Haitians in the US (Congresswoman Pressley and others fighting to save TPS) are vital. Haitians must also draw from their rich cultural heritage to combat and resist the relentless dehumanizing propaganda that adversely affects them that is evident in media forms, policies, and throughout the Western hemisphere.
In closing, the harm that anti-Haitianism causes can be reduced but first it needs to be identified, challenged, and combatted before there is any hope in defeating it.
Bertin M. Louis, Jr. (Ber-tin Em Lou-ee, Junior) PhD is Professor of Anthropology and African American & Africana Studies (AAAS) and Director of Graduate Studies (Anthropology) at the University of Kentucky.
Endnotes
[1] https://www.adrianoespaillat.com/about
[2] https://www.npr.org/2026/06/29/g-s1-130942/temporary-protected-status-program-explainer-supreme-court
[3] https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/watch-trump-amplifies-false-racist-rumor-about-ohios-haitian-immigrants-in-debate
[4] Rashad Rolle, “Attorney General Tells Migrants Who Lost Jobs in Storm to Leave Country,” The Tribune, September 30, 2019. http://www.tribune242.com/news/2019/oct/01/attorney-general-tells-migrants-who-lost-jobs-stor/?fbclid=IwAR35I9la9KfEC1xzzTEPHztj-iF4vQPe8NdnJb3vOd8cX5gzPdj_P0KPxsM.
[5]
[6] Khrisna Russell, “PM Kicking Down Door was ‘Not a Good Impression,” The Tribune, October 8, 2019. http://www.tribune242.com/news/2019/oct/08/pm-kicking-down-door-was-not-good-impression/.
[7] Trouillot, Michel Rolph. Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History, 82.
[8] West, Michael O. and William G. Martin, “Haiti, I’m Sorry.”
[9] Byrd, Brandon. The Black Republic: African Americans and the Fate of Haiti, 4.
[10] Scott, Julius S. The Common Wind: Afro-American Currents in the Age of the Haitian Revolution.
[11] Robert, Pascal. “The Importance of Haiti,” 2013. https://blackagendareport.com/content/importance-haiti.
[12] Ibid.
[13] Alexander, Leslie. Fear of a Black Nation: Haiti and the Birth of Black Internationalism.
[14] Robert, Pascal. “The Importance of Haiti,” 2013. https://blackagendareport.com/content/importance-haiti.
[15] Alexander, Leslie. “A Pact with the Devil? The United States and the Fate of Modern Haiti,” February 2011. https://origins.osu.edu/article/pact-devil-united-states-and-fate-modern-haiti?language_content_entity=en.
[16] https://www.instagram.com/dr.saudi__/
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