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Wednesday, January 20, 2010

My only stamp (or any other object) from Haiti, apart from a stamp series with birds (I forgot about them) :)



A lot of blood has been spilt on the soil of Haiti, during history...
When Haitians fought for the independence of their country, about 100,000 of them died in battles.
Then...hurricanes
Then...earthquakes.

The crab in the stamp is red...like the blood of hundreds of thousands of Haitians - fighters and victims.

Priests say that God can do anything and everything.
How about giving the Haitians a break from further "acts of God"?
--------------------------------------------
Napoleon Bonaparte vs. Haiti:
"Independence When the French government changed, new members of the national legislature, lobbied by planters, began to rethink their decisions on colonial slavery. After Toussaint l'Ouverture created a separatist constitution, Napoleon Bonaparte sent an expedition of 20,000 men under the command of his brother-in-law, General Charles Leclerc, to retake the island. Leclerc's mission was to oust l'Ouverture and restore slavery. The French achieved some victories, but within a few months, yellow fever had killed most of the French soldiers. [17] Leclerc invited Toussaint l'Ouverture to a parley, kidnapped him and sent him to France, where he was imprisoned at Fort de Joux. He died there in 1803 of exposure and tuberculosis [14] or malnutrition and pneumonia. In its attempt to retake the colony, France had lost more than 50,000 soldiers, including 18 generals[18]





Battle between Polish troops in French service and the Haitian rebels. Some Polish soldiers became sympathetic to the natives' cause and joined the Haitian rebels. [19]
Slaves, free gens du couleur and allies continued their fight for independence after the French transported L'Ouverture to France.
The native leader Jean-Jacques Dessalines – long an ally and general of Toussaint l'Ouverture – defeated French troops led by Donatien-Marie-Joseph de Vimeur, vicomte de Rochambeau, at the Battle of Vertières. At the end of the double battle for emancipation and independence, former slaves proclaimed the independence of Saint-Domingue on 1 January 1804,[20] declaring the new nation be named Haïti, to honor one of the indigenous Taíno names for the island.
Haiti is the only nation born 
of a slave revolt. [14] Historians have estimated the slave rebellion resulted in the death of 100,000 blacks and 24,000 of the 40,000 white colonists. [21]"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haiti




Read "Haiti: Survivor stories" and shed a tear, or more:


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8459090.stm



The postcard was printed in Germany; I have a few more stamps from this Haiti issue, with Audubon drawings of birds.

1 comment:

  1. This quite a powerful post Dorin. You did a tremendous job writing it!

    ReplyDelete

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