the large plantations which had provided such wealth under France’s rule. The sugar plantations
were largely abandoned, and a shortage of labor in general meant that even the smaller plots of
land were difficult to cultivate. Throughout the 1820s, Boyer came to view immigration,
especially from the United States, as a possible solution, and he worked with American
philanthropists and abolitionists to bring an estimated 6,000 American blacks to Haiti.^61 On a
large scale, however, this plan also failed both for fault of systematic organization and for the
disillusion experienced by black Americans once they arrived in Haiti. Though they hoped to be
independent farmers, they frequently found themselves more as agricultural laborers. In
addition, their linguistic, religious, and cultural differences also led to difficult integration.
Another attempted labor source, mostly in the 1830s, came from slave ships in the Caribbean.
As part of a commercial treaty, the English agreed to bring to Haiti any ships intercepted by their
fleet. Although this measure also proved to be insufficient in solving Haiti’s economic
problems, Haitian essays and historical texts for years to come would celebrate Haiti’s symbolic
role in African solidarity and its political leadership with the abolitionist cause. As was the case
under Dessalines, any person of African descent could, under Boyer’s government, receive
Haitian citizenship, and Haiti played an important role in the 1831 and 1833 summits with
England and France to put an end to these powers’ participation in the Atlantic slave trade. The
journals Le Républicain and L’Union feature articles about Haiti’s calls for abolition, theories of
racial equality, and attacks on colonial exploitation.
The racial unity gestured to the outside world did not, however, negate the colorantagonisms within Haitian society. Along with the Code Rural and the ensuing economic
difficulties, the other problem associated with Boyer’s regime was the increase in divisions
(^61) Chris Dixon, African Americans and Haiti: Emigration and Black Nationalism in the Nineteenth Century (West
Port, CT: Greenwood Press, 2000).