When Toussaint Louverture died as a prisoner in France in 1803, the hope for a Republican, Democratic Haiti died with him. Jean-Jacques Dessalines, the other leader of the Haitian Revolution followed the ill-example of Napoleon and steered the country away from a democratic republican regime to an imperial monarchic one. In 1804 he ordered the genocidal massacre of all white Haitians who were prevented by black Haitian authorities from fleeing the country. 5000 men, women and children were killed by the black Haitian army and only those women who consented to marry black army men were spared.
Only some Polish soldiers of the French army, some German colonists and a handful of doctors and other liberal professionals survived. The entirety of white Haitians was eradicated. Since the vast majority of the population consisted of former African slaves with no formal education or literacy, Dessalines deprived the ne nation of its intelligentsia which would have been instrumental in pulling the country together and providing their expertise and their knowledge to the bulk of black Haitians. Â
The country was forced to rely on the skills and knowledge of the limited caste of free-colored Haitians (offspring of White slave-owners and female African slaves). Many of them fled to New Orleans (10,000) along with black Haitians who were horrified by the genocide.
These massacres turned the public opinion of the USA, Europe and the Americas hostile towards Haiti, depriving it of resources, trade and any kind of diplomatic relations which further ruined the country.
The country was then divided between a neo-feudal monarchy in the north and a republic in the south. Later on, in 1821 Haiti invaded Santo Domingo (now called Dominican Republic) and reunified the island under Haitian rule but Dominicans, who were of Spanish culture resisted the occupation for many years and started an uprising that expelled the Haitians.
Because Haiti had provided logistic assistance of Simon bolivar in his struggle for the liberation of South America from Spain and had also invaded Santo Domingo, Spain was also hostile to the country and practically all the Western world was, with the exception of the Americas. Â
Had the genocide of the white Haitians not taken place, Haiti would have proved the world that a slave revolt did not result in the automatic eradication of former white slave owners. This white intelligentsia would have been instrumental in sharing its skills to the masses of former black slaves helping the country develop. The free colored Haitians would have also contributed to uplift the new country and the emigration of the most competent segments of the population would have saved the nation.
