This chapter, the last in Part I, is devoted to Haiti; it is unusual for two reasons. First, although other chapters stopped at the end of the nineteenth century, this one ends with the US invasion in 1915. The period immediately preceding the US occupation, which lasted until 1934, was a crucial period in Haitian economic history and has to be included here. Second, it is the only chapter in Part I devoted to a single country – this requires an explanation.

Haiti was the first independent country in the Caribbean and, with the exception of the Dominican Republic, would remain the only independent country for the whole of the nineteenth century. Thus, it is of interest to see how an independent country fared in comparison with the surrounding colonies. Second, modern interpretations of Haiti tend to be based on a misunderstanding of its performance before the US invasion, it being often incorrectly assumed that Haiti was the poorest country in the region from independence onwards.

Decolonisation today is generally seen in a positive light, because it is expected to increase the resources open to a country, allow for greater national control over the instruments of economic policy and improve the chances of exploiting the opportunities created by the international division of labour. However, the situation was not so clear-cut in earlier times. The United States, for example, struggled for many years after the War of Independence (1775– 1783) to regain the trading position in the Caribbean it had previously enjoyed as thirteen British colonies. The Navigation Acts and tariff discrimination held back its development, and hostility with the UK at the beginning of the nineteenth century led first to President Jefferson’s imposition of a trade embargo and later to outright hostilities in the War of 1812.