The Misrepresenting of History

This post is late in the terms of the comment, but it is still important item to bring up. Evangelical Pat Robertson in a comment about Haiti said,

ROBERTSON: [S]omething happened a long time ago in Haiti and people might not want to talk about it. They were under the heel of the French. Napoleon the Third and whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, “We will serve you if you get us free from the prince.” True story. And so the devil said, “OK, it’s a deal.” They kicked the French out, the Haitians revolted and got themselves free.

But ever since, they have been cursed by one thing after the other, desperately poor. That island of Hispaniola is one island. It’s cut down the middle, on the one side is Haiti, on the other side is the Dominican Republic. The Dominican Republic is prosperous, healthy, full of resorts, etc. Haiti is in desperate poverty. Same island.

They need to have, and we need to pray for them, a great turning to God. And out of this tragedy I’m optimistic something good may come. But right now, we’re helping the suffering people and the suffering is unimaginable.

Robertson does not have any information on his claim. I pulled out my old College World Civilization and Latin American History textbook to find the true story. The Latin American textbook argues that Haitian independence came from the French Revolution. The idea for a people to revolt for independence came from the mother country. The leader of this revolt Toussaint L'Ouverture a mulatto was an ex-slave. Even though L'Ouverture led the revolt it was not him who declared independence, but his lieutenant Jacques Dessalines who declared independence from the French in 1804.

Robertson’s comment on the ruler of Haitian Independence is not Napoleon III, but Napoleon. There were not any pacts with the Devil in Haitian Independence. The hope that people see that an impoverished country needs help and not for the short term. We as Americans need to help people of Haiti instead of coming up with reasons why the disaster happened.

Like always links and cites are at the bottom.

http://thinkprogress.org/2010/01/13/robertson-haiti/

Philip J. Adler, World Civilizations, 3rd ed., (Belmont CA, Wadsworth/Thompson Learning, 2003) 178.
Benjamin Keen, and Keith Haynes, A History of Latin America, 7th ed. (New York: Houghton Mifflin Company,2004) 159.