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 Haiti |  United Kingdom |
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Haiti–United Kingdom relations refers to the international relations betweenHaiti and theUnited Kingdom. The Embassy of the United Kingdom inPort-au-Prince is accredited to Haiti, as is the British Embassy and Ambassador inSanto Domingo,Dominican Republic, while Haiti has an embassy inLondon and a consulates-general inProvidenciales inTurks and Caicos Islands. While the two countries have maintained formal diplomatic recognition since 1859, the United Kingdom has maintained de facto diplomatic relations since Haiti's independence in 1804. The two countries maintain a maritime border between Haiti and the British-governed Turks and Caicos Islands.
After both the onset of theHaitian Revolution in 1791 and theFrench declaration of war on Great Britain in 1793, thegrands blancs in Saint-Domingue, unhappy withSonthonax, arranged with Britain to declare British sovereignty over the colony, believing that the British would maintain slavery.[1] The British prime minister,William Pitt the Younger, believed that the success of the slave revolt in Saint-Domingue would inspire insurrections in the British Caribbean colonies. He further thought that taking Saint-Domingue, the richest of the French colonies, would be a useful bargaining chip in eventual peace negotiations with France, and in the interim, occupying Saint-Domingue would mean diverting its great wealth into the British treasury.[2]Henry Dundas, 1st Viscount Melville, who was Pitt'sSecretary of State for War, instructed Sir Adam Williamson, the lieutenant-governor of theColony of Jamaica, to sign an agreement with representatives of the French colonists that promised to restore theAncien Régime, slavery and discrimination against mixed-race colonists, a move that drew criticism from abolitionistsWilliam Wilberforce andThomas Clarkson.[3][4] The British government would send less trained adolescents to maintain strong regiments. The incompetence of the new soldiers, combined with the ravaging of disease upon the army, led to a very unsuccessful campaign in Saint-Domingue.[4]
After Sonthonax declared the abolition of slavery in Saint-Domingue, revolutionary leaderToussaint Louverture shifted his loyalties back to the French against both the British and the Spanish. The American journalist James Perry notes that the great irony of the British campaign in Saint-Domingue was that it ended as a complete debacle, costing the British treasury millions of pounds and the British military thousands upon thousands of dead, all for nothing.[5] On 31 August 1798, Maitland and Toussaint signed an agreement whereby in exchange for the British pulling out of all of Saint-Domingue, Toussaint promised to not support any slave revolts in Jamaica.[6]
Eventually, after the arrest and deportation of Toussaint, the British allied with the Haitian revolutionaries and enacted anaval blockade on the French forces. Dessalines led the Haitian revolution until its completion, when the French forces were finally defeated in 1803.[7]
After the assassination of Dessalines, the country spiraled into civil war, and bothAlexandre Pétion andHenri Christophe submitted rival treaty proposals in 1807 to the British government to gain diplomatic recognition and economic relations. Through English abolitionistThomas Clarkson, Christophe was able to make an agreement with Britain that Haiti would not threaten its Caribbean colonies; in return theRoyal Navy would warn Haiti of imminent attacks from French troops. Christophe also provided British merchants lowerimport duties, though during theCongress of Vienna in 1815 theBritish government agreed not to prevent France's actions by "whatever means possible, including that of arms, to recover Saint-Domingue and to subdue the inhabitants of that colony".[8][9] While most independent European nations, their colonies and the United States prohibited trade with Haiti, the British carried out formal trade relations with Haiti throughout the earlier 19th century.
Haiti and the United Kingdom formally established diplomatic relations on 13 May 1859, with the United Kingdom becoming the second country afterFrance to recognize Haiti as an independent, sovereign country.[10] Thomas Neville Ussher was appointed as the first British Chargé d'Affaires and Consul General to Haiti.[11]
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