Haiti's debt story cannot be reduced to one invoice and one debtor. Haiti's early international debt history included the coercive French indemnity and financing used to meet associated obligations.
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The burden extended beyond a single payment, involving external creditors and choices forced by diplomatic pressure. External finance compounded the original coercive demand.
Modern discussions of restitution require distinguishing documented transfers, estimates of lost opportunity and normative judgments. Restitution debates need careful figures as well as ethical judgments.
A counterfactual can reveal scale without pretending to know an alternate history. Counterfactual calculations can illuminate magnitude, but cannot establish with certainty what Haiti's economy otherwise would have become.
What would a defensible standard of historical justice look like?