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Comment by boomboomsubban | Hacker News Reader

The 1804 Hatian Massacre was a tragic event that killed about 5000 whites. For the century of slavery in Saint Dominique, around 10000 slaves a year died due to the oppression of slavery. So why did the French deserve revenge and not the Hatians?

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> why did the French deserve revenge and not the Hatians?

Nobody deserves revenge. We deserve justice. But slavery and massacres are fundamentally unjust. Revenge perpetuates cycles of misery—that’s the story here.

Everybody deserves justice, but some people deserve justice more than others.

Do the Tutsis "deserve revenge" against Hutus for the Rwandan Genocide, including women and children and Hutus who had nothing to do with the killing? According to your logic, yes. Fortunately for all involved, a counter-genocide in Rwanda was avoided. 30 years later Rwanda has comparitively low levels of corruption, high tourism, good international relations, and a rapidly developing economy. Compare that to Haiti in 1834, or Haiti today.

You're the one who seemed to be saying the French deserve revenge based on the 1804 massacre. I find the treatment of slaves in Haiti, the massacre, and the indemnity to all be abhorrent acts that should never have happened.

And I don't get your further point. The Hatians taking revenge is what caused their problems, despite the French also taking revenge without similar problems?

I think you’ve mistaken my point for something it’s not. The “revenge” demanded by the French was financial indemnity, hardly equivalent to genocide. As it happens, I also don’t think the Haitians should ever have agreed to pay it (not worth diplomatic recognition in my view), but I do understand why the French were upset after the bloody and unnecessary Massacre of 1804. That doesn't mean they deserved revenge, but it does explain their motivation. The desire for such a harsh indemnity cannot be understood without this context, which the article and OC left out. The massacre and its consequences had profound effects on Haiti’s early development and international relations.

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