It cost about $1.5 million ($44 million today) to build the Eiffel Tower in 1889. Yet that amount pales in comparison to how much money France took from Haiti in order to build it.
It was 1875, and Haiti was almost done paying off its reparations to France. (Yes, you read that right, reparations.) France had billed Haiti for 150 million francs 50 years earlier, in exchange for Haiti’s independence. With only 12 million francs to go, Haiti had to take out a bank loan to clear the debt.
A French bank took a cut from that loan, and used it to help fund the construction of the Eiffel Tower. And Haiti doesn’t just deserve a thank you for (involuntarily) helping build one of the most popular tourist landmarks in the world; they also need their money back.
Paris’ tourism economy is ranked first in the world, valued at $36 billion, and it’s frustrating to even think about how much of that money came from France choking Haiti’s economy to death.
Haiti’s economy isn’t failing because of what Haitians have done, but because it was never truly set free from the grip of France’s colonialism. In other words, because of reparations Haiti didn’t stand a chance. This goes to show that the world we know today couldn’t have been built without our people.