Haiti has remained the least-developed country in the Americas. It is an impoverished country, one of the world's poorest and least developed.

In July 1825, the king of France Charles X sent a fleet of fourteen vessels and troops to reconquer the island. To maintain independence, President Boyer agreed to a treaty by which France recognized the independence of the country in exchange for a payment of 150 million francs (the sum was reduced in 1838 to 90 million francs) - an indemnity for profits lost from the slave trade. The French abolitionist Victor Schoelcher wrote ‘Imposing an indemnity on the victorious slaves was equivalent to making them pay with money that which they had already paid with their blood.'

A long succession of coups followed the departure of Jean-Pierre Boyer. National authority was disputed by factions of the army, the elite class and the growing commercial class, now made up of numerous immigrants: Germans, Americans, French and English.

From 1915 On
The United States occupied the island from 1915 to 1934. From 1957 to 1986, the Duvalier family reigned as dictators. Turning the country into a hermit kingdom, with a personality cult, and