To be an American is to be infused with the plantation South, with its Black vernacular, its insurgency, and also its brutal masculinity, its worship of Whiteness, its expulsion and its massacres, its self-defeating stinginess and unapologetic pride.

In the new world order, capital and property were protected by the death penalty. Human labour was left unprotected. The working man and woman had to manage low pay, hateful conditions, and insecurity of employment. For them, there was neither progress nor improvement.

Over the course of the twentieth century, Haitians, escaping poverty and unrest, sought refuge in the Bahamas as well. It was and remains a deeply stratified place, sitting at a crossroads, with the global elites and their tax havens at the top and poor Haitians living in shanties at the bottom. It is one of the tragic ironies of global history tha