Tag: Haiti stamp

90 percent of the schools in Haiti are run by foreigners. The 10 percent of schools run by the government are for the elite and teach a French curriculum designed to prepare the student for overseas university. How is some sort of reform possible when 80% speak Creole. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.

This stamp doesn’t look like much and that is pretty reflective of the then current state of education. Haiti had a desire to design a local education system. However qualified local teachers who get paid regularly is not an asset of Haiti. So what to do? Put some lipstick on the pig and kick the can down the road.

Todays stamp is issue A132 a 1.5 Gourde airmail stamp issued by Haiti on August 12th, 1969. The top three values of the issue were airmail stamps. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 80 cents unused. There is a canceled value implying at least Haiti had a system of airmail at the time. The Haitian postal system is even worse than it’s education system. The last stamp issued that is not considered bogus came out in 2003. In 2000 the last airmail stamp came out in the form of a new surcharge on a stamp from 1968.

Haiti won it’s independence from France in the early 19th century. The new constitution proclaimed a right to a free, compulsory public elementary education. What limited budget there was in Haiti were directed at a few schools for the elite in the capital modeled on French schools so the elite will be prepared for a French or Canadian University. In the early 20th century there was an American occupation of Haiti attempting to collect Haitian debts. The education system was redirected to more Creole areas and instead of book learning concentrated on personal hygiene and farming techniques with American teachers. 10 years after the Americans left, Tuskegee University, a black school in Alabama checked up on how the American schools were doing under Haitian control. They found a return to a French curriculum but unqualified teachers and no books. Interestingly the Education authority actually had gotten written in French a local geography and science textbook.

Things got a little better under the father and son Duvalier regime. Instead of committing money they didn’t have, they simply required the many foreign missionaries to have an affiliated school if they wanted to operate a church. This finally got more children in school. Younger Duvalier also tried instructing  the children in Creole the first year before introducing the French alphabet the second year before teaching in French the third and the last fourth year. This is what was being celebrated on the stamp but ended at the end when the dictator was overthrown.

The interesting thing is that public as well as private local for profit schools charge the student’s parents a fee. For this reason, Haitian schools are jokingly called lottery schools because you buy the ticket and if you beat the odds, your child learns something. A recent President tried to stop the habit at least at the public schools but it did not work. Without the parent paid fee, there was no money coming into the school and it evaporated.

There is a public university in Port au Prince named the State University of Haiti. It got it’s start all the way back in 1860 and according to the brochure it has advanced under a system of trial and error in a backdrop of hardship. Where to sign up?

Well my drink is empty. Perhaps via trial and error we should learn not to overpromise on stamps as they seem so sad later. Come again next Monday for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

When todays stamp was new, Haiti had a new government and perhaps reviewing assets while determining where to go from here. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.

Todays stamp could easily be mistaken for an issue of a British colony transitioning toward independence. Except that the de facto colonial power was the USA. The architecture, all of which are relics of colonists are displayed in the issue. The style of printing was also very much in the American style. The big difference is that the architecture was left over from the much earlier French. Although you would not know it from the stamps, the scenes on the stamps were already in ruins.

The issue today is A53, a 5 centimes stamp issued by Haiti in 1933. The stamp displays an aqueduct built by the French to assist with sugar cane production near Port-au-Price. It was part of a 9 stamp issue showing various architectural sites around Haiti. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents used.

Haiti had gained independence from France during the turmoil of the French Revolution. During the colonial period a large number of slaves had been imported in Haiti to work the sugar cane plantations. An uprising among the slaves had been met with a French decree for their freedom. This being a period of increased interest in human rights arising from the French revolution. The French proved unable to hold on to the colony as many of their troops were freedom fighting Polish troops who en masss switched sides to the mostly black revolutionairies. The French were removed from Haiti and a new constitution was passed that decreed that white people could not own land but that all mixed race people were decreed black. This was an attempt to end a class system that broke down on race. Interestingly the Poles were exempted from this and many stayed after the war.

Things did not go smoothly. Sugar caine exports came to a halt because of the inability to maintain commercial level cultivation without slavery. There was small scale cultivation for local rum. The French did not recognize the new government until payment was extracted for French losses and displacement. This left Haiti in debt. Some recovery occurred over time as Germans came in. They avoided the anti white people laws by marrying in to promenant mulatto families. Around World War I, the Americans occupied Haiti to collect debts and end German influence.

The American occupation saw some advances. A non political civil guard was trained by the American Marines that was different from the previous regional and political attempts at armies. It consisted of black soldiers and mulato officers. This was also soon reflected in the Haitian government left by the departing Americans in the 1930s. The alignment of these Haitian rulers with neighboring Dominican Republic strongmen was useful to the United States. It is understandable that this tended to discredit them with the people and Haiti continued to wither.

The aqueduct on the stamp is now but a ruin. It was further damaged in the earthquake of 2011 and the area was used as a displaced persons camp.

Well my drink is empty. In retrospect, the 30s stamps should have perhaps celebrated local institution building rather than relics from a long ago troubled era. That presumes that something like that was happening. Come again  for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2018.

When we these dictators learn to stop flashing money in these desperately poor countries? This dark skinned First Family fronted for the Creole elite of Haiti. So perhaps living and fronting just like a Creole is not going to get the job done. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.

It is the old conundrum. The first couple did not lack for style. Madame Magliore was glamorous, her children were photogenic and the President was at the ready with an over the top Napoleon style uniform to remind of his military service. This all plays well on stamps but can’t survive the basic question of who pays for this when we are all so poor.

Todays stamp is issue C77 a 1 Gourde airmail stamp issued by Haiti on January 1st, 1954. There were airmail and regular postage versions of this stamp. The tiny airplane in the top right corner and higher denomination denote airmail. The check mark is not an official overstamp but probably applied by the postmaster as part of the cancelation. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 60 cents used.

Yolette Leconte was born to a rich family in Haiti in 1919. At age 17 she married Paul Magloire, a fast rising Army officer 12 years her senior. They had four children. Paul Magloire’s rise was fast because he was corrupt. By 1944 he was head of the military police in Port-au-Prince. In 1946 he participated in a successful coup against President Elie Lescot. Lescot was a member of the small minority of Creoles that are the economic elite. He was close with the USA and Trujillo’s Dominican Republic. This coup was considered hopeful by many in Haiti as it brought a Haitian with dark skin to power. Magloire began to enjoy spoils from both sides of the Haitian racial divide. In 1950 the Creole elite was ready to come back to power but this time they were clever and dashing black officer Paul Magloire was the face of their coup.

The elite being in power stably can lead to some progress. Haiti’s first dam and a new Catholic Cathedral were constructed. Both of course were with outside money but a Haiti that was stable never lacked for outside help. Haiti even began to attract Western tourists including Truman Capote, Irving Berlin, and Noel Cowart. One can image what they were doing in Haiti. Yolette busied herself with shopping trips and the occasional charity photo op. President Paul Magloire had two nicknames either Bon Papa or Old Iron Pants.

The wheels came off the regime due to a woman. No not Yolette but Hazel, Hurricane Hazel. The deadly hurricane was followed by an outpouring of aid from the USA and elsewhere. When that aid did not arrive to those in need, questions were asked. The Magloires did not have good answers to these questions as they stole the money. As the questions turned into riots, the Magloires flew off into exile in New York. After a few years of chaos the Duvalier dictatorship took over and stripped the Magloires of their Haitian citizenship. The exile would be permanent but a comfortable one with their riches intact. Yolette died at age 62 in New York in 1981.

In 1986 the Duvalier line fell in Haiti. Two years later now old man Paul Magloire returned to Haiti. He tried to market his era in Haiti as a golden age. That of course greatly devalues the term golden age but it is Haiti we are talking about. With Haiti’s young population and short life expectancy there were few people who were buying his talk of long ago. Paul Magloire died in Port-au-Prince in 2001 at age 93 in obscurity. The next golden age of Haiti will not be recognized with postage stamps. Their last official issue was in 2003 though there have since been fakes. Haiti can no longer prove a postal service.

Well my drink is empty and I may have a few more while I contemplate the plight of the Haitians. Part of me wants to say you get the leaders you deserve but that just condemns so many to misery. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.