Thanks so much for your comment. Perhaps the link to the dissertation below may help you and others in searching for a familial and historic CONNECT to Haiti.

Dr. Sara Connors Fanning wrote a fascinating dissertation that resonates the topic we are discussing, the historical and familial connections between Blacks in the US and Blacks in Haiti,

Her dissertation is entitled “Haiti and the U.S.: African American Emigration and the Recognition Debate” Her opening paragraph reads,”

“My dissertation examines the cultural, political, and economic relationship between Haiti and the United States in the early nineteenth century—a key period in the development of both young nations. Most scholarship on this relationship has revolved
around either the Haitian Revolution or later periods, from the mid-nineteenth century onward. Through trade, migration, and politics, the two countries had a more substantial role in one another’s formative years than the literature currently suggests.”

I wish that CNN and various media outlets had known about Dr. Connors Fanning body of work. As I mentioned in an earlier post, after Haiti’s tragic earthquake, the history of the island focused on the Revolution and little else.

Dr. Fanning connects the fascinating but little explored history with Haiti. Her research presents three- dimensional African American people who emigrated to Haiti in the 1820’s. Although their motivation may seem apparent to us, Fanning details their economic expectations and the trades they brought with them to Haiti.

There’s a much larger story about politics, trade and US vs. Haiti. So please read and enjoy a complex history described so eloquently by Dr. Connors Fanning.

Unfortunately the African American emigration to Haiti was not a success. Many of them returned to the US.

However, this dissertation includes their names and descriptions, ship names and the US port cities where they returned. So if you are searching a Yancey, a Graham, a Clarkson or Green etc., perhaps you may find an ancestor on the referenced list.

If you find an ancestor, please let us know!

K Wyer Lane