First Vintage Books edition (1984), recently reissued.

pp60-61. “The planters were not anti-monopoly. They wanted monopoly as much as the Spanish King, but monopoly in their interests. There was one aspect of monopoly which the planters not only accepted but advocated and wished to reinforce. That was the colonial monopoly of the Spanish sugar market. The bete noire of the Spanish colonials was Brazil. The sixteenth century struggle for the control of the world sugar market was waged between Spain and Portugal. The Bishop of Santo Dominique (Haiti-my edit) and the Judge of Hispaniola (the entire island – my edit) pleaded the cause of the planters in 1540. They urged that the importation of sugar from ‘other kingdoms of Spain’ should be prohibited, and that permission to take sugar to Spain should be conceded to all the ports of the King of Spain’s dominions, or at least to Flanders. The Council of the Indies was favorably disposed, but in the following year the Emperor was content to request the Council to take advice on the matter and give him its views on the question of prohibiting sugar imports from Portugal.

Next in importance to the Seville monopoly from the colonial standpoint was the monopoly of the slave trade. The planters opposed the system of licenses and asientos, and advocated free trade. They opposed also the religious limitations with which the Spanish Government had originally hemmed in the slave trade. In 1517 the Geronomite Fathers in Hispaniola begged the Spanish Government to issue general licences for the importation of slaves from West Africa into the West Indies: ‘We beg you to grant this, and to grant it soon, because these people are driving us crazy about it and in our opinion they are right.’ They were not the last people to be driven almost out of their minds by the question of slavery.

A year later the fathers went further. They urged that permission should be granted for the fitting out of ships to the Cape Verde Islands and Guinea, either from Hispaniola itself or by anyone in any part of the Spanish dominions. Ten years later, Cuba asked for the same facility, permission to fit out ships for Guinea. In 1519 the Court of Hispaniola recommended that, in order to facilitate the introduction of the largest possible number of Negroes in the shortest possible time, an asiento should be made with the King of Portugal. In 1536 the request for a Portuguese asiento was repeated. In 1527 certain planters in Hispaniola submitted to the Emperor a project regarding population, in which they urged that each planter should be allowed to introduce on hundred males slaves and one hundred females. The planters complained regularly of the high prices charged by the asientists.”

Who are now the planters, the slaves, the Emperor? The present is sometimes much simpler than history. But seldom so revealed.

As shit poor as the people are, they still make a profit for snakes when they are forced to buy US grain

Above linked program aired on April 21 and should be accessible via this Archives link (though, possibly because of high server loads, it might not always work during peak usage times).

the link isn’t working for me

What do the Haitians have that the U.S. and other countries want?
Is it about location or resources?
What are the reasons for the 2004 coup?