A president’s insult cannot erase a people’s history.
On Saturday, October 24, 2026, President Donald Trump revived his derogatory language during a campaign rally in Perry, Georgia, ahead of the U.S. midterm elections. After naming Libya, Yemen, Haiti, and Somalia, he referred to them as “shithouse countries,” invoking the controversy surrounding similar remarks reported from a 2018 White House immigration meeting.
This time, the insult was delivered publicly from a campaign stage. A president used the suffering and instability of other nations as material for an electoral attack. Haitians have every right to answer that contempt with facts, dignity, and historical memory.
The lesson begins with a question: before dismissing Haiti, has the current occupant of the White House learned what Haitians have given to the world?
When German migrants needed help, Haitians opened their doors
In his 1842 book, Brief Notices of Hayti, British visitor John Candler described a ship from Bremen carrying 170 German emigrants bound for New Orleans. Wrecked near Point Isabella, its passengers arrived at Cap-Haïtien distressed, with belongings lost, some ill, and many lacking food.
Candler recorded what happened next: Haitian authorities arranged accommodation. Beds and furnishings were brought in. Medical practitioners offered assistance. Residents supplied food and clothing. He visited buildings housing the survivors and observed the care they received.[2]
These strangers spoke another language. They came from another continent. Their need was enough to move people to help.
There is a lesson here for anyone who treats migrants’ vulnerability as proof of their inferiority: Europeans, too, have arrived on unfamiliar shores frightened, hungry, and dependent on others’ kindness.
Haitians met that need with practical compassion.
Historian Walter D. Kamphoefner separately documents the 1840 wreck of the Alexander and German survivors who subsequently continued to New York, Ohio, and Missouri. Haiti became a place of refuge along some German immigrants’ journeys to America.[3]
That history stands on its own. It needs no invented connection to a president’s family.
Haiti also became a home
German settlement in the territory now called Haiti began before independence. In the 1760s, under French colonial administration, German settlers established themselves at Bombardopolis. Their early experience included devastating disease and hardship; agriculture and trade subsequently helped the community develop.[4]
That distinction matters. The colonial settlement was not a policy of an independent Haitian government. A later decision, however, belonged to independent Haiti.
The 1805 Constitution explicitly recognized naturalized Germans and Poles within its citizenship framework. Born from a struggle against racial slavery, Haiti made room for people of European origin in its new national community.[5]
The constitution had exclusions and reflected a violent, complicated revolutionary era. Its recognition of those citizens nevertheless challenges the idea that Black sovereignty necessarily meant the rejection of every white person.
In the nineteenth century, German merchants developed businesses and family connections in Haiti. Their commercial influence became substantial. Historian Brenda Gayle Plummer’s work describes a German merchant presence important enough to become entangled in rivalry between Germany and the United States.[6]
Haiti was a place where foreigners could find customers, relationships, livelihoods, and opportunity. Haitian producers, workers, consumers, and families helped make that success possible.
One family account makes those connections personal. Christina Schütt, writing about her grandfather Carl Otto Schütt, traces the family’s Haitian presence to 1839. She describes generations of business ties, friendships, and attachment to the country. After World War II, Haitian friends sent him care packages in Germany; he eventually returned to Haiti with his family.[7]
This is one family’s testimony, not the experience of every German settler. Its human meaning is clear: Haiti could be the home someone longed to return to.
Respecting Haiti requires telling the difficult history, too
The relationship was never simply a story of welcome and gratitude.
German commercial influence also existed alongside imperial pressure. In the 1897 Lüders affair, Germany used warships and an ultimatum to force concessions from Haiti. Later, American fears of German influence helped justify the U.S. occupation of 1915–1934.[6]
We can honor friendship between people while condemning coercion by governments. We can recognize immigrant enterprise while acknowledging unequal power.
Haiti deserves a history told honestly. Its dignity does not depend on making every chapter flattering.
America should remember Savannah—and Louisiana
The United States also has reasons to remember the people of Haiti with respect.
In 1779, free men of color from Saint-Domingue, the French colony that later became Haiti, served in the Franco-American campaign at Savannah. The City of Savannah’s archives identify approximately 545 members of the Chasseurs-Volontaires in the expedition. They supported the American cause, and members of their regiment died there. The assault failed; their service remains part of America’s struggle for independence.[8]
Before Haiti became an independent nation, men from its soil were already contributing to the fight for American liberty.
The Haitian Revolution later helped reshape the United States itself. French defeat in Saint-Domingue undermined Napoleon’s American ambitions and contributed to the Louisiana Purchase. The U.S. State Department’s own historical account recognizes that connection.[9]
Haitians fought for their own freedom. Their victory also helped create circumstances from which the United States benefited enormously.
In 1816, President Alexandre Pétion supplied Simón Bolívar with arms, ammunition, provisions, and support for his independence struggle, pressing him to abolish slavery. Haiti contributed to a liberation movement whose consequences extended far beyond its shores.[10]
Haiti has been a giver of refuge, assistance, and possibilities.
A history lesson for the White House
Mr. President: a nation’s wealth does not give its leader permission to degrade another people.
Discuss Haiti’s problems seriously. Examine the failures of Haitian leaders and the actions of foreign powers. Debate policy with evidence. But reducing an entire country to a vulgar insult dishonors the people living through its difficulties.
Remember the Haitians who opened accommodation for stranded Germans.
Remember the families who made room for newcomers, the friendships that crossed oceans, and the soldiers from Saint-Domingue who served the American cause.
Haitians love. We work. We raise children, care for neighbors, build businesses, and carry responsibilities across borders. We demand better for Haiti because we know what our people deserve.
Our right to dignity would remain even without a single historical contribution to another nation.
But the contributions are there.
Haiti has welcomed strangers, sustained families, and helped advance freedom beyond its shores. A president who speaks about us should first have the humility to learn that history.
Sources
1. Associated Press/PBS, December 9, 2025, Trump publicly acknowledges the slur. The specific alleged October 24, 2026 repetition was not independently verified and is not asserted here.
2. John Candler, Brief Notices of Hayti (1842), p. 22, “Hospitality of the People,” digitized volume. Candler’s claim that no lives were lost differs from the Dothage family history discussed by Kamphoefner; this article does not assert a casualty total.
3. Walter D. Kamphoefner, “Uprooted or Transplanted? Reflections on Patterns of German Immigration to Missouri,” p. 71, State Historical Society of Missouri.
4. Association de Généalogie d’Haïti, “The Germans in Saint-Domingue”.
5. Julia Gaffield, “Race and the Haitian Constitution of 1805,” University of Pennsylvania Libraries.
6. Brenda Gayle Plummer, “The Germans in Haiti,” An Island Luminous, Florida International University.
7. Christina Schütt, “Carl Otto Schütt’s Story,” German American Internee Coalition. A family recollection, identified as such in the article.
8. City of Savannah Municipal Archives, “Unexpected Partners in the Pursuit of Liberty”.
9. U.S. Department of State, Office of the Historian, “The United States and the Haitian Revolution, 1791–1804”.
10. Jacques Nicolas Léger, Haiti: Her History and Her Detractors (1907), Part I, Chapter XI, including correspondence between Bolívar and Pétion.
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