Say you lead an impoverished country with no international patrons. You've just ejected slaving colonists from the island, but they do not recognize your independence.
What do you wake up each morning worrying about? Re-invasion. A local French population lobbying France to return and restore their property rights is not a minor inconvenience.
War is cruel, especially colonial war.
What they reflect is that now, the current narrative is biased, because we purposely leave outside of the story specific parts, and this can't be attributed to chance.
Assuming that's true, it's good evidence that journalists should stick to journalism and stay out of writing history. I like the NYT, but it seems like they've lately been taking themselves too seriously and wading into activities where they are not competent. IMHO, if they want to do projects like this, they should commission actual historians to write them.
They say that journalism is the rough draft of history. There's not much good in creating a rough draft for something that happened 230 years ago, and more than likely has better coverage elsewhere.
> Yes, we have rendered to these true cannibals war for war, crime for crime, courage for courage [should be “outrage for outrage”]; Yes, I have saved my country – I have avenged America. The avowal I make of it in the face of earth and heaven, constitutes my pride and my glory. – Of what consequence to me is the opinion which contemporary and future generations will pronounce upon my conduct? I have performed my duty; I enjoy my own approbation; for me that is sufficient. But what do I say? The preservation of my unfortunate brothers, the testimony of my own conscience are not my only recompence [sic]: I have seen two classes of men, born to cherish, assist and succour one another – mixed, in a word, and blended together – crying for vengeance, and disputing the honor of the first blow.
His “Liberty or Death” Proclamation: https://haitidoi.com/2013/08/02/i-have-avenged-america/
Read the article for yourself, it skips right over the 1804 Haiti massacre, which reduced the French population from thousands to nearly zero. In contemporary terminology, we call that a genocide.
> Assuming that's true, it's good evidence that journalists should stick to journalism and stay out of writing history.
Yeah, this isn't their first foray into politically motivated "historical" work. The 1619 Project somehow won a Pulitzer despite being widely panned by historians. This looks like more of the same.