Who are the Polish Haitians?

It isn't immediately obvious why there would be a centuries-old connection between Poland, a country in Eastern Europe, and Haiti, the western half of the Caribbean island of Hispaniola. However, a community of people exist in Haiti who are descended from Polish soldiers sent there by Napoleon to quell a slave uprising, but rather than fighting them, joined with them to defeat the French attempt to reimpose slavery and subsequently stayed on Haiti to become the 'Polone Nwa' - the 'Black Haitians.'

Timestamps:
0:00 - Intro
1:07 - Decline of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
2:11 - Russia, Prussia and Austria
2:54 - First Partition of Poland
3:06 - Prusso-Polish Alliance
3:53 - Second Partition of Poland
4:08 - Kościuszko Uprising
4:36 - Third Partition of Poland
4:49 - International Politics
5:12 - Magellan TV Ad
5:54 - Rob Brydon!
5:58 - Magellan TV Ad
6:36 - Polish Legions
7:23 - Shipment to Haiti
8:10 - Defection to the Rebels
10:04 - Victory
11:42 - Memes
11:58 - The First Polish Haitians
13:36 - Polish Influence on Vodou
15:10 - Polish Haitians Under the Devalier Regime
17:05 - Recent Polish-Haitian Connections
17:33 - Polish Culture in Modern Haiti
19:30 - Outro

Music Used:
Expeditionary - Kevin MacLeod
Suonatore Di Liutto - Kevin MacLeod
Bossa Bossa - Kevin MacLeod
Infadoes - Kevin MacLeod
Rites - Kevin MacLeod
Energizing - Kevin MacLeod
Galway - Kevin MacLeod
Sunday Dub - Kevin MacLeod

#Haiti #Poland #Polska

[rapportbuildingfirst]

Fun side note, Australia's highest mountain is named 'Mt Kosciuszko' after the Polish hero. It was named by Polish explorer Paul Strzelecki (who also gets a mountain chain named after him in the country) in 1840..., Poland may have been off the map at the time but Polish heritage was still alive and well.

[synkkamaan]

My man slaying that Polish pronunciation!

[vercettti]

İ read about Polish soldiers in Russian army fleeing and joining the Caucasian resistance against Tsar. God bless Polish people and respect from an Abkhazian. And ofc the Polish warrior Janusz Godava who raised the first Abkhazian flag in Sukhumi at 1993.

[noulafrantz]

Great content I am Haitian respect to the Poland 🇵🇱 people for helping haiti 🇭🇹 won their independence no one in this world no matter what color you are should be slave

[joanignasi]

I find it fascinating that seemingly unrelated peoples due to a set specific circumstances managed to find common cause, I would love to hear more about other people like that in the future.

[theodoreroosevelt]

Polish viewer here, i appreciate a lot that you try to do nice pronunciation of polish surnames.
i know it's hard but you do it quite well, thank you a lot, it's very cute of you

[Artur_M.]

This is such an awesome video, even better than I expected.
I might add two random fun facts:
1. Polish General Władysław Franciszek Jabłonowski, who died in Haiti from yellow fever in 1802 was in an ironic twist of fate half-Black himself (look it up).
2. Polish soldiers appeared in Haiti yet again in 1994, as the special forces unit GROM took part in Operation Uphold Democracy.

[rosspuch]

Greetings from Poland to our Haitian brothers and sisters.

[hgfw]

I'm just happy Polish soldiers demonstrated their disagreenment with slavery and switched the colours into Haitian. Really proud of that!

[jaysonemile]

Im Haitian american and my dad says we have some polish blood. He is from cazale haiti and a lot of people from my dads side do look different from the average Haitian. So I took a DNA test and get my results in about 2 weeks I might make a video about my results

[Mattteus]

So the Polish helped the independence of Haiti and the US. Pretty cool

[Dan-yrzn]

You should do a video of the Polish-Chinese state of Jaxa, its absolutely bizarre and greatly interesting but almost never mentioned in history.

[stanleydouge]

That’s probably why on my ancestry test I had some Slavic DNA I’m Haitian that’s interesting the government need to invest more in Cazale

[ragnargrabson]

Super interesting video. Poles learned how to adopt and improvise in order to survive thanks to its complicated and quite often tragic history. It is not incident that Polish anthem states: "Jeszcze Polska nie zginęła póki my żyjemy" or "Poland has not died yet while we are alive."

[rogerdines]

This definitely will bear a second viewing, but thank you so much for digging around in such an obscure corner of history: the sad history of both Haiti and Poland deserve to be better known.

[yvanguillaume]

Excellent historical research. I've seen various videos about Cazale and was stunned to see the Polish descendants who are now purely Haitians in their mannerisms, I left the country in 1981. Haiti has as much of a rich history as its share of unfortunate trouble.

[SurMikasMetinPL]

Make a film about the "Polish king of Madagascar" - also the local people proclaimed him their king. A very interesting story :P

[Darkdragon]

Hello from Montreal
Haitian community is huge in Montreal, it was a thing that really got me wondering: What do some have Slavic/Polish surnames. You demistified it for me 🙂

[rodgachelin]

As a Haitian American with Polish ancestry (through my Dad's side of the family in the town of Fond des Blancs, this was a great video! More video like this one is vital to learning the FULL history, not just the cliff note version. Thanks again! Great video!

[arthurimona]

Dang this was nice. I'm not polish by heritage, but definitely by heart. I came to really admire their intelligence and courage during their oppression by hitler, however i'm learning a lot more, and it just makes me proud of them. We even have a highway called Boluminski Highway on the island of New Ireland (probably the oldest in Papua New Guinea). Boluminski of course, obviously is a polish name. Great video! Much love from Polska!