In this episode of Diaspora: The Soul of a People, Marie Stuppard explores the long history behind charcoal in Haiti and asks listeners to rethink one of the country’s most misunderstood environmental stories.

“Chabon: Smoke, Soil, and Survival” begins before colonization, in Aiti — the Taíno “land of high mountains” — where fire was already part of cultivation, cooking, and artistic expression. From there, the episode traces how French colonial rule transformed a balanced relationship with the land into a system of extraction, stripping forests for plantation wealth and leaving behind damage that independence did not erase.

Marie connects that history to the indemnity Haiti was forced to pay after 1804, showing how debt, foreign pressure, and limited economic options helped turn charcoal into a survival fuel for rural communities. She also examines the present-day charcoal economy: who profits, who labors, who breathes the smoke, and why the burden falls so heavily on producers, market women, and poor households.

The episode also looks forward, highlighting Haitian-led alternatives such as sugarcane bagasse briquettes and community-based reforestation efforts that make living trees more valuable than cut ones. This is not just a story about fuel or deforestation. It is a story about indigenous knowledge, colonial violence, economic survival, public health, and the resilience of Haitian people navigating systems they did not create.

This episode is for listeners interested in Haitian history, diaspora studies, environmental justice, Caribbean politics, postcolonial economics, and sustainable development.