Abstract
This paper analyzes the controversy which, during the long period from 1880/82 until 1908/10, opposed Frederic Marcelin first to the Banque Nationale d´Haïti (BNH) and later to the Banque Nationale de la République d´Haïti (BNRH); these institutions were actually also part of «La Société Générale et de Crédit Industriel et Commercial» (SGCIC), and of «La Banque de l’Union Parisienne» (BUP). The study presents the positions that Marcelin adopted towards the creation of these institutions, taking into account their speculative actions as well as the monetary regimes adopted during this period and the problems raised by the loans contracted by the successive governments on the international financial market. Finally, Marcelin also objected to the mechanisms through which these banking institutions helped the central government engage in numerous extraordinary expenses, which made the total expenses grow faster than government income. The study indicates however that Marcelin was not always consistent in this opposition. But this study does not underestimate the impact of his initiatives to confront the general policy of these two banking institutions which enjoyed the status of «state banks» while they were actually, according to international commercial law and the private banking legislation, corporations established in a foreign nation.The study is based on the research of the two banks´ archives and also of Marcelin´s memoirs, which are composed of roughly 15 publications, as well as numerous press articles that he wrote about the two national banks and the different political and economic conjunctures which greatly affected the country during the
XIX th century.