1 Gourde

The Banque Nationale d'Haïti was a peculiar institution — nominally Haitian, but established under a concession granted to French banking interests in 1880, with the actual management firmly in Paris. This 1883 note was produced at a moment when Haiti's public finances were under severe strain, partly from the ongoing debt service obligations tied to the 1825 indemnity France had extracted as the price of diplomatic recognition.

ABNC's involvement was typical of the period — Port-au-Prince lacked the infrastructure, and Latin American and Caribbean governments routinely contracted New York or European security printers for their fiduciary issues. The bank's concession would be renewed and contested repeatedly before American occupation in 1915 restructured the entire system.