2 Gourdes

Haiti's financial position in the 1880s was strained by the indemnity payments still being made to France — the infamous debt first imposed in 1825 as the price of diplomatic recognition. The Banque Nationale d'Haïti, established in 1881 with French capital, had a troubled relationship with the government from the start, and small-denomination notes like this one circulated in an economy where public trust in paper instruments was perpetually fragile.

The American Bank Note Company's involvement reflects a broader pattern of Haitian authorities contracting New York engravers rather than European ones during this period — a deliberate distancing from French financial influence, even as Paris held the purse strings on the debt.