Code Rural of 1826

The Code Rural of 1826, promulgated under President Jean-Pierre Boyer, was Haiti's most comprehensive attempt to bind rural workers to agricultural production after independence. Modeled in part on French labor codes, it restricted peasant mobility, required cultivators to remain on plantations, and established a system of rural policing. It was widely resented and only partially enforced. The code represents the conflict between the Haitian state's desire for export-oriented agricultural production and the peasantry's preference for subsistence farming on small plots — a conflict that defined Haitian political economy throughout the nineteenth century.