5 Gourdes

Haiti's 1880s paper currency was issued under severe fiscal strain — the country was still servicing the indemnity debt imposed by France in 1825, a 150-million-franc obligation extracted in exchange for diplomatic recognition that consumed a significant share of state revenues well into the late nineteenth century. The Banque Nationale d'Haiti, chartered in 1880 with French capital, operated under concession terms that gave its Paris-backed shareholders considerable control over the national treasury.

Imprimerie Viligoranique G. Richard et Cie is among the more obscure French security printers of the period — not one of the major houses like Bradbury Wilkinson or Giesecke & Devrient — which itself reflects the constrained options available to a bank operating on thin capitalization from the start.