A Brief History of the Island of Saint-Domingue (Haiti) & the Slave Trade
Haitians were inspired by the news of the French Revolution as it filtered into the colony of Saint-Domingue. The slaves grew steadily more and more discontent with their way of life. There were three phases of the Haitian revolution. The first phase was a rebellion against their white masters. Phase two comprised of a discontent for inequality between the slaves and their white owners. Finally, phase three was against the existence of slavery itself (Dubois, 2004, p.3).
Saint-Domingue was a prosperous island. France had three main regions on the island of Saint-Domingue: Le Cap, Port-Au-Prince, and Les Cayes. Port-Au-Prince was Saint-Domingue’s capital even though Le Cap was a larger city. Its main and busiest port was Le Cap. Then, Le Cap was similar in size to Boston. It contained the most slaves, coffee, and sugar plantations. Le Cap and Port-Au-Prince were separated by a mountain range. In 1787, a road was completed allowing the travel between the two cities. Les Cayes was the last to be populated by the French. Since it bordered the British colony of Jamaica, illegal trading occurred there often. Les Cayes was also inaccessible to the other major cities since it is divided by highest mountain range in the Caribbean. (Dubois, 2004,p.24-28). Slaves made up the majority of the population in all three provinces of Saint-Domingue. Saint-Domingue was founded in the 1600’s by the Spanish. Slavery was outlawed in the colony in 1793. It is estimated that 650,000 slaves were transported into Saint-Domingue in the eighteenth century. Death during transportation was common and approximately 100,000 slaves died during what is referred to as the middle passage. Dubois claims that the number of slaves’ death is probably higher due to the fact that a large number of slaves deaths were never reported (Dubois, 2004,p.39).
Amazingly, the figures mentioned above are the tip of the iceberg. Dubois goes on to mention that in the 1730’s in between 10-20,000 slaves were imported to the Saint-Domingue colony every year. By 1780, this figure rises to 30-40,000 every year. Due to poor records the exact number of slaves imported to the island of Saint-Domingue is not known. However, Dubois estimates the figure to be in between 850,000 and 1 million. The island of Saint-Domingue alone accounts for approximately 10% of the entire bulk of the Atlantic slave trade; which was between 8 and 11 million slaves imported to various colonies around the world (Dubois, 2004,p.39). Slave death on the slave ships was not the only place they died. About half the slaves who survived the trip to the island of Saint-Domingue, died within the a few years of arriving. Every year it is estimated that 5-6% of the slave population died in the colony. When revolution finally broke out, 2/3 of the slave population in Saint-Domingue had been born in Africa.