50 Atlantic African, American, and European Backgrounds to Contact, Commerce, and Enslavementisland, and offi cially established the colony known as Santo
Domingo.
Th e western third of the island, colonial Saint
Domingue, which is known today as Haiti, had been given
to the French by the Spanish in 1697. By 1791, nearly 100
years aft er the transfer of colonial power, it is estimated
that more than 864,000 African slaves had been imported
by the French, thus allowing the colony to become one of
the main economic centers in the New World. In fact, the
plantation-based economy, with about 8,000 plantations
that produced crops for export, led in sugar and coff ee pro-
duction, producing nearly half of that consumed in Europe
and the Americas. In addition, Saint Domingue produced
large quantities of molasses, rum, indigo, and cotton, also
for export.
Population totals in 1790 estimated more than half-a-
million people living in Saint Domingue. Of the three so-
cial divisions of people, the whites, or grands blancs, were
at the top of the social hierarchy, totaling about 40,000. Th e
slaves, the majority of whom were African-born, were at
the bottom of social hierarchy, and totaled about 450,000 in
number. In between these two groups were the “freed peo-
ple,” or aff ranchis, who were also referred to as mulattos,
and they totaled about 28,000 in number. Th e aff ranchis
were particularly signifi cant because many members of
this group had a dual social role in that they had particu-
lar economic interests and legal rights similar to those of
whites, but many, unless they could pass for white, suff ered
discrimination based on their color, thus allowing them to
also identify with the slaves. Th ey also had a stronghold on
a vast percentage of the economic resources, which was a
source of tension with the whites, but became a moot point
when the slaves revolted.
Born a slave in 1743, Pierre-Dominique Toussaint
Louverture became a key fi gure in the slave-led revolt.
Th e revolt coincided with the French Revolution in Paris,
and given Saint Domingue’s economic wealth, both Eng-
land and Spain were interested in the land. Th e revolt in
essence had become a “three-way racial war” among the
whites, mulattos, and the slaves over access to economic re-
sources. Toussaint joined the revolt in 1791, providing the
structured and organized leadership needed at the time. He
initially joined forces with the Spanish against the French,
then defeated both the Spanish and English, and re-aligned
with the French given that, in 1793, they had offi cially abol-
ished slavery in Saint Domingue with civil rights given toprofi table benefi ts through headrights—more land and a
steady supply of labor.
Th e headrights in the Chesapeake were similar to pa-
troonships granted to Dutch settlers in New Netherland. In
fact, the use of headrights spread to other English colonies
including Maryland, South Carolina, and North Carolina.
Despite the initial success of this system, indentured ser-
vants, including the 300 Africans imported into the Chesa-
peake between 1619 and 1640, represented a signifi cant set
of new problems for tobacco planters: they only worked a
set number of years before they were freed; once freed, they
received “freedom dues” including seed, land, farming tools,
and guns; as land-owning tobacco farmers, ex-servants rep-
resented a source of competition for the tobacco-planting
elite; and the increased production of tobacco caused by the
ever-increasing number of tobacco planters drove down the
price of the once-lucrative crop.
See also: Chesapeake Colonies; Freedom Dues; Indentured
Servitude; Jamestown, Virginia; Patroonship; Tobacco
Walter C. RuckerBibliography
Morgan, Edmund S. American Slavery, American Freedom: Th e
Ordeal of Colonial Virginia. New York: W. W. Norton, 1975.
Wood, Peter H. Strange New Land: Africans in Colonial America.
New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.
Hispaniola
Th e island of Hispaniola, today’s Haiti and the Dominican
Republic, weaves together the stories of the indigenous in-
habitants of the island, the Tainos, the slaves, and the French
and Spanish colonial powers. Sent by the government of
Spain, Christopher Columbus fi rst arrived on the island in
1492, and soon aft er his arrival, Spaniards began arriving
in mass numbers in order to establish farms, ranches, and
mines, drawing from the vast amounts of resources the new
land had to off er. Many of the native inhabitants began to
die at alarming rates, resulting from harsh treatment and/
or from the plethora of diseases brought by the colonists.
In response to this loss, and in need of a labor force to sup-
port the growing economy, the colonists began importing
African slaves to work the land. In 1494, on his second voy-
age to America, Columbus settled on the north coast of the