The slave trade and the peopling
of Santo Domingo
Jean Fouchard
Contemporary accounts and recent studies alike have provided us with gener-
ally accurate information about the living conditions of the Negroes who were
imported into Santo Domingo, their physical and moral characteristics, their
temperament, age, stature, reactions to slavery, religious beliefs, food, housing,
furniture, names, physiological condition, artistic sense, tastes, customs and
so on.
But there are two main questions which still preoccupy historians and
ethnologists : how many slaves were imported into Santo Domingo, and what
were the relative proportions of the different ethnic groups among the Africans
who formed the island's population?
We still have no answer to the first question. Statistics relating to the
slave trade in Santo Domingo are too partial and fragmentary. We do know
that at certain periods in the history of the colonization of the country, the
southern strip was supplied principally through the illicit slave trade, which
increased considerably during the American War of Independence and towards
the end of the official slave trade; but we do not possess the figures that would
enable us to estimate the size of this parallel traffic.
From the beginnings of colonization up to 1764, all we have to go by is
scattered information, incomplete and occasional statistics, and necessarily
partial estimates. Between 1764 and the end of the official trade in the island
in 1793, the Santo Domingo newspapers supply us with invaluable informa-
tion about the arrival of the slave-ships.
We are thus reduced to a rough estimate, but one which confirms the
'dreadful number' of deaths and the fact that Santo Domingo 'devoured'
its slaves at a terrifying rate. Neither the ridiculously low birth rate nor the
increasingly large consignments of imported slaves could compensate for the
high rate of consumption, which was due to harsh conditions, forced labour
driven to inhuman limits, tyranny and cruelty, not to mention almost universal
and permanent malnutrition.
Hilliard d'Auberteuil, a notary at Cap Haïtien for twelve years, gives
a horrifying account: