Saint-Domingue
Haiti, 1626–1804. Draft, not yet reviewed
Saint-Domingue was a French colony in the western portion of the Caribbean island of Hispaniola, in the area of modern-day Haiti. The economy of Saint-Domingue became focused on slave-based agricultural plantations. In 1791, Africans, who had been forced into bondage, and some Creoles took part in a Vodou ceremony at Bois Caïman and planned the Haitian Revolution. The last French troops withdrew from the western portion of the island in late 1803, and the colony later declared its independence as Haiti, derived from the Taíno name for the island, the following year.
Seat of power: Cap-Haïtien
No rulers documented for this era yet.
Culture
- African culture remained strong among slaves to the end of French rule. The folk religion of Vodou commingled Catholic liturgy and ritual with the beliefs and practices of the Vodun religion of Guinea, Congo and Dahomey.
- The slaves came from hundreds of different tribes, and they learned Creole French to communicate.
- Saint-Domingue had the largest and wealthiest free population of color in the Caribbean; they were known as the Gens de couleur libres (free people of color). By 1789, they owned one-third of the plantation property and one-quarter of the slaves of Saint-Domingue.
- Thousands of slaves escaped into the mountains of Saint-Domingue, forming communities of maroons and raiding isolated plantations.
Picture
The Haitian Revolution, also known as the Haitian War of Independence, was a successful insurrection by enslaved Africans against French colonial rule in Saint-Domingue, now the sovereign state of Haiti.
Image: Aaron Martinet / Alphonse-Charles Masson, Public domain, file
Sources
Text adapted from the Wikipedia articles listed as sources, CC BY-SA 4.0.