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Most slaves who came to Saint-Domingue worked in fields or shops; younger slaves could become household servants, and old slaves were employed as surveillants. Some slaves became skilled workmen, and they received privileges such as better food, the ability to go into town, and liberté des savanes (savannah liberty), a sort of freedom with ...
The death rate of slaves on Saint Domingue's sugar cane plantations was higher than anywhere else in the Western hemisphere; indeed, slaves working on sugar plantations in Saint-Domingue came to have a 6-10% annual mortality rate, causing St. Dominican sugar planters to import new slaves frequently. [27] [22]
In 1659, half of the Caribbean island of Hispaniola, became the French colony Saint-Domingue, during the time of the Atlantic slave trade [1] Early attempts were made by slaves in order to recover their freedom, among them can be named the uprising in Saint-Domingue made by Padrejean in 1676, and the uprising of François Mackandal in 1757 [ 2 ]
The Saint-Domingue expedition was a large French military invasion sent by Napoleon Bonaparte, then First Consul, under his brother-in-law Charles Victor Emmanuel Leclerc in an attempt to regain French control of the Caribbean colony of Saint-Domingue on the island of Hispaniola, and curtail the measures of independence and abolition of slaves taken by the former slave Toussaint Louverture.
Just as the French were successful in transforming their society, so were the Haitians. On 4 April 1792, the French Legislative Assembly granted freedom to slaves in Saint-Domingue. [166] The revolution culminated in 1804; Haiti was an independent state solely of freed peoples. [168] The activities of the revolutions sparked change across the ...
In Saint-Domingue, Martinique, Guadeloupe, and other French Caribbean colonies before slavery was abolished, the free people of color were known as gens de couleur libres, and affranchis. Comparable mixed-race groups became an important part of the populations of the British colony of Jamaica , the Spanish colonies of Santo Domingo , Cuba ...
However, Louverture had not explicitly declared Saint-Domingue's independence, acknowledging in Article 1 that it was a single colony of the French Empire. [124] Article 3 of the constitution states: "There cannot exist slaves [in Saint-Domingue], servitude is therein forever abolished. All men are born, live and die free and French."
In 1792, abolitionist Léger Félicité Sonthonax was sent to Saint-Domingue from France to maintain order. He was titled the de facto ruler of Saint Domingue from September 1792 to 1795. [14] Sonthonax also offered freedom to slaves who joined his army. [11] In September and October 1793, slaves were emancipated throughout Saint-Domingue.