5. Pre-Revolution Conditions in St. Domingue
• 500,000 slaves producing 40% of the world’s sugar
• Slaves outnumber all other groups 10 to 1
• Declaration of the Rights of Man, 1789 – all are born free, due process, etc
• France is unstable in the years following the French Revolution
• Wealthy plantation owners, free blacks, middle class white (Petit Blancs) all
struggling for control of the island
• The French government gives control to the wealthy landowners (Grand
Blancs).
• Free blacks revolt
• All sides arm slaves
6. An “Unthinkable Revolution”
Unthinkable, before, during, and after
•No abolitionists ever envisioned this sort of thing
•Attempts were made by other slave-holding nations to conceal it as it
occurred
•It was unthinkable after because didn’t fit into historians framework about
the age of revolution. It was erased.
Notes de l'éditeur
Free blacks (usually mixed-race) These tended to be educated, literate and often served in the army or as administrators on plantations. Many were children of white planters and enslaved mothers. The males often received education or artisan training, sometimes received property from their fathers, and freedom. The third group, outnumbering the others by a ratio of ten to one, was made up of mostly African-born slaves.
