*On this date in 1791, the Saint-Domingue revolt began. This was a confrontation by African and Indigenous people against French slave traders.
At the time, Saint-Domingue occupied approximately one-third of the western portion of Hispaniola, the island Christopher Columbus claimed for Spain in 1492. Spanish exploitation quickly reduced the native Arawakan population to such a degree that colonists had to import slaves from Africa. The first Africans were brought to the island in 1502, beginning a slave trade that would profoundly shape the political and economic future of the Caribbean and the Americas.
The "habitations" (wealthy estates) of the northern plain, in the hinterland of Cap Françaix, rose in flames. Between 1791 and 1804, the Saint-Domingue revolution in the West Indies led to the abolition of slavery in the former French colony and the establishment of Haiti, the second independent republic in the Western Hemisphere and the first Western Nation governed by persons of African descent. The insurrection forced thousands of refugees, including many free people of color and white planters, to immigrate to Louisiana in the 1790s and early 1800s.
Among the immigrants were planters and workers experienced in growing and refining sugar, an industry just emerging as a significant crop in Louisiana, and artisans skilled in a wide range of trades and crafts.
