French colonial officials in Saint-Domingue registered the Code Noir, a royal ordinance that regulated slavery and the lives of enslaved people in the French Caribbean. The code helped provide a legal framework for an economy that depended on enslaved labor.
The Treaty of Ryswick formally transferred the western third of Hispaniola from Spain to France. France developed this territory into the colony of Saint-Domingue, setting the stage for a plantation economy oriented toward export crops.
Coffee was introduced and began to be grown in Saint-Domingue by 1715. Over the 1700s it became a major plantation crop alongside sugar, tying the colony more tightly to European consumption and Atlantic trade.
After the Seven Years’ War, Saint-Domingue’s plantation economy expanded rapidly. Exports of sugar (raw and refined) and other crops grew sharply, reflecting increased investment in plantations and the forced labor system that supported them.
By the 1780s, Saint-Domingue had become a leading producer for European markets—about 40% of the sugar and 60% of the coffee consumed in Europe came from the colony. This wealth depended on large-scale plantations and harsh exploitation of enslaved Africans.
In August 1791, enslaved people in the northern plain met to plan a coordinated revolt, an event often associated with Bois Caïman in later accounts. Within days, rebellion spread across plantations, directly threatening the sugar and coffee economy.
On the night of August 21–22, 1791, enslaved people launched a large uprising in northern Saint-Domingue. The rebellion quickly became the Haitian Revolution and led to widespread destruction of plantation infrastructure, undermining the colony’s coffee and sugar boom.
Amid war and rebellion, French civil commissioners in Saint-Domingue proclaimed the abolition of slavery in the colony in 1793. This was a major break with the plantation system, reshaping labor relations even as fighting continued.
On February 4, 1794, France’s National Convention passed a law abolishing slavery throughout the French colonial empire. This decree expanded and formalized revolutionary changes already underway in Saint-Domingue, further destabilizing the old plantation order.
In 1801, Toussaint Louverture promulgated a constitution for Saint-Domingue, naming himself governor-general for life while keeping the colony formally tied to France. The constitution also aimed to stabilize production by regulating labor on plantations, showing how central sugar and coffee remained even after emancipation.
In February 1802, Napoleon sent a large military expedition under General Charles Leclerc to reassert French authority in Saint-Domingue. The campaign was closely tied to plans for reviving colonial profits from sugar and coffee, and it escalated the conflict into a fight over freedom versus renewed plantation slavery.
On May 20, 1802, Napoleon enacted a law reinstating slavery in parts of the French colonial empire where abolition had not been implemented. Although the law did not formally reimpose slavery in Saint-Domingue, it signaled a broader reversal and hardened resistance there, pushing the colony farther from a return to the old sugar-and-coffee plantation regime.
On November 18, 1803, Haitian revolutionary forces under Jean-Jacques Dessalines defeated French troops at the Battle of Vertières near Cap-Français. The victory effectively ended French rule in the colony and ensured that plantation wealth would no longer be controlled through French colonial slavery.
On January 1, 1804, Dessalines proclaimed Haiti’s independence at Gonaïves, ending Saint-Domingue as a French colony. Independence marked the collapse of the French colonial plantation system that had powered the coffee-and-sugar boom, and it created a new state born from a successful anti-slavery revolution.
Saint-Domingue's coffee and sugar boom under French colonial rule (c. 1715–1804)