Dominican Republic and Haiti: Country Studies

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Haiti: The Society and Its Environment
Colonization, 1492-1697, ch. 6). As a result, the social structure
implanted in colonial Saint-Domingue was determined
primarily by French colonial policy, slave labor, and the highly
stratified plantation system. Major planters and government
officials dominated the colonial ruling class and carefully controlled
all segments of the population, especially African slaves
and their descendants. Society was structured around the rapid
production of wealth for the planters and French investors.
The French imposed a three-tiered social structure in Saint-
Domingue. A small European elite (grands blancs) controlled
the top of the social pyramid, and African slaves (noirs) and
their descendants occupied the lowest rung of society. An intermediary
class of free men and women of color (affranchis)
emerged as a result of sexual unions between slaves and slave
owners and also from ex-slaves who purchased their freedom
or were given their freedom by former slave owners. Some
mulatto freedmen inherited land, became relatively wealthy,
and owned slaves. Perhaps one-fourth of all slaves in Saint-
Domingue belonged to freedmen. Nevertheless, racial codes
kept the affranchis socially and politically inferior to Europeans.
Another intermediary class was made up of poor whites (petits
blancs) , who considered themselves socially superior to mulattoes
although they were generally inferior in economic terms.
In 1791 the total population of Saint-Domingue was 519,000
87 percent slaves, 8 percent white, and 5 percent free men and
women of color. Because of the brutality of the slave regime
and harsh working conditions, many slaves died, and new slaves
were constantly imported. At the time of the slave rebellion in
1791, most slaves had been born in Africa rather than Saint-
Domingue.
The Haitian Revolution changed the country's social structure.
The colonial ruling class and white population were eliminated,
and the plantation system was largely destroyed. The
earliest black and mulatto leaders attempted to restore a plantation
system based on free labor under strict military control,
but the system collapsed under the presidency of Alexandre
Petion (1807-18) (see Early Years of Independence, 1804-43,
ch. 6). The newly independent state confiscated old colonial
estates and distributed land to former slaves, revolutionary soldiers,
and army officers. In this process, the new Haitian upper
class lost control over agricultural land and labor, the economic
base during colonial times. To maintain its economic
and social position, the new Haitian upper class turned away
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