1788

In 1788 the population of Saint-Domingue consisted of 42,000 whites, 38,000 slaves and 8000 plantations. The military forces consisted of 5,000 men. 80,000 sailors were engaged in trade. "St. Domingue, the Pearl of the Antilles, produced and exported more sugar than the entire British West Indies put together." (Parkinson, p. 22)

In 1788, a year before the French Revolution, the French lawyer Jacques (Jean) Pierre Brissot and Etienne Clavière found the Société des Amis des Noirs in Paris to extend to France the growing abolitionist movement that had swept into Europe.

Alexandre Pétion, the the Haitian affranchis, military officer and later President of the Republic of Haiti was sent to France in 1788 to study at the Military Academy in Paris.

In 1788 the colonial planter Le Jeune successfully defends himself against charges of burning two female slaves legs. (Parkinson, p. 20).

References

• Parkinson, Wenda (1978). This Gilded African. London: Quartet Books. ISBN 0-7043-2187-4