As a French possession, it was once the most lucrative colony on earth, producing nearly one-third of the world’s sugar and more than half its coffee. All, of course, with the labor of slaves. And slavery in the Caribbean was particularly harsh: tropical diseases were rife, there was no winter respite from 12-hour workdays under the broiling sun, and the planters preferred to replenish their labor force by working their slaves to death over a decade or two and then buying new ones. In 1791, what today is Haiti became the scene of the largest slave revolt in history. Over the next 13 years, the rebels fought off three successive attempts to re-enslave them. The first was by local planters and French soldiers, aided by arms from the United States, whose president and secretary of state, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, were both slave owners horrified by the uprising. The second was by the British, at war with France and eager for fertile sugar land and slaves to work it. And finally, after he took power, Napoleon tried to recapture the territory as a French colony and restore slavery.
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