Colonial planters’ smuggling undermined French imperial authority in Saint-Domingue

Evidence

Saint-Domingue’s economy was sustained by the contraband trade. Small boats plied the shores, buying and selling illegally, and even the leading citizens of the colony participated. It was impossible for the colonial government to repress this trade; harsh legislation against such dealings only highlighted the royal government’s impotence. “I am alone against the entire colony” lamented one governor in 1733 when he was criticized for having been too lenient in his punishment of planters convicted of participating in the contraband trade. In the wake of the Seven Years’ War, and again after the American Revolution, which opened the way for more intensive trade between North America and Saint-Domingue, administrators made concessions to planters and loosened monopoly regulations, allowing foreign ships to trade certain goods in certain French Caribbean ports. But they excluded some products, and levied heavy import taxes, so the contraband trade continued. The dependence on illegal trading enticed settlers with the possibility that their profits would be greater in a context of lesser imperial control. Many French planters, furthermore, envied the boister-ous assemblies of the British colonies. Indeed, as early as the Seven Years’ War, some openly supported British attempts to take over the colony, believing their interests would be better served within a different empire. — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 127

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the theme of settler autonomy frustrating imperial control, echoing how the American colonies broke from Britain over the same issues of trade regulation and representation.
• SEED: The gap between the French planters’ proto-autonomy and the enslaved majority’s interests that would later explode — could seed a piece on how colonial independence movements never anticipated slave revolution.