Freeing of engagés helped seed a smallholder class in early Saint-Domingue

Evidence

Having gained official status as a French colony, Saint-Domingue—one of the last colonies founded in the Americas—would soon outshine all others. The earliest plantations in Saint-Domingue were worked by both African slaves and European engagés, or indentured laborers. The latter worked alongside the slaves, but for limited terms—in the French case for three years—after which they became free. Along with the remaining flibustiers and boucaniers, many of these former indentured laborers started farming small plots of land, notably with tobacco, a crop that required little initial investment and could quickly turn a modest profit. — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 73

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Pillage of Cartagena funded the first great Saint-Domingue sugar fortunes — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 71; Pirates and cattle hunters seeded the French slave colony of Saint-Domingue — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 724
• yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: Pillage of Cartagena funded the first great Saint-Domingue sugar fortunes — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 71; Pirates and cattle hunters seeded the French slave colony of Saint-Domingue — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 724