Geographic fragmentation forced Saint-Domingue’s regions to develop in isolation from one another.

Evidence

Only in 1751, when Port-au-Prince—the largest town in the Western Province—became the island’s capital, was a passage cut across these mountains. The royal government paid for the road, but slaves built it, carving a 100-foot stairway into the rock. Not until 1787, however, was it possible to travel from Le Cap to Port-au-Prince by carriage. Each region had its mountains, its plains, and its port towns. For most of the colony’s history, people and goods moved from region to region by sea. — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 99

Categorization

Category: Causal Relationships

• XREF: This regional isolation — itself a cause of the revolution’s fragmentation into distinct northern, western, and southern movements — parallels the geographic determinism theme I’ve traced in other histories of revolutionary colonies.

Related

• Saint-Domingue’s regions stayed fragmented because mountains kept them isolated until 1787. (similarity 0.91)
• Mountain ranges divided Saint-Domingue’s provinces, forcing movement by sea (similarity 0.91)
• Slave-built infrastructure connected Saint-Domingue’s regions only late and inadequately. (similarity 0.90)
• Regional geography within Saint-Domingue shaped the revolution’s course. (similarity 0.85)
• Saint-Domingue grew from frontier into the world’s most valuable colony within a century (similarity 0.80)
• Scholars insist Saint-Domingue was central to Western civilization, not marginal (similarity 0.80)