Poor white immigrants could literally die of poverty in Saint-Domingue

Evidence

In 1776 one observer noted the “great misery” of many whites on the island and opined that those who came to the colony with no useful skills were likely to end up dead on the side of the road. This was the fate of one “unknown white man, aged 14 or 15, without a beard,” who was found by police in 1779; a surgeon determined that he had died of misère—poverty—and he was buried anonymously in a local graveyard. — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 81

Categorization

• CANDY: A teenage white immigrant dying of ‘misère’ and buried anonymously undercuts the image of the colony as unqualified white prosperity.