Saint-Domingue grew from frontier into the world’s most valuable colony within a century

Evidence

Its plains were covered with sugarcane cultivated on well-ordered and technologically sophisticated plantations, supported by efficient irrigation works. The mountains were full of burgeoning coffee plantations, and the towns bustled with arriving and departing ships, passengers, and goods of all kinds. Within a century it had grown from a marginal Caribbean frontier into the most valuable colony in the world. In the process it had welcomed a bewildering mix of people—Gascons, Bretons, Provençals from France; Ibo, Wolof, Bambara, and Kongolese from Africa. — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 56

Categorization

• DEFINE: Establishes the scale and stakes of the colony just before its revolution — the baseline the reader needs to grasp the narrative arc.