Slave-built infrastructure connected Saint-Domingue’s regions only late and inadequately.

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

• XREF: Geography of isolation shaping revolution — connects to the segmented, region-by-region spread of the uprising that later chapters will trace.