Excerpt from The Lesson of St. Domingo: How to Make the War Short and the Peace Rightous The French revolution of 1789 found the population of the colony of St. Domingo consisting of three classes. First, there were about' negro slaves, chattels, whose lives were held cheap because they could easily be replaced from Afi-ica. Second, about whites, divided into planters and perils blancs, or poor whites. All whites, of pure blood, who did not own more than twenty slaves, were reckoned poor or little. Third, mulattoes, or men of mixed blood, in whatever proportions. Their blood was considered tainted, and, though fi'ee, they had no equality with white men in the eye of the law, which carried their disabilities to such an extent, that one who presumed to strike a white of any condition, was punished by having his right hand cut off. Yet not a few of them were rich and well educated, the class having possession of one-third of the real estate of the colony, and one-fourth of the personal, including slaves. To this class belonged a few freed Africans, who were not more contemned by the whites than were the lightest mulattoes. The prejudice against color seemed to have a strength inversely proportionate to the difference of color between the parties. For many years prior to 1789, the colonists, especially of the white proprietor class, had been aching to throw off the yoke of the mother country, and, as an independent oligarchy, to make their own laws, and administer their own affairs. Hence. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.