Hatian Revolutionary, Toussaint, abolished slavery in Santo Domingo when he had gained control of the island after all of Hispaniola came under French rule. He was focused on unifying the island to make sure that slavery stayed abolished throughout the entire island and to eliminate an advantageous location that the europeans could attack Haiti from. Although slavery was abolished in many cases the landowners would move to another colony with their slaves One of the problems he had with unifying the island was that even though technically the island was under french rule many of the people still considered themselves Spanish.Their national solidarity and way of life had already been established.
Before the first abolishment of slavery the majority of people who lived on Santo Domingo relied on a livestock and subsistence agriculture based economy instead of the tobacco and sugar plantations on the other Caribbean islands. In efforts to improve the economy and to increase the wealth of the once spanish colony, Toussaint took steps to reform the agricultural system and the working habits of the people of Santo Domingo. He issued a number of limitations placed on the lands a new proprietor could be granted. According to Frank, "Toussaint ordered the inhabitants to work on lands already settled since it would be imprudent to start new settlements while the old ones decayed". Drawing from his experience in Haiti, he then wanted the landowners to produce the most profitable crops in the caribbean such as sugar, coffee, and tobacco for export.
Therefore freedom for the slaves who lived on Santo Domingo meant that they would go from growing crops simply for subsistence and would be forced to work on these new sugar and coffee plantations. The slaves were faced with doing even more work than they had been doing before when they were supposed to be free just so that Santo Domingo could also compete in the world market and profit. As a result many slaves felt that that were back in slavery and that the forced work on the new plantations replaced slavery. As a result slave support for Toussaint had been weakened.
Due to the fact that most of the population of Santo Domingo was creole, spanish, then black, when the French came to invade Santo Domingo many of them supported the french as they had not been too keen on the idea of receving orders from a black governor. The demographic of Santo Domingo also correlated with the majority of the spanish colonists supporting the notion of slavery and their support of the french against Tousaint and his army. In addition, slavery was resestablished in Santo domingo and then abolished again. The idea of freedom was uncertain when it came to the slaves and constantly changing as the colony was passed between france, spain, and later Haiti. Many of the colonists who had slaves fled to places such as Philadelphia where instead of being slaves, men, women, and children alike were signed on for the maximum number of years as indentured servants. The difference between the adults and the children was that the children could serve several periods of indentured servitude.
Although after Santo Domingo gained independence they were able to sustainably and permanently abolish slavery, before doing so freedom was viewed as uncertain and fragile to the slaves. Even when slavery was abolished the first time the slaves were ordered to do more than they had been doing before they had attained their "freedom". Also, slaves were faced with becoming slaves again in the War of reconquest and becoming indentured servants on other colonies. Therefore freedom was not yet grasped and fully experienced by many Santo Domingo slaves until after a series of conquests and invasions.
Dunbar, Erica Armstrong. A Fragile Freedom: African American Women and Emancipation in the Antebellum City. New Haven: Yale UP, 2008. Print.
Moya, Pons Frank. The Dominican Republic: a National History. Princeton, NJ: Markus Wiener, 1998. Print.
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