Historians have traditionally considered Western Europe the epicenter of early modern globalization. But in the late eighteenth century, no place had a thicker web of connections to other parts of the globe than the French Caribbean colony of Saint-Domingue—now called Haiti. This small but intensely fertile piece of tropical real estate produced 40 percent of the sugar and half the coffee consumed in the world, as well as enormous quantities of cotton, chocolate, and textile dyes. Its ports teemed with ships from Europe, North America, South America, and other points in the Caribbean. Some five hundred a year sailed to the United States alone, returning laden with American food exports. Sailors from dozens of nations made up roughly 15 percent of the people in the capital city of Le Cap. And a higher percentage of Saint-Domingue’s population was born on a different continent than anywhere else on earth.
Read Full Article »
