Haiti lay in the northern Caribbean Sea. Its northern terrain was tropical rainforest, while the south was tropical savanna. Mountains covered 75 percent of the country, and Haiti meant "land of mountains" in the Native American language.
During Columbus's first voyage to discover the New World in 1492, one of his ships ran aground, leaving him unable to take the crews of the other two vessels back to Spain. He therefore established Navidad Castle at Cape Haitien.
When Columbus returned in 1493, he found that not a single person in the castle had survived. He therefore established Isabella Colony on the northern coast of Hispaniola.
In 1502, Hispaniola formally became a Spanish colony. After their military resistance failed, the indigenous people on the island were enslaved to mine gold, grow sugarcane, and raise cattle. But after an outbreak of smallpox, the native population vanished from the island. Planters and ranchers abandoned the place one after another, and the island gradually became an uninhabited region, then a base for English, French, and Dutch pirates.
By the end of the sixteenth century, these pirates had seriously threatened Spain's sea routes. Hunters from England, France, the Netherlands, and other countries gradually arrived in western Hispaniola, hunting wild cattle and boars, curing the meat, and selling it to pirates. Some farmers also grew tobacco and food crops.
In 1640, France occupied the island and renamed Hispaniola Saint-Domingue. The French government persuaded those hunters to move into the colonial settlements and become settled farmers. As French colonists continued to arrive, Saint-Domingue became one of the wealthiest colonies in the Americas.
The main crops here were tobacco and indigo, followed later by cotton and coffee. Every scrap of usable land was cultivated.
By 1767, 40 percent of Europe's sugar and 60 percent of its coffee came