What did it mean for the French-held third of Hispaniola to become the richest colony ever? It has been estimated that between 1716 and 1787, a period that covers France’s greatest boom years in the eighteenth century, fully 15 percent of its economic growth derived from its Caribbean empire. No fewer than a million of the French king’s subjects depended directly on the colonial trade for their livelihoods. Saint Domingue alone generated as much trade as the entire United States.
