Saint Dominicans (), or simply Dominicans (), also known as Saint Dominguans, or Dominguans, are the people who lived in the French colony of Saint-Domingue before the Haitian Revolution. Despite the name, Dominican Creoles have little to do with Dominican Republic, the name comes from St. Domingue, the colonial name of Haiti.
Dominican Creoles formed an ethnic group native to Saint-Domingue, they were all of the people who were born in Saint Domingue. The Creoles were well educated, and they created much art, such as the famed St. Dominican French Opera; their society prized manners, good breeding, tradition, and honor. During and after the Haitian Revolution, many St. Dominicans fled to locations in the United States, other Antilles islands, New York City, Cuba, France, Jamaica, and especially New Orleans in Louisiana, where they made an enormous impact on Louisiana Creole culture.
St. Dominican Society
Origin of the Dominican Creoles
French adventurers settled on Tortuga Island, which was close to the Spanish colony of Santo Domingo. As a result, in the late 17th century, the French had de facto control of the island close to the Spanish colony. The wars of Louis XIV of France in Europe finally convinced the Spaniards to give the western quarter of the island to the French under to the Treaty on Ryswick (1697). The French called their new colony Saint-Domingue. As the colony developed, a planter class emerged that created highly profitable plantations- these plantations generated so much wealth that Saint-Domingue soon became the richest colony in the world.
In the late 17th century, French colonists made up more than 90% of the population in Saint-Domingue. However, as demand for sugar in Europe grew, planters imported African slaves to meet the demand. The population of Africans grew quickly, and many French settlers intermarried with Africans, resulting in the growth of a multiracial Creole population. By the early 18th century, Dominican Creoles and Africans came to compose the majority of the colony.
Throughout the 17th century, French Creoles became established in the Americas as a unique ethnicity originating from the mix of French, Indian, and African cultures. These French Creoles held a distinct ethno-cultural identity, a shared antique language, the Creole French language, and their civilization owed its existence to the overseas expansion of the French Empire. Martinique for a time was the center of French Creoles in the Caribbean; its decline lead to Saint-Domingue becoming the capital of the West Indian Creole civilization.
St. Dominican society
Saint-Domingue had the largest and wealthiest free population of color in the Caribbean; they were known as the Gens de couleur libres (free people of color). Population estimations in 1789 indicate 28,000 to 32,000 affranchis & Creoles of color and 40,00 to 45,000 St. Dominican whites, which included the larger group of petits blancs (white commoners) consisting of Creoles of lighter complexions, French subjects, engagés (white indentured servants), and foreign European immigrants & refugees; and the tiny, exclusive group of grands blancs (white nobles) of whom the majority lived in France, and the slave population totalled between 406,000 and 465,000. While many of the Gens de couleur libres were affranchis (ex-slaves), most members of this class were Creoles of color, i.e. free born blacks and mulattoes. As in New Orleans, a system of plaçage developed, in which white men had a kind of common-law marriage with slave or free mistresses, and provided for them with a dowry, sometimes freedom, and often education or apprenticeships for their children. Some such descendants of planters inherited considerable property.
While the French controlled Saint-Domingue, they maintained a class system which covered both whites and free people of color. These classes divided up roles on the island and established a hierarchy. The highest class, known as the grands blancs (white noblemen), was composed of rich nobles, including royalty, and mainly lived in France. These individuals held most of the power and controlled much of the property on Saint-Domingue. Although their group was very small and exclusive, they were quite powerful.
Below the grands blancs were the petits blancs (white commoners) and the gens de couleur libres (free people of color). These classes inhabited Saint Domingue and held a lot of local political power and control of the militia. Petits blancs shared the same societal level as gens de couleur libres.