Les libres de couleur dans les capitales de Saint-Domingue: fortune, mentalités et intégration à la fin de l'Ancien Régime (1776-1789)

This thesis examines the community of free people of color at the end of l'Ancien Régime. At this time, in the capitals of Saint-Dominigue, which had become true centers of production and trade, blacks and free Métis fully participated in economic life alongside whites. Work brought wealth to some of them, but true fortune remained the lot of only a small minority of traders, merchants, fishermen, tailors, wigmakers and entrepreneurs of all colors. While the progress of the Enlightenment and the transformation of the international situation did not lead to the abolition of discriminatory regulations, they did modify the relations of the free with the colonial, metropolitan and local administration. [translated and modified from Google Books]