Saint-Domingue Social Inequality

In Saint Domingue, it was evident that there was great inequality among those who lived in the colony. The plantation was a major foundation of the colony, it is described as an, “abnormal form of capitalist exploitation as it used a past mode of production for the purpose of capitalist accumulation”. It generated a system of social relations based on racialization that, “that resulted in ethnocentric societies, hierarchically ordered and rigidly stratified”. Systemic racism became an inherent part of colonial life and amplified tensions among each social class which added to the unstable climate in Saint-Domingue’s domestic affairs. White planters, who were the aristocrat or elite of the colonies wanted diminish the rights held by free people of …show more content…
Free women of colour, or mulatress as they were called, were heavily sexualized and objectified. Though they held a higher status than the enslaved, they still experienced discrimination as they were, “excluded from all positions, from honors, and professions, they are even forbidden to practice some of the mechanical trades. Set apart in the most degrading fashion, they find themselves enslaved even in their liberty”. The lives of the free people of colour and the enslaved were dictated by law, the most known and widely used slave code was The Code Noir. In the French colonies, The Code Noir set the foundation for the legal framework of slavery. It was introduced in 1685, then reissued and supplemented by local legislation in the eighteenth century. It was a comprehensive legislation that was drafted by European legal scholars who know little about the New World plantation system, or colonial life. Furthermore, The Code Noir contained many provisions that were ignored and purposefully violated by colonists. The violation of these requirements, led to increased tension because dismissing the rights of these people was unjust. In reference to the refusal of civic rights for free people of colour, Abbe