Grands blancs

The grands blancs, "big whites", were the small, exclusive white elite at the top of the French colony of Saint-Domingue, many of them nobles, most of whom lived in France or had been born there. They held most of the power and much of the property, including the 800 large sugar plantations, the most valuable in the colony: the average sugar plantation worked 300 enslaved people, while petits blancs and free people of colour owned 11,700 smaller plantations. Sugar planting was costly and often left its owner deep in debt. In 1791, within two months of the rising in the north, enslaved rebels burned 280 sugar plantations of the grands blancs.