Social stratification of mulattoes in the French colony of St. Domingue
Kendra Vuori
March 3, 2015
History 231
Word Count: 510
Prior to 1791, the French colony of St. Domingue was entangled in strained racial and
social issues. The colony was comprised of approximately 40,000 whites, most of whom were
wealthy plantation and slave owners.1 The slave population consisted of approximately 465,000-
485,000 African Americans, a significant increase from 240,000 in 1774.2 A third class, the free
blacks, or mulattoes, attributed for about 40,000 people within the colony as well.3 The mulattoes
were an estranged group of people, either of mixed descent or freed from slavery; who were
segregated from both the white upper class and the slaves. The mulattoes, many of them slave
owners themselves, did not seek to revolt with the hope of abolishing slavery. They aspired to
share the same political rights as the whites, whom they self-identified with through their mixed
heritage.4 The social stratification of mulattoes in the French colony of St. Domingue lead to
their involvement in the Haitian Slave Revolution.
A reason the mulattoes were motivated to revolt against the whites was due to the
revolution in France happening concurrently. Some of the discrimination mulattoes felt was a
direct result of special instructions to the colonial officials from the Minister of Marine in 1775.5
