In the 18th century, Saint Dominigue, as Haiti was then known, became France's wealthiest overseas colony, largely because of its production of sugar, coffee, indigo, and cotton generated by an enslaved labor force. When the French revolution broke out in 1789 there were five distinct sets of interest groups in the colony. - See more at: http://www.blackpast.org/gah/haitian-revolution-1791-1804#sthash.jqujCdOz.dpuf