The first windmill for processing sugar was created in 1685.

Treaty of Ryswick and slave colony
France and Spain settled hostilities on the island by the Treaty of Ryswick of 1697, which divided Hispaniola between them. France received the western third and subsequently named it Saint-Domingue (not the current Santo-Domingo, which is in the Dominican Republic and was part of the eastern side given to the Spanish through the treaty). Many French colonists soon arrived and established plantations in Saint-Domingue due to high profit potential. From 1713 to 1787, approximately 30,000 French colonists emigrated from Bordeaux, France, to the western part of the island, while by 1763 the French population of Canada numbered only 65,000.[9]

By about 1790, Saint-Domingue had greatly overshadowed its eastern counterpart in terms of wealth and population. It quickly became the richest French colony in the New World due to the immense profits from the sugar, coffee and indigo industries. The labor and knowledge of thousands of enslaved Africans, who brought skills and technology for indigo production to the island, made it possible. The French-enacted Code Noir (Black Code), which was prepared by Jean-Baptiste Colbert and ratified by Louis XIV, established rigid rules on slave treatment and permissible freedom. It has been described as one of the most brutally efficient slave colonies there ever was – a third of new arrivals died within a few years.

Haitian Revolution
Main article: Haitian Revolution
The French Revolution contributed to social upheavals in Saint-Domingue and the French and West Indies. Most important was the revolution of the slaves in Saint-Domingue, starting on the northern plains in 1791. In 1792 the French government sent three commissioners with troops to try to reestablish control. They began to build an alliance with gens de couleur, who were looking for their rights. In 1793, France and Great Britain went to war, and British troops invaded Saint-Domingue. The execution of Louis XVI heightened tensions in the colony. To build an alliance with the gens de couleur and slaves, the French commissioners Sonthonax and Polverel abolished slavery in the colony. Six months later, the National Convention led by the Jacobins endorsed abolition and extended it to all of the French colonies.[11]

Toussaint L'Ouverture, a former slave and leader in the slave revolt who rose in importance as a military commander because of his many skills, achieved peace in Saint-Domingue after years of war against both external invaders and internal dissension. He had established a disciplined, flexible army and drove out both the Spaniards and the British invaders who threatened the colony. He restored stability and prosperity by daring measures, including inviting the return of planters and insisting that freed men work on plantations to renew revenues for the island. He also renewed trading ties with Great Britain and the United States. The United States played a duplicitous role, supplying both the French and the rebels.[12]

Independence
The French government changed and the legislature began to rethink its decisions on slavery in the colonies. After Toussaint L'ouverture created a separatist constitution, Napoleon Bonaparte sent an expedition of 20,000 men under the command of his brother-in-law, General Charles Leclerc, to retake the island. Leclerc's mission was to oust L'ouverture and restore slavery. The French achieved some victories, but within a few months, yellow fever had killed most of the French soldiers.[13] Leclerc invited Toussaint L'ouverture to a parley, kidnapped him and sent him to France, where he was imprisoned at Fort de Joux. He died there in 1803 of exposure and tuberculosis[10] or malnutrition and pneumonia. In its attempt to retake the colony, France had lost more than 50,000 soldiers, including 18 generals.[14]

The native leader Jean-Jacques Dessalines, long an ally of Toussaint L'ouverture, defeated the French troops led by Donatien-Marie-Joseph de Vimeur, vicomte de Rochambeau at the Battle of Vertières. At the end of the double battle for emancipation and independence, former slaves proclaimed the independence of Saint-Domingue on 1 January 1804, declaring the new nation as Haiti, honoring one of the indigenous Taíno names for the island. It is the only nation born of a slave revolt.[10] It is estimated that the slave rebellion resulted in the death of 100,000 blacks and 24,000 of the 40,000 white colonists.[16]

Dessalines was proclaimed Emperor for life by his troops.[17] He exiled or killed the remaining whites and ruled as a despot.[18] He was assassinated on 17 October 1806. The country was divided then between a kingdom in the north directed by Henri Christophe, and a republic in the south directed by a gens de couleur Alexandre Pétion. Henri Christophe is best known for constructing the Citadelle Laferriere, the largest fortress in the Western Hemisphere, to defend the island against the French. President Jean Pierre Boyer, also a gens de couleur, managed to reunify the two halves and extend control again over the western part of the island.[19] Dominican historians have portrayed the period of the Haitian occupation (1822–42) as cruel and barbarous, but Boyer also freed the slaves.[20]joozone.com