According to Historian, Richard Hooker, In 1791, the French plantations on the island of Hispaniola offered some of the most cruel conditions that African-American slaves had ever suffered.
They differ from North American plantations in one key element: the coffee and sugar plantations require vast amounts of labor. As a result, the slave population outnumbered the French colonialists by what must have seemed a terrifying number; the slaves, also, by their sheer numbers were allowed to retain much of their culture and to establish more or less independent social systems.
This program airs live every Wed / Fri at 10:00 AM Eastern US time on www.wrir.org, WRIR 97.3 FM in Richmond, VA
