Artifacts of the Taino culture include rock carvings in several places in the country. They have become national symbols of Haiti and tourist attractions. Modern Leogan, which originated as a French colonial city in the southwest, is located next to the former capital of Caciquedoma Xaragua.
The Indian population of the island was completely exterminated by the Spaniards. Since the beginning of the 16th century, blacks began to be imported from Africa to work in gold mines and sugar cane plantations. Since the 30s of the 17th century, French filibusters (pirates) appeared on the islands adjacent to Haiti and on the coast, who gradually took over the northern and western parts of the island. According to the Peace of Riswick in 1697, this part of Haiti was ceded to France and by the end of the 18th century, under the name of San Domingo, it was known as the most significant of the French colonies. The dominant class here were Creole planters (about 20 thousand people.), who brutally exploited over 400 thousand Negro slaves (The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, the State Scientific Publishing House "The Great Soviet Encyclopedia", Editor-in-chief B.A. Vvedensky, volume 10, 1952, p. 100). A small layer of free mulattoes gradually formed in Haiti, many of whom owned plantations and slaves themselves.
The French bourgeois revolution of the 18th century was the impetus for the uprising of mulattoes that broke out in 1790, demanding equality of rights with whites. In 1791, a powerful uprising of Negro slaves against the planters began. In order to save their property, the planters sided with the British and Spanish troops who landed on the island in 1793. The commissioners of the Jacobin Convention who arrived on the island proclaimed the abolition of slavery (1793) and called on the Negroes to fight for their freedom. The Negroes were led by a former slave, Toussaint Louverture, who received the rank of general of the French Republic. The troops of Toussaint Louverture, who announced the transfer of the estates of their former masters to the freed slaves, expelled the British and occupied the eastern (Spanish) part of the island. In 1801 Toussaint Louverture was elected ruler for life. On July 8, 1801, the Central Assembly of San Domingo proclaimed the Republican Constitution, It confirmed the abolition of slavery, declared equal rights for all citizens, and appointed Toussaint Louverture as governor-General for life with the disposition of choosing a successor. San Domingo continued to be a colony and part of the French Empire, but with its own laws, which essentially made it independent from the metropolis. The French government has not approved Toussaint's constitution. After reviewing this constitution, Napoleon perceived it as an almost open challenge to the domination of France. After the victory of the bourgeois counter-revolution in France, Napoleon made an attempt to return land and slaves to the Creole planters. He sent 20,000 to Haiti. a soldier led by General Leclerc, who by deception managed to capture Toussaint Louverture (1802) and take him to France, where he died in captivity. The treacherous capture of Toussaint Louverture only intensified the liberation struggle. Napoleon's troops were driven out by troops led by Dessalines, an associate of Toussaint Louverture.