Lot Essay
Discovered by Columbus in 1492 and name Espagnola (Little Spain), later Latinized into Hispaniola, the island known by its natives as Haiti (mountainous country) remained a Spanish Possession until the Treaty of Ryswick of 1697 ceded the western part of the island (present day Haiti) to the French. The colony languished until its mother country lifted restrictions on its trade from the 1720s, and by mid-century its rich natural resources and agriculture (sugarcane, indigo, coffee, cotton and cocoa), worked by the vast slave population brought into the colony by the French at Port de Paix and Le Cap Franois (La Ville du Cap) on the north-western coast, transferred the territory into one of France's richest and most profitable colonies.