Estimating Saint Domingue's "Indien" Population

The Natchez were one of the Amerindian groups present in Saint-Domingue.

One thing we have been toying with is the possibly of using the number of reported runaways of small "nations" to reach estimates of their total numbers in the colony of Saint Domingue. Thanks to the excellent data collected in Le marronage dans le monde atlantique project, one can more easily sift through the reported runaway slaves in Saint-Domingue's press. In this particular case, we focused on "Indiens" reported as runaways in the period 1766-1790. Checking for possible repeated offenders, we found approximately 42 "Indiens" (of Amerindian, Asian Indian, or mixed "Indian") origin. If, following the work of Eddins, we assume a total number of reported "maroons" was 12,857, then we can play with the numbers for very rough estimates of the total "Indien" population in the colony. In this case, if 42 out of 12857 maroons were "Indien" in the aforementioned years, then about 0.33% of the maroons were classified as such. Applying that figure to the total slave population in 1790, which we will just use the "safe" estimate of 500,000, gives a figure of about 1633 "Indiens." Using a larger figure based on the total estimated slave imports of approximately 800,000, about 2613 slaves imported into the colony during the period of French rule were "Indien." These figures, though still very small, are likely overestimates. Since many of the "Indien" slaves in Saint-Domingue seem to have been domestics and others lived in towns or cities, their share of the reported marronage cases may be somewhat inflated. In that case, we should use lower figures and keep in mind the diverse sources of "Indien" slaves in the colony (Louisiana, Lesser Antilles, Spanish colonies, India, Mascarenes) are not always documented. Nonetheless, using the lower estimate of about 1633, based on the period from 1766-1790, is still plausible for an Amerindian & East Indian presence of less than 1% of the total slave population. It is rather easy to see how this population was quickly absorbed or disappeared in Saint-Domingue and independent Haiti.