Le Cap

Cap Francois was a leading city of European colonialism in the Tropics, as well as the Americas. By the late 18th century, the city's population was nearly 20,000, it featured over 260 street blocks, was mostly built of stone and mortar, it featured a thriving theatre, hosted a colonial newspaper (Les Affiches Americaines), had two Masonic lodges, fountains, a large and well staffed hospital, a large but ugly church, docks, a place d'arme, followed an urban plan (like most cities in Saint Domingue), featured civilian and military buildings, a cemetery, prostitution, gambling dens, inns, waterworks, and hosted the Cercle des Philadelphes, the culmination of a century of science and colonialism coming together among white settlers. 

Sanitation in the city was horrid, meaning that it would have left a traveler with the most disagreeable smell, and the gigantic black and 'mixed-race' populations clearly distinguished Le Cap from the typical provincial city one could find in France. The black neighborhood was called 'Petite Guinee' and blacks also dominated the market at Place de Clugny. In addition, Cap Francois quickly arose as the largest and most significant town in the colony because of favorable winds that facilitated French shipping to the northern coast, perhaps explaining why the soaring profits of the plantation economy in the North of Saint Domingue was mostly traded back to France from Le Cap. As the economic and social capital of the most important colony of the 18th century Atlantic World, Cap Francois was most certainly quite a site, coincidentally built not too far from the earliest European settlement in the hemisphere, La Navidad. For more information, read the excellent Colonialism and Science: Saint Domingue and the Old Regime.