Bainet in 1739

ANOM also includes a 1739 census for Saint Domingue, with the Jacmel quarter's population and other statistics. It is an interest change observable just 9 years after the 1730 Census for Saint Domingue. First of all, Bainet's free black and mulatto population disappeared. Instead, no adult or child free people of color are reported. Obviously, when one consults the parish register for the 1730s, however, there were free people of color in the parish. Thus, many free people of color were probably passing as "white" or accepted as such, which may have been easier due to rise of coffee plantations in the area. It is interesting to see that while Bainet's free population of color vanished in 1739, that of Jacmel and Cayes de Jacmel were still reported. Intriguingly, Bainet's white population also dropped to 156 (including the priest). Either many whites left the parish in between 1730 and 1739 or census of 1730 overestimated their count at 168 (which is likely did). Nonetheless, the 12 free people of color reported in 1730 could have disappeared from the total population of (free) males to decrease their numbers from 168 to 156. 

The apparent development of coffee plantations in the area appears to have been the major development that would shape the future of colonial Bainet for the rest of the century. While the number of indigoteries increased from 57 to 67, the inclusion of coffee plantations or estates in the statistical data was a new feature. Bainet, which possessed 51,800 pieds of caféières, accounted for about 64.55% of the total in the quarter (Jacmel, Cayes de Jacmel, and Bainet). Presumably, the expansion of coffee plantations in the area also fueled the increase of the enslaved population in Bainet, which reached a total of 535 adult, laboring slaves out of the quarter's total of 2532. Bainet's total enslaved population reached approximately 889 (assuming the exemptions category is taken from the total adult enslaved population) this year, a significant increase since 1730. There was also an increase in the numbers of infirm and children among this population, although adult slaves still comprised the majority. The increase in cotton production must have similarly driven a need for more enslaved labor, since numbers grew from 9780 pieds of cottoniers to 72,000. 

Thus, by 1739, Bainet appears to reached the form that would characterize it until the end of slavery. Indigo, coffee and cotton were the major crops, although tobacco was once important in Bainet's history, too. The area's free people of color could occasionally be considered as "white" but shifts in racial ideology and politics likely led to many who used to pass becoming "people of color" once more. As demonstrated by Trouillot's "Motion in the System: Coffee, Color, and Slavery in Eighteenth-Century Saint-Domingue", areas like Bainet became one in which free people of color outnumbered whites and coffee was either the most important product or shared that status with indigo. We presume the enslaved population also became more "Creole" on some plantations (perhaps the indigo ones) while coffee may have been fueled by imports of "cheaper" slaves. Alas, we have not yet located any detailed records or inventories of early coffee plantations in Bainet, so we cannot ascertain an average number of workers per plantation or get a sense of the African nations represented.