"Napoleon sold the Louisiana Territory [to the USA in 1803] because he was waging war with Britain and was strapped for cash. He wrongly believed the area a wasteland and hence strongly preferred to retain instead the French colony of Saint-Domingue, which occupied the western half of the island of Hispaniola (the eastern half being the Spanish colony of Santo Domingo). Saint-Domingue boasted a population of 500,000 and plantations of sugar cane, indigo, coffee, and cocoa rich enough to fill 700 ships a year. The French then promptly lost the colony when, in 1804, a successful revolution by black slaves led to the independence of the new nation of Haiti.”
From Financial Founding Fathers: The Men Who Made America Rich (2006)
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