[...] “The general opinion seems to have been that the negroes were worked too hard, and … that this was often deliberately done, as many masters considered it cheaper to buy slaves than to breed them.”166 As a consequence, the colony was forced to import Africans at a rate, which, by the time of the revolution, had grown to at least 40,000 each year. In turn, Stoddard recognized, “One of the most important considerations for the history of the Revolution in San Domingo is the fact that a majority of the negro population was African-born.”