Saint-Domingue was a French colony on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola from 1659 to 1804, in what is now Haiti. In 1791, the slaves and some free people of color of Saint-Domingue began waging a rebellion against French authority. After slavery was abolished in 1793, the French re-gained control, although this alienated the island’s dominant slave-holding class. France controlled the island of Hispaniola from 1795 to 1802, but withdrew from the western portion of the island in late 1803 after another rebellion, and the colony later declared its independence as Haiti, its indigenous name, the following year.