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1 Sou imitating the sol aux balances
| Issuer | Saint-Domingue (1625-1804) |
|---|---|
| Year | 1801 |
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| Currency | Livre (1625-1804) |
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| Obverse description | Central tablet of law surmounted by a radiant all-seeing eye within a glory. The Republican calendar date appears in the exergue beneath the tablet, flanked on the left by a bunch of grapes and on the right by a sheaf of wheat, symbolizing agricultural abundance. The encircling legend identifies the issuing republic and the year of the Republic. The overall design closely imitates the metropolitan French sol aux balances coinage of the Revolutionary period. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse script | Latin |
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| Additional information |
Saint-Domingue's monetary supply was chronically strangled throughout the colonial period — metropolitan France shipped insufficient specie to the colony, forcing local administrators and merchants to tolerate a chaotic mix of cut coins, countermarked pieces, and outright imitations. This piece imitates the French sol aux balances, a type that had itself been discontinued decades earlier, which tells you something about how desperate the circulating medium had become by 1801.
That year sits at the violent hinge of the Haitian Revolution: Toussaint Louverture had consolidated control over the entire island by January. These local copper issues circulated in a colony that would cease to exist under that name within three years.