Talk:1770 Port-au-Prince earthquake

Beautiful
Wonderful work of yours Abductive. Congratulations ! Krenakarore (talk) 19:35, 14 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Thank you! Abductive  (reasoning) 19:42, 14 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, thanks for doing this, I came across this on the DYK nom page after putting another Haitian history article there. I'm wondering if any of the sources you used talk about how the population of Port-au-Prince reacted to the earthquake, e.g. if they had theories as to why it happened (some collective sin on their parts, for example). Obviously folks had very different feelings about why earthquakes occurred in the 18th century than most of us do today, and it may be interesting to report some of that in a couple of sentences or a paragraph, assuming the info is readily available. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 22:17, 14 January 2010 (UTC)
 * There was some mention of a monk who said something that caused trouble with the slaves, and possibly he was expelled from St Dominique, but I felt it was too tenuous to include. Abductive  (reasoning) 22:36, 14 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Also, the people lucked out, since the time of day, the weather and the warning rumble got them outside. Considering that the hospital had non-ambulatory 80 people in it, the percentage death toll was probably not that high. What percentage of the population would be in the hospital? Abductive  (reasoning) 22:44, 14 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Good point, if anything they might have felt the end result was fortuitous, though presumably not after the ensuing deaths from famine and the like. I'm actually getting a hold of a general history of Haiti (it's dumb that I don't have one already, I've got The Black Jacobins but I don't think that discusses much before the revolution) from the library in the next few days so I'll check and see if there's anything to add on the earthquake from that. I agree a one-off mention about a monk who made some comment is not worth including. At the very least I might be able to add some info about the population of Port-au-Prince at the time which would help put the casualties in context. Interestingly, per this, 1770 was the year that Port-au-Prince replaced Cap-Français as capital of Saint-Domingue, so the timing of the earthquake is rather striking. Assuming the capital switchover date is accurate, it presumably happened before the earthquake in June, though one wonders if the disaster necessitated a further (temporary) move of the capital. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 22:58, 14 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Figuring out the population is not easy. The sources talk about the number of buildings at the time, which, for example, in Léogane was 317. Given that 50 people died in Léogane, but all 317 buildings fell down, the death rate was low. Abductive  (reasoning) 23:40, 14 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Have you consulted any more general works on Haitian history? I'd actually be surprised if there were not fairly decent population numbers for Port-au-Prince during that time. For one thing, historians have exerted extraordinary effort cataloging the trans-atlantic slave trade, including getting precise numbers as to how many slaves were sold in what city and when that happened (this is something I've read a lot about for Cuba and Puerto Rico). There's actually a lot of data to go on (slave traders, like all businesspeople, kept quite good records and many survived), but there's still some estimating obviously. Given the importance of Saint Domingue to the global economy of the late 18th century (and the fact that the population was overwhelmingly slave based), I'm sure there are reasonably reliable population estimates, even for individual cities like Port-au-Prince. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 00:11, 15 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I see there's some discussion of the population numbers here but only for the entire colony. The source is actually CLR James' book which I have, but I'm sure there's much more recent info, including stuff on Port-au-Prince. I'll look into this at some point, either when I get a copy of a book I ordered or maybe through some JSTOR searching. Not a huge deal but it would be useful info and I could also add it to the Port-au-Prince article which is pretty meager in terms of history. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 00:14, 15 January 2010 (UTC)
 * The Port-au-Prince article doesn't even mention that it was named Port Republican for a while. Abductive  (reasoning) 00:24, 15 January 2010 (UTC)