1697-09-20: (The Treaty of Ryswick Grants France the Western Third of the Island, Formalizing What Buccaneers and Settlers Had Already Established on the Gro…

1697-09-20: (The Treaty of Ryswick Grants France the Western Third of the Island, Formalizing What Buccaneers and Settlers Had Already Established on the Ground and Creating the Colony That Would Become Saint-Domingue): On September 20, 1697, the Treaty of Ryswick ended the war between France and the Grand Alliance of Great Britain, Spain, the Holy Roman Empire, and the Netherlands. Among its many provisions, the treaty formally awarded France the western third of the island, legalizing a colonial presence that French buccaneers and settlers had been building for decades. The territory would become Saint-Domingue, the colony whose sugar and coffee wealth, extracted through enslaved labor, would make it the most profitable piece of colonial real estate on earth.