1770-00-00: (Port-au-Prince Becomes the Colonial Capital of Saint-Domingue, the French Transferring Administrative Authority From Cap-Haïtien to a City Built…

1770-00-00: (Port-au-Prince Becomes the Colonial Capital of Saint-Domingue, the French Transferring Administrative Authority From Cap-Haïtien to a City Built on a Seismic Fault That Would Be Devastated Repeatedly for the Next Three Centuries): In 1770, the French colonial administration transferred the capital of Saint-Domingue from Cap-Haïtien in the north to Port-au-Prince on the western coast. The move reflected the shifting center of gravity of the colonial economy and the administrative convenience of a centrally located port on the Bay of Gonâve. Port-au-Prince had been founded in 1749 and was built like an amphitheater, with the commercial and administrative zones along the waterfront and the residences of the wealthy climbing into the hills above. The transfer of the capital would prove permanent: Port-au-Prince became the capital of independent Haiti in 1804, served as the seat of the mulatto-dominated south after the 1806 split, and resumed its role as the national capital after reunification in 1820. That the French chose to plant their administrative center on the Enriquillo-Plantain Garden fault zone, one of the most active seismic corridors in the Caribbean, was a decision whose consequences would compound across centuries, most catastrophically on January 12, 2010.