Saint Domingue (which eventually became Haiti) was surrendered by the Spanish to the French after decades of fighting. Between 1700 to 1704 there were more than 100 sugar plantations. The French needed slaves to work in the plantations so they started bringing slaves from Africa. More than 10,000 slaves arrived in Haiti each year, and by the year 1787, the number increased to more than 40,000. There were nearly half a million slaves in Haiti by this time. The slaves outnumbered the free population by 10 to 1 so they began to organize. This led to the Haitian Revolution.