Zabeau Bellanton

Content sourced from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Elisabeth "Zabeau" Bellanton (c. 1751 – after 1782) was a free woman of color in Saint Domingue who became the colony’s most successful slave trader before the Haitian Revolution. She lived in Cap-Haïtien and is described as a mulatresse. Her exact background is mostly unknown, and she had a daughter named Bellanton; the father and any lover are not known.

Bellanton built her business largely on her own. Official records call her a confiseuse (jelly maker), but she was active in the slave trade and invested profits in urban real estate. Her method was to buy cheap slaves directly from slave ships, often young or unhealthy, then pawn them for part of their value for several months. When they were healthy, she sold them. If a slave died, her loss was limited by the pawn arrangement, making her profits very high. She also bought slaves illegally from British ships during the American Revolutionary War and had ties to traders in Martinique. She is listed as having a procureur, Justin Viart, but there were likely other investors, including white partners. She is known to have paid Le Sueur Fontaine for a loan, probably his share of the profits.

Bellanton reinvested her earnings in real estate and owned several houses in Cap-Français, including one worth about 18,000 livres, plus six slaves for her personal use. In 1782 she left Saint Domingue for France. Her will shows she left real estate to her godmother, funds to aid poor whites and free people of color, a monthly allowance to her mother, and 2,000 livres plus 10 percent of her real estate to her business manager Viart, with power of attorney to manage her daughter’s affairs.