INTRO So the French colony in San Domingo began in the 17th century as a pirate outpost. And its original French inhabitants made their living selling leather and a kind of smoked beef called boucan. All that beef actually came from cattle left behind by the Spanish, who were the first Europeans to settle the island. But anyway, after 1640, the boucan sellers started to run low on beef. They were like, you know what would pay better than selling beef jerky? Robbing Spanish galleons, which as you'll recall were loaded with silver mined from South America. So by the middle of the 17th century, the French had convinced many of those buccaneering captains to give up their pirating and settle on the island.