As numbers of "gens de couleur" grew, the French rulers enacted discriminatory laws. Statutes forbade "gens de couleur" from taking up certain professions, marrying whites, wearing European clothing, carrying swords or firearms in public, or attending social functions where whites were present. However, these regulations did not restrict their purchase of land, and many accumulated substantial holdings and became slave-owners. By 1789, they owned one-third of the plantation property and one-quarter of the slaves of Saint-Domingue. Central to the rise of the "gens de couleur" planter class was the growing importance of coffee, which thrived on the marginal hillside plots to which they were often relegated. The largest concentration of "gens de couleur" was in the southern peninsula, the last region of the colony to be settled, owing to its distance from Atlantic shipping lanes and its formidable terrain, with the highest mountain range in the Caribbean.