To complicate matters further, some of these four groups also had sub-groups which created friction amongst themselves. The whites were broken down into two separate groups; grands blancs and petits blancs. All together the white population on Saint Domingue in 1789 totaled between 25,000 (Knight 2001, p. 229) and 40,000 (Wingfield & Parenton 1965, p.339) people. .
Grand blancs were the upper white class of the colony. They were the plantation owners who were united in their support of slavery which isn't surprising considering that their current and future wealth rested on the backs of their slaves. This group of whites was mainly interested in the profits that were generated by free trade and desired independence from France in order to pursue those goals (Corbett).
The petits blancs were the lower and middle class whites who worked as plantation managers in the country and as lawyers, shopkeepers, retail merchants, grocers, and tradesmen in the towns. Many of these whites were descendents of the first indentured servants that occupied the colony. This class of whites was especially race conscious and saw themselves superior to all non-whites, no matter their economic standing within the colony (Fick 1990, p.17). They typically had to compete with free blacks for work, were more loyal to France and less inclined to promote independence (Corbett). These two groups of whites were united only in their racial views which culminated in the adage that "a white is never wrong vis -vis a black- (Fick 1990, p. 18). Despite this racial congruence, the grands blancs were socially superior to the petits blancs who were excluded from advancing without land ownership. This social difference was so pronounced that it was even recognized by the slave population which distinguished between the two social classes of whites by applying their own vocabulary to them (Fick 1990, p. 18). .
The second group on Saint Domingue was the free people of color.