The Arawak, the original inhabitants of the island Haiti shares with the Dominican Republic, called the island Ayti, meaning “land of mountains.” When he arrived in 1492, Christopher Columbus named the island La Isla Española (Spanish for “The Spanish Island”) in honor of his Spanish sponsors. The name later evolved into the modern name Hispaniola. After an early settlement near Cap-Haïtien was destroyed by Native Americans, the Spanish settled the eastern half of the island and left the west unsettled. French pirates operating from the island of Tortue hunted wild boar and other animals in Haiti to sell as food to passing ships. By 1697, when Spain formally ceded the western one-third of Hispaniola—the portion that later became Haiti—to France, the French had established a flourishing slave-plantation system throughout the colony. At the end of the next century, Saint Domingue (the French colonial term for Haiti) was the world's richest colony. The population at that time totaled more than 450,000 slaves, more than 25,000 free mulattoes, and about 30,000 French planters. About 800 Haitian volunteers fought in the American Revolution (1775-1783) under the French General Marquis de Lafayette, and thereby gained some military experience. The French Revolution, which began in 1789, inspired the 1791 slave rebellion in Haiti. This rebellion was led by Toussaint L'Ouverture, Jean Jacques Dessalines, Henri Christophe, Alexandre Sabès Pétion, and Jean Pierre Boyer. By 1794 forces under Toussaint L'Ouverture (today known as “the Precursor”) had freed the colony's slave population and rid it of its French and British presence. By 1801 Toussaint ruled the entire colony. Although Toussaint was captured by French forces in 1802 and died a prisoner in France, the rebellion he had fostered did not die. In 1804 Dessalines declared Haiti to be the world's first black republic. Unfortunately, most of the country's plantation infrastructure had been destroyed and all the experienced administrators had been eliminated.