Haiti, during both economic wealth and poverty, has been tested by the suffering of its inhabitants; Alejo Carpentier addresses this wonder uniquely with the use of "wonderful" in his novel The Kingdom of This World (1949). This novel illustrates the progress of the revolution during Haiti's era of emancipation in the early 18th century. A stylistic decision by Carpentier to narrate these events using magical realism leaves the reader confused and challenged to understand his fictionalized story. Through the character Ti Noël, and many others, the reader travels through this revolution and the wonderfully exaggerated events that have transpired. Carpentier uses magical realism to personify the desires and values ​​of the numerous characters within the text as a means of action. Before Haiti's independence it was known as Santo Domingo by its colonizer, France, formerly Spain. During French possession, the success of Saint Domingue's coffee and sugar plantations led to it becoming an economic gold mine for the French. Dividends earned from the colony's plantations sprouted from its vast base of slave labor. The island was deeply divided into social classes, resulting in frequent minor skirmishes between slaves and white plantation owners. However in 1791 a serious planned revolt saw slaves, who far outnumbered whites, take control of large regions of Santo Domingo. In an effort to preserve their rights to the island, the French granted the slaves freedom, albeit limited. Slaves wanted rights that guaranteed them land and high-status jobs while the Maroons (high-status blacks) sought the continuation of plantation work under the French and a third party, the whites, wanted the restoration of…half of paper ......, and Giroux, 2006. Print.Dubois, Laurent. "Haiti." Europe 1789-1914: Encyclopedia of the Age of Industry and Empire. Ed. John Merriman and Jay Winter. vol. 2. Detroit: Sons of Charles Scribner, 2006. 1035-1037. Gale World history in context. Network. April 9, 2011.Knight, Franklin W., “The Haitian Revolution.” The American Historical Review 105.1 (2000): 29 par. 9. Network. April 2011Parmisano, San Francisco "Desiderio". New Catholic Encyclopedia. 2nd ed. vol. 4. Detroit: Gale, 2003. 689-690. Gale World history in context. Network. April 10, 2011."Christophe, Henri (1767-1820)." Encyclopedia of World Biography. Detroit: Gale, 1998. Gale World History in Context. Network. April 10, 2011."Toussaint-Louverture." Macmillan Encyclopedia of World Slavery. Ed. Paul Finkelman and Joseph Calder Miller. New York: Macmillan Reference USA, 1998. Gale World History In Context. Network. April 10. 2011.