The country now known as Haiti was once called Hispaniola by the Spanish who discovered the island in 1492. The French had a colony on the eastern side of the island, they called it, Saint-Domingue, the Spanish called it Santo Domingo and the English Saint Domingo.

In Cap-Francis, the capitol of Saint-Domingue, a fountain was built to honour the namesake of the colony St Dominic. It was built in the 1720 by the renowned French sculptor and painter Ramon Mentuer Pantalon de Feu. It took just over a year to construct, and as it neared completion, Ramon succumbed to a yellow fever that also took his wife and 6 French art students and labours whom accompanied him to Saint-Domingue from his studio in Mensonges and suburb of Paris. The four un-named students who survived finished the work of the fountain.