So was Bangladesh (where I’m from). But because of natural bounty and resources, not technology or social organization. That’s why the Europeans were able to establish colonies in the first place. And even if restored to that level of wealth that would make them desperately poor by European standards today.

Bengal was actually quite advanced, orior to colonisation

Searching for "rich" and "wealth" in that document doesn't turn up a demonstration of the claim, which I find extraordinary. Would you mind quoting the part which you believe does?

>Saint Domingue was the wealthiest European colonial possession in the Americas," Hans Schmidt writes, producing three-quarters of the world's sugar by 1789,

Though I believe the poster was asking about the economy post independence.