You are all free : the Haitian revolution and the abolition of slavery (edition 2011)

(retrieved from Amazon Sat, 14 May 2011 08:59:00 -0400)

"The abolitions of slavery in the French Caribbean colony of Saint-Domingue in 1793 and in revolutionary France in 1794 were the first dramatic blows against an institution that had shaped the Atlantic world for three centuries and affected the lives of millions of people. Based on extensive archival research, You Are All Free provides an account of the dramatic events that led to these epochal decrees, and also to the destruction of Cap Francais, the richest city in the French Caribbean, and to the first refugee crisis in the United States. Taking issue with earlier accounts that claim that Saint-Domingue's slaves freed themselves, or that French revolutionaries abolished slavery as part of a general campaign for universal human rights, this book shows that abolition was the result of complex and often paradoxical political struggles on both sides of the Atlantic"-- Provided by publisher… (more)