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You Are All Free: The Haitian Revolution and the Abolition of Slavery. Jeremy D. Popkin. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010. xv + 422 pp. (Paper US$ 24.99)
This meticulously researched work covers the years 1792-1794 in Saint-Domingue (Haiti) and France, most notably the tenure of the French commissioners Léger-Félicité Sonthonax and Étienne Polverel; the June 20, 1793 infighting in Cap Français that led to the destruction of the city; Sonthonax's August 1793 emancipation proclamation; and the Convention's February 1794 emancipation law that confirmed and expanded Sonthonax's proclamation. Public awareness of these momentous events has increased in recent years, but actual scholarly research has tended to be superficial despite the existence of a wealth of materials (Popkin draws heavily from the vast D XXV series in the French Archives Nationales, among others). This historiographical oversight has leftus with two competing, but largely unproven, narratives. One starts with the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and sees universal emancipation as the logical culmination of French revolutionary ideals. The other begins with the 1791 slave revolt and views the emancipation law as the response to a three-year struggle for liberty on the part of Saint- Domingue's black population.
Popkin's thesis is that neither explanation is consistent with the historical record. French revolutionaries generally paid little attention to colonial matters, preferring to defer to conservative planters rather than risk losing a valuable colony. This point was underscored by Yves Bénot as early...