You Are All Free
The Haitian Revolution and the Abolition of Slavery

The events leading to the abolition of slavery in the French colony of Saint-Domingue in 1793, and in France.

Jeremy D. Popkin (Author)

9780521731942, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 30 August 2010

436 pages, 14 b/w illus. 4 maps
22.8 x 15.2 x 2.4 cm, 0.59 kg

'Brilliantly written and tightly argued, this book will compel readers to rethink the history of Haiti, the French Revolution, and the abolition of slavery.' Lynn Hunt, Eugen Weber Professor of Modern European History, University of California, Los Angeles

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 the first complete account of the dramatic events that led to these epochal decrees, and also to the destruction of Cap Français, 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, the book shows that abolition was the result of complex and often paradoxical political struggles on both sides of the Atlantic that have frequently been misunderstood by earlier scholars.

Introduction: the journée of 20 June 1793 in Cap Français and the abolition of slavery
1. A colony in revolution
2. Municipal revolution in a colonial city
3. French Jacobins and Saint-Domingue colonists
4. Creating revolutionary government in the tropics
5. A model republican general
6. The powderkeg explodes
7. Freedom and fire
8. The road to general emancipation
9. Saint-Domingue in the United States
10. The decree of 16 Pluviôse An II
Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Modern history to 20th century: c 1700 to c 1900 [HBLL], History of the Americas [HBJK], European history [HBJD]