Table of Contents

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.

Promotional Information

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

About the Author

Jeremy D. Popkin, T. Marshall Hahn Jr Professor of History at the University of Kentucky, has written numerous books on the French and Haitian Revolutions and on the subject of autobiographical literature, including Revolutionary News: The Press in France, 1789–1799 (1990), History, Historians and Autobiography (2005), and Facing Racial Revolution: Eyewitness Accounts of the Haitian Revolution (2007). He has been a visiting Professor at the College de France (2009) and Brown University (2005) and held numerous fellowships, including awards from the J. S. Guggenheim Foundation, the National Humanities Center, the Fulbright Program, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Institute for Advanced Study, and the Newberry Library.

Reviews

'This is an impeccably researched and narrated history of the Saint-Domingue Revolution, which pivots on the destruction of the city of Cap François on the journée of June 20, 1793. It compellingly takes issue with a number of leading historiographical perspectives and for that reason alone deserves attention.' Seymour Drescher, University of Pittsburgh

'The events of 1793 were a watershed moment in the history of slavery and democracy. Popkin's deeply researched and fascinating account of this transformative moment is a major contribution to the existing literature on the history of the Haitian Revolution and on emancipation in the Atlantic world.' Laurent M. Dubois, Duke University

'Grafting original research in the colonial archives onto an extensive background in French Revolution scholarship, Jeremy Popkin has quickly established himself as one of the leading analysts of the Haitian Revolution. You Are All Free serves up a vivid and finely detailed investigation of a key turning point in Atlantic world history.' David Geggus, University of Florida

'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