Gaffield reconstructs Haiti's first years of independence through its dealings with Britain, France, the United States, Denmark and the Batavian Republic, and finds far more contact than the familiar picture of total isolation allows. The Atlantic wars of the period structured those dealings: belligerent powers and neutral ones operated under different customary rules, which gave Britain a latitude in approaching Haitian leaders that Washington, Copenhagen and Amsterdam did not have.

Much of the argument concerns evidence. Haitian repositories hold little from these years, having suffered disaster, underfunding, political upheaval and theft, and scholars have read that silence as proof of abandonment. Following one document to the next from Paris to Jamaica, London, Washington, the Netherlands and Denmark, Gaffield assembles parliamentary and congressional debate, diplomatic and merchant letters, and court records instead.

What emerges is local agents improvising policy toward Dessalines, Petion and Christophe with little direction from home, and merchants shaping decisions that racism alone cannot explain.