Girard examines what white, black and mulatto women did during the final two years of the war that ended French rule, 1802 to 1804. The assumption that wartime narrowed women's part in events does not survive the evidence.

Desirable women served as tokens of a man's standing in colonial society, and some traded on that position to extract political favors. Women of color contributed through logistics, espionage and at times combat; those convicted of assisting the rebel army were put to death for it.

White women occupied a different place. Because they were taken to be essential to the colonial order itself, the forces under Toussaint Louverture and Jean-Jacques Dessalines made them targets alongside other civilians, and after the rebel victory the surviving white population was killed.