Fouchard, questioned as a historian of Haiti and of the Americas generally, moves from the island's first inhabitants to its cultural life under slavery. He begins with the Ciboney and the Arawak, the Taino settlement of the Greater Antilles and Caonabo's resistance, and refuses flatly to take part in any commemoration of Columbus, whom he holds responsible for a swiftly executed genocide and for ordering the mutilation of captives who ran.

Marronnage, he says, arrives with the first Africans in 1503 and carries its idea of freedom to the Indians. He argues at length that Toussaint Louverture's refusal to serve Napoleon's designs on the mainland cost France Louisiana and so made the American federation possible, a claim he thinks ought to be taught in United States schools.

The later part of the conversation turns to Saint-Domingue's theaters, the singer Minette, and comedies performed in Creole, from which Fouchard dates an indigenous current in Haitian art long preceding Price-Mars.