Diplomatically quarantined for most of the nineteenth century, Haiti nonetheless supplied a large share of the world's coffee and needed manufactured goods it could not produce. Pierre examines how the country's rulers, its propertied classes and the mass of people shut out of the global market met the loosening of trade rules in the postcolonial Americas.

Reading British correspondence and ledgers, the article follows dealings between Christophe and Pétion and merchants and naval officers such as Downie and Robert Sutherland during the Napoleonic wars. British agents described both Haitian leaders as capable and eager for English commerce — assessments at odds with the racial contempt of official language at the time — while using their ties to the navy and government to pull Haitian trade toward London. The absence of any treaty, Pierre argues, is precisely what made lopsided bargains possible, and places Haiti at the front of Atlantic economic liberalism rather than outside it.