Popkin makes a case for treating 20 June 1793 at Cap Francais as the decisive turn in the Haitian insurrection, on the grounds that nobody in the colony that morning was proposing to abolish slavery and that by nightfall the first offer of freedom had been printed. The fighting began among free people: General Galbaud, backed by ships' crews and imprisoned colonists, against the commissioners Sonthonax and Polverel, defended by free men of colour. Popkin corrects the labels usually attached to the two sides, since Galbaud's republican credentials were sound and his sailors held no stake in slavery. He then rebuilds the two days hour by hour and rests the outcome on accidents: the shot that killed the sailors' leader at the government house door, Galbaud's failure to close the escape routes, his flight to the harbour with his watches in his mouth. Black insurgents entered a city already lost and burning.