Scott's account of how slavery ended in Cuba sets aside two familiar explanations: that Spain abolished it from above, or that economic contradictions caused it to be abandoned. Emancipation appears instead as drawn out, incremental, and full of conflict, moving through a run of legal, economic, and social change.

Enslaved people themselves accelerated it. By flight, by legal action, by self-purchase, and by joining the nationalist insurgency, they forced the question and dismantled the institution piece by piece rather than waiting for it to be lifted.

Freedom left former slaves with altered but still narrow economic options. Some responded near the century's end by joining a fresh rebellion against Spanish power, this one ultimately successful. An afterword written for this edition returns to how tangled post-emancipation society was, and to recent shifts in historical method that open such questions to fresh treatment.