Stein sets out to fix the record on a sequence of events that historians have handled badly: the ending of slavery in French Saint Domingue during the second half of 1793, which made the colony the first place in the New World to outlaw bondage and grant full rights regardless of color.

The confusion, as Stein describes it, runs across several fields at once. Historians of the French Revolution have mostly passed over abolition as a sideshow to events in France; writers on the Caribbean have circulated versions that are wrong or partial; and even Haiti specialists have blurred together the separate proclamations issued between 21 June and 31 October.

Against that muddle the article lays out an accurate chronology and assigns responsibility. Stein credits the outcome chiefly to Léger Félicité Sonthonax, with Etienne Polverel following along, though not always willingly.