Plummer places Haiti's poverty and economic dependence alongside that of other Caribbean nations, but treats the Haitian case as the pattern from which the others can be read. Independence in 1804 did not settle the country's position; it opened a long and worsening contest for survival among imperialist states.

What happened in Haiti, on this account, anticipated what would later happen across Latin America, and shows how national ambitions in the hemisphere were turned aside. Plummer draws particular attention to the mechanism: decline here was driven by commerce rather than by plantation enterprise or large capital investment, which makes Haiti a clear illustration of that route into underdevelopment.