Geggus examines what the destruction of Saint-Domingue and the founding of Haiti meant for Spanish and Portuguese America. News travelled fast along maritime routes, carried by sailors, refugees and privateers, and slaveholders across the hemisphere began complaining that their slaves had grown insolent. Medallions of Dessalines turned up on militiamen in Rio; a Cuban association replaced the Spanish crown on its banner with a Haitian cocked hat.

He is more cautious about causation. Rebellions did cluster in these decades, but tax increases, colonial reforms, debates at the Cortes of Cadiz and the rhythms of the slave trade explain much of the pattern, and the claim that Haiti changed what slave resistance fundamentally was does not hold up against the Latin American evidence.

Real connections existed nonetheless, Aponte's Havana conspiracy of 1812 being the clearest, though Haitian governments avoided exporting revolt for fear of a blockade cutting off their arms.