A secret dinner in Philadelphia marks the point where American officials stopped merely trading with revolutionary Saint Domingue and began dealing directly with its black leadership, seeking to protect United States commerce in a hostile Atlantic.

Johnson follows the relationship from 1798 to 1801. John Adams extended economic backing and political encouragement to Toussaint Louverture, and Timothy Pickering, as secretary of state, built what became the first diplomatic tie between the United States and a government led by black men, a relationship the study describes as confident and mutual. Adams pursued American trading interests, on this account, without abandoning the natural rights promised in the Declaration of Independence.

Both parties then occupied a similar position: emerging republics trying to get out from under a dominating power. Adams lost the election, the relationship ended, and Saint Domingue stood just short of nationhood.