A documentary reader built around primary sources from colonial Saint-Domingue and the revolution that destroyed it. Geggus supplies the editorial introductions and a compact narrative account of the revolt itself, so that the documents arrive with enough context to be read on their own terms.

Much of the material had not appeared in print before. Geggus gathered it from archives on both sides of the Atlantic and translated it for this edition, including sources on the conditions that pushed enslaved people and free people of color toward revolt in 1791.

The volume is pitched at readers meeting the subject for the first time as well as at those already working on it.