Three men of colour and six whites write the charter of autonomy

A commission of three men of colour and six whites drafted the constitution at Louverture's instigation. Its first article stated that the colony formed part of the French empire while being subject to particular laws, which the editors say disguised the fact that it turned the island into a virtually autonomous dominion. Louverture was named governor general for life and commander in chief with power to name his successor. The document combined a commitment to abolition and racial equality with provisions to keep the plantation system running, under which formerly enslaved people were to continue working as cultivators. The editors note that multiple printings exist in the colony and in Paris and that they chose the one published in the colonial capital because that would have been the version actually in force.

Wood opens with Napoleon sending Leclerc to restore French rule in Saint Domingue after Toussaint had made himself master of the island, and dates the dispatch to 1801. With the initial French successes, many black and mixed-race troops and their officers entered French service, and in suppressing the sporadic risings that followed the restoration of French rule Dessalines earned from Leclerc the title of butcher of the Negroes. The mechanism of the reversal was news from elsewhere. Word that Napoleon had ordered slavery restored in Guadeloupe and Martinique was the signal for defection throughout the ranks of the colonial troops. Readers should note the fleet did not arrive until early 1802, so Wood's date refers to the decision rather than the landing, and she gives the meeting between Dessalines and Petion as the point at which the insurrection was agreed.

Louverture had pressed Roume for months to authorise a takeover of the Spanish half of the island, accusing his neighbours of kidnapping black Dominguians and staging public demonstrations to manufacture outrage. When the Spanish governor investigated and gave assurances, Roume withdrew his earlier decree. Louverture then imprisoned the French agent and invaded anyway, on hearing that Paris was about to forbid it. Girard's finding concerns what did not happen next. The documents Louverture published to justify the invasion say nothing about the fate of Dominican slaves, and the proclamations he issued on the march promised to respect his neighbours' religion, lives and property. During the handover negotiations he complained that Dominican exiles were leaving with their slaves, on the ground that this stripped the territory of workers. He treats the silence of the record as the finding, since a governor eager to be seen abolishing slavery would have said so in print. Where this account departs from the standard one: Girard says the record is far from clear that Louverture abolished slavery in Santo Domingo after invading, contradicting the common assertion that he did so at once.

Girard traces the genesis of the expedition to an order to prepare a force of three thousand six hundred troops at Brest. Coming shortly after Bonaparte had turned against Louverture, the squadron was most likely intended as the first instalment of a force that would grow once peace with England was secured. He is explicit that earlier orders do not count as the beginning. A first instruction to ship out had come as early as December 1799, countermanded within days; new orders followed in January 1800; the fleet was repeatedly delayed, rerouted to Egypt when Bonaparte chose alliance instead, and then held up at Toulon. Once the peace preliminaries were signed, six thousand men were ordered ready to sail from Brest by 20 October with five thousand six hundred to follow from four other ports. Where this account departs from the standard one: Girard dates the decision to invade six months before the meeting at Malmaison that other histories treat as the turning point.