Making freedom work: the long transition from slavery to freedom during the Haitian Revolution

The 1791 slave revolt in Saint-Domingue (Haiti) and the first French abolition of slavery in 1793–1794 are generally seen as epochal events that redefined labor relations in the French Caribbean. But a close analysis of the labor codes promulgated during and after the Haitian Revolution indicates that elites were eager to reconcile the ideal of universal freedom with the needs of plantation agriculture, resulting in a succession of oppressive labor systems that subsisted until the 1820s.