Old Regime

What is it about?

The Haitian Revolution (1789–1804) was an epochal event that galvanized slaves and terrified planters throughout the Atlantic world. Rather than view this tumultuous period solely as a radical rupture with slavery, Malick W. Ghachem's innovative study shows that emancipation in Haiti was also a long-term product of its colonial legal history. The key to this interpretation lies in the Code Noir, the law that regulated master–slave relations in the French empire. The Code's rules for the freeing

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Why is it important?

This is one of the first books to interpret the entire eighteenth-century experience of Haiti - colonial and revolutionary. It is an an adaptation and extension of Tocqueville's vision of French history to the Caribbean and to the history of New World slavery.