The Haitian Revolution was perhaps the most successful slave rebellion in modern history; it created the first and only free and independent Black nation in the Americas. This book tells the story of how enslaved Africans forcibly brought to colonial Haiti through the trans-Atlantic slave trade used their cultural and religious heritages, social networks, and labor and militaristic skills to survive horrific conditions. They built webs of networks between African and 'creole' runaways, slaves, and a small number of free people of color through rituals and marronnage - key aspects to building the racial solidarity that helped make the revolution successful. Analyzing underexplored archival sources and advertisements for fugitives from slavery, Crystal Eddins finds indications of collective consciousness and solidarity, unearthing patterns of resistance. Considering the importance of the Haitian Revolution and the growing scholarly interest in exploring it, Eddins fills an important gap in the existing literature.

‘A compelling, elegantly written, and brilliantly conceived study in the development of racial definitions and solidarity. Eddins bravely opens windows and doors to a subversive and proud Haiti, and its role in the global context. The reader is observing the birth of a ‘new’ classic.’

Patrick Bellegarde-Smith - author of In the Shadow of Powers: Dantes Bellegarde in Haitian Social Thought

‘This beautifully crafted and overwhelmingly researched work restores the place of the multitude of known and unknown individuals who deployed myriad cultural, ethnic and religious practices derived from their African homelands to resist the dehumanization of slavery in 18th-century Saint Domingue (Haiti) in pursuit of racial liberation and human dignity. The book’s de-colonial perspective makes a seminal contribution to current Black and African diasporic studies. It is historical scholarship at its best.’

Carolyn Fick - author of The Making of Haiti: The Saint Domingue Revolution from Below

‘Crystal Eddins tells an important and fascinating story that reveals how oppression can be overturned under the most unlikely of circumstances. Perhaps most striking is her brilliant and counterintuitive analysis of advertisements designed to capture runaway slaves - advertisements that provide clues to piece together processes leading to collective consciousness needed to drive revolution.’

Rory McVeigh - University of Notre Dame

‘Crystal Eddins’s groundbreaking study reveals the agency of marronage and self-determination as key drivers of liberation and revolution. Her stunning analysis of thousands of fugitive advertisements challenges historical sociology and social movement studies with a Black/African diaspora reading of the collective efforts ‘from below’ that negated white-dominated capitalist structures. Her creative and exacting deployment of big data demands that we reconceptualize freedom, citizenship, property, and identity on a wider scale. Bravo!’

Mimi Sheller - Drexel University