Abolition in Saint-Domingue took place abruptly, with no period of transition of the kind that was then under way in the northern United States, and which most abolitionists advocated. Faced with a dramatically new situation, administrators in Saint- Domingue had to invent a regime for containing and channeling the impact of emancipation.

Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ …, loc. 25