Polverel sensed that this was an important, and potentially explosive, issue. He gave plantation workers the choice between a six-day and a five-day work week, but provided a substantial incentive for them to choose the former: on plantations where workers chose a six-day work week, they would receive one-third of the plantation's production. If they chose to work five days per week, their portion would be cut in half, to one-sixth. It was a dramatic difference for one day a week less of work. But the laborers on several plantations—again led by women—nevertheless chose more free time and less pay. They had more faith in the revenue they generated themselves from their garden plots than in the salaries they were promised from plantation managers. … Two women laborers refused their manager's request that they work at night, announcing that if anyone worked in the cane fields after dark, it would be he.

Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ …, loc. 266