This is a study of a unique slave colony and of antislavery conflicts prior to the Emancipation Act of 1833. In their hostility to a booming slave-based sugar economy, abolitionists produced dubious propaganda and quarrelled bitterly, without moderating the cruelty of the slave regime. Ne vertheless the reforming impulse demanded documentation which illuminates the working lives and social interactions of a slave population - drawn from Africa, India, Madagascar and numerous smaller Indian Ocean islands - much more diverse than any in the Americas.