France was the first nation to abolish slavery in its Atlantic empire (1793/4), but was also unique in subsequently re-enslaving its black citizens. Joseph’s dissertation studies how re-enslavement shaped the politics of France’s Caribbean empire from the Haitian revolution (1791­–1804) until abolition in 1848. His research traces cases of re-enslavement in Guadeloupe, Martinique and French Guiana through a wide range of manuscript and print sources. The study argues that the legal restoration of slavery after the Haitian revolution normalized the confiscation of black citizens’ rights to maintain a plantation labor force. Efforts to overturn abolition forced a large black population to live between freedom and slavery. Their precarious existence on the plantation periphery challenged the resurgent power of planter elites and enacted emancipation from below.