Les esclaves aux Antilles françaises, XVIIe-XVIIIe siècles

A major archival study of enslaved life on French Caribbean plantations from the seventeenth through eighteenth centuries, organized around plantation records including états d'esclaves (slave inventories), gérant journals, manager-owner correspondence, and plantation plans. Debien documents the atelier (work gang) system, cases-nègres spatial layout, daily work schedules, marronage as recorded in plantation registers, and the gérant system of management. The book provides documentary foundation for understanding the plantation economy of Saint-Domingue from the colonial record rather than from literary or political sources alone.