Victor Schoelcher, "abolitionist traveller" (v) and French politician, calls for closer ties between France and its Caribbean colonies in this book, as well as the immediate abolition of slavery. He examines the living and working conditions of slavery, the legal status and punishment of the slaves, marronage (including escaping to neighbouring islands like Antigua, where slavery had already been abolished),religion, race and racism, and the colonial administration. He also reviews a number of potential means of abolishing slavery in the French colonies.

As well as his own testimony as an eye- witness of slavery in the Caribbean, Schoelcher cites a number of letters and travel accounts, including Sturge and Harvey, The West Indies in 1837 (117) and Hoskins, Travels in Ethiopia (155).