Alas, two fundamental claims of the text are problematic. The author asserts that his exploration of the major theme, surviving slavery, is disconnected from “the enslaved people’s efforts to rebel, resist and wrest some measure of autonomy from their enslavers” (4). Yet he repeatedly underscores that they were frequently compelled to disobey and run away to lodge complaints because their masters “did everything possible to keep enslaved people from making complaints” (57). Indeed, the letter of the Berbice law legalized their actions, but in practice enslaved persons intentionally defied their masters in lodging complaints. The perspective, therefore, that complaints were separate from resistance is not sustained in the discourse. The final conclusion of the text is also a difficult pill. In reference to the lives of enslaved persons in Berbice, the author declares, “It was, in the end, a world at once utterly foreign and disconcertingly similar to our own” (194). The comparative similarity the author draws between the lives of servile laborers and our current milieu is unacceptable and disconcerting.

中文翻译：

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海地革命 - 牧师和先知：Abbé Ouvière、Romaine Rivière 和革命大西洋世界。通过特里·雷伊。牛津：牛津大学出版社，2017 年。Pp。330. 插图。参考书目。笔记。指数。$75.00 布。

唉，文本的两个基本主张是有问题的。作者断言，他对奴隶制幸存这一主题的探索与“被奴役人民反抗、反抗并从他们的奴役者手中夺取某种程度的自治权的努力”（4）脱节。然而，他一再强调，他们经常被迫不服从并逃跑投诉，因为他们的主人“尽一切可能阻止被奴役的人投诉”（57）。事实上，伯比斯法的条文使他们的行为合法化，但实际上被奴役的人故意违抗他们的主人提出投诉。因此，将抱怨与抵抗分开的观点在话语中没有得到支持。文的最后结论，也是一粒难吃的药丸。关于伯比斯被奴役者的生活，作者宣称，“最终，这是一个完全陌生的世界，与我们自己的世界非常相似”（194）。作者在奴役劳动者的生活和我们当前的环境之间得出的比较相似是不可接受和令人不安的。