* The return of the masters to their former plantations resulted in some remarkable scenes. In the late 1790s, one French visitor who was seeking to reestablish control over a family-owned plantation found that although he was welcome to stay on the property that he considered his, the workers were no longer interested in serving him. When he asked for food, they told him that there were some potatoes ready to be harvested in the field: he could help himself. The visitor was shocked by the cheekiness of the response, though it was in many ways remarkably humane, even hospitable. The former slaves didn’t take revenge or refuse his presence; they just made it clear that times had changed, that they were no longer bound to obey his commands, and that they were now all living on the land together as equals.19