In the 1790s, François Marie Prevost, a young French surgeon fresh from his medical training in Paris moved to Port-de-Paix, Haiti. “Of course at that time Haiti was France’s most economically valuable colony”, says historian Deirdre Cooper Owens. “So there he began some experimental work on enslaved Haitian women, trying to perfect the caesarean section.” Prevost’s sojourn coincided with the leadership of Toussaint Louverture, who had been born a slave, the fight for Haitian independence, and the abolition of slavery.