This account of slavery and post-slavery in Africa and the Americas is based on the travels of the author. It contains a number of statistical tables showing population, production rates etc., as Leconte draws up comparisons between post-slavery Caribbean colonies, slavery in Cuba and the United States, and freedom in Liberia (dismissing the idea of Souloque's Haiti as a case study), in an attempt to lay out the future course of the former slave colonies of Britain and France. Critical of the cruelties of Cuban plantation slavery, but impressed by both Southern US slavery and freedom in Liberia, Leconte's conclusions are mixed. He recommends that the former slave colonies should follow the example of Liberia (especially with regard to religious instruction), but that the Southern United States should exercise great caution in abolishing slavery.