The time is the late nineteenth century, the place the Dominican Republic and the main protagonist is Henry C.C. Astwood in this deeply researched exploration of the activities of a black American consul to Santo Domingo at a time of transition for both the United States and the Dominican Republic. But this, as the author makes clear, is not a conventional biography. It is so much more. Despite this not being a full-blown biography, Davidson, however, provides us with a comprehensive analysis of Astwood’s early life on Salt Cay, Turks & Caicos Islands where he was born in 1844, ten years after Britain emancipated the enslaved in her West Indian colonies. Astwood was the son of a white merchant and a mixed-race woman. The elder Astwood had extensive trading contacts with the Dominican Republic. As with other Caribbean islands that relied heavily on economic ties to the United States, the American Civil War had devastated the local economy. Those hostilities coincided with the Spanish invasion and occupation of the Dominican Republic. Together, the two wars deeply affected the lives of Salt Cay residents. The expulsion of the Spaniards after four years did not end the political uncertainty in the Dominican Republic. It was during this period of uncertainty that Henry Astwood first visited Puerto Plata on Hispaniola’s northern coast, a port that had long attracted black settlers from the United States and throughout the Caribbean. Astwood developed deep connections with the Dominican Republic in the 1860s. He married a Dominican in Salt Cay, took up temporary residence before finally settling in Samana, a town where hundreds of black Americans had settled in 1824, bringing with them their Protestant religious traditions.