The Law of 4 February 1794 was a decree of the French First Republic's National Convention which abolished slavery in the French colonial empire.
The Law of 4 February 1794 was a decree of the French First Republic's National Convention which abolished slavery in the French colonial empire.
During the early modern period, France began colonizing the Americas and became involved in the Atlantic slave trade. By the late 18th century, France had several colonies in the West Indies and the Indian Ocean whose economies were reliant on slave labor. In 1788, Jacques Pierre Brissot and Étienne Clavière founded the Society of the Friends of the Blacks, an organization dedicated to the abolition of slavery. Brissot had spent time in England and was inspired by the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade, a British abolitionist organization founded just a year earlier. [1] However, their efforts were not effective; at the beginning of the French Revolution, a measure to abolish slavery in France's colonies was proposed and then dropped due to opposition from the French nobility. [2] In 1790, the National Assembly affirmed their support for the continuation of slavery. [3]
The French colony of Saint-Domingue in particular was important to the economy of France. [4] A 1791 slave rebellion in the colony led to widespread turmoil, which the Spanish and British attempted to take advantage of by invading Saint-Domingue. [5] [6] These circumstances forced commissioners sent by the French First Republic to the colony to gradually abolish slavery in Saint-Dominigue in order to win its Black population to their side. In June 1793, Léger-Félicité Sonthonax and Étienne Polverel decreed that all slaves who were willing to fight under them would be freed. Two months later on 29 August, Sonthonax freed all slaves in the northern region of Saint-Dominigue. After gradually implementing anti-slavery measures in the western and southern regions, Polverel abolished slavery there as well on 31 October. [7] [8]
Although Sonthonax and Polverel were both abolitionists, they had not come to Saint-Domingue with the intention of abolishing slavery in the colony, having received no such orders from the National Convention in Paris. Their intention in abolishing slavery was solely utilitarian, as Sonthonax and Polverel both recognized that abolishing slavery would prevent Saint-Dominigue from falling into Spanish or British hands. [7] Their proclamations abolishing slavery were not universally well-received even among the Black population of Saint-Domingue; Toussaint Louverture, a former slave who was allied with the Spanish at the time, doubted its sincerity. [9] Louverture then began pressuring the Spanish to issue a similar proclamation. [10]
Sonthonax sent delegates back to Paris to advocate for emancipation. [11] While the delegates were briefly arrested by opponents of Sonthonax, they were well-received by the National Convention, where they justified the earlier proclamation on both practical and moral grounds. [11] After their speeches, Jean-François Delacroix exclaimed that the National Convention should not "dishonor itself by a long discussion", [12] and so it passed the law by acclamation. [11]
The law read as follows:
The National Convention declares slavery abolished throughout all the colonies: consequently, it decrees that all men, without distinction of color, domiciliated in the colonies, are French citizens, and entitled to the enjoyment of all the rights secured by the Constitution. Referred to the Committee of Public Safety for it to report immediately on the measures to be taken for the execution of the decree. [12]
After passing the law, the Committee of Public Safety sent 1,200 troops to the French West Indies to enforce it. [13] They recaptured Guadeloupe from the British and their French Royalist allies, using the colony as a base from which to retake other islands in the West Indies. [14] The law did succeed in winning over Black people in the region to French Republican side, which greatly benefited them. [15] It may have influenced Louverture's decision to switch sides from the Spanish to the French Republicans, though it is unclear whether he knew of the law early enough for it to have influenced his decision. [16] Implementation of the law did not always create a change in material conditions. In Guadeloupe, emancipated slaves were effectively restricted to plantations by laws against vagrancy and were not given the pay they were legally owed. [17] In Saint-Domingue, as well, French Republican officials attempted to maintain the colony's plantation economy, which caused conflict with the newly freed slaves, who wanted autonomy. [18]
The French spread copies of the law, as well as other revolutionary documents such as the Declaration of the Rights of Man, throughout the region. [13] This eventually helped to spark slave revolts in Venezuela, Brazil, Jamaica and Cuba. [13]
The Coup of 18 Brumaire and the rise to power of Napoleon led to a reversal of French policies regarding slavery. Initially, Napoleon was indifferent to colonial slavery, though he was eventually convinced by proslavery lobbyists in France that substantial profits could be made if slavery was restored to French colonies. [19] In a letter to Laurent Jean François Truguet, who opposed the restoration of slavery, Napoleon argued that "I am for the whites, because I am white; I have no other reason, and this is the right one". Napoleon also wanted to restore French control over Saint-Dominigue, which had effectively come under the total leadership of Louverture. [20] He subsequently implemented the Law of 20 May 1802, which reinstated slavery in French colonies and France's involvement in the slave trade. [21]
It is sometimes considered the first abolition of slavery in history. [22]
Abolitionism, or the abolitionist movement, is the movement to end slavery and liberate slaves around the world.
François-Dominique Toussaint Louverture also known as Toussaint L'Ouverture or Toussaint Bréda, was a Haitian general and the most prominent leader of the Haitian Revolution. During his life, Louverture first fought and allied with Spanish forces against Saint-Domingue Royalists, then joined with Republican France, becoming Governor-General-for-life of Saint-Domingue, and lastly fought against Bonaparte's republican troops. As a revolutionary leader, Louverture displayed military and political acumen that helped transform the fledgling slave rebellion into a revolutionary movement. Along with Jean-Jacques Dessalines, Louverture is now known as one of the "Fathers of Haiti".
The National Convention was the constituent assembly of the Kingdom of France for one day and the French First Republic for its first three years during the French Revolution, following the two-year National Constituent Assembly and the one-year Legislative Assembly. Created after the great insurrection of 10 August 1792, it was the first French government organized as a republic, abandoning the monarchy altogether. The Convention sat as a single-chamber assembly from 20 September 1792 to 26 October 1795.
Saint-Domingue was a French colony in the western portion of the Caribbean island of Hispaniola, in the area of modern-day Haiti, from 1697 to 1804. The name derives from the Spanish main city on the island, Santo Domingo, which came to refer specifically to the Spanish-held Captaincy General of Santo Domingo, now the Dominican Republic. The borders between the two were fluid and changed over time until they were finally solidified in the Dominican War of Independence in 1844.
The Haitian Revolution was a successful insurrection by self-liberated slaves against French colonial rule in Saint-Domingue, now the sovereign state of Haiti.
Léger-Félicité Sonthonax was a French abolitionist and Jacobin before joining the Girondist party, which emerged in 1791. During the French Revolution, he controlled 7,000 French troops in Saint-Domingue during part of the Haitian Revolution. His official title was Civil Commissioner. From September 1792, he and Polverel became the de facto rulers of Saint-Domingue's non-slave population. Because they were associated with Brissot’s party, they were put in accusation by the convention on July 16, 1793, but a ship to bring them back in France didn’t arrive in the colony until June 1794, and they arrived in France in the time of the downfall of Robespierre. They had a fair trial in 1795 and were acquitted of the charges the white colonists brought against them. Sonthonax believed that Saint-Domingue's whites were royalists or separatists, so he attacked the military power of the white settlers and by doing so alienated the colonial settlers from their government. Many gens de couleur asserted that they could form the military backbone of Saint-Domingue if they were given rights, but Sonthonax rejected this view as outdated in the wake of the August 1791 slave uprising. He believed that Saint-Domingue would need ex-slave soldiers among the ranks of the colonial army if it was to survive. On August 1793, he proclaimed freedom for all slaves in the north province. His critics allege that he was forced into ending slavery in order to maintain his own power.
George Biassou was an early leader of the 1791 slave rising in Saint-Domingue that began the Haitian Revolution. With Jean-François and Jeannot, he was prophesied by the vodou priest Dutty Boukman to lead the revolution.
Benoit Joseph André Rigaud was the leading mulatto military leader during the Haitian Revolution. Among his protégés were Alexandre Pétion and Jean-Pierre Boyer, both future presidents of Haïti.
Étienne Polverel (1740–1795) was a French lawyer, aristocrat, and revolutionary. He was a member of the Jacobin club. In 1792, he and Léger Félicité Sonthonax were sent to Saint-Domingue to suppress the slave revolt and to implement the decree of April 4, 1792, that gave equality of rights to all free men, regardless of their color.
The Society of the Friends of the Blacks was a French abolitionist society founded by Jacques Pierre Brissot and Étienne Clavière and directly inspired by the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade founded in London in 1787. The society's aim was to abolish both the institution of slavery in the France's overseas colonies and French involvement in the Atlantic slave trade.
The War of Knives, also known as the War of the South, was a civil war from June 1799 to July 1800 between the Haitian revolutionary Toussaint Louverture, a black ex-slave who controlled the north of Saint-Domingue, and his adversary André Rigaud, a mixed-race free person of color who controlled the south. Louverture and Rigaud fought over de facto control of the French colony of Saint-Domingue during the war. Their conflict followed the withdrawal of British forces from the colony earlier during the Haitian Revolution. The war resulted in Toussaint taking control of the entirety of Saint-Domingue, and Rigaud fleeing into exile.
Jean-Baptiste Belley was a Saint Dominican and French politician. A native of Senegal and formerly enslaved in the colony of Saint-Domingue, in the French West Indies, he was an elected member of the Estates General, the National Convention, and the Council of Five Hundred during the French First Republic. He was also known as Mars.
The Saint-Domingue expedition was a large French military invasion sent by Napoleon Bonaparte, then First Consul, under his brother-in-law Charles Victor Emmanuel Leclerc in an attempt to regain French control of the Caribbean colony of Saint-Domingue on the island of Hispaniola, and curtail the measures of independence and abolition of slaves taken by the former slave Toussaint Louverture. It departed in December 1801 and, after initial success, ended in a French defeat at the Battle of Vertières and the departure of French troops in December 1803. The defeat forever ended Napoleon's dreams of a French empire in the West.
The French Law of 20 May 1802 was passed by Napoleon Bonaparte that day, revoking the Law of 4 February 1794 which had abolished slavery in all the French colonies. However, the 1794 decree was only implemented in Saint-Domingue, Guadeloupe and Guiana; it did not take effect in Mauritius, Réunion and Martinique, the last of which had been captured by the British and thus was unaffected by French law. The law of reintroducing slavery in France was an integral part of the Napoleonic Code.
Macaya, was a Kongolese-born Haitian revolutionary military leader. Macaya was one of the first black rebel leaders in Saint-Domingue to ally himself with the French Republican commissioners Sonthonax and Polverel. He helped to lead forces that recaptured Cap-Français on behalf of the French Republicans.
The Battle of Cap-Français took place from 20 to 22 June 1793 during the Haitian Revolution. It was originally a conflict between commissioners sent by the French Republican government, who were supported by rebellious slaves and free people of color, against the colony's elite and white royalist slave owners, who sparked an uprising against the commissioners in the city, led to a military conflict between whites and coloreds within the city, to eventually lead to an attack by slaves throughout the city.
Étienne Maynaud de Bizefranc de Laveaux was a French general who was Governor of Saint-Domingue from 1793 to 1796 during the French Revolution. He ensured that the law that freed the slaves was enforced, and supported the black leader Toussaint Louverture, who later established the independent republic of Haiti. After the Bourbon Restoration he was Deputy for Saône-et-Loire from 1820 to 1823.
François-Thomas Galbaud du Fort was a French general who was briefly governor-general of Saint-Domingue. He arrived at a time when the planters were hostile to the new French First Republic with its ideals of equality of all men, when many slaves had left the plantations and were fighting for freedom, and when the Spanish in neighboring Santo Domingo were at war with France. He started an uprising in the northern city of Cap-Français against the commissioners who represented the Republic. After violent clashes between white supporters of Galbaud and mulattoes and newly freed slaves who supported the commissioners he was forced to flee to the United States with many of the dissident planters and their families.
Slavery in France, and by extension, the French Empire, covers a wide range of disparate topics. Some of the most notable ones include:
The origins of slavery in France can be traced back to the Merovingian dynasty in the 4th century. At least five Frankish queens during that period were former slaves: Ingund, Fredegund, Bilichild, Nanthild, and Balthild. Slavery continued under the Carolingian Empire.
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