Blue coat or powdered wig: free people of color in pre-revolutionary Saint Domingue

2001 ◽  
Vol 39 (04) ◽  
pp. 39-2358-39-2358
Keyword(s):  
People Of Color ◽  
Free People Of Color ◽  
Saint Domingue ◽  
Free People

One and Indivisible?

2021 ◽  
Vol 44 (3) ◽  
pp. 399-427
Author(s):  
Manuel Covo
Keyword(s):  
French Revolution ◽  
People Of Color ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Free People Of Color ◽  
Saint Domingue ◽  
History Of ◽  
Revolution Francaise ◽  
The One ◽  
French Nation ◽  
Free People

Abstract Histories of the French Revolution usually locate the origins of the “one and indivisible Republic” in a strictly metropolitan context. In contrast, this article argues that the French Revolution's debates surrounding federation, federalism, and the (re)foundation of the French nation-state were interwoven with colonial and transimperial matters. Between 1776 and 1792 federalism in a French imperial context went from an element of an academic conversation among bureaucrats and economists to a matter of violent struggle in Saint-Domingue that generated new agendas in the metropole. Going beyond the binary language of union and secession, the article examines the contest over federation and federalism in Saint-Domingue between free people of color and white planters who, taking inspiration from both metropolitan and non-French experiences with federalism, sought to alter the colony's relationship with the metropole while also maintaining the institution of slavery. Revolutionaries on both sides of the Atlantic, unsure which direction to take and without the benefit of hindsight, used the language of federalism to pursue rival interests despite a seemingly common vocabulary. This entangled history of conflicts, compromises, and misunderstandings blurred ideological delineations but decisively shaped the genesis of the French imperial republic. Généralement, les histoires de la Révolution française placent les origines de la « République une et indivisible » dans un contexte strictement métropolitain. Cet article soutient en revanche que les débats de la Révolution française sur la fédération, le fédéralisme et la (re)-fondation de l'Etat-nation français étaient liés à des questions coloniales et transimpériales. Dans le contexte impérial français, entre 1776 et 1792, le fédéralisme ne fut plus seulement un objet de débats académiques entre bureaucrates et économistes, mais devint un élément central dans une lutte violente à Saint-Domingue qui contribua à infléchir les choix politiques faits en métropole. Au-delà du langage binaire de l'union et de la sécession, l'article examine les conflits cristallisés par les notions de fédération et de fédéralisme entre des libres de couleur et des planteurs blancs qui, s'inspirant d'expériences fédéralistes métropolitaines et étrangères, cherchèrent à modifier la relation de la colonie avec la métropole tout en maintenant l'institution esclavagiste. Des deux côtés de l'Atlantique, les révolutionnaires, qui ne savaient quelle direction emprunter, employèrent le langage du fédéralisme pour défendre des intérêts contradictoires malgré l'usage d'un vocabulaire apparemment commun. Cette histoire faite de conflits, de compromis et de malentendus contribua à brouiller les partages idéologiques mais n'en influença pas moins la genèse de la République impériale française.

From “Louisians” to “Louisianais”

2019 ◽  
pp. 444-497
Author(s):  
Cécile Vidal
Keyword(s):  
New Orleans ◽  
Racial Formation ◽  
People Of Color ◽  
Free People Of Color ◽  
French Empire ◽  
Racial Boundaries ◽  
Saint Domingue ◽  
Two Generations ◽  
Free People ◽  
The City

This chapter traces the emergence of a sense of place among French New Orleans residents of all conditions through the analysis of the uses of ethnic and national categories. It demonstrates that the French Regime did not witness the birth of a single “Creole” identity that united all historical actors across racial boundaries. Racial formation prevented the development of a shared relationship to the city between settlers, slaves, and free people of color. Nevertheless, after the succession of two generations by the end of the 1760s, as the elite fought to keep the colony within the French Empire during the 1768 revolt, New Orleans emerged as a distinctive place in relation to both the metropole and Saint-Domingue.

The Revolution

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sue Peabody
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
Atlantic World ◽  
People Of Color ◽  
Slave Labor ◽  
Free People Of Color ◽  
Saint Domingue ◽  
Slave Revolt ◽  
Sugar Plantations ◽  
Free People

Slave labor in eighteenth-century Isle Bourbon was shaped by the cultivation of staple crops, unlike the proto-industrial forms of labor found in the sugar plantations of the Atlantic world, and may have been milder, though periodic cyclones brought famine to slaves and their masters alike. On the eve of the French Revolution, following the death of Charles Routier, Madeleine’s mistress filed manumission papers, freeing her. As a result of the slave revolt in Saint-Domingue (Haiti), France issued the 1794 Decree of 16 Pluviôse abolishing slavery throughout the colonies. Although Madeleine should have been considered free twice over, the widow Routier declared Madeleine her slave on her 1796 census, a moment when Madeleine—like many free people of color in France’s empire—faced potential or actual re-enslavement.

scholarly journals Paper Thin: Freedom and Re-enslavement in the Diaspora of the Haitian Revolution

2011 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 1061-1087 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca J. Scott
Keyword(s):  
New Orleans ◽  
Haitian Revolution ◽  
People Of Color ◽  
Free People Of Color ◽  
Saint Domingue ◽  
National Convention ◽  
Women And Children ◽  
Vieux Carre ◽  
The Haitian Revolution ◽  
Free People

In the summer of 1809 a flotilla of boats arrived in New Orleans carrying more than 9,000 Saint-Domingue refugees recently expelled from the Spanish colony of Cuba. These migrants nearly doubled the population of New Orleans, renewing its Francophone character and populating the neighborhoods of the Vieux Carré and Faubourg Marigny. At the heart of the story of their disembarkation, however, is a legal puzzle. Historians generally tell us that the arriving refugees numbered 2,731 whites, 3,102 free people of color, and 3,226 slaves. But slavery had been abolished in Saint-Domingue by decree in 1793, and abolition had been ratified by the French National Convention in 1794. In what sense and by what right, then, were thousands of men, women, and children once again to be held to be “slaves”?

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