Blacks in 17th Century France

18th century France produced many conflicting currents of thought regarding all manner of socio-political ideology. The treatment of Blacks was certainly no exception. The situation of Blacks in France in the 1700s was not static, but highly variable, and the subject of intense debate. Attitudes regarding Blacks among the European-born French were inconsistent; in philosophical circles, the subjugation of any race seemed a violation of natural law (Diderot), while economists and social "scientists" often argued that the Black race was actually better off when consigned to servitude (Mellier). In the domain of law, statutes concerning slavery were no less cohesive, as contradictory edicts protected slavery in some French regions while prohibiting it in others (Alexander).

Enlightenment concepts of personal liberty and the natural rights of man were duty-bound to consider slavery and the treatment of the Black race. Throughout 18th century France, opposition to the monarchy and the ancien regime galvanized as philosophes popularized notions of egalitarianism and individualism. As it pertained to the Black race, philosophes Diderot and D'Alembert concluded in their Encyclopedia that the slave trade was "odious commerce" and "contrary to natural laws" (79). In an age in which personal liberty was presented as a natural right, philosophers like Diderot perceived that the Africans had been deprived of their liberty on the grounds that enslavement was a means to spiritu

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Compounding the problem was indubitably the fact that France was a monarchy at this time, and had not formally embraced the natural laws of man as conceived by the philosophes. And, the economy of France, like all economies utilizing slavery in the 1700s, had hitched itself to the engine of slavery. Possessing no real need for slavery on the European continent, France found it relatively easy to tailor its laws to this effect. However, this did not mean that France had no need for slavery in its colonies abroad. This was particularly true in Saint-Domingue, Guadaloupe, and Martinique, where over half a million Blacks were enslaved (Alexander). Starting at the beginning of the 18th century, the situation of Blacks in France and her colonies was tenuous. Sue Peabody reports that in the early 1700s, French provincial courts had begun demanding that legislation be drafted to "unambiguously resolve the status of slaves" (6). The result: the Edict of October 1716, which allowed colonial property owners and military officers to bring slaves to the continent (usually to learn a trade or undergo religious training) for a temporary period. The idea was to provide slave owners with peace of mind; they could now enter France, regi

Category: History - B