A Left–Wing Newspaper Continues the Attack on Slavery (October 1790)

A Left–Wing Newspaper Continues the Attack on Slavery (October 1790)

In this article, the influential newspaper The Revolutions of Paris asks if Africans and their descendants are "Born to Slavery?" as part of a general consideration of the situation in the French colonies.

The Revolutions of Paris, no. 66 (9Ð16 October 1790), 13Ð17.

October 1790

https://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/343/

343

But it is said that Negroes are a type of men born to slavery . . . they are narrow-minded, deceitful, and wicked. Even they admit to the superiority of Whites, and almost to the legality of their state.

It is not true that Negroes are narrow-minded. Experience has proven that they have succeeded in the sciences, and if the mindlessness in which they are plunged makes them believe that Whites are a superior race, liberty will soon bring them up to the same level. As for what people say of their wickedness, it will never equal the cruelty of their masters.