Seven months after the execution of the King, shortly after the declaration of "Revolutionary Government," the Convention turned to the rest of the royal family. Fearing that Marie Antoinette and her son, the nominal King, would provide rallying…
At the conclusion of the trial, the Queen was found guilty and sentenced to death. The newspaper of record, The Moniteur describes the Queen’s response to the verdict and her execution the next morning with a good deal of sympathy and respect.
The Code noir initially took shape in Louis XIV’s edict of 1685. Although subsequent decrees modified a few of the code’s provisions, this first document established the main lines for the policing of slavery right up to 1789. The very first article…
Among the African rituals and customs described by Moreau de Saint–Méry, none terrified white planters more than the practice of voodoo. His description of the rituals associated with voodoo and the hold it had on the minds of the slaves demonstrates…
Laborie provides the perspective of the planter himself. He gives a detailed description of the organization of slave labor in the production of coffee. Although he shared quite negative views of the African slaves, he recognized that extreme…
The free blacks and mulattos, many of them substantial property owners and slaveholders, sent delegates to the National Assembly in France with a list of their stated grievances and demands. This list of grievances—modeled on those sent from the…
Jacques Brissot founded the Society of the Friends of Blacks in 1788 to agitate against the slave trade and slavery itself. Brissot modeled the Society on the London Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade established in 1787. He hoped that…
This project to free the slaves in the French colonies was presented to the National Assembly. The defensive tone and rhetorical structure that emerge in the course of this document demonstrate the power of the interests opposed to even cautious…
Baptiste–Henri Grégoire was a parish priest who was elected to the National Assembly by the clergy of Lorraine. He championed the rights of minorities both before the Revolution and in the legislature. The most noted beneficiaries of his attention…
During the explosion of newspaper publishing after 1789, the Revolutions of Paris consistently supported radical positions, including the abolition of slavery in articles like this one entitled "No Color Bar."
