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REVUE

DES

COLONIES

MONTHLY COMPENDIUM OF POLITICS, ADMINISTRATION, JUSTICE, INSTRUCTION AND COLONIAL CUSTOMS,

DIRECTED

BY

C.-A. BISSETTE

.

2nd year — n.1 — July.

Am I not a man and your brother?....^[26]

PARIS, AT THE OFFICE OF THE REVUE DES COLONIES, 28, RUE LOUIS-LE-GRAND.

1835.

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REVUE DES COLONIES

2nd YEAR. JULY 1835. N° 1.

On the abolition of slavery by the National Convention.

— Bill for the abolition of slavery.

— Inquiry into the colonies, Vote on the last law on the colonies.

— Electoral question.

— FRANCE. House of Representatives. Discussion of the budget of the Navy and the Colonies.

— Of the passing of the law relating to criminal legislation.

— Chamber of Peers.

— Discussion of the law of an additional credit of 650,000 francs granted to the Minister of the Navy and the Colonies.

— Foreign colonies. Bermuda. Barbados.

— Miscellaneous News.

— Varieties.

— Biography.

— Poetry.

— Bibliography.^[27]

ON THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY BY THE NATIONAL CONVENTION. — REVUE DES COLONIES BILL.

Slavery, which is tending to disappear completely and in all its forms from human societies, and the abolition of which by legislative means in our colonies cannot be long in coming, was once already outlawed, with admirable spontaneity, by the

National Convention

. The National Convention did not put off this just reparation for an hour, and from the moment that the question had been submitted, it was resolved without hesitation in the direction of the revolution and of the philosophical spirit of the eighteenth century; better said yet, it was not even a question. In the first preoccupations of '89, the colonies were only considered momentarily. In a rush, free men of color were called to enjoy the rights of citizenship. In the colonies themselves, the question, although then as now at the heart of the matter, was kept as far as possible out of discussion by a kind of apprehension and vague dread of the future.

However, the French Revolution had taken effect. The new ideas distributed by the press, spread by the word, had crossed the seas^[28]; the French Antilles^[29] were also consumed with this new state of mind. In general, however, it was only among the whites that parties had been formed. In the colonies

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as in France there were revolutionaries, and counter-revolutionaries, supporters of royalty and supporters of democracy. The tricolor flag had appeared to some as an odious sign, to others, a glorious sign; the latter were the most numerous, the former the richest. Hence divisions, parties; a silent disagreement between those who clung desperately to the privileges of the past, and those whom the breath of new liberty had touched as it crossed the seas. The debate was still only between them. Of the liberation of slaves, not a clear and distinct word, as if the rights of man had not been proclaimed and the Bastille had not been taken. By whatever names the colonists used, republican or royalist, none among them was led by the spirit of age^[30] to draw from the principles that they claimed for themselves, a conclusion favorable to the freedom of the other race; the distinction of color remained, slavery was the holy ark which no one dreamed of touching.

However, the counter-revolutionary work advanced,

England

, then at the head of the retrograde movement, attacked us everywhere in the two seas. Mistress of

Martinique

, poorly defended by its inhabitants, of whom several, and of the highest rank, were traitors to the fatherland (1),^[31] England had vainly tried to conquer several other points, including

Guadeloupe

and

Saint-Domingue

. Saint-Domingue, however, was seriously threatened. At the first news of the danger, the National Convention sent two of its members to organize the defense: they found nothing but dispiritedness.

In the most perilous circumstances, the commissioners had recourse to a great measure of public safety, completely conforming to the

(1) M. le Chevalier Dubuc, who then was at the head of the colonial committee in Martinique, crossed furtively to the island of Dominica, whence he embarked for England, and returned with the English Admiral Gardener to attempt the conquest of Martinique. This expedition, which was repelled with heavy losses, did not discourage M. Dubuc; he returned to England, and succeeded in inducing the British government to grant him, as well as M. de Clairfontaine, deputy for Guadeloupe, new forces for the conquest of Guadeloupe and Martinique. A squadron, under the orders of Admiral Jervis, and an army under the orders of General Grey, seized Martinique in 1794. Guadeloupe thus fell into the power of the English, but they were driven out forty days later.

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nature of their mission and for which they took full responsibility: they called the slaves to freedom. The slaves rushed in mass to the defense of the colony, and from then on the blacks^[32] were won over to the great cause of the French republic.

In the meantime, an election was held in Saint-Domingue in which all classes of the population took part, without distinction of color.

Dufahy

a man of courage and heart, who had shown in the administration of his properties at Saint-Domingue an unequivocal sympathy for the oppressed race, was one of the deputies appointed on this occasion.

Scarcely had the National Convention learned of the acts of

Polverel

and of

Sonthonax

, its commissioners with regard to everything concerning slaves, that it approved them; their greatness was recognized. And immediately, to the applause of the immortal assembly, was pronounced forthwith, at the request of Dufahy, not only the emancipation of the entire black race, but also its reintegration into the great national family.^[33]

Thus was manifested, at the first appeal with regard to the blacks, the French revolution's spirit of justice; and its project of the reintegration of the rights of man, undertaken against all obstacles, seemed for a moment codified forever.

It was in the month of February 1794, that the National Convention issued the memorable decree which abolished slavery throughout the French colonies; a decree believed to be forever irrevocable.

All that remained for the French Republic to do was to take pride in this most glorious measure, to which it proceeded with such a resolute spirit and with such firmness. Freedom established itself in consequence, de facto and de jure, in those of our colonies which England had not succeeded in seizing.

The emancipation of the blacks had the first result of preserving for France its richest colony, Saint-Domingue. Once free, the blacks of Saint-Domingue, who it would have been hardly surprising to see comport themselves differently upon achieving liberty, gave striking proofs of their good will, and of their aptitude for all kinds of work. Under this regenerative regime, the colony organized itself, the workshops were all in activity, the crops

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flourished. This state of affairs lasted, not without remarkable progress, until 1802, when

Napoleon

, misled by the fatality of his illiberal ideas, tried to reestablish slavery where the National Convention had made it disappear. We must see in Mr. Macaulay's excellent book on Haiti ^[34] the curious details of this emancipation, somewhat improvised, of the black race in the most considerable of our colonial possessions of that period. Mr. Macaulay's work is filled not only with unknown facts about the war of independence in

Haiti

, but also with irrefutable evidence against the errors propagated with the most flagrant bad faith by the enemies of the cause of the blacks.

He triumphantly proves that the greatest disasters were the result of the return to slavery in 1802, undertaken beyond all reason and all necessity by the First Consul.

The French army, fighting for a bad cause, was defeated, and perished. The blacks remained masters of the land, and laid there the foundations of the social state which they enjoy today, a social state far superior to that of many supposedly civilized European nations.^[35] The problem of free labor in the Antilles was thereby solved, and today the example of the emancipated English colonies must have convinced even the most dimwitted of the falsity and infamy of the assertions of the colonists against the blacks.^[36]

That which was decreed by the National Convention in 1794, for the French possessions, which was established by force of circumstance following the wars of independence of Saint-Domingue, which has just been organized for the English colonies, namely: the emancipation of the blacks and free labor, we claim it today on the most legitimate grounds, in the name of principle and necessity, and we want to establish it by reason and according to a law of justice and reparation, without delay.^[37]

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BILL FOR THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY IN THE FRENCH COLONIES.

Considering that slavery is contrary to all divine and human laws; that it could only have been established through violence, injustice and contempt for the most imprescriptible of human rights, the right to dispose of one's person and one's work according to one's will, insofar as this will does not infringe upon the rights of others, which it is for the law alone to determine; considering that slavery is not only a usurpation of man by man, which can no longer be tolerated morally, but furthermore an inexhaustible source of misfortunes, troubles, and concerns of all kinds for the peoples whom it affects; that, moreover, experience has sufficiently proven that wherever slavery persists, only material development can take place, and that it implies contempt for the true principles of social morality;

By all these causes, etc.

FIRST ARTICLE. Slavery is abolished in all French overseas possessions.All the inhabitants of the French colonies, without distinction of color, are declared free and equal in rights.^[38]

ART. 2.They therefore enjoy all family, civil and political rights, in the same way as other French citizens, in accordance with the law.

ART. 3.The nature and the quota of the wages between the laborers^[39] and the landowners will be regulated by the government of the metropole.

ART. 4 There will be created, in all the communes of the different French colonies, free schools for the civil and religious instruction of the laborers. This instruction will be compulsory for all those who have not reached the age of 21.^[40]

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ART. 5. A special code called the code of culture will regulate all that concerns the details and the execution of this law.

ART. 6. All laws and ordinances, all regulations whatever, which relate to slavery, are from now on and remain annulled and abrogated.

This law is but a law of principles; and in this respect it seems to us to establish, in a clear and precise manner, the bases on which the regulatory code of the colonies will need to rest. The six articles that precede are, in a way, only the social charter promulgated in the colonies by the French government. If we do not enter into the examination of the various questions which the establishment of these new principles may raise, our readers will find the reasons for this silence in the article that follows this one, entitled: Inquiry into the colonies.

We will explain ourselves here on only one point, that of the indemnity that some want to grant and that others refuse to the owners of slaves. We have said nothing about it in the law constituting the social state of the colonies, and here is why:

Between the master and the slave there can be no question of indemnity.^[41] If one absolutely wanted to establish one, it would be the master who would owe it to the slave, as reparation for the physical and moral violence he has exercised against him.^[42]

The principle of indemnity can only be debated between French society and the colonial landowners. Let us prove that if France granted an indemnity, it would be, on its part, a pure act of liberality, from which, consequently, it would do well to abstain.

Freedom is neither sold nor acquired. It exists forever, everywhere, and for everyone. One no more loses it under the whip of a master than one buys it for cold cash; and this way of acquiring it strikes more at its principle than the material violence that causes it to be lost, in fact, because this, at least, leaves the right intact. The word indemnity is, accordingly, the one which we have most carefully banished from a bill of principles on the abolition of slavery.^[43]

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This law is therefore not a dispossession, an expropriation, for reasons of public utility; on the contrary, it is the negation of the state of property, to which it puts an end. It is the reestablishment of rights, a real restoration^[44] this time: in this respect, the indemnity would be immoral. Consider it from a purely material point of view; the colonists would ask France for an indemnity, founded on what? on the actual loss they incur; what is it that they are losing? the purchase price and the fruit of slave labor? Neither; even in the hypothesis most favorable to the slave owners, the purchase price must be put out of the question for the greatest number, since the slave trade has been abolished for a long time, and that it would be unreasonable to found the demand for justice upon the violation of the law. Moreover, the purchase price of a slave is nothing more than a kind of import duty paid in order to be able to take advantage of the labor of the imported commodity^[45]. This work is the one and only profit generator of the masters. One should not quantify the particular industry of each slave because under this mode it is exerted too narrowly, too restricted; because intelligence, dulled by servitude, and the ignorance which is its necessary consequence, is without force, without guide, without direction, and because the small savings acquired by the slave are often discarded to him by the master.^[46] But let us say in passing that this industry, besides the work in the fields, will certainly be one of the means of prosperity of the colonies when it is practiced by free hands and directed by cultivated intelligences.

The master therefore derives only one profit, either from the slave whom he buys, or from the one who is born on his property: labor; and this profit imposes on him a fairly large number of expenses: food, clothing, care of every kind for the preservation of his slaves.

Well, the colonies are constituted in such a way that the masters, whatever their rights may be, cannot dispense with having their former slaves work the land, and that these, upon becoming free, will no less be laborers. The law changes, but the fact will not, the master loses nothing; what the labor of his former slaves cost him in overhead will be replaced by the wages he will give to them as free laborers. Let him not come and say that the slave we

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removed from under his dominion cost him 1500 and 2000 francs; for he has paid this price and other expenses to profit from a labor that he may always obtain from the will of the worker. Wages replace a great number of cares and expenses, and if, all things considered, there is an increase, that is the fate of all modern industries.

Who does not see now that by compensating the former owners, the state would use 200 million to repair a chimerical evil. We have tried to leave the principles aside for a moment, but if it were true that the dispossession of the master were for him a material loss of money, that would not give him any more right to be compensated; because there is no right against rights..

One will object, as a delegate in the tribune already has: “The blacks who have become free will no longer work, the landowners will lose, the blacks will gain nothing, the colonies will perish; all this with no advantage to anyone.” Error! societies do not perish; they transform; blacks will work as laborers, and for two reasons: so as not to starve, and in the hopes of obtaining a piece of land. They will work better than before, and their crops, improved in the interest of the landowners, would enable the farmers and workmen to successfully practice the exercise of their industrial imaginations. Observe, moreover, that in all that relates to the colonies, we always ask for an arbiter, France. We conceive nothing without this moderating power; for, indeed, we do not dispute the difficulties which the transition from the old to the new state produced by the abolition of slavery may present; but that is no reason to adjourn the question indefinitely.^[47]

With the help of the French government, the colonies can reform themselves and live without harm to any portion of their inhabitants. Without this intervention, they will certainly not perish as human societies, but they will perish as European societies. There would come a day when an inevitable, terrible struggle would begin, and where force would determine the law. One must not think that, in closing one's eyes, that which offends the gaze disappears, and that facts cease to exist simply because one does not speak of them. The intermediary race of the colonies is the necessary link between the old and the new order, the keystone of the new social edifice.^[48] Building on a legal basis, reforming without viol

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ence, repairing without damage, such is our aim. It can be accomplished under the patronage of France, and what's more, it can only be accomplished with the aid of France.

Revue Coloniale

The Revue Coloniale, was an ephemeral monthly periodical, printed in Paris during the year 1838. Its founder Édouard Bouvet and editor Rosemond Beauvallon conceived of it on the model of many similar, contemporaneous publications reporting on political and economic questions of interest to white colonists while also attending to arts and literature, as attested by the journal’s complete title: Revue Coloniale. intérêts des colons : marine, commerce, littérature, beaux-arts, théâtres, modes. In the December 1838 issue of the Revue des Colonies, Cyrille Bissette acknowledges the Revue Coloniale as both an ideological opponent and a competitor in the print market.

Fondée par Édouard Bouvet et dirigée par Rosemond Beauvallon, la Revue Coloniale, sous-titrée intérêts des colons : marine, commerce, littérature, beaux-arts, théâtres, modes, souscrit au modèle des revues destinées aux propriétaires coloniaux, rendant compte de l'actualité politique et économique des colonies tout en ménageant une place aux contenus littéraires, culturels et mondains. Dans le numéro de décembre 1838 de la Revue des Colonies, Cyrille Bissette reconnaît en la Revue Coloniale tant un adversaire idéologique qu'un concurrent dans le paysage médiatique.

Le Moniteur universel

Le Moniteur universel, often simply referred to as the “Le Moniteur” is one of the most frequently referenced nineteenth-century French newspapers. An important cultural signifier, it was referenced frequently in other publications, in fiction, and likely in contemporary discussions. Its title, derived from the verb monere, meaning to warn or advise, gestures at Enlightenment and Revolutionary ideals of intelligent counsel.

Initially, Le Moniteur universel was merely a subtitle of the Gazette Nationale, established in 1789 by Charles-Joseph Panckouke, who also published Diderot and d’Alembert’s Encyclopédie. Only in 1811 that the subtitle officially ascended to title.

The Moniteur had become the official voice of the consular government in 1799. Under the Empire, it gained the privilege of publishing government acts and official communications, effectively becoming the Empire's primary propaganda outlet. However, its role was not confined to this function. It survived various political regimes, including the Revolution and the death of Panckouke in 1798. Its longevity can be attributed to its adaptability, with its successive iterations reflecting the political culture of each historical stage, transitioning from an encyclopedic model during the Revolution, to a state propaganda tool during the First Empire, to a collection of political speeches under the constitutional monarchy and the Second Republic, and finally, to a daily opinion newspaper for the general public under Napoleon III.

During the print run of the Revue des Colonies, the “Moniteur” was divided into two main sections: the “official” and the “unofficial” part. Government documents and official communications were published in the official section, while other current events and various topics were featured in the unofficial section under a range of headings such as “Domestic,” “International,” “Entertainment,” etc. The texts cited in Revue des Colonies were most often found in the unofficial section, typically under the “Domestic” heading and on the front page.

Titles containing the label “Moniteur” followed by a toponym abounded throughout the nineteenth century: local or colonial titles used this formula to emphasize their official status, maintaining the distinction between the official and unofficial sections.

Laurence Guellec, « Les journaux officiels », La Civilisation du journal (dir. Dominique Kalifa, Philippe Régnier, Marie-Ève Thérenty, Alain Vaillant), Paris, Nouveau Monde, 2011. https://www.retronews.fr/titre-de-presse/gazette-nationale-ou-le-moniteur-universel .

Le Moniteur universel, ou « Le Moniteur », est l’un des journaux les plus cités, sous cette forme abrégée et familière, au cours du XIXe siècle : on le retrouve, véritable élément de civilisation, dans la presse, dans les fictions, probablement dans les discussions d’alors. Ce titre, qui renvoie au langage des Lumières et de la Révolution, dérive étymologiquement du verbe monere, signifiant avertir ou conseiller. Il n’est d’abord que le sous-titre de la Gazette nationale, créée en 1789 par Charles-Joseph Panckouke, éditeur entre autres de l’Encyclopédie de Diderot et d’Alembert ; ce n’est qu’en 1811 que le sous-titre, Le Moniteur universel, devient officiellement titre.

Lancé en 1789, ce périodique devient en 1799 l’organe officiel du gouvernement consulaire ; il obtient ensuite, sous l’Empire, le privilège de la publication des actes du gouvernement et des communications officielles, passant de fait au statut d’« organe de propagande cardinal de l’Empire ». Il ne se limite pourtant pas à cette fonction, et survit aux différents régimes politiques comme il a survécu à la Révolution et à la mort de Panckouke en 1798. Sa survie est notamment liée à sa capacité à changer : les modèles adoptés par sa rédaction, qu'ils soient choisis ou imposés par le pouvoir en place, reflètent de manière révélatrice la culture politique propre à chaque période marquante de son histoire. Ainsi, comme le souligne Laurence Guellec, il se transforme en une grande encyclopédie pendant la Révolution, devient un instrument de propagande étatique sous le Premier Empire, se mue en recueil des discours des orateurs durant la monarchie constitutionnelle et la Seconde République, puis se positionne en tant que quotidien grand public et journal d'opinion sous le règne de Napoléon III. Ajoutons enfin que les titres constitués du syntagme « Moniteur » suivi d’un toponyme sont nombreux, au cours du siècle, en France : les titres locaux ou coloniaux adoptent cette formule pour mettre en exergue leur ancrage officiel, et respectent la distinction entre partie officielle et non officielle.

À l’époque de la Revue des Colonies, Le Moniteur universel est organisé en deux grandes parties : la « partie officielle » et la « partie non officielle ». Les actes du gouvernement et les communications officielles, quand il y en a, sont publiés dans la partie officielle, en une – mais parfois en quelques lignes – et les autres textes, tous d’actualité mais aux thèmes divers, paraissent dans la partie non officielle sous des rubriques elles aussi variées : intérieur, nouvelles extérieures, spectacles, etc. Les textes que cite la Revue des Colonies paraissent dans la partie non officielle, le plus souvent sous la rubrique « Intérieur » et en une.

Laurence Guellec, « Les journaux officiels », La Civilisation du journal (dir. Dominique Kalifa, Philippe Régnier, Marie-Ève Thérenty, Alain Vaillant), Paris, Nouveau Monde, 2011. https://www.retronews.fr/titre-de-presse/gazette-nationale-ou-le-moniteur-universel .