Class TIP \ S 
 
 Book. 
 
 H ^^ 
 
 PRESENTED BY 
 
2Il|f ImuFraUg of Qlljtragfl 
 
 THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE 
 FRENCH REVOLUTION 
 
 A DISSERTATION 
 
 SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY 
 
 OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF ARTS AND LITERATURE 
 
 IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF 
 
 DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY 
 
 BY 
 
 CHARLES OSCAR HARDY 
 
 GEORGE BANTA PUBLISHING COMPANY 
 
 Menasha, Wisconsin 
 19 19 
 
/ 
 
 
 THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE 
 FRENCH REVOLUTION 
 
 A DISSERTATION 
 
 SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY 
 
 OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF ARTS AND LITERATURE 
 
 IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF 
 
 DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY 
 
 BY 
 
 CHARLES OSCAR ^ARDY 
 
 SHft QloUpgiat* Pwbh 
 GEORGE BANTA PUBLISHING COMPANY 
 
 Menasha, Wisconsin 
 19 19 
 
Gift 
 
 jIC.58 
 
PREFACE 
 
 This paper presents a study of the working of the three revolutionary 
 assembUes and the development of revolutionary sentiment as illustrated 
 by a single problem, the place of the negro in the new regime. It does not 
 deal with the history of the French colonies during the revolution except 
 as some account of events there is necessary for an understanding of the 
 situation with which the assembhes had to deal. 
 
 The study was undertaken under the direction of Professor Ferdinand 
 Schevill, whose suggestions and criticisms have placed me under deep 
 obHgation. I wish also to express my appreciation of the unfaihng 
 courtesy extended to me by Professor George Lincoln Burr, Librarian 
 of the Andrew Dickson White Library of Cornell University. Most of 
 all I am indebted to Professor Mitchell Bennett Garrett, author of "The 
 French Colonial Problem, 1789-91," for innumerable contributions of 
 bibhographical and historical data and suggestions concerning their 
 interpretation. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I Page 
 
 The Negro Problem in 1789 1 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 Attitude oe the Government and of Public Opinion Before the Revolu- 
 tion 4 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 Beginnings of the Contest in the National Assembly 9 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 The Attempt to Secure Representation for the Free Mulattoes 18 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 The Attack on the Slave Trade 23 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 Negro Suffrage 32 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 The Law of May 15, 1791 44 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 The Closing days of the National Assembly ST 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 Analysis of the National Assembly's Work 56 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 The Mulatto Question ijsr the Legislative Assembly 61 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 The Legislative Assembly and the Slave Trade 72 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 The Work of the Convention 74 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 Conclusion 83 
 
 Bibliography 87 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 The Negro Problem in 1789 
 
 The slave-holding colonies of France at the outbreak of the Revolution 
 were eight in number, San Domingo, Martinique, Guadeloupe, Cayenne, 
 Tabago, St. Lucie, the Isle of France, and the Isle of Bourbon. Of 
 these, the five last mentioned may be neglected for the purposes of this 
 study, as their combined population was less than 100,000 and they 
 played an utterly insignificant role. Martinique and Guadeloupe, with 
 a white population of about 25,000, contained about 150,000 slaves and 
 a small number of free negroes. These two colonies were represented in 
 the National Assemblies, and their problems played a subordinate part 
 in the development of the attitude of France toward the negro question. 
 
 For the most part, however, the subject may be discussed with our 
 attention fixed upon the flourishing colony of San Domingo. This 
 comprised about one-third of the island of Santo Domingo, the remainder 
 of which was a possession of Spain. Its population was variously es- 
 tunated. Moreau de St. Mery, the best contemporary authority on 
 colonial questions, quoted the official figures of 1790 as 30,826 whites, 
 24,262 free negroes and mulattoes, and 452,000 slaves.^ 
 
 The condition of the slaves here and in the other French colonies was 
 much the same as that of slaves in the tropical colonies of other nations, 
 and needs no extended description. Legally, the status of the slave did 
 not differ materially from that given him by the typical slave code of 
 our own old south. In practice, however, the climate, the nature of the 
 sugar-planting industry, the type of social organization, and the character 
 of the slaves themselves, many of whom were fresh from Africa, com- 
 bined to engender a state of misery and degradation far worse than any 
 which ever characterized the cotton plantations of the United States. 
 The evil conditions of this life are sufficiently indicated by the failure of 
 the population to maintain itself by natural means, the annual excess of 
 deaths over births amounting to about two and one-half per cent.^ 
 
 ' Speech in the National Assembly, May 14, 1791, Le Hodey, XXV, 501. See 
 numerous other estimates collected in Deschamps, Les colonies pendant la revolution, 
 290. The figures must be used with care, however, as there are numerous errors in 
 the table. 
 
 ' Peytraud, L'Esclavage dans les Antilles franjiaises, 35. 
 
2 THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 
 
 Partly on account of this enormous death rate, and partly on account 
 of the rapid growth of the sugar industry, there was a constant demand 
 for new slaves from Africa, and a large profit in supplying them. The 
 niunber of negroes exported to the French West Indies during the last 
 decade before the Revolution is estimated, with probable accuracy, at 
 from 30,000 to 35,000 per annum.^ The cruelty of the system by which 
 cargoes of negroes were secured in Africa and the cold-blooded barbarity 
 with which they were treated during the voyage to America have been 
 described by others so fully that there is no need to repeat the story here. 
 An average death rate of seven or eight per cent, often running up to 
 twenty per cent, bears sufficient witness to the ruthlessness with which 
 life was sacrificed to profits.^ 
 
 Another aspect of the negro problem in the colonies, however, is less 
 famihar, the question of the status of freedmen and their descendants. 
 The free negroes and mulattoes, who were almost equal in number to 
 the whites, formed a social class to which nothing in the history of our 
 own slave system corresponds. The existence of this class was due to 
 the peculiar custom of setting free the offspring of iUicit ujiions between 
 slave women and their masters. Some relaxation of morals is inevitable 
 under any system of servitude, but in the French Antilles the comparative 
 fewness of white women, the isolation, the tropical climate, and the great- 
 er liberality of the Latin moral code all combined to make this result of 
 slavery more pronounced than in the societies with which we are more 
 familiar. In accordance with Roman law, a child of course followed the 
 status of its mother, but it was the regular custom of the planters to 
 emancipate their mulatto children on the attainment of their majority, 
 and in many cases the mother was set free also. Thus it came about that 
 the number of free mulattoes was almost equal to that of the whites. 
 Most of these free negroes, of course, belonged to the poorest laboring 
 class of the community, but there were among them a nmnber of wealthy 
 and educated families, some of whom owned considerable numbers of 
 slaves. It was claimed during the Revolution that they owned one- 
 fourth of the property in the West Indian colonies. 
 
 The situation of this class had no parallel in continental life, and its 
 legal position was ambiguous. According to the Code Noir of Louis 
 XIV, the fundamental law of slavery, freedmen and their descendants 
 
 'Peytraud, op. ciL, 140. 
 
 * For the whole subject cf. Peytraud, op. ciL, Book 1; Vaissiere, La soci6t6 et la 
 vie Creoles, 155-65. 
 
THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 3 
 
 were entitled to all the rights and privileges of citizens of France,^ but 
 in defiance of the Code, race prejudice had built up during the eighteenth 
 century a special body of customary rules for their control, and this cus- 
 tom was recogni^ed by numerous administrative edicts and royal or- 
 dinances. The mulattoes, for instance, were forbidden to carry arms 
 except when in militia service, and their commissioned officers must be 
 white.^ The slightest trace of negro blood was sufficient to debar one 
 from attaining noble rank.'' Marriage with a mulatto, which seems to 
 have been rather common, was also sufficient to prevent the attainment 
 of nobihty.^ Special sumptuary laws prohibited the mulattoes from 
 using carriages, and from wearing garments of a certain quality,^ In 
 1767 a free negro was sold into slavery for striking a white man, and in 
 1778 the execution of a mulatto in the East Indies for an injury done 
 a white man was approved by the Minister of Marine and ordered adver- 
 tised in San Domingo, "since it is necessary to keep the free negroes and 
 slaves in subordination. "^^ Several trades and professions were forbid- 
 den to the negroes, including medicine and surgery and the jewelers' 
 trade." 
 
 These laws and the social prejudice which inspired them were bittely 
 resented by the free mulattoes, the more so as most of the laws were of 
 comparatively recent origin.^^ 
 
 " Code Noir, Arts. 57-59. (Peytraud, op. cit., 165-6.) 
 « Moreau de Saint-Mery, Lois des colonies, V, 20, 166, 1 73, 824. 
 ^ Ibid., V, 80. 
 8JW(f.,V,520. 
 
 ^ Ihid.,\, 855; Gr^goire, M^moire en faveur des gens de couleur, 8. 
 " Moreau de Saint-M6ry, op. cit., V, 84, 817. 
 
 " Raimond, Origine du prejug6 centre les hommes de couleur, 8; Gr^goire, op. 
 cit., 6-7. 
 
 ^* Raimond, op. cit., passim. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 Attitude or the Government and of Public Opinion Before the 
 
 Revolution 
 
 As is well known, by the close of the Middle ages chattel slavery had 
 abnost disappeared in Western Europe. In the fifteenth and sixteenth 
 centuries, however, the discovery and settlement of America created a 
 new and insistent demand for unskilled labor, a demand which voluntary 
 migration could not be induced to supply. At the same time the dis- 
 coveries in Africa furnished a new source of supply which the Spanish 
 and Portuguese were quick to exploit. By the time the French entered 
 the field of colonial enterprise in the early seventeenth century the 
 African slave trade had become an estabhshed institution, and the 
 French West Indian colonies were founded in every case on the basis 
 of slave labor. The number of slaves increased very rapidly during the 
 eighteenth century, and the business interests of France became deeply 
 involved with the continuance of the African trade and the agricultural 
 industries in America which were supposed to depend upon it for their 
 existence. The government gave no attention to the moral and social 
 aspects of the question,^ but attempted to regulate and encourage the 
 trade upon mercantilist principles. Until 1767 the slave trade between 
 Africa and the French colonies was a monopoly granted to favored 
 companies. It was then thrown open to all Frenchmen, and in 1783 was 
 opened to foreigners also. French vessels engaged in the trade received 
 substantial bounties from the government. 
 
 Nor was the public much more interested in the human side of the 
 question than was the government. Before the late eighteenth century 
 there was nothing that can really be called an anti-slavery movement, 
 and even after a few voices began to be raised in behalf of the negroes, 
 the life of the "people of color," as the free mulattoes were called, was 
 almost entirely unknown in Europe.^ The revival of slavery in the 
 
 ' Louis XIII, it is said, had qualms of conscience regarding the morahty of the 
 system, which were appeased by the consideration that transportation to Christian 
 lands offered the pagans of Africa their only hope of conversion and eternal life. 
 
 ^ The development of anti-slavery sentiment in the eighteenth century is traced 
 briefly in Dunning, History of Political Theories from Luther to Montesquieu, and 
 in D^schamps, Histoire de la question coloniale en France, 318-28. 
 
THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 5 
 
 sixteenth century was approved by the moral and rehgious thought of 
 the age, and hardly a single voice was raised in protest till the eighteenth 
 century philosophical movement brought in a new sense of the value of 
 human life. With the exception of Bodin^ the most eminent thinkers 
 of the seventeenth century — Grotius, Hobbes, Bossuet — found slavery 
 compatible with their various ideas of the right and wrong of human re- 
 lationships. Religious optimism found the will of God in the thitigs 
 that were, and Cartesian rationalism was as conservative in its results 
 as Calvinistic theology. But with the eighteenth century there arose a 
 rigorous logical iconoclasm which found everywhere opportunities for 
 improvement. Locke* condemned slavery as contrary to natural law, 
 but it was Montesquieu who delivered the first really effective blow. In 
 the fifteenth book of the Spirit of the Laws be demohshed systematically 
 and completely the current reasoning which justified slavery from the 
 right of conquest, the right of the individual to sell himself, the right of 
 the father to sell his child, and the right of the Christian to dominate 
 over the heathen. Finally in a masterpiece of irony he summarized 
 the only sound arguments which, he said, could be offered in defense of 
 negro slavery: 
 
 "These creatures are all over black, and with such a flat nose that 
 they can scarcely be pitied. " 
 
 "It is hardly to be believed that God, who is a wise Being, should 
 place a soul, especially a good soul, in such a black, ugly body. " 
 
 "The negroes prefer a glass necklace to that gold which polite nations 
 so highly value; can there be a greater proof of their wanting common 
 sense?" 
 
 "It is impossible to suppose these creatures to be men, because al- 
 lowing them to be men, a suspicion would follow that we are not Chris- 
 tians. "^ 
 
 Rousseau and Voltaire followed Locke, and the Encyclopedia fol- 
 lowed Montesquieu. None of the thinkers of the middle of the century, 
 however, were more than incidentally interested in the question, and it 
 received no special attention till just before the Revolution. The insti- 
 tution of slavery was then attacked in earnest by the Abbe Raynal and 
 by Condorcet. RaynaP did little more than to expand the arguments 
 
 ' Les six livres de la republique, Book I, ch V. 
 
 * Two Treatises on Government, Book II, ch. 4. 
 
 ' The Spirit of the Laws, Book XV, ch. V, (Nugent's translation). According to 
 Condorcet, this chapter was accepted by an assembly in Jamaica as a serious defense 
 of slavery. (Oeuvres de Condorcet, VII, 97, n. 2.) 
 
6 THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 
 
 already advanced by Montesquieu, but his wide knowledge of the colo- 
 nies and the passion with which he urged the cause combined to put his 
 contribution in a different class from those of his predecessors, and the 
 immense popularity of his work transferred the contest from the philoso- 
 pher's closet to the arena of public discussion. 
 
 Condorcet, at about the same time, issued the first detailed scientific 
 treatment of the question in the French, or for that matter in any, 
 language.^ With his usual acuteness of reasoning the philosopher 
 analyzed and answered the current arguments, following in general the 
 lines mapped out by predecessors, but developing many new points of 
 minor importance and supportibg his theories with a substantial array 
 of facts, the evident result of a tremendous amount of research. 
 
 Immediately after the appearance of these works the Revolution 
 gave the first opportunity to attempt a practical application of the new 
 theories. Here, as so often, France received her impulse from England. 
 It is necessary, therefore, to review briefly the development of sentiment 
 and the beginnings of activity in that country.^ 
 
 There are scattered evidences of the existence in England of sentiment 
 against negro slavery from the middle of the seventeenth century, but 
 no effective opposition arose till after the middle of the eighteenth. 
 The Quakers, whose founder had been a fearless critic of the institution, 
 were foremost in the attack. As early as 1727 the Society of Friends 
 passed a resolution of censure against the trade, and from about 1758 
 its influence was strongly exerted to keep its members from even an 
 indirect connection with it. Others than the Quakers became interested. 
 Granville Sharp began in 1765 to look after the interests of negroes who 
 were claimed in British ports as slaves, and in 1772 was instrumental 
 in securing the famous judicial decision that as soon as any slave set foot 
 on British soil he became free. In 1783 the Society of Friends submitted 
 to Parliament the first petition for the abolition of the slave trade. In 
 1785 the cause secured its greatest advocate. That year the subject 
 assigned for a competition in Latin composition at Cambridge was, 
 "Whether it is right to enslave others against their will," and the prize 
 was won by a young churchman named Thomas Clarkson. The winning 
 
 • Philosophical History of the Indies, III, 421-66 (Justamond's translation). 
 
 ' Pastor Schwartz (pseudonym), Reflexions sur I'esclavage des negres, Neuchatel 
 1781. Revised edition, Paris, I788,0euvresde Condorcet, VII, 63-140. 
 
 * The following account of the development of sentiment in England is based on 
 Clarkson, History of the Rise, Progress, and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the 
 African Slave Trade by the British Parliament, I, ch's III-XX. 
 
THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 7 
 
 essay immediately became a standard authority among opponents of the 
 trade, and more important, the author was inspired to devote his hfe to 
 the cause of the blacks. At about the same time Wilberforce, a member 
 of Parliament and an intimate friend of Pitt, became actively interested. 
 
 Through a union of these forces there was organized in 1787 a "Com- 
 mittee for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade, " composed chiefly 
 of Quakers, but having Granville Sharp as President and Clarkson as its 
 most prominent member. Wilberforce, who for some time was not a 
 member, was to head the campaign in Parliament, while the Committee 
 was to solicit funds, collect information, and arouse public sentiment. 
 The campaign thus begun was waged without cessation till the British 
 slave trade was abolished in 1806. 
 
 The beginning of political activity in France was a direct outgrowth 
 of this work in England. The London Committee was formed on May 
 22d, 1787; on August 27th it received a letter from Brissot, requesting 
 that he and Claviere might become associates of the Committee for the 
 purpose of publishing French translations of its literature and collecting 
 subscriptions to be remitted to London for the good of the common 
 cause. The committee declined the offer of financial aid, but elected 
 Brissot an honorary member and recommended that a society be formed 
 in France.® 
 
 In accordance with this recommendation a society was formed in 
 Paris in February, 1788, under the name of the Society of Friends of the 
 Blacks, with Claviere as President. It adopted the same seal as the 
 Committee in England, but was an entirely independent organization. 
 Mirabeau was a charter member, and La Fayette and Condorcet were 
 among the first additions to its membership. Other prominent members 
 who came in later were Sieyes, Petion, Gregoire, Robespierre, and the 
 Duke of La Rochefoucauld.^" 
 
 Mirabeau, who had secured an exemption from censorship for his 
 journal, stretched his privilege to cover the early publications of the 
 society by issuing them as supplements." At a later time Brissot's 
 journal, the ''Patriote franjais, " became the organ of the society. 
 
 During Brissot's absence in America, in 1788, the society was dor- 
 mant, but on his return it awoke to renewed activity. The hour was 
 propitious. The National Assembly, which was to reform everything 
 
 ' Clarkson, op. cit., 1,446-7. 
 
 *" Brissot, Memoires, II, 71 ff.; Cahen, La Societe des Amis des Noirs et 
 Condorcet, R6v. fr., L, 481-511. 
 " Brissot, op. cit., 79-80. 
 
8 THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 
 
 vicious in the state, was about to meet. Deputies were being elected, 
 cahiers were being written, and the watchword "hberty" was on every 
 man's lips. What better opportunity could one anticipate to secure the 
 abolition of slavery and the slave trade, the most flagrant violations of 
 the principles of equality and liberty that the world had ever seen? 
 
 The Society of t he Friends of the Blacks set to work with enthusiasm. 
 On February 3d, 1789, Condorcet, at that time the President, addressed 
 a circular letter to all the bailiwicks of France, urging that there be 
 inserted in the cahiers a demand that the Estates-General destroy the 
 slave trade and make preparation for the ultimate abolition of slavery." 
 Several similar pubUcations followed, and efforts were made to obtain 
 the election of delegates favorable to the cause. 
 
 The results of this campaign were disappointing. Several leaders of 
 the society were elected, but they were men of such prominence that it 
 appears improbable that the efforts of the society were an important 
 factor in their success, and there is no evidence of any influence in electing 
 followers for these leaders.^^ The cahiers reflect a very slight interest. 
 Of the thousands of these documents published in the Archives par- 
 lementaires, only thirty-seven formulate demands for any action in favor 
 of the negroes. Of these, eleven demand the abolition of the slave 
 trade, and fifteen the immediate or ultimate aboHtion of slavery. Twelve 
 demand that the condition of the slaves be improved in some way, and 
 several others are too indefinite to admit of ready classification. Only 
 one refers to the condition of the free negroes, which was destined to be 
 the chief bone of contention between the Friends of the Blacks and the 
 defenders of the existing order. As a whole, the cahiers made it clear 
 that an attack on slavery was not a matter vital to the mass of the nation, 
 and that success, if it came at all, must be due to the loyalty of the 
 Estates-General to the principles of equaHty and liberty, and to the 
 ability and energy of the little group of intellectual leaders who made 
 up the Society of Friends of the Blacks. 
 
 This fact determined the character of the controversy for several 
 years. Anti-slavery agitation was the hobby of an intellectual elite, 
 to be promoted by an appeal to men's minds and consciences, in opposi- 
 tion oftentimes to their pecuniary interests. Before it could be really 
 effective it must become a prejudice, a habitual state of mind with masses 
 of men inaccessible to logical argument and moral appeal. 
 
 '^ Au corps electoral contre I'esclavage des noirs, Oeuvres de Condorcet, IX, 471-5. 
 
 "On the campaign of the spring of 1789, cf. Boissonnade, Saint-Domingue a 
 la veille la revolution, 208-13. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 Beginnings of the Contest in the National Assembly 
 The contest between the Friends of the Blacks and the defenders of 
 slavery began in connection with the application of an irregular delega- 
 tion for admission to the Estates-General as representatives of San 
 Domingo, As this delegation was destined to furnish the leading oppon- 
 ents of the Friends of the Blacks, its history is of interest. Early in 1788 
 certain colonial proprietors residing in France and a few merchants 
 interested in colonial trade, acting in concert with a small number of 
 actual residents of San Domingo, began an agitation for representation of 
 that colony in the Estates-General, then promised for 1792. An organi- 
 zation of nearly two hundred members was formed in Paris under the 
 name of the "Colonial Committee." Correspondence was maintained 
 with discontented planters, pamphlet literature was published, and 
 petitions were circulated among the colonial proprietors both in San 
 Domingo and in France. After an attempt to secure the personal 
 influence of the Counts of Provence and Artois and the Duke of Orleans, 
 formal request was made to the king for representation of San Domingo. 
 This request was refused by the Council of State. The agitators, how- 
 ever, boldly drew up and sent to the colony a plan for electoral assemblies. 
 These assemblies were held, without any legal sanction, and thirty-one 
 deputies were elected. 
 
 While these irregular elections were proceeding the Committee con- 
 tinued its work in France, and succeeded in securing a demand for the 
 admission of colonial deputies in at least fourteen cahiers of primary 
 assemblies. Repeated applications were made to Necker and to the 
 Minister of Marine, but without result, and when the Estates-General 
 opened the representatives of San Domingo had no legal standing.^ 
 Nevertheless, part of the deputies presented themselves on June 8th, 
 making application separately to each of the three orders. 
 
 The third estate alone proved receptive. On June 20th, eight San 
 Domingo deputies were allowed to take the Tennis Court Oath. On 
 June 27th the Committee on Credentials made a report unanimously 
 
 * This account of the origin of the colonial deputation is based on the excellent 
 narrative in Boissonnade, op. cit., ch's 6-9. 
 
10 THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 
 
 recommending the admission of the colonial deputation but declared 
 itself unable to agree on the number of deputies to which the colony was 
 properly entitled. The Assembly accepted the report, apparently with- 
 out a dissenting voice, and postponed discussion of the question of num- 
 bers to July 3d.2 
 
 So far the deputation had easy saiHng. Half the committee had 
 favored the admission of twenty deputies, half of twelve, either figure 
 being far in excess of what the colony could expect on the basis of the 
 number of its free inhabitants. But more was involved than a question 
 of parliamentary organization. The question brought squarely before 
 the assembly the delicate problems of slavery and the status of free 
 negroes under the new regime, and brought upon the colonial delegation 
 the wrath of the powerful Society of the Friends of the Blacks. 
 
 Immediately after the first appearance at Versailles of the San Do- 
 mingo deputation the Friends of the Blacks had recognized a foe. Mira- 
 beau's newspaper challenged their right to count the slaves as a basis of 
 representation, and taunted them with bitter words: "Either count your 
 negroes as men or as beasts; if they are men, free them, let them vote, 
 let them be elected to office. If they are cattle, let the number of your 
 deputies be made proportional to your human population; we have 
 counted neither our horses nor our mules. "^ 
 
 Between the vote of admission on June 27th and the final.debate 
 on July 3d and 4th the Friends of the Blacks awoke to the importance 
 of the issue. Condorcet published a vigorous pamphlet denouncing 
 the slave-holder and all his works. "We are tempted," said he, "to 
 advocate a law which shall exclude from the National Assembly every 
 man who, as a slaveholder, is interested in the maintfenance of principles 
 contrary to the natural rights of man, which are the only purpose of every 
 political organization. . . . The natural right of man to be governed 
 only by laws to which he has given his consent cannot be invoked in favor 
 of a man who is himself at the very moment violating the law of nature. " 
 The pamphlet closes with the remark that the planters can doubtless 
 speak concerning their own interests, "but that on their lips the sacred 
 word 'rights' would be blasphemy against reason."^ The last sentence 
 gives the key to the conflict that was to follow. On the one hand, the 
 remorseless logic of a century devoted to the worship of reason, sacred 
 
 2 Point du jour, I, 61-4. Le Hodey, l; 259-62. XlVe Lettre du comte de Mira- 
 beau a ses commetans, 4-9. 
 
 ^ Xe Lettre du comte de Mirabeau a ses comm6tans, 3. 
 * Oeuvres de Condorcet, IX, 477-85, 
 
THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 11 
 
 principles which the opposition never dared to deny and scarcely at- 
 tempted to evade; on the other hand the economic interests of powerful 
 groups of "practical" men, antagonistic to one another in many of their 
 aims, but drawn together by the common need of self-protection against 
 the men of ideals. 
 
 When the question was reopened on July 3d, Mirabeau took the lead 
 in the discussion, raising again the question of counting the slaves, and 
 arguing further that the so-called deputies really represented only about 
 one-half even of the free population, since the whole body of free blacks 
 and mulattoes had been excluded from the suffrage.^ In this debate, 
 as on many future occasions, the mouthpiece of the colonial deputation 
 was the Marquis de Gouy d'Arsy, a colonial proprietor residing in Paris, 
 who had been from the beginning a leader in the movement for colonial 
 representation. Gouy made no attempt to defend the principle of slave 
 representation, but based his claim for the admission of eighteen or twen- 
 ty delegates on the wealth and commercial importance of the colony. 
 His weak point was the exclusion of free tax-paying mulattoes from the 
 electoral assemblies. According to the Abbe Jallet he said that since 
 the mulattoes were natural enemies of the whites it would be dangerous 
 to give them any influence, an argument which, as one might expect, 
 made a bad impression on the assembly.^ 
 
 The debate dragged over into the next day without bringing out any 
 other argument of importance, and the number of deputies was finally 
 settled by a weary compromise at six.'' Although there was some oppo- 
 sition from other sources, including a rival group of colonial proprietors 
 who protested against the seating of any delegates at all, it is clear that 
 the opposition of the Friends of the Blacks was the main cause of the 
 deputation's reduction in number from twelve or more to six. 
 
 The chief importance of this discussion was the prominence which it 
 gave to two questions that the colonial deputies were most anxious to 
 keep smothered — slavery and the civil status of the free negroes. Dur- 
 ing the debate of June 27th the Duke of La Rochefoucauld found oppor- 
 tunity to present the aims of the Society of Friends of the Blacks, and 
 requested the future consideration of the problem of emancipation. Four 
 other deputies called attention at the same time to the demands of their 
 
 5 Le Hodey, 1, 323-6; Point du jour, 1, 99-100. 
 
 'Journal, 115-6. Cf.LeHodey, 1,335; Duquesnoy, Journal, 1, 160. 
 
 ' Le Hodey, I, 341-54; Point du jour, I, 107-8. This was the first occasion on 
 which the vote "par tete " was employed, and a large number of the clergy and nobility 
 refused to participate. 
 
12 THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE TRENCH REVOLUTION 
 
 constituents that something be done to improve the condition of the 
 slaves, and their remarks received hearty applause.^ 
 
 Other events quickly followed which convinced the colonial deputies 
 that there was real danger in the Revolution for their peculiar institu- 
 tions. In July there arrived at Versailles one Raimond, a mulatto, a 
 native of San Domingo, who had come to France in 1784 to seek some 
 amelioration of the condition of the free mulattoes.® He had accom- 
 plished nothing and when the National Assembly convened it was only 
 natural that he should turn to it for assistance. Raimond was a man of 
 considerable education, the author of numerous well written pamphlets 
 and a politician of no mean ability. He came of a family of wealthy 
 planters, and was at least three-fourths white.^" 
 
 At about the same time there appeared another formidable antag- 
 onist of the planting and slave-trading interests. The British Com- 
 mittee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade had slackened its activity 
 in England on account of an adjournment of Parliament, and took the 
 opportunity to send Thomas Clarkson to work in the National Assembly. 
 Immediately on his arrival at Versailles Clarkson sought the acquain- 
 tance of the Duke of La Rochefoucauld, Condorcet, Brissot, Petion, La 
 Fayette, and other Friends of the Blacks and began a quiet campaign 
 against the slave trade." Moreover, at the famous session of August 
 4th, the Duke of La Rochefoucauld again brought up the question of the 
 emancipation of all the slaves, and besought the Assembly to give it 
 consideration before closing its labors. ^^ 
 
 Thus before the end of the summer of 1789 the defenders of the inter- 
 ests of slavery found themselves confronted with three distinct threaten- 
 ing movements — the free mulatto question agitated by Raimond, the 
 question of the slave trade pushed to the front by Clarkson, and in the 
 back ground the demand for emancipation. In response to these move- 
 
 * Point du jour, 1, 64; Jallet, op. cit., 107. 
 
 ' Raimond, Veritable origine des troubles de Saint-Domingue, et des differentes. 
 causes qui les ontproduits, 4. Lettre au citoyen D, 7. 
 
 " Raimond, Observations sur I'origine et les progres de prejug6 des colons blancs 
 centre les hommes de couleur, 41-3. Page et BruUey, Developpement des causes de& 
 troubles et des desastres des colonies, 61. 
 
 " Clarkson, op. cit., II, 123 ff. 
 
 ^^ Courrier de Provence, No. 23, 19. Gouy d'Arsy claimed two years later that, 
 he alone prevented the assembly from declaring the slaves free on that memorable 
 night (Confession d'un depute dans ses derniers momens, 4) and the whole San 
 Domingo deputation made a similar claim for themselves. (Garran, Rapport sur les. 
 troubles en Saint-Domingue, 1, 142.) 
 
THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 13 
 
 ments there ensued a rapid development of counter-organizations to 
 defend the existing order. There was, in the first place, the so-called colo- 
 nial committee (not to be confused with the colonial committee of 1788-9, 
 described above, or with the colonial committee of the Assembly, or- 
 ganized later) consisting of the six San Domingo deputies admitted on 
 July 4th, together with their twelve alternates, who had been granted 
 seats on the floor of the Assembly. This whole group maintained an 
 organization of which the six deputies were only the mouthpieces, their 
 votes on all important matters being decided by a preliminary caucus of 
 the eighteen.^^ 
 
 Rivalling this "committee" was another organization, the "Cor- 
 responding Society of French Colonists, " commonly known as the Mas- 
 siac Club. This aristocratic club of wealthy planters was formally 
 organized August 20, 1789, and by October had 435 members. Although 
 the object of the Club was to promote much the same interests as the 
 colonial committee, it took issue sharply with the deputies on the question 
 of political methods. The deputies posed as radical revolutionists, while 
 the Club was strongly royalist and opposed every attempt to work 
 through the National Assembly or even the recognition of its authority 
 over the colonies. It was this group, then not fully organized, which had 
 protested in July against the admission of the San Domingo deputation. 
 The two organizations never came to work in harmony. The Club pub- 
 Hshed large numbers of pamphlets, chiefly for circulation in the colonies, 
 dispatched agents to the islands, exercised an illegal but effective over- 
 sight over the movement of colonists from France to San Domingo 
 and had a very large influence with the ministry.^^ 
 
 From this time we find the colonists generally on the defensive. The 
 negro question was not the issue which had brought them to Versailles. 
 Discontent with the trade laws, dissatisfaction with a recent reorganiza- 
 tion of the government of San Domingo, desire for a larger share in the 
 administration, tax grievances, all these were more important causes of 
 their demand for representation than was their fear of legislation on 
 behalf of the slaves. Hence they could pose as revolutionaries, but the 
 enumeration of their grievances shows how little they had in common 
 with the radical party in France. Superficially there was a common 
 purpose — the overthrow of Bourbon despotism and the estabUshment 
 of some form of self-government. But as soon as we note what bene- 
 
 " Garran, op. cit., I, 50. 
 
 " Garran, op. cit., 1, 54-9; Deschamps, Les colonies pendant la revolution, 53-7; 
 Raimond, Veritable origine, 16. 
 
14 THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 
 
 j&ts the colonists expected to secure through self-government a wide 
 difference becomes apparent. The characteristic abuses of the old 
 regime were unknown in San Domingo. There was no distinction of 
 orders; instead there was a hierarchy of caste, and the democratic enthu- 
 siasm which was seeking to wipe out all distinctions between classes of 
 men found no echo in the hearts of the revolutionists of San Domingo. 
 They were devotees of liberty indeed, for liberty meant the overthrow 
 of the mercantilist commercial system which subordinated their interests 
 to those of the merchants of France. But their democracy was the 
 democracy of our own old South — equality and liberty within a class set 
 apart from the mass of humanity by impassable barriers of race, color, 
 and legal bondage. And now in the very beginning of the Revolution 
 they found the new catch-words of liberty and equality so interpreted 
 as to threaten a deadly thrust at their most vital economic interests and 
 a still deadlier thrust at social prejudices as dear as the maintenance of 
 their economic life. 
 
 The dangerous position of the colonial deputation at this time was 
 frankly set forth in an open letter to their constituents, dated August 12, 
 1789, which became public in France in the spring of 1790, and attracted 
 much unfavorable attention to its authors. It read in part as follows: 
 
 **The colony, gentlemen, is in a two-fold danger — equally serious 
 under either aspect. Danger from without (here follows a rumor of 
 an English expedition against the island) . . . Danger within — they 
 are trying to stir up revolt among our "negroes. . . . We see the dan- 
 ger, and we are forced to keep silent — they are drunk with liberty. 
 Gentlemen, a society of fanatics, calling themselves the Friends of the 
 Blacks, is openly writing against us; it is watching for a favorable oppor- 
 tunity to make an attack on slavery; if we should only pronounce the 
 word it might give them an opportunity to make a demand for the 
 emancipation of our slaves. . . . Watch, and again watch; the National 
 Assembly is too busy with the internal affairs of the kingdom to take 
 thought for us. . . . Arrest suspects; confiscate writmgs in which the 
 word 'liberty' occurs; guard your homes; everywhere make sure of the 
 free mulattoes;^^ be suspicious of those who return from Europe. One 
 of your greatest misfortunes is that it has been impossible to forbid the 
 departure of the mulattoes who are in France; the spirit of the times 
 was opposed to our desires; to prohibit the embarcation even of slaves 
 
 ^^ "AUachons." The phrase was variously interpreted by contemporaries and 
 was probably intentionally ambiguous. 
 
THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 15 
 
 would have been denounced to the nation. . . . This crisis will not 
 last; count on us. "^^ 
 
 What a dilemma! These deputies had taken the Tennis Court Oath 
 with enthusiasm, they sat on the left, yet they regarded the word "Uber- 
 ty" as dangerous, congratulated themselves that the Assembly was too 
 busy to take thought for them, and looked forward eagerly to the time 
 when the intoxication of the first draught of liberty should have passed. 
 
 Eight days later the Declaration of the Rights of Man was adopted. 
 Among its ringing phrases one looks in vain for a reference to the relations 
 of black man and white. No specific reference was made in it to colonial 
 conditions; indeed none could be made without passing definitely on the 
 whole question of slavery. But Mirabeau published an interpretation of 
 the Declaration which pushed it to its logical conclusion, the immediate 
 and absolute emancipation of all the slaves on the soil of France: 
 
 "After havmg fully stated the principle, the National Assembly will 
 not deny its most just and legitimate consequences. . . . What it will 
 say ... is that neither in France nor in any country subject to the 
 laws of France can there be any other men than free men; men equal 
 among themselves. . . . Not one of them (the San Domingo deputa- 
 tion) has ofifered an amendment to the effect that 'White men only are 
 born and remain free.' . . . 'Black men are born and remain slaves.' 
 No, not one of their deputies has used such abominable language, and 
 none of them has given evidence of the shghtest reservation in his accep- 
 tance of the Assembly's decree. This, then, is not only the will of the 
 National Assembly but that of the planters themselves, that every man, 
 regardless of color, shall have equal right to liberty. "" 
 
 Five pages of this literature emanating from the most influential 
 member of the Assembly might well cause uneasiness in the minds of the 
 owners of slave capital. The colonial deputies, indeed, always remained 
 hostile to the Declaration and claimed that it did not apply to the colo- 
 nies.^** Logically this limitation was impossible, and Mirabeau's inter- 
 pretation was correct, for the Declaration by its own terms was of universal 
 
 " Published in Courrier de Provence, No. Ill, 471-4, in Raimond, Veritable ori- 
 gine, 6-8 , and separately as pamphlet edited by the San Domingo deputation. 
 
 " Courrier de Provence, No. 30, 1-6. 
 
 " For instance, when the members of the Assembly were summoned, on February 
 4th, 1790, to take an oath of allegiance to the new constitution, which of course in- 
 cluded the Declaration, the colonial deputies hastily secured a statement from the 
 President that the oath bound them only as individuals, not as representatives of the 
 colony, and part of them took the oath with the reservation, "I swear only in my own 
 name." Ga.iTa.n, op. cit. ,1,66; GazettedeParis, Feb. 7, 1790. 
 
16 THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 
 
 application. Had it been merely a statement of the hard-earned historic 
 rights of Frenchmen, like the English Bill of Rights, it would have been 
 possible to except the colonies from its provisions, and no doubt the 
 Assembly would ultimately have done so. But a statement of the inher- 
 ent rights of man admits of no geographical circumscription, even at 
 the hands of a sovereign constitutional convention, so it was left for 
 circumstances to determine what weight the Declaration would have in 
 the slave-holding colonies. 
 
 It appeared now as though a trial of strength on the question of 
 abolition was imminent, but for some reason Mirabeau and his associates 
 suddenly lost interest and allowed the question to disappear from the 
 field of controversy. Apparently they decided that there was some 
 truth in the contention that immediate aboHtion would be disastrous, 
 and so sacrificed their principles to their prudence. Whatever the reason , 
 from this time the Friends of the Blacks limited their ambition to the 
 abolition of the slave trade and the estabhshment of civil and poHtical 
 rights for the free negroes. Their opponents continued to overwhelm 
 them with abuse as advocates of aboHtion, while the Friends of the Blacks 
 vigorously denied that they had any thought of such a thing, and accused 
 their opponents of demohshing a man of straw.^^ 
 
 This continued to be true throughout the period of the Constituent 
 and Legislative Assemblies, no further motion or address looking toward 
 aboHtion ever being made on the floor of either of these bodies. 
 
 Concerning the statesm^anship of this position there can scarcely be 
 dispute, for there is no question that the immediate grant of full liberty 
 in colonies with a population nine-tenths of which was composed of 
 ignorant Africans would have hurled the whole mass back into savagery. 
 But the moderate temporizing attitude which leads to this conclusion 
 cannot be reconciled with the principles of the revolution and of the 
 
 " The following quotations indicate the attitude of leading Friends of the Blacks 
 on the emancipation question : 
 
 " Je ne viens point vous dire ici de briser les fers de ces esclaves infortunes; une 
 liberte inconsideree seroit pour eux le plus funeste present. " Petion, speech written 
 to deliver Oct. 12, 1790, not delivered. Oeuvres,III, 139-180. 
 
 "Nous croyons qu'afFranchir submitement les esclaves noirs seroit une oppression, 
 non-seulement pour les colonies, mais que dans I'etat d'abjection et de nullity ou la 
 cupidity a reduit les noirs ce seroit leur faire un present funeste. " Adresse de la 
 Soci6t6 des Amis des Noirs de Paris a I'assemblee nationale, redigee par E. Clavi^re, 
 108. 
 
THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 17 
 
 philosophy of which the revolution was an expression. By the gospel 
 of Jean Jacques, by the Declaration of Rights, by all that the revolution 
 held most sacred, the black man was entitled to his freedom, and neither 
 the Friends of the Blacks nor their more candid opponents claimed that 
 the peculiar difficulty of granting him his freedom made the maintenance 
 of his slavery any less immoral. They simply sacrificed morality to 
 expediency. The fatal results of this sacrifice wiU become apparent as 
 we trace the sequel. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 The Attempt to Secure Representation for the Free Mulattoes 
 During the six months following the Declaration of the Rights of 
 Man, the two questions of the status of free negroes and the abolition of 
 the slave trade obtained a fair amount of public attention, in spite of 
 the larger questions which were continually thrusting themselves before 
 the people. It will be necessary to trace the two movements separately 
 for though they were supported by the same philanthropists and opposed 
 by the same interests, their active management fell to different lobbyists 
 and they had little direct connection with one another. First let us trace 
 the efforts of Raimond and his friends to secure social and political 
 recognition for the free colored population. 
 
 Raimond, as has been noted, appeared at Versailles about the middle 
 of July, 1789. He first consulted the Minister of Marine, through 
 whom he obtained several interviews with the colonists who were meeting 
 at the home of the Count Massiac. Raimond's program as presented 
 to these planters was moderate: freedom for the children of slave mothers 
 by white fathers, civil rights for mulattoes already free, and abolition of 
 the slave trade.^ Nothing came of the discussions, though Raimond 
 claimed that the Club seriously considered supporting the mulattoes' 
 cause till they saw that the latter were too loyal to France to fall in with 
 the planters' schemes of virtual colonial independence. It appears more 
 probable, from Malouet's account, that the planters were merely trying 
 to delay Raimond's plans.^ 
 
 The next move of the mulattoes was a bold one. They drew up a 
 cahier embracing a wide range of demands for reform and including a 
 request for the admission to the Assembly of deputies representing the 
 free colored citizens.^ Then they held an election and began a serious 
 campaign for the admission of their representatives. On October 22d 
 
 •Raimond, V6ritable origine, 16, 17. Deschamps, Les Colonies pendant la 
 revolution, 209-10. 
 
 *Malouet, M6moires sur les colonies, IV, 11-12. Extrait du proces-verbal de 
 I'Assemblee de citoyens libres et proprietaires de couleur des isles et colonies Fran- 
 coises, constitues sous le titre de colons americains. 
 
 ^ Brette, Les gens de couleur libres et leurs deputes en 1789, R6v. fr., XXIX, 
 33 1 . Cf . Extrait du Proces-verbal, cited above. 
 
THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 19 
 
 there appeared at the bar of the Assembly a body of mulattoes, repre- 
 senting themselves to be owners of property in the colonies, and asking 
 that five of their number be admitted to represent the free colored popu- 
 lation of the West Indies. Through De Joly, a white lawyer who acted 
 as their spokesman, they presented a long pompous address, from which 
 an extract may be of interest: 
 
 "The free citizens of color, proprietors, of the French Isles and colonies 
 have the honor to represent to you: That there stiU exists in this Empire 
 a class of men despised and degraded; a class of citizens condemned to 
 degradation, to all the humihations of slavery — in a word. Frenchmen 
 who groan beneath the yoke of oppression. . . . The Estates-General 
 have been summoned. . . . The cry of liberty has sounded in the 
 other hemisphere. It ought, no doubt, to have stifled even the memory 
 of these outrageous distinctions between the citizens of the same country; 
 it has only made them the more odious. For the ambitious aristocracy 
 liberty is only the right to dominate, without restraint, over other men. 
 The white colonists . . . have grasped for themselves the right of 
 holding assembhes and electing representatives for the colonies. . . . 
 Thus the citizens of color find themselves represented by the deputies of 
 the white colonists, when it is evident on the one hand that they have not 
 . . . delegated any power to these deputies, and on the other hand that 
 the divergence of their interests would make such a representation 
 absurd. . . . Under the instruction of the Declaration of the Rights of 
 Man the colored colonists have learned what they are; they have risen 
 to the dignity you have given them; they have learned their rights and 
 made use of them. They have met, drawn up a cahier which contains 
 all their demands. . . . They have charged their deputies with it, and 
 now they ask in this august assembly a representation which is necessary 
 that they may uphold their interests against the tyrannical pretentions 
 of the whites. " 
 
 The orator then made a patriotic offering of one-fourth the mulattoes' 
 income, estimated to amount to six miUion hvres, and two per cent of 
 their property, and closed with an effective appeal to the principles of 
 the Declaration of Rights.* 
 
 The President of the Assembly replied: "No part of the nation shall 
 ask in vain for its rights before the Assembly of its representatives; those 
 whom the breadth of the seas or prejudices concerning differences of 
 
 * This discourse, by order of the National Assembly, was printed in full in the 
 Pieces-verbal. (No. 105, 2-9) 
 
20 THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 
 
 origin seem to place farther from its sight shall be brought near by those 
 sentiments of humanity which characterize all its deliberations and 
 animate all its efforts. " . The hearty applause which followed the address 
 of the deputation and the reply of the President showed that the mulat- 
 toes had made a successful appeal. They were granted seats of honor, 
 and their papers were referred to the Committee on Credentials.^ 
 
 A legal-minded assembly would of course have ignored the mulattoes' 
 claim. But the National Assembly was anything but legal-minded, and 
 the deputation actually came very near securing seats. They probably 
 would have succeeded if the question had reached an early vote. Against 
 them it was argued that their credentials were issued by no legally con- 
 stituted elective bodies, that neither the deputies nor the electors had 
 been in the West Indies recently, and that a gathering of mulattoes in 
 Paris could in no legal or moral sense claim to be the authorized mouth- 
 piece of the colored population of the islands. Moreover the Assembly 
 had already fixed the number of deputies to be allowed the principal 
 West Indian colonies, and the deputations were full.« But the mulat- 
 toes retorted with a " tu quoque, " showing that in the case of the Marti- 
 nique and Guadeloupe deputies^ the elections took place in Paris, that 
 none of the colonial deputies were chosen by really representative bodies, 
 and that the Assembly had repeatedly chosen to dispense with legal 
 formality rather than leave any part of the nation unrepresented. The 
 lack of proper credentials the mulattoes explained by the necessity for 
 haste if they were to participate in making the constitution, and by the 
 fact that all assemblies were strictly forbidden by law in the colonies.^ 
 
 The committee on credentials, of which the Abbe Gregoire, a vahant 
 Friend of the Blacks, was a member, discussed the case at eleven sessions, 
 and finally voted to recommend the admission of two colored deputies.® 
 
 This report for some reason never reached the Assembly. Gregoire 
 says simply that it was prevented by " des brigues et des cahales. "^° Rai- 
 
 » Proces-verbal, No. 105; Le Hodey, V, 136-9; Raimond, Veritable origine, 18, 19. 
 Cf. also Courrier de Provence, No. 56, 14-5; Point du jour, III, 409-10; Journal des 
 debats et de decrets, No. 74, 2 . 
 
 • Cocherel, Observations a 1' Assemblee nationale sur la demande des mulatres. 
 
 ' Two deputies had been admitted for Guadeloupe on September 22d and two for 
 Martinique on October 14th. 
 
 « The case of the mulattoes is best stated in their "Lettre . . . aMMlesMem- 
 bres du comite de verification . . . " reprinted Arch, pari., X, 329-33. 
 
 'Gregoire, Lettre aux philanthropes, also speech of May 11, 1791, Moniteur, 
 VIII, 367. Cocherel, op. ciL, 3. Raimond, Veritable origine, 19. 
 
 '" Moniteur, loc. cit. 
 
THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 21 
 
 iRond says that the reporter tried twice to present the report of the com- 
 mittee but could not make himself heard above the din raised by the 
 colonists and their friends.^^ If this is true, and it is not inconsistent 
 with the parliamentary methods of the Assembly, it shows that organized 
 work had been done by the conservatives since the mulattoes received 
 their ovation in October. 
 
 On December 3d Gregoire tried to bring up the report in connection 
 with another colonial question. A colonial deputy had moved to create a 
 colonial committee of twenty, of whom half should be colonial deputies 
 and half merchants engaged in colonial trade. This evoked a very lively 
 debate, involving the whole controversy between the Massiac Club 
 and the colonial deputies in regard to the Assembly's authority over the 
 colonies. At the beginning of the discussion the President allowed the 
 Assembly to hear a petition from Bordeaux for a law pledging the Assem- 
 bly never to interfere with slavery, while at the same timic he suppressed 
 a petition from the mulattoes objecting to the creation of a colonial 
 committee.^^ At this point the Abbe Gregoire raised the question of 
 representation for the mulattoes, and kept the floor in the face of vigorous 
 ■efforts to drown out his voice with shouts of ''Order! Order!" Finally 
 securing attention he cried: "If there is in the colonies a class of citizens 
 who have grievances to be redressed, observations to offer, a constitution 
 to demand; if these citizens have all the qualifications which you demand 
 for active citizenship; and if nevertheless they are not represented, surely 
 they have the right to expect from your justice that they be admitted 
 to representation. " "Who will defend in this committee an unfortunate 
 race which they (the colonists) have oppressed for more than a century 
 and wish to continue to oppress." The abbe's appeal evoked no re- 
 sponse; the question he raised was held to be irrelevant, and the discus- 
 sion proceeded on the main question.^^ 
 
 " Veritable origine, loc. cit. 
 
 " Supplique . . . sur la motion faite le 27 novembre par M. de Curt, etc., 30. 
 Point du jour, V, 9-11. Le Hodey, VI, 273. 
 
 " Le Hodey, VI, 277-8; Brette, op. cit., Rev. fr., XXIX, 385-6; Point du jour, V, 
 14. The decision was adverse to the appointment of the special committee, but it does 
 not appear that this result indicates in any way the attitude of the assembly toward 
 the negro question, as has sometimes been assumed. The main purpose of the colo- 
 nists in asking for the committee was to prevent colonial questions, particularly race 
 questions, from coming before the assembly, but the chief opposition came from pro- 
 prietors, who opposed the representation of the colonies and did not wish to see the 
 influence of the deputies enhanced. The Assembly as a whole evidently did not under- 
 
22 THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 
 
 No further attention, apparently, was given the question of mulatto 
 representation by the Assembly. Just how long the colored citizens 
 continued their attempt to seat their deputies we cannot tell, but they 
 probably gave it up before March." If the attempt had not been aban- 
 doned before that time, the creation of a committee on colonies in March 
 and the subsequent attempt to make a separate colonial constitution 
 killed the issue. Before taking up these developments, however, it will 
 be necessary to review the other line of effort pursued by the Friends 
 of the Blacks in the autumn of 1789, the attempt to prohibit the Afri- 
 can slave trade. 
 
 stand the points at issue. Cf. Letter of the Secretary of the San Domingo deputation 
 to the Massiac Club, Jan. 22, 1790, Garran, op. cit., 1, 125. 
 " Cf . Clarkson, op. cit., II, 149. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 The Attack on the Slave Trade 
 
 Mention has been made of the coming of Thomas Clarkson to Ver- 
 sailles in August, 1789, in the interest of the British Committee for the 
 Abolition of the Slave Trade.^ His first steps were taken through the 
 cooperation of the Society of the Friends of the Blacks. Condorcet, 
 Brissot, and another member were delegated to accompany Clarkson 
 in seeking an audience with Necker, and a letter was addressed to the 
 President of the National Assembly, asking him to appoint a day for 
 hearing the cause of the negroes. The attempt to secure a hearing from 
 the Assembly proved fruitless, but Necker showed a considerable degree 
 of interest. The merchants and planters became alarmed and began a 
 counter-agitation. Claviere and Clarkson received anonymous letters 
 threatening them with assassination, and spies were hired to attend the 
 committee meetings of the Friends of the Blacks.^ A rumor was started 
 that the Friends of the Blacks were about to send muskets to the negroes 
 of San Domingo and foment an insurrection there, and the rooms of the 
 committee were searched by soldiers. Clarkson was repeatedly accused 
 of being a British spy. 
 
 After about seven weeks of fruitless effort, Clarkson began a per- 
 sonal canvass of the Assembly. He arranged for a small meeting of 
 persons interested, and secured the attendance of Sieyes, La Rochefou- 
 cauld, and Petion, from the National Assembly, and Condorcet, Claviere, 
 and Brissot from the Friends of the Blacks. The question to be settled 
 at this meeting was whether it would be better to push forward the ques- 
 tion of the slave trade at this time, or postpone it till the meeting of the 
 first Legislative Assembly, which it was then beheved would occur by 
 March, 1790. It was feared by some that the revolutionary movement 
 might be injured by coupling it with the question of the slave trade, con- 
 verting the sea-port towns which had an interest in the trade into enemies 
 of the Revolution, and enabling counter-revolutionists to claim that the 
 interests of France were being sacrificed to those of England. Clarkson, 
 
 ' The following account of Clarkson's activities is based chiefly on his own nar- 
 rative, op. cit., II, 123-60. 
 
 ' Cf . an anonymous letter threatening journalists who should print anything con- 
 cerning the negroes, Moniteur, III, 168. 
 
24 THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE PRENCH REVOLUTION 
 
 less concerned than the rest about the effect of their actmty on the 
 Revolution, asked whether the question could be carried with more or 
 with less difficulty in the coming legislature. The answer illustrates 
 well the amazing faith of the men of the Revolution in the efficacy of in- 
 stitutional reform. Clarkson was told unanimously "that there would 
 be no greater difficulty in one than in the other case; for that people would 
 daily more and more admire their constitution; that this constitution 
 would go down to the next Legislature, from whence would issue solid 
 and fixed principles which would be resorted to as a standard for de- 
 cision on all occasions. Hence the slave trade, which would be adjudged 
 by it also, could not possibly stand. Add to which that the most virtuous 
 members in the present would be chosen into the new legislature, which, 
 if the constitution were but once fairly established would not regard the 
 murmurs of any town or province."^ It was therefore decided not to 
 push the issue till the meeting of the next Assembly. 
 
 Clarkson was about to return to England, but on consulting Mirabeau 
 and La Fayette he found them both opposed to the postponement of the 
 fight. Mirabeau offered to manage the bill in the Assembly, and asked 
 Clarkson to furnish him the details to complete a speech on the subject 
 which he had already begun.^ 
 
 For the next six weeks Clarkson labored with amazing industry at 
 the task of supplying ammunition for Mirabeau's artillery. For a month 
 he wrote a sixteen or twenty page- letter every other day. Over a thou- 
 sand elaborate plates representing the detailed plan of a slave ship, a 
 French edition of the Essay on the Impolicy of the Slave Trade, and 
 much other material, were sent from England for distribution among the 
 members of the National Assembly. In the work of distribution there 
 participated most of the revolutionary leaders already mentioned as being 
 
 ' Clarkson, op. cit., II, 138-43. (Quotation marks Clarkson's.) 
 * La Fayette, who was not consulted till after this arrangement was made, gave a 
 very characteristic comment: "Mirabeau is a host in himself, and I should not be 
 surprised if by his own eloquence and popularity he were to carry it, and yet I regret 
 that he has taken the lead in it. The cause is so lovely that even ambition, abstractly 
 considered, is too impure to take it under its protection and not to sully it. It should 
 have been placed in the hands of the most virtuous man of France. That man is the 
 Duke of La Rochefoucauld. But you cannot alter things now. You cannot take it 
 out of his hands. I am sure he will be second to no one on this occasion. " (Clarkson, 
 op. cit., II, 144-6.) 
 
 One is tempted to inquire whether La Fayette would not have been gratified if 
 Clarkson had courteously transferred the halo of superlative virtue from the brow of 
 La Rochefoucauld to his own. 
 
THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 25 
 
 interested, together with Necker, Madame Necker, the Marchioness 
 de La Fayette, and other persons of prominence. Clarkson had numer- 
 ous interviews with Necker, and even the king became personally inter- 
 ested. 
 
 While this agitation was proceeding, the opposition also increased 
 its activity. Offers of money were made to Mirabeau if he would aban- 
 don the cause, and literature in opposition to Clarkson's was circulated 
 in abundance. 
 
 One of the most significant results of the contest was the aUiance it 
 brought about between the planting interests and the commercial cities. 
 The interests of the planters and the merchants of France were diametri- 
 cally opposed in regard to the regulation of colonial commerce and there 
 existed between them an ancient hostility. But the merchants, like the 
 planters, were financially interested in the slave trade and in the main- 
 tenance of peace and order in the islands, and the specter of a slave 
 insurrection, paraded before them as the inevitable result of any interfer- 
 ence with the existing relations of mulattoes and whites, confirmed by 
 reports of disorders in Martinique, brought them into an unstable alliance 
 with the planters. Thus we find that the Massiac Club after trying in 
 vain to secure from the ministry an order prohibiting the return of mulat- 
 toes from France to San Domingo, wrote to the principal seaports urging 
 the owners of ships to refuse passage to these mulattoes, and obtained 
 from several ports a pledge of comphance.^ This promise was being 
 observed in the summer of 1790.^ The colonial deputation likewise began 
 to cultivate friendly relations with the merchants, as is witnessed by 
 their proposal to include ten merchants in the colonial committee.'^ 
 Through the influence of the deputies and through the activity of the 
 Massiac Club, which had established branches in the commercial cities, 
 these cities were aroused to action, and petitions began to rain in on the 
 Assembly, protesting against any interference with vested interests.^ 
 
 * Proces-verbal of Massiac Club, cited by Deschamps, Les colonies pendant la 
 revolution, 208. Cf. letter of the San Domingo deputation, above, pp. 14-5. 
 
 « Brette, op. ciL, Rev. fr. XXIX, 400. 
 
 ' "Leurs deputes a I'Assemblee nationale, toujours nos adversaires sur leur 
 interet personnel, le regime exclusif du commerce, ont senti que cet interet les forfoit 
 de se reunir a nous sur tous les autres points, et leur influence nous a servis heureuse- 
 ment. " Correspondence of the San Domingo deputies, quoted Garran, op. cit., 1, 126. 
 
 « Proces-verbal de I'Assemblee nationale, Jan. 21, 1790, 23; Jan. 14, 1790, 5; 
 Feb. 6, 1790, 20. Gerbaux et Schmidt, Proces-verbal du comite d'agriculture et de 
 commerce, I, 95, 111, 115, 131, 134, 135, 143, 171, 196. 
 
26 THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 
 
 The Friends of the Blacks, on the other hand, neglected to avail 
 themselves of the right of petition. Aside from addresses submitted by 
 the Society itseh and by the mulatto organization, a single short and 
 moderate paragraph buried in a long general address on liberty^ appears 
 to be the only appeal on behalf of the negroes which was received by the 
 Assembly. It was not till the Jacobin Club at a later date took up the 
 negroes' cause that the planting interests had to contend with political 
 forces as well organized'ds their own. 
 
 In this contest for the support of public opinion the conservatives won. 
 Clarkson's account of events in the early winter shows that the cause of 
 the negroes was losing ground, and the correspondence of the San Do- 
 mingo deputation bears witness to the same change. At first they admit- 
 ted that the majority of the Assembly were against them^" but on 
 January 11th they wrote: 
 
 "This -new spirit . . . manifested itself in the session of December 
 3d. Since that time the alarming news from the colonies has only con- 
 firmed and increased it, and we are certain now that there is nothing 
 to fear concerning abolition; we have also very little anxiety about the 
 suppression of the slave trade. "^^ 
 
 Most of the petitions were referred to the Committee on Agriculture 
 and Commerce, which was unfriendly to the negro cause. On February 
 19th this committee approved a bill which disclaimed any intention on 
 the part of the Assembly to interfere with the existing regime in the 
 colonies or their commerce, but instructed its reporter to withhold the 
 bill unless the question should come up in the Assembly.^^ 
 
 This was the most discreet pohcy the defenders of the trade could 
 adopt, for they had everything to lose by precipitating a discussion. 
 Some of their partisans, however, could not be restrained. At the 
 evening session of February 25th there appeared before the Assembly 
 two deputations, one from the "patriotic army" of Bordeaux, the other 
 from the "extraordinary deputies of commerce" of the kingdom, who 
 presented addresses praying for a specific sanction of the slave trade. 
 The orator from Bordeaux presented the stock argument for slavery, 
 familiar enough to students of American history, heard now for the first 
 time by the Assembly whose watchword was fiber ty: 
 
 9 Proces-verbal, No. 167, 22. 
 
 1' Garran, op. cit., 124. 
 
 " Ibid., I, 127. 
 
 " Gerbaux et Schmidt, op. cit., I, 153-4. 
 
THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 27 
 
 "The colonies cannot exist without slavery and the slave trade. 
 The commerce of France would be annihilated if the colonies ceased to 
 exist. Commerce is the necessary agent of navigation, agriculture, and 
 the arts. Abolition of slavery and of the slave trade would mean the 
 loss of the colonies; the loss of the colonies would strike a mortal blow 
 at commerce, and the ruin of commerce would paralyze navigation, 
 agriculture, and the arts. " 
 
 He drew an alarming picture of the misery which reigned at Bordeaux 
 and the tremendous falling ofif in its commerce — 1419 fewer vessels in 
 1789 than in 1788 — and attributed the depression to the uncertainty 
 concerning the future of the slave trade. "Five miUion Frenchmen," 
 he proceeded, "live only by the commerce which the colonies support. 
 They yield an annual income of over two hundred miUions and . . . 
 a balance of twenty-four millions in our favor. . . . The slave trade 
 is carried on by all the peoples who have possessions in the Antilles; if 
 Fi ance ceased to carry on the trade the treatment of the negroes would 
 only become the more cruel, for our laws and customs in this trade are 
 distinguished by their humane character. . . . Yet a dangerous 
 sect . . . under the imposing name of Friends of the Blacks, is spreading 
 everywhere the poisoned breath of its doctrines. " 
 
 Then, after a discussion of the alleged danger of a slave insurrection, 
 came the supreme effort, the appeal to the Declaration of the Rights 
 of Man: 
 
 "You have declared sacred the right of property. But would not 
 the property of the colonist be destroyed by the compulsory liberation 
 of his slaves? Would the property of the merchants be protected when 
 four hundred millions advanced to the colonists have no other security 
 than their property and their industry? How could the merchant then 
 pay his obUgations to his creditors, the farmer and the manufacturer? 
 The complete ruin of the empire would be the result. "^^ 
 
 The deputation offering this address appeared in arms, supported 
 by the municipal officers of Bordeaux, two hundred electors of the 
 senechaussee of Guienne, and the directors of the Chamber of Commerce.^* 
 The extraordinary deputies of commerce^^ followed with a more extended 
 attack on the Friends of the Blacks. 
 
 "LeHodey,IX, 82-7. 
 
 " Courrier de Provence, No. 109, 425-6. 
 
 " These were unofficial representatives of various commercial organizations. 
 They had received recognition from the Assembly and authorization to cooperate 
 with the Committee on Agriculture and Commerce. (Begouen, speech of May 22, 
 1791, Moniteur, VIII, 472-3.) 
 
28 THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 
 
 It was clear at once that the Assembly was in a very difficult position. 
 As Point dujour put it/^ " to reassure commerce without insulting human- 
 ity; to reconcile mercantile interests with social interest; to prepare for 
 liberty both the men who ought to receive it and those who ought to 
 grant it, " this was the insoluble problem forced on the Assembly. 
 
 The President, Talleyrand, replied cautiously that the Assembly 
 would make an effort to reconcile these great interests with the principles 
 of the new constitution. This reply was received with murmurs by the 
 right, and particularly by the deputies from Guienne, the principles of 
 the new constitution apparently not being what the petitioners wished 
 to have applied to the case.^^ After a short discussion it was voted that 
 the addresses should be taken up for discussion on March 1st, along with 
 reports which had been received concerning civil disorders in San Do- 
 mingo and Martinique. 
 
 On the next day, February 26th, the question was debated at the 
 Jacobin Club. Mosneron de I'Aunay, one of the extraordinary deputies 
 of commerce, delivered an address, in which he defended the slave trade 
 on the ground that statesmanship demands a different standard of morals 
 from private conduct, and that in public pohcy the interests of com- 
 merce and industry must take precedence over individual rights.^* 
 Mirabeau delivered his great speech against the slave trade, or some 
 part of it, and made a bad impression.^^ This debate seems to have 
 settled the question in the minds of a controlling portion of the Assembly. 
 
 On March 2d the Committee on Reports presented a long ill-digested 
 report, and recommended the creation of a colonial committee to give 
 the questions further consideration. Cocherel, deputy from San Do- 
 mingo, then moved to divide the material, taking up the petitions on the 
 slave trade for immediate action and referring to the new committee 
 only the reports of civil disorders in the colonies. The Abbe Maury 
 supported this motion, claiming immediate action on the petitions was 
 necessary to restore confidence to commerce and prevent bankruptcy, 
 
 16 VII, 229. 
 
 " Le Hodey, IX, 29-30. Cf. Gazette de Paris, Feb. 28, 1790, 3: "De I'ouvrage 
 et du pain, voila ce que disent les individus; que leur repondre a cela. . . . Quand 
 nos Colonies auront renonce a leur mere-Patrie, que nous restera-t-il? Vos loix sub- 
 limes." "Dela de grands et beaux raisonnemens, dans lequels on veut tou jours 
 ram6ner le systeme du Commerce et le regime Colonial des sublimes dissertations 
 d'une metaphysique profonde. " 
 
 ** Aulard, La Society des Jacobins, 1, 9-17. 
 
 " Ibid., I, 74. Duquesnoy, op. ciL, II, 440, 446. For the speech see Oeuvres de 
 Mirabeau, VII, 121-209. 
 
THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 29 
 
 but it was lost by a vote of 343 to 310, and the original motion was carried 
 without a division.^" The close vote on the motion to discuss the slave 
 trade immediately gives no indication of the relative strength of the 
 anti-slavery and pro-slavery parties, for the opposition was made up of 
 divergent elements, opponents of the slave-trade voting with those of 
 its friends who thought it inopportime to open the question at that time. 
 Alexander Lameth says that Maury's "intention was to put the Assembly 
 in the dilemma of either ahenating public opinion by endorsing slavery 
 by law, or raising up against itself all the commercial interests by pro- 
 hibiting an abuse which was no doubt odious in itseh, but the sudden 
 suppression of which would have brought frightful disasters. "^^ Duques- 
 noy puts the same interpretation on the Abbe's motion, adding that he 
 said, "I will compel you to decree the freedom of the slaves; it is a neces- 
 sary consequence of your principles. Commerce will be ruined; bank- 
 ruptcy will follow, and you wiU all be hanged. "^^ Clarkson says^ that 
 Mirabeau made a canvass of the Assembly, and found that he could count 
 on only about three hundred members. He decided, therefore, not to 
 deliver the great speech which had cost Clarkson so much labor. 
 
 The new committee was elected on March 3d. Two colonial depu- 
 ties, three colonial proprietors, and five representatives of commercial 
 cities found places on it, while none of the prominent opponents of slave- 
 holding interests were chosen.^* Of the twelve members only two, Bar- 
 nave and Alexander Lameth, were men of prominence, but these two 
 were members of the famous triimivirate which led the left center and 
 played such a prominent part in the making of the constitution of 1791. 
 As Barnave was elected reporter of the colonial committee and gave a 
 great deal of attention to its business, the pohcy of the committee may be 
 regarded as that of the triumvirate, and the development of the negro 
 question from this time bears a close relation to the changing attitude 
 
 2" Proces-verbal, No. 217, 4-7. Journal des debats et des d6crets, No. 190, 4-8. 
 Moniteur, III, 513. 
 
 ^^ Histoire de I'Assemblee constituante, II, 21, n. 
 
 ^- This sounds very much like the incorrigible abbe, who it will be remembered, 
 voted against the veto lest it might make the constitution workable. He later proved 
 himself a valiant defender of the slave-holding interests, but would probably have 
 been perfectly willing to sacrifice them to put the Assembly in an unpopular position. 
 " C'est un des hommes les plus profondement scelerats qui existent, " adds Duquesnoy. 
 Journal, 11, 438. 
 
 ^ Op. ciL, II, 158, 163. 
 
 " Garrett, The French Colonial Question, 48-9. 
 
30 THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 
 
 of the left center, the most powerful party in the Assembly, toward larger 
 issues. 
 
 The committee made its first report on March 8, 1790. This report 
 analyzed the papers referred to the committee as falling into three classes 
 — matters concerning the form of colonial government, complaints and 
 petitions concerning the trade regulations, and "false interpretation of 
 the principal decrees," the last expression referring to the uneasiness 
 concerning the application of the Declaration of Rights to the colonies. 
 Action concerning the first and second points, the committee advised 
 ought to wait for official expression of the desires of the colonies; upon the 
 third point the Assembly, since it had made no innovation, ought to say 
 so definitely and allay apprehension. They proposed a law, therefore, 
 which may be summarized as follows: 
 
 The National Assembly declares that it has never intended to include 
 the colonies in the constitution which it has decreed for the kingdom, or 
 to subject them to laws which might be inconsistent with their special 
 local needs. Consequently, (I) every colony is authorized to make 
 known its wish concerning its constitution and laws; (II) in colonies 
 where there already exist assemblies freely elected, they may formulate 
 the will of the colony; elsewhere assemblies shall be chosen for that pur- 
 pose; (III) an instruction concerning the election and organization of 
 these assembHes will follow; (IV- VI) plans of local government and sug- 
 gested changes in trade laws shall be submitted by these assemblies to 
 the National Assembly, and tentative modification of national laws 
 may be made by the colonial assemblies. Finally " the National Assem- 
 bly declares that it has not intended any innovation in any branch of com- 
 merce, direct or indirect, of France and the colonies, places the colonists 
 and their property under the special protection of the nation, and de- 
 clares criminal anyone who shall attempt to excite any uprising against 
 them. "25 
 
 The hall resounded with applause when the report was finished, 
 and there was a general demand for an immediate vote.^^ A journalist 
 describes the scene which followed: Mirabeau and Petion alone mounted 
 the tribune, and the former insisted that he be heard, " but the assembly, 
 which knew already what he could say in favor of humanity, morality 
 and justice in such questions, appeared rather concerned to support 
 agriculture and commerce than to estabhsh principles which time and 
 
 25 Proces-verbal, No. 223. 
 2» Moniteur, 111, 554. 
 
THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 31 
 
 the progress of enlightenment alone can bring without inconvenience 
 and without aid. "^^ Duquesnoy's description of the scene is still more 
 vivid: "The Count of Mirabeau followed him (Petion) and presented 
 himself; new outcries more violent than ever. I cannot depict the fury 
 which inspired the Count of Mirabeau; it was painted in his whole 
 figure, and I heard him cry to those around him, "Cowardly scoundrels 
 that you are!" But in every quarter of the hall was heard: "He wants 
 to lose everything! What does he care if France is ruined? He is no 
 citizen. He has his money, so now he would let us go. . . . No one 
 can say you are not trying to earn your money. "^^ 
 
 The Duke of La Rochefoucauld and the Abbe Sieyes also tried to 
 speak, but the uproar continued until the President was compelled to 
 put the question of closing the discussion, which passed, and a moment 
 later the decree itself was ciarried by an overwhelming vote. Thus with- 
 out consideration or debate the Assembly closed the door of hope to the 
 opponents of the slave trade.^^ 
 
 " Point du jour, VII, 344. 
 
 *» Op. cit., II, 444-5. 
 
 *' As noted above, the unwillingness of the Assembly to debate the question is to 
 be explained, in part at least, by the fact that it had been discussed already in the 
 Jacobin Club. Says a contemporary pamphlet: "ne fus-je point etonn6, quand cette 
 affaire fut portee a I'Assemblee nationale, de voir qu'elle fut decidee sans avoir €t€ 
 prealablement discutee et que M. le comte de Mirabeau ne put jamais obtenir de 
 repeter ce qu'il avait dit aux Jacobins; ilpouvait paraitre inutile de perdre un temps 
 precieux puisque la majorite des deputes etaient deja fixes sur cette question qu'ils 
 avaient pu approfondir dans leurs conferences particulieres. " Motion du Pere 
 Girard, Aulard, op. cit., I, 74. This, I believe, was the first of the many occasions on 
 which the Jacobin Club supplanted the Assembly as the real battle-ground of parties. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 Negro Suffrage 
 
 On March 10, 1790> the group of colored citizens whose activity was 
 traced in a preceding chapter petitioned the National Assembly for a 
 definite statement whether they were included in the decree of March 
 8th.^ This petition marks a turning point in our story. The question 
 of the slave trade had been disposed of by the law of March 8th, and the 
 admission of colored deputies to the Assembly was now recognized to be 
 impossible; the next undertaking of the negroes and their friends was to 
 secure a guarantee of political rights in the proposed constitution for 
 the colonies. Upon this proposal it appeared as though the Friends of 
 the Blacks might fairly hope for success. The legal distinctions between 
 white and colored subjects which had been maintained in the colonies 
 under the old regime were no more marked than the distinctions between 
 social groups which were being overthrown in France, and no important 
 economic interest was directly involved in their maintenance. The 
 prejudice of color being almost unknown in France, there seemed to be 
 no logical reason why the free colored people should not obtain full civil 
 equality with the whites. The only hope of the opposition, in fact, was 
 to induce the Assembly to leave this and similar questions to be settled 
 by the colonies themselves. 
 
 The first task of the new committee on colonies after the passage of 
 the law of March 8th was to prepare the supplemental Instruction prom- 
 ised in that decree. In the preparation of this bill the committee 
 accepted advice from both the Massiac Club and the colonial deputies,^ 
 but the mulatto lobby received a rebuff, due, says Ratmond, to the in- 
 fluence of white colonists who were in constant attendance at the com- 
 mittee's sessions.^ 
 
 1 Brette, op. ciL, Rev. fr., XXIX, 400. 
 
 ' D6schamps, Les colonies pendant la r6volution, 88-9. Deschamps is evidently 
 in error in stating that the Club had been in communication with Barnave since 
 February 19th; the date is probably March 19th. He has confused the old "colonial 
 committee," i.e., the organization of colonial deputies and alternates, with the new 
 committee on colonies. 
 
 ' Raimond, Veritable origine, 22. 
 
THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 33 
 
 The Instruction was reported on March 23d, and taken up for serious 
 consideration on the 28th. It provided for the organization of parish 
 assemblies to choose the members of colonial assembhes which should 
 draw up tentative constitutions for sanction by the National Assembly 
 and the king. Of the eighteen sections of which the Instruction consists, 
 the fourth only is of interest for the purposes of this study: 
 
 "... all persons, twenty-five years of age or older, owners of real 
 estate, or in default of this quahfication being residents of two years' 
 standing and tax-payers, shall meet to form the parish assembly. "* 
 
 It should be noted carefully that neither this clause nor anything else 
 in the Instruction fixes permanently the qualification for suffrage, or any 
 other detail of colonial organization. The purpose of the parish assem- 
 blies referred to was simply to elect the colonial assemblies or ratify those 
 already in existence. These colonial assemblies were to draw up con- 
 stitutions for their respective colonies which would be ratified, if found 
 acceptable, not by the parish assemblies but by the National Assembly 
 and the king.. The only purpose of the Instruction, therefore, was to 
 provide a legal procedure for the organization of what we would caU 
 constitutional conventions. This point is of considerable importance, 
 for it was afterward persistently asserted that by the phrase "all per- 
 sons" in the Instruction the Assembly had conferred the franchise on 
 the colored citizens.^ 
 
 < Proces-verbal, March 28, 1790. 
 
 ^ Whether the clause was intended to give the free negroes the suffrage for this 
 particular election is a more difficult question. The evidence is as follows: Raimond 
 says (Veritable origine, 23) that the clause as originally drawn by the committee con- 
 tained the word "citizen, " that he, with others, attempted to get it changed to "free 
 citizens," or "every citizen, no matter what may be his color, " and that Barnave told 
 them that the Assembly knew no distinctions and could not use terms which would 
 seem to recognize them, but finally consented to use the expression "all persons." 
 While the Instruction was under discussion, Gregoire criticised Article IV as being am- 
 biguous, but said he would refrain from forcing the issue because Arthur Dillon, deputy 
 from Martinique, had told him that under this article the colored citizens would be 
 summoned to the parish assemblies. Cocherel immediately proclaimed that no such 
 interpretation would be accepted by the San Domingo deputation. Charles Lameth, 
 a colonial proprietor and a member of the Massiac Club, said, "This article satisfies 
 everybody, and as a long discussion might give rise to doubts and errors, 1 move that 
 the discussion be closed on such an obvious point." Point du jour, VIII, 223-4. 
 C£. Le Hodey, X, 39; Moniteur, III, 732-3 ; Journal des debats et des decrets, No. 225, 6; 
 Courrier de Provence, VII, 197-9; Gazette de Paris, March 30, 1790, 8. Barnave's 
 explanation, given a year later, was that the article was intentionally left ambiguous 
 because the committee did not wish to prejudice either side of the case. (Speech of 
 May 11, 1791, Moniteur, VIII, 375.) 
 
34 THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 
 
 If the other provisions of the Instruction had been observed it would 
 have made little difference what interpretation was placed on Article IV. 
 The colored citizens, if admitted to the parish assemblies, certainly could 
 not have controlled the colonial assemblies, and there the white citizens 
 could have fixed the suffrage qualifications for the future. Or, if a 
 colonial assembly, after being ratified by the votes of parish assemblies 
 from which the colored citizens were excluded, had peaceably prepared a 
 constitution and submitted it to the National Assembly for ratification, 
 the fact that certain voters had been excluded from the parish assemblies 
 would not have invalidated its work. Thus the question could have 
 been settled without placing the National Assembly in a position where 
 it would have to choose between violation of its principles and alienation 
 of much needed support. 
 
 Instead, however, of taking some such course as this, the colonial 
 assembly of San Domingo started on a high-handed course of usurpation 
 which forced the National Assembly again and again to interfere, giving 
 the Friends of the Blacks repeated opportunities to bring the negro 
 question to the front and make capital out of the white colonists' mis- 
 conduct. 
 
 This colonial assembly was of entirely irregular origin. Separate 
 provincial assemblies were elected in 1789 without any legal authoriza- 
 tion in each of the three provinces into which San Domingo was divided. 
 These three provincial assemblies then agreed upon a plan for the election 
 of a colonial assembly. The assembly thus elected completed its organi- 
 zation at St. Marc on April 15th, 1790, before the arrival of the March 
 laws. It immediately displayed an extraordinary spirit of independence. 
 It took the style, "Assembles generate de la partie franqaise de Saint- 
 Domingue," and decorated its meeting place with the motto: "Saint- 
 Domingue, la loi et le roi; notre union fait notre force." It summoned 
 various military and civil ofl&cers to give account of their official conduct 
 and ordered that all mail addressed to colonial officials should be opened 
 by its President. It created committees on constitution, relations with 
 the mother country, military affairs, commerce, finance, and other sub- 
 jects, which straightway imitated those of the National Assembly by 
 arrogating to themselves the responsibility for the administration of the 
 government.^ After the arrival of the law of March 8th the Assembly 
 continued its course without regard either to the provisions of the law 
 
 « Garran, op. ciL, 1, 161-70. Barnave, Report of October 11 and 12, 1790, Arch. 
 pari., XIX, 546-70. Castonnet des Fois, La perte d'une colonie, 58. 
 
THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 35 
 
 or the protests lodged by the Governor, the Provincial Assembly of the 
 North, and numerous private citizens. All its acts it put into effect at 
 once, without sanction of Governor, National Assembly, or king. Final- 
 ly, on May 28th it issued a decree providing a constitution for the colony, 
 which declared that the colonial assem.bly had the sole right to legislate 
 concerning the internal affairs of the colony, subject to no other veto 
 than that of the king, and that in regard to relations between the colony 
 and the mother country a new contract was needed. These principles 
 were developed in terms which came perilously near to a Declaration of 
 Independence, but a final article provided that the law should be sub- 
 mitted to the king and the National Assembly for acceptance. Later, 
 in conformity to the Instruction of March 28th, but "sans rien prejuger 
 sur lesdites instructions, " the assembly authorized the parish assemblies 
 to vote whether its own existence should continue.'^ 
 
 The voting on this question continued through June, and though 
 there were nimierous charges of fraud and a good deal of disagreement as 
 to the exact result, there seems to have been no question that the assembly 
 was confirmed. Our chief interest in this election lies in the fact that the 
 famous Article IV of the Instruction, if interpreted literally, was violated 
 by the exclusion of the colored citizens from the parish assemblies, in 
 accordance with an interpretation sent to San Domingo by some of the 
 colonial deputies in the National Assembly, and promulgated by both 
 the Governor and the colonial assembly. This exclusion caused no 
 disorder during the elections, but soon afterward several protests were 
 issued by the colored citizens, and later the claim was frequently advanced 
 that the Assembly of St. Marc could not legally express the wiU of the 
 colony, since it had not been ratified in accordance with the Instruction 
 of March 28th.» 
 
 After the confirmation of the Assembly matters rapidly approached 
 a crisis. The Assembly of St. Marc issued another volley of decrees, 
 imposing a special oath of fidelity to itself upon all administrative officers 
 and soldiers in the colony, changing the trade laws, and in other ways 
 manifesting a spirit of independence. The Governor refused to recognize 
 its authority, and on August 7th sent an armed force to dissolve it. 
 Unable to resist, the Assembly took an extraordinary step. Eighty-five 
 of its members hastily boarded the "Leopard," the one warship whose 
 crew had supported them against the Governor, and sailed for France to 
 
 ' Bamave, Report previously cited, Arch, pari., XIX, 546-70. 
 * Bamave, Report previous cited. Mills, Early Years of the Revolution in San 
 Domingo, 66. Raimond, Veritable origine, 23-4. Garran, op. cU., 11, 39-40. 
 
36 THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 
 
 appeal to the National Assembly. They arrived about September 19th, 
 and the colonial committee, which was busy with reports of the earlier 
 disorders, had now to straighten out the tangle of intrigues and make a 
 recommendation to the Assembly. 
 
 On October 11th and 12th the committee, through Barnave, sub- 
 mitted a very careful report, giving a detailed history of the colonial 
 assembly and censuring its conduct severely, though exclusion of the 
 free negroes from the suffrage was not mentioned among its offenses. 
 He proposed a law which should dissolve the assembly, nullify its acts, 
 and order new elections. The eighty-five were to be required to await 
 future action with regard to their personal responsibility.^ 
 
 The most significant thing about the proposed law, from the point of 
 vievv^ of the present study, is a clause in the preamble: "Whereas, the 
 National Assembly has . . . announced in advance . . . the firm 
 intention to establish as a constitutional article, that no laws upon the 
 status of persons shall be decreed for the colonies, except upon the precise 
 and formal demand of their colonial assemblies, ..." This is a very 
 extraordinary statement, for the National Assembly had never made 
 any such announcement as it implies. The law of March 8th had 
 authorized the colonies to make known their wishes concerning their 
 constitution and laws, and had announced that the Assembly had no 
 intention of subjecting them to laws inconsistent with their local needs, 
 but no amount of legal acumen could discover in these provisions a prom- 
 ise to prohibit the Legislative Assembly from interfering with the 
 "status of persons," except upon colonial initiative. Nor is it certain, 
 though it is probable, that the Assembly could now have been induced 
 to do so if the question had been presented fairly. At least the proposal 
 would have aroused discussion, which the colonial interests were trying 
 zealously to avoid. By concealing a constitutional feature in the pre- 
 amble of an innocent and relatively unimportant law, to which it was 
 entirely irrelevant, the principle of colonial initiative was to be enacted 
 into somewhat ambiguous law, and in future it could plausibly be urged 
 that the Assembly was under moral obligation to enact legislation to ful- 
 fill the pledge. 
 
 This clause could not have withstood criticism, had opportunity for 
 it been allowed. But after several members had tried without success 
 to secure a postponement till the report and the bill could be printed, 
 Gregoire, Petion, and Mirabeau demanded the floor. The appearance 
 
 * Report previously cited, Arch, pari., XIX, 546-70. 
 
THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 37 
 
 of these Friends of the Blacks put an end to the deliberation. A great 
 tumult arose. Cocherel and Gouy d'Arsy, of the San Domingo deputa- 
 tion tried to speak, but the Assembly refused to hear either the partisans 
 of the negroes or their opponents, and the law was passed by an over- 
 whelming vote.^" Unable to secure a hearing from the assembly, the 
 Friends of the Blacks resorted once more to the press, and brought out 
 several of the most noteworthy polemics of the whole controversy, the 
 circulation of which went far to destroy the popularity of Barnave and 
 his associates." 
 
 On November 29th, Barnave presented a report on a miniature civil war 
 between the planting and the commercial elements in the population of 
 Martinique, which was made the basis of a new decree. This law pro- 
 vided, among other things, that an entirely new set of instructions for 
 the political organization of all the colonies should be drawn up at once, 
 that the colonial assembly of Martinique should be suspended, and that 
 the king should be asked to send four commissioners to the West Indies 
 with 6,000 troops, with full power to suspend all existing authorities and 
 provide for the administration of the government of the colonies, pending 
 receipt of the new instructions.^^ During the months which followed the 
 passage of this law, the assembly gave little attention to the questions 
 we have been considering. The colonial committee was busy with the 
 task of preparing the new instructions, which proved a greater task than 
 was anticipated. On January 20th, 1791, Barnave reported that the 
 committee was holding three sessions a week to work on the instruction, 
 that the extraordinary deputies of commerce, the colonial deputies and 
 other influential colonists were being invited to these sessions, and that 
 the work would soon be completed. The four commissioners for Marti- 
 nique sailed February 5, and others were appointed for San Domingo in 
 March. On April 5th, at Barnave's request the committees on agricul- 
 ture and commerce, constitution, and marine were ordered to form a 
 joint committee with the colonial committee to complete the instruction 
 for the colonies.^^ 
 
 '» Point du jour, XV, 141; Le Hodey XVI, 359; Journal des debats et des d6crets, 
 No. 468, 10; Moniteur, VI, 102-7. 
 
 " The Letter to Philanthropists of the Abbe Gregoire, published late in October 
 in the Courrier de Provence, No. 208; an undelivered address by Petion, also published 
 in the same number; and Brissot's Letter to Barnave, published in the Patriote 
 franfais, all reprinted as pamphlets. 
 
 12 Moniteur, VI, 502-4. 
 
 " Moniteur, VII, 179-80; Garrett, op. cit., 85-9; Proces-verbal, Apr. 5, 1791, 18. 
 
38 THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 
 
 Meanwhile, the mulattoes had made a vain effort to redress their own 
 wrongs. Vincent Oge, one of the mulatto deputies who had been seeking 
 admission to the National Assembly, slipped out of France in the summer 
 of 1790, and went to San Domingo. He immediately wrote to the Gover- 
 nor, demanding the enforcement of Article IV of the Instruction of March 
 28th. Getting, of course, no favorable reply, he organized an army of 
 some six hundred men and started a rebellion. He was easily defeated 
 by superior forces and his army scattered. He took refuge in Spanish 
 territory, was given up by the Spanish as a criminal and barbarously 
 broken on the wheel. Over twenty of his men were hanged, and a large 
 number sent to the galleys for life or condemned to other penalties.^* 
 
 No report of this affair was made to the National Assembly. In fact, 
 from October, 1790, to May, 1791, the negro question came before the 
 Assembly only once. On March 3d the Assembly listened to a letter from 
 the mulatto lobby, asking that they be admitted to the bar, and author- 
 ized the President to admit them if he found their credentials satisfactory. 
 This move evidently caught the colonial deputies off their guard, for no 
 objection was made till the next day. Then Arthur Dillon, of Marti- 
 nique, lodged a violent protest. "I wish," said he, "to speak in an 
 assembly of legislators, not of philosophers, to stop a stealthy maneuver 
 which aims to admit to the bar of the Assembly a deputation of the mulat- 
 toes. . . . I do not approve of prejudice; I simply ask you to remember 
 the decrees you have already passed, and the troops you have ordered 
 sent into the colonies. ... If you admit this deputation, you will run 
 the risk of having to send twenty times more, and still it would not be 
 hard to prove that you will have no colonies. (Murmurs) I declare that 
 in my opinion we are going to improve the condition of this class of men. 
 , . . You will scorn the addresses of a Society of self-styled philanthro- 
 pists, who if they were listened to would reduce France to a desert, a 
 Society which has been willing to speak of it, and which is perhaps 
 bribed. " Violent protests arose, and the President warned Dillon against 
 assertions without proof. Dillon continued: "Do not call me to order. 
 I beseech the Assembly, if it desires the happiness of France, the prosper- 
 ity of our manufacturers, and if it does not wish our territory flooded with 
 blood, to suspend the admission of this delegation. ... If the Assembly 
 should admit the mulattoes to its bar, the colonies would be in revolt a 
 quarter of an hour after they heard the news. " 
 
 Petion appeared at the tribune; an immediate vote was demanded. 
 Petion insisted on speaking. The Abbe Maury said, "I make a motion 
 
 " Garran, op. cit., II, 42-7. 
 
THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 39 
 
 I have never made before in this Assembly, that the discussion be closed. " 
 Mirabeau appeared at the tribune, but before he could speak the Abbe's 
 motion had been passed. Petion demanded t,he floor to answer a slander. 
 .After a few minutes of utter confusion, with Mirabeau and Petion strug- 
 gling to be heard, the petition of the mulattoes were ordered sent to the 
 colonial committee, and a motion to adjourn was carried over the protest 
 of the President.^^ The next day the Society of the Friends of the 
 Blacks demanded that the Assembly either censure Dillon for his imputa- 
 tions against them or deprive him of his immunity from prosecution. 
 Dillon was absent, but his colleague, Moreau de Saint-Mery, read a 
 pamphlet Dillon had written which purported to explain, but really did 
 little more than reiterate his charges. Gregoire and Mirabeau attempted 
 to speak, and there ensued another long period of disorder, with Mirabeau 
 at the tribune facing shouts of "The order of the day!" "Adjourn the 
 session! " Finally the President succeeded in putting the motion, and the 
 Assembly voted to pass to the order of the day and immediately ad- 
 journed.^^ 
 
 Disappointed in their hope of obtaining redress through the Assembly, 
 the Friends of the Blacks again resorted to their favorite weapon; they 
 published another pamphlet. They reminded Dillon that the Assembly 
 had already received a deputation of mulattoes and given them seats of 
 honor, yet the colonies had not been plunged into revolt; and they de- 
 manded that he enumerate the writings of the society which had caused 
 trouble in the islands, prove that the society had sent them there, and 
 name the journalists who were probably subsidized to attack the Assem- 
 bly's decrees.^'' The challenge received no reply. 
 
 This incident illustrates very well the character of the whole contro- 
 versy from December, 1789, to the summer of 1791. The defenders of 
 slavery, controlling the Assembly, relied chiefly on constant reiteration 
 of the danger of plunging the colonies into revolt or losing them to Eng- 
 land, and backed up their arguments with an effective use of disorder, 
 while the Friends of the Blacks, who could rarely get a hearing from the 
 Assembly, relied on the pamphlet, a weapon in the use of which they ex- 
 celled. 
 
 The Friends of the Blacks were subjected to constant vihfication. 
 Reference has already been made to the charges circulated in 1789 and 
 
 »s Proccs-verbal, March 4, 1791, 17. 
 
 '« Moniteur, VII, 556-7; Point du jour, XIX, 46-8; Dillon, Motifs de la motion 
 faite k I'Assemblee nationale le 4 mars, 1791; Correspondance de Brissot, 263. 
 
 " La Societe des Amis des noirs a Arthur Dillon, depute de la Martinique k I' 
 Assemblee nationale. 
 
40 THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 
 
 1790 that Mirabeau was in the pay of Pitt, and Clarkson was a British 
 spy.^^ In 1790 the Massiac Club sent a representative to London to 
 collect information concerning the Friends of the Blacks in that country. 
 The envoy convinced himself that there was no truth in the theory that 
 the English were trying to get France to act against the slave trade in 
 order that they might reap the benefit, and reported that the aims of the 
 society were really benevolent and disinterested.^^ Nevertheless the 
 slanderous attacks continued, and the Friends of the Blacks were re- 
 peatedly accused, without a shred of proof, of sending inflamatory Utera- 
 ture into the islands. Another accusation was that Gregoire, Brissot, 
 Petion, and Condorcet received large sums of money from Raunond for 
 the assistance they gave him.^^ 
 
 Although, as has been stated, the Dillon incident was the only occa- 
 sion on which the negro question came before the Assembly between 
 October 12, 1790, and May 7, 1791, there was no cessation of poHtical 
 activity on the part of either the friends or the foes of the blacks. The 
 winter and spring were a period of intense effort on the part of both 
 factions, and the attitude of the public underwent a very important 
 change. The planting interests realized that their only hope of keeping 
 the free negroes from securing poKtical rights lay in their aUiance with 
 the commercial cities. The maintenance of this alhance was more 
 difficult than it had been during the previous winter, for the maritime 
 cities had no such direct interest in the political subjection of the mulat- 
 toes as they had had in the slave trade. By parading before them the 
 danger of a slave revolt as the inevitable result of any interference with 
 existing conditions, and by making much capital out of the Oge affair, 
 a certain degree of cooperation was maintained. The "eighty-five" 
 alhed themselves with the Massiac Club and worked with them in per- 
 fect harmony. At the beginning of 1791 there was formed a commission 
 of eighteen, six each from the eighty-five, the Massiac Club, and the 
 extraordinary deputies of commerce, to prevent any legislation by the 
 National Assembly on the status of persons. This aUiance, however, 
 soon broke down because the colonists tried to get the commercial depu- 
 
 '* Cf . Duquesnoy, II, 446-7 : " C'est une opinion tres constante a Paris que le 
 Comte de Mirabeau est paye par I'Angleterre pour porter TAssemblee nationale a 
 d^crdterl'abolitiondelatraite. . . . Tout est croyable d'un tel homme. Cependant 
 . . . il me semble qu'il (i.e., Pitt) connait trop bien les hommes pour ne pas savoir 
 que M. de Mirabeau n'a nulle influence dans TAssembl^e nationale. (March, 1790.) 
 
 " Garran, op. cit., I, 103. 
 
 '" Gregoire, Memoires, I, 393. 
 
THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 41 
 
 ties to support them in demanding too large a degree of independence.^^ 
 As usual, the colonial deputies worked independently of the Massiac 
 Club, though they cooperated with the eighty-five. At a meeting of 
 colonial deputies and members of the eighty-five and members of the 
 Provincial Assembly of the North of San Domingo, on February 12th, 
 1791, it was voted to try to arouse the commercial cities, and Gouy him- 
 self wrote a circular, which, he says, from its character was not suitable 
 for republication. Other colonists, individually or as organizations sent 
 out similar communications to chambers of commerce and to manu- 
 facturers.^^ 
 
 The only one of these circulars which I have been able to consult is 
 dated February 14, 1791, and is signed the "Extraordinary Deputies of 
 the North and West of San Domingo." It runs as follows: "The colo- 
 nies are lost unless all the cities of commerce, the manufacturers, and 
 everyone who is interested in their preservation displays in this emergency 
 the energy to discomfit the enemies of the state. . , . The freedmen are 
 the only barrier between the slaves and the citizens, and in order that 
 this barrier may remain unshaken the laws which relate to it must be 
 prepared only in the colonies. . . . They (the Friends of the Blacks) 
 know that to take from us the exclusive right to determine the status of 
 the colored people is ... to condemn to death a milhon people who 
 dwell in the Antilles. It is the duty and the interest of all those who 
 know these facts to place them under the eyes of the representatives of 
 the nation with the same energy which obtained the law of March 
 28th. . . . Just as on that occasion, every commercial city and every 
 manufacturing city should name extraordinary deputies who will join 
 us in bringing to the National Assembly petitions demanding that in 
 accordance with the agreement in its decree of October 12th the Assembly 
 decree definitely as the first article of the constitutional charter which 
 shall unite the colonies indissolubly to France, that the colonies alone 
 shall have the right to initiate laws concerning slavery and the colored 
 population. "2^ 
 
 These efforts brought only an unsatisfactory response. At Nantes 
 the Chamber of Conmierce prepared a petition which was endorsed suc- 
 
 " Garran, op. ciL, II, 77-8. 
 
 ^ Gouy d'Arsy, Lettre a ses comm€tans, 3-4; Chabanon des Salines, D6noncia- 
 tion de M. I'Abbe Gregoire, 2. 
 
 " Reprinted by Claviere, Adresse de la Societe des Amis des Noirs de Paris a 
 I'Assemblde nationale, a toutes les villes, etc., second edition, 158-61. (Piece justicatif 
 No. 1.) 
 
42 THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 
 
 cessively by the municipal, the district, and the department authorities.^ 
 At Bordeaux there was a division of opinion. The Jacobin Club flatly 
 refused to support the project. The Chamber of Commerce after a 
 good deal of hesitation voted to prepare a petition and send a delegation 
 to Paris, then found it impossible to secure sufficient support for either 
 project and abandoned them both.^ Gouy says that of forty cities to 
 which he wrote, the greater number made no reply, though Havre, 
 Abbeville, Dunkirk, and Rouen sent in petitions.^® Chabanon says 
 also that the colonists received only slight assistance from the merchants, 
 adding that the patriotism of the chambers of commerce was paralyzed 
 by the slanderous imprecations of a fanatical society and the "singeries 
 imitaiives" of provincial club-members.^^ 
 
 The last slur, which sounds ungracious from a member of the group 
 which had been scattering model petitions broadcast, had reference to the 
 activity of the Jacobin Clubs of some of the provincial towns, which 
 had espoused the cause of the mulattoes. The parent organization at 
 Paris, which in spite of Brissot's activity remained loyal to Barnave and 
 the Lameths, did nothing to aid either side in the controversy. Indeed 
 it appears that colonial questions did not come before the club for dis- 
 cussion, after the legislation of March, 1790, until the middle of May, 
 1791.28 
 
 But the Club at Angers on March 9th, 1791, sent to all the patriotic 
 societies of the kingdom an effective appeal: 
 
 "The revolution has taken place at San Domingo in a way exactly 
 opposite to that in France; just as we in Europe are making progress 
 toward liberty, at San Domingo the chains of tyranny are being 
 strengthened. ... A mulatto was imprisoned in chains last December 
 for the sole reason that he had been in France during the revolution and 
 doubtless was bringing back with him the principles of equality among 
 citizens. " Such an appeal to revolutionary sentiment, blended as it was 
 with a good description of the position of the mulattoes as property 
 owners and tax-payers, and a reference to the rebellion of Oge as the 
 
 -^ Collection des adresses et petitions des citoyens-commergants de la ville de 
 Nantes, Nos. 1 to 4, pp. 1-18. 
 
 25 Petition nouvelle des citoyens de couleur, 13-15. (Piece justicatif No. 1.) 
 Letter of Baux, extraordinary deputy of commerce from Bordeaux, Moniteur, VIII, 
 462. 
 
 ^* Gouy, Lettre a ses commetans, 4. 
 
 " Chabanon, op. cit., 2-3. 
 " -^ Claviere stated that skilful men had the secret of keeping the question out of 
 the assembly of Jacobins. {Op. cit., ix.) Cf. Correspondance de Brissot, 265. 
 
THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 43 
 
 inevitable result of white oppression, could not fail to find a response. 
 Within six weeks replies were received at Angers from thirteen cities, 
 while at least six or seven other Jacobin Clubs or similar organizations 
 sent petitions direct to the National Assembly or published them as 
 pamphlets.^® 
 
 Claviere prepared at this time a long memoir, the most elaborate 
 document the Friends of the Blacks had yet published, reviewing the 
 history of the agitation, and defending the position of the Society. This 
 was published in the Courrier de Provence as well as in pamphlet form, 
 sent to all the members of the National Assembly, and widely distributed 
 elsewhere, four hundred copies being sent to the Jacobin Club of Paris 
 to be placed in the hands of its members.'" 
 
 All this material as it came to the National Assembly was referred 
 to the colonial committee, where it was likely to do little good and little 
 harm, but the effect of the agitation showed itself clearly enough when 
 the question at last came before the Assembly. 
 
 29 Claviere, op. cit., 178-236. 
 
 '" Claviere, op. cit. Letter of the Society of the Friends of the Blacks to the Jaco- 
 bin Club of Paris, Apr. 8, 1791, Correspondance de Brissot, 265. Gregoire, speech of 
 May 11, 1791, Moniteur, VIII, 366. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 The Law of May 15, 1791 
 
 The long-delayed opportunity of the Friends of the Blacks came on 
 May 7th, 1791, when De Lattre, in the name of the combined committees 
 on commerce and agriculture, constitution, marine, and colonies, reported 
 the first instalment of the great Instruction, or colonial constitution, 
 which had been promised by the Law of November 29, 1790. The bill 
 embraced two distinct proposals. The first was contained in Article I, 
 which read as follows: "The National Assembly decrees, as an article 
 of the constitution, that no law concerning the status of persons may be 
 made by the Corps Legislatif, for the colonies, except on the exact and 
 formal demand of the colonial assembhes. " This, it will be noted, sim- 
 ply placed the well-known preamble of the law of October 12, 1790, in 
 the form of constitutional law. The other fifteen articles provided for 
 the immediate convocation of an assembly of twenty-nine delegates from 
 the West Indian colonies on the httle island of St. Martin, for the purpose 
 of drawing up a law to regulate the civil and pohtical status of the free 
 colored people. Article XIV provided as follows: "when the status of 
 the free mulattoes and negroes has been definitely determined by the 
 Corps Legislatif on the recommendation of the Committee of St. Martin,, 
 the first article of the present decree will have been fully executed, and 
 future legislatures may not institute a new proposal relative to the 
 status of any persons whatever. " 
 
 The report accompanying the bill set forth that the combined com- 
 mittees had given careful attention to the numerous petitions received 
 from the mulattoes, and recognized the necessity of doing something in 
 their behalf. At the same time, the numerous disturbances 
 in the colonies, which were clearly due to uncertainty concerning 
 the Assembly's attitude, demanded that action be taken immediately 
 to set all doubts at rest, without waiting for the colonial constitution 
 to be completed. "Those who wish to overthrow the colonies," said 
 the reporter, "who wish to spread conflagration there, who wish perhaps 
 to wrest them away from us, have tried to persuade the colonists that 
 the law of March 8th was only provisional, and that that of October 
 12th would be repealed. . . . The first article of the new decree has 
 been initiated by the wish of the commercial interests of France, ex- 
 
THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 45 
 
 pressed by the extraordinary deputies, by the cities of Nantes, Havre, 
 Dunkirk, Rouen, Dinan, and an infinite number of addresses and peti- 
 tions. It is, moreover, merely the fulfillment of the promise made on 
 October 12th, 1790." 
 
 On the other hand, the reporter argued, it was important that the 
 colonies should be required to use their initiative at once, in order that 
 the status of the free colored population might be rendered uniform and 
 their condition ameHorated. The report closed with an urgent plea for 
 haste which sounded very specious in view of the extreme dehberation 
 with which the committees had acted,^ 
 
 The Abbe Gregoire was on the floor at once. "This bill embraces 
 objects of the greatest importance, " said he. "It is a question of annihi- 
 lating the Declaration of the Rights of Man, of reducing one class of men 
 to slavery and dehvering another to oppression. After waiting four 
 months for this proposal, we can very well wait a few days longer. I 
 demand that the action be postponed and the report printed. " Moreau 
 de St. Mery objected; Petion demanded that he (Moreau) be given time 
 to defend this "horrible " decree. " I am not surprised, " replied Moreau , 
 " to hear the bill called horrible by those who are setting themselves up 
 in pubHc opposition, not only to all laws which are proposed concerning 
 the colonies, but to those which have been passed, which they refer to as 
 criminal acts on your part. . . . All the evils which afflict the colonies 
 come from these same hands. . . . Do you claim that the constitution 
 which you have given France will do for the colonies? You must re- 
 nounce your wealth and your commerce or declare frankly that the Dec- 
 laration of Rights does not apply to the colonies. " Petion responded 
 in a speech of considerable length, arguing that the proposal to leave the 
 fate of the mulattoes to an assembly of whites was exactly the same plan 
 as that proposed at the beginning of the Revolution, to leave the clergy 
 and nobles to decide separately on their own privileges. Then ensued 
 an unusually long period of violent disorder, Dillon, Malouet, and seven 
 or eight others demanding the floor, while others shouted for an imme- 
 diate vote. Finally the President put the question of postponement, and 
 the report was laid over till the llth.^ The system of muzzled voting 
 had broken down at last, and the Friends of the Blacks had won their 
 first triumph. 
 
 The great debate opened on May 11th, and raged with scarcely an 
 interruption for five days. During this time every aspect of the mulatto 
 
 1 De Lattre, Report of May 7, 1791, Arch, pari., XXV, 636. 
 
 2 Moniteur, VIII, 333-6. Point du jour, XXII, 71-4. Le Hodey, XXV, 262-7. 
 
46 THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 
 
 question was thoroughly ventilated. The positions of the various par- 
 ties have already been stated so fully, however, that only a small part 
 of the discussion need be reproduced. 
 
 Gregoire opened the debate. "It is at last permitted," said he, 
 "for the defenders of the colored citizens to raise their voices in this As- 
 sembly!" He began by castigating the reporter for his failure to men- 
 tion any of the numerous addresses submitted by the Friends of the 
 Blacks and by the provincial Jacobin Clubs, while he gave so much 
 weight to the petitions of the commercial cities on the other side. Then 
 he defended the Society from the charge of fomenting disorder in the 
 colonies, countering with the charge that the first real source of the 
 trouble in San Domingo was the now well known letter of August 12, 
 1789,^ and many others which followed it, stirring up animosity against 
 the free colored people. A second cause he found in the ambiguity of 
 the law of March 28, 1790, and a third in the ambitious rivalries of the 
 white colonists and the vacillating course of the National Assembly, 
 which took away on November 29th what it gave on March 8th and 
 October 12 th. The usual plea for the inherent rights of the mulattoes 
 followed, and the oration closed with a reference to Oge, martyr to the 
 love of liberty. "If Oge is blameworthy, so are we all, and if he who 
 demands liberty perishes for it on the scaffold, all good Frenchmen de- 
 serve it equally with him. . . . His blood cries out for vengeance, but 
 I must restrain myself — it is not for a minister of the God of Peace to 
 demand it."* 
 
 Clermont-Tonnerre supported the bill in a temperate speech, basing 
 his argument chiefly on the impolicy of one people trying to govern 
 another. "The very nature of things," said he, "is opposed to the 
 fiction that the two peoples are one; they can be united only by affection, 
 and afifection can only exist from community of interests; interests can- 
 not be reconciled except as the weaker party finds in the form of organi- 
 zation a counterweight to the threat of subjection. "^ As Barnave stated 
 the same point, the question was not whether the negroes should be free 
 or not, whether the free colored men should be active citizens or not, 
 but whether the initiative in dealing with the question should be left to the 
 colonial assemblies. Clermont-Tonnerre 's argument was the powerful 
 argument of Calhoun for a "states' rights" solution of the problem, 
 fortified by a rigid constitution. But it was squarely opposed to the 
 
 ' Quoted above, pp. 14-5. 
 
 * Moniteur, VIII, 366-7. Le Hodey, XXV, 381-93. 
 
 » Moniteur, VIII, 367-8, 370-1. 
 
THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 47 
 
 passion for unification and centralization which was the very soul of the 
 Revolution, and Clermont-Tonnerre's associates in the defense of the bill 
 did not care or did not dare to go so far. 
 
 Malouet followed with one of the most thoughtful speeches in the 
 entire debate. Clermont-Tonnerre's argument, he pointed out, would 
 break down the whole system of commercial regulation and lead to the 
 loss of the colonial trade. Malouet sought a middle ground between that 
 position and the position of Gregoire, which would subject the colonies 
 to the whole of the constitution of France. To bring the colonies 
 under the new political principles of France, he urged, the conditions 
 of life there must be somewhat similar. But there was no such similarity. 
 Soil, climate, products, number and classes of men, habits, morals, every- 
 thing was different. It would be useless to discuss the morality of slav- 
 ery; no man possessed of sense and morals would defend it. But slavery 
 could not be abolished without bringing on terrible disasters; it was there- 
 fore impossible to apply the Declaration of Rights without exceptions. 
 "But, " said he, "if we are forced to forego the apphcation and contradict 
 the spirit of these principles in one place, it is very dangerous to go back 
 to the principles and apply them to the colonies as a rule of action in 
 other matters. The constitutional principles for the colonies must be 
 specially determined. . . . And if you recognize the necessity of not 
 subordinating them to your general principles, you cannot refuse to let 
 them dehberate concerning the exceptions, for they know better than 
 you the differences between their domestic and administrative regime 
 and yours. "® 
 
 This argument touched the Friends of the Blacks in a vital spot. 
 By denying the moraHty of slavery and at the same time endorsing its 
 continuance on prudential grounds, they were destroying the force of 
 the ethical argument as applied to the mulattoes, and this, in the last 
 analysis, was the only argument they had. 
 
 The debate of the 12th was dull, the only feature being the way in 
 which Robespierre took up the threat of the loss of the colonies and flimg 
 it back in the teeth of the colonists: 
 
 " 'You will lose the colonies,' you say, 'unless you deprive the 
 colored citizens of their rights.' And why will you lose the colonies? 
 Because one portion of the citizens, the so-called whites, wish to enjoy 
 exclusively the rights of citizenship. And they it is who dare to say to 
 you by the lips of their deputies, ' Beware the results of this discontent! ' " 
 «Moniteur, VIII 367. 
 
48 THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 
 
 After commenting on the impolicy of yielding to threats, Robespierre 
 went on to suggest that the same argument could be used on behalf of 
 the mulattoes, who might find as great an inspiration in the defense of 
 their rights as the whites in the defense of their pride.'' This prophecy 
 was fully justified a few months later. 
 
 The discussion was closed on a motion to lay the entire project of the 
 committee on the table. After an unseemly brawl over the statement of 
 the question, during which the gallery manifested strong sympathy with 
 the radicals, the motion was beaten by a vote of 378 to 298, and the 
 conservatives had won the first skirmish. During this session there was 
 a great breaking up of parties, Barnave, probably for the first time, 
 getting heavy applause from the right, and the Jacobin Club splitting 
 badly at the roll-call.^ 
 
 Most of the 13 th was wasted in petty wrangling, but one notable 
 contribution was made to the discussion. This was the discourse of the 
 Abbe Maury, who spoke at great length and with such effectiveness that 
 he received hearty applause from both sides of the house, and the Assem- 
 bly, by an almost unanimous vote, ordered his speech to be printed. 
 The Abbe called attention first to the way both sides were dodging the 
 real issue, slavery. The partisans of the mulattoes, he claimed, were 
 really interested in this question because the enfranchisement of the 
 mulattoes would be a first step toward the liberation of the slaves; while 
 their adversaries, instead of boldly meeting that issue, were pretending 
 not to oppose the enfranchisement of the mulattoes at all, but merely the 
 proposal to do it by authority of the National Assembly. Maury's 
 position was that it was both just and expedient that the mulattoes should 
 be excluded from the suffrage, and in supporting this position he brought 
 the debate down for the first time from the high levels of political theory 
 to the ground of practical politics. He made no reference to the prejudice 
 of color, and painted no picture of threatening rebellion, but argued that 
 the newly freed slave was incapable of casting an intelligent ballot. He 
 pointed out the danger that the colonies might fall under the control 
 of the freedmen, and the certainty of consequent misgovernment and 
 emigration of the whites. Finally, he showed that with the important 
 colonies already seething with revolution the time was inopportune for 
 the introduction of radical reforms. In spite of the Abbe's extreme 
 unpopularity, the practical common sense of his remarks made more 
 
 ^Moniteur, VIII, 381-3. 
 
 •Moniteur, VIII, 378-85. Le Hodey, XXV, 421-47. Point du jour, XXII, 
 146-52. Gazette de Paris, May 15, 1791, 2. Amiduroi.May 13, 1791,531-2, 
 
THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 49 
 
 impression on the Assembly than did the fluent speech of the well beloved 
 Barnave.^ 
 
 The effect of this speech was weakened, however, by the reply of 
 Monneron, deputy from the tiny Isle of Bourbon in the East Indies, who 
 met the Abbe with argument as practical as his own. Monneron claimed 
 that in his colony, where there was a large proportion of mulattoes, the 
 sentiment was strongly in their favor, and that the colonial assembly 
 urged the most favorable legislation in their behalf. He further asserted 
 that in the Portuguese and Enghsh colonies free mulattoes held both 
 municipal and ecclesiastical office.^" Naturally, this speech was regarded 
 by the other colonial deputies as little less than treason.^^ 
 
 The remainder of this session was devoted to parliamentary wrangling 
 and tumultuous voting. Moreau de St. Mery proposed an amendment 
 to prohibit the Corps Legislatif from initiating legislation relative to 
 " slaves, " instead of " status of persons. " Robespierre made a desperate 
 plea that at least the shameful word be omitted. "From the moment 
 you pronounce the word 'slave' you will have pronounced your own dis- 
 honor!" he cried. "Let the colonies perish if they must cost you your 
 happiness, your glory, your liberty." Moreau finally consented to 
 accept the expression "persons not free" in place of "slaves," and thus 
 amended the article was adopted without serious opposition: 
 
 "The National Assembly decrees, as an article of the constitution, 
 that no law on the status of persons not free can be made by the Corps 
 Legislatif for the colonies except upon the formal and spontaneous 
 demand of the colonial assembly. "^^ 
 
 This was an easy victory for the colonists, but the 14th opened with 
 a stinging defeat. A letter from the delegation of mulattoes, asking 
 again that they be heard at the bar of the Assembly, was read by one of 
 the secretaries, and after a brief but heated debate the request was 
 granted. After a few moments of disorder, consequent on this decision 
 three mulattoes were introduced. Raimond, acting as the spokesman 
 of the delegation, described the situation of the free colored population 
 of the colonies, their numbers and wealth, the disabilities and injustices 
 from which they suffered, and the persecution which had been instituted 
 against them in San Domingo since the arrival of the deputies' letter of 
 
 » Moniteur, VIII, 390-4. Ami des patriotes II, 268. 
 " Moniteur, VIII, 394. 
 
 '^ Cf. Gouy d'Arsy, Lettre a ses commetans, 10, for a story that Monneron's atti- 
 tude was due to his having married a mulatto. 
 
 « Proces-verbal, May 13, 1791, 8. Moniteur, VIII, 395-6, 397. 
 
50 THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 
 
 August 12, 1789. The argument that race equality would lead to slave 
 rebellion he answered by showing that the mulattoes, being themselves 
 slave-owners and forming the sole militia of the islands, were reaUy the 
 chief safeguards against a revolt.^^ 
 
 Between the sessions of the 14th and the 15th it is evident that an 
 effort was made to get the moderates of the two parties to agree on a 
 compromise along the lines suggested in Maury's speech of the 13th. 
 RewbeU opened the discussion on the 15th by offering an amendment to 
 the effect that the Corps Legislatif should never dehberate on the status 
 of colored people not bom of free parents, except upon the initiative of 
 the colonies, but that colored people born of free fathers and mothers 
 should be admitted to the suffrage if they possessed the other necessary 
 quahfications. This amendment was utterly illogical and futile, but 
 had the advantage of appearing to split the difference between the claims 
 of the two parties at a moment when the rank and file were worn out with 
 wranghng. It was supported by all the leaders of the party which sup- 
 ported the mulattoes, except Robespierre, who fought to the last for the 
 eligibility of all the freedmen. It was opposed by the colonial deputies, 
 by Barnave, and by nearly aU the leading supporters of the committee's 
 project, but evidently was received with more favor by their followers, 
 for after various amendments had been voted down the amendment 
 passed, and the long fight was over. The demand for a roll call was 
 rejected by a very large majority, and the house adjourned amid great 
 applause from the galleries.^* 
 
 " Moniteur, VIII, 399-401. Le Hodey, XXV, 491-509. Point du jour, XXII, 
 179-92. 
 
 "Moniteur, VIII, 403-4. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 The Closing Days or the National Assembly 
 
 The Friends of the Blacks had inflicted a defeat upon their adver- 
 saries, but had won very Httle for their friends. As a moral victory the 
 vote of May 15th seemed to mean a great deal, but as a practical political 
 reform it was insignificant. The proportion of the mulattoes affected 
 by it was very small, probably no more than one-twentieth if they were 
 required to prove their eligibiUty,^ whila the political rights of the rest 
 of the free colored people were removed from the jurisdiction of future 
 National Assemblies, except upon the initiative of the colonies. 
 
 Moreover, even for this small proportion, the fight for the suffrage 
 had just begun. The Friends of the Blacks were to learn that a legisla- 
 tive victory may mean but little when the executive is in sympathy with 
 the defeated party. The political difiiculty which arose from its lack 
 of control over the ministry the Assembly had sought to overcome by 
 extending the function of its committees into the field of administration, 
 but it had failed to provide an effective means of controlling the commit- 
 tees themselves. In consequence a remarkable series of obstacles now 
 interfered with the promulgation of the new law. The first of these de- 
 lays, however, was the fault of the Assembly itself. On May 17th the 
 Assembly voted that the four committees should prepare an "instruc- 
 tion" to accompany the law of May 15 th. The purpose was to explain 
 the true intentions and motives of the Assembly and make it clear that 
 no promises had been broken, and thus to offset the effect of the criti- 
 cisms which would be levelled at the law by its opponents. It was even 
 seriously suggested that the departure of all vessels bound for the colo- 
 nies should be suspended for four days, "in order that the same vessels 
 which carry error thither may also carry truth. "^ 
 
 On the 21st the famous economist, Dupont de Nemours, who was a 
 member of the joint committee, reported that after several attempts it 
 had proved impossible to secure a quorum and that those members who 
 did attend had asked him to prepare an instruction himself. This in- 
 struction, which was adopted May 29th, was a weak and rather undigni- 
 fied attempt to refute some of the chief objections advanced against the 
 
 » Cf. R6v. de Paris, VIII, 293. 
 
 * Moniteur, VIII, 522-3. Proces-verbal, No. 653, 2. 
 
52 THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 
 
 law of May 15th. The most interesting point in it is the way in which 
 Dupont de Nemours attempted to reconcile the law of May 13th, con- 
 cerning slavery, with the principles of the Assembly: 
 
 "It has recognized that the men who are charged with the labor of 
 cultivation in the colonies are, by lack of enhghtenment and by their 
 expatriation, in a state of prolonged minority which seems to demand that 
 the protection of the law be modified with respect to them, just as with 
 children, by the immediate authority of the family government, and 
 which seems to necessitate admitting into the colonial constitution cer- 
 tain exceptions to its general principles."^ 
 
 The failure of the four committees to get a quorum for the purpose of 
 drawing up this instruction is the first indication of a policy of obstruc- 
 tion which was pursued all summer with so much success that the law of 
 May 15 th was never sent officially to any of the colonies, and the instruc- 
 tion of May 29th, so far as a committee of the Convention could learn, 
 was never published in San Domingo at all.^ Again and again the 
 Assembly tried to hasten the sending of the law and the departure of the 
 civil commissioners provided for in the law of November 29th, and in- 
 variably some pretext for delay was found.^ On August 22d, the de- 
 crees still being void of ofificial recognition, six new members were added 
 to the colonial committee in the hope of arousing it to greater activity, 
 and the Minister of Marine was ordered to submit an immediate report 
 concerning the causes of the delay.^ 
 
 The report which the Minister submitted the next day gives us a 
 glimpse of the network of intrigues which were woven against the law. 
 First, it had been decided to wait for the instruction of May 29th, then 
 for the final report on the colonial constitution. The latter law, after 
 being crowded through the Assembly with imseemly haste on Jime 14th, 
 was not sanctioned tiU July 10th, having been delayed in coming to the 
 king from the Assembly. Then there was trouble in getting it printed, 
 so that it did not come to the Minister of Marine till July 25 th. Then 
 the commissioners who had been waiting for months to start to the islands 
 demanded a further delay, and when it was refused they resigned. Three 
 new commissioners were appointed, and these had just gone to Brest 
 to set sail.'^ A demand for a report from the colonial committee as to 
 
 3 Moniteur, VIII, 530. 
 * Garran, op. ciL, II, 91. 
 » Proces-verbal, May 29, June 10, 1791. 
 
 ° Moniteur,IX, 459-61. Of the six new members, five were in sympathy with the 
 law of May 15th, the sixth being, curiously enough, Charles Lameth. 
 ' Proces-verbal, August 23, 1791, 214. 
 
THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 53 
 
 the cause of the continual delay evoked a very indefinite reply from Bar- 
 nave, who stated that he had taken no part in the work of the committee 
 since May 15 th, though he had not resigned as chairman lest he seem to 
 be using his influence to prevent the law from being executed.* 
 
 On August 29th four of the new members of the colonial committee 
 resigned from it, explaining that while they were added to the committee 
 to aid in the enforcement of the law of May 15th, the only question it 
 discussed was how to secure the repeal of that law. The new members, 
 being in the minority, could effect no change in the committee's methods, 
 and offered a pathetic complaint of the rudeness of their reception there. 
 On receipt of this report the session of the Assembly became extremely 
 stormy, and an eflfort was made to secure a complete renewal of the com- 
 mittee but in vain.^ 
 
 Meantime, the question continued to be agitated outside the Assem- 
 bly. Immediately after the passage of the law of May 15th all the 
 deputies from the West Indian colonies joined in a letter announcing to 
 the National Assembly their intention to absent themselves indefinitely 
 from its sessions. Their letter was extremely haughty in tone,^" and 
 excited sharp criticism, but received no ofiicial notice. On June 10th, 
 after a discusion of two or three hours, the Jacobin Club voted on motion 
 of Danton to suspend those of the colonial deputies who were members 
 of the Club till they should return to their post of duty.^^ After the 
 flight of the king the colonial deputies returned to the Assembly ,^^ but 
 they took practically no part in the discussion of colonial affairs. Gouy 
 d'Arsy issued a number of pamphlets, and obtained some publicity by 
 offering his colonial property for sale at what purported to be a great 
 sacrifice.13 A pamphlet was distributed entitled "List of names of those 
 who have voted for England against France on the question whether the 
 Assembly should sacrifice the colonies. "^^ Petitions for the repeal of 
 
 «Moniteur, IX, 474. 
 
 sMoniteur, IX, 537-8; Le Hodey XXXIV, 435. 
 
 ^° "Li ministri plenipotenziari d'una Potenza assoluta e sovrano non potevano 
 scrivere di piu ad un congresso." Kovalevsky, Dispacci degli Ambasciatori Veneti, 
 1,264. 
 
 " Aulard, op. ciL, II, 494. Gouy d'Arsy, Extrait logographique de la seance des 
 Amis de la Constitution de Paris, duVendredi, lOjuin, 1791. 
 
 ^2 Lettre de MM de Gouy et de Raynaud a I'Assembl^e nationale a I'occasion de 
 r evasion du roi et de la famille royale. 
 
 " Gouy, Diverses Pieces, etc. 
 
 "Garran, (>/'.«/., II, 91. 
 
54 THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FEENCH REVOLUTION 
 
 the law of May 15th began to pour in, chiefly of course from the com- 
 mercial cities.^^ 
 
 The other side, having won the victory, was naturally less active 
 but the Directory of the Department of the Gironde, and the Jacobin 
 Club and other organizations of Bordeaux congratulated the Assembly 
 and offered the services of eight hundred volunteers to go to the colonies 
 to help enforce the law of May 15th. Similar offers were received from 
 Lorient and Brest.^^ 
 
 Then alarming reports began to arrive from the colonies, particularly 
 from San Domingo. The Governor wrote : 
 
 ''The most frightful civil war may result from the present attitude of 
 pubhc opinion. The first part of the law, relative to the slaves and freed- 
 men, does not reassure them. They look upon that as merely an ar- 
 rangement which another law may repeal just as this one has repealed 
 those which preceded it. Confidence in the National Assembly is en- 
 tirely destroyed. ... I fear that this law, if it is not repealed, will 
 cause the shedding of the blood of thousands of citizens, and that those 
 whose interests it is intended to favor may be its victims. "^'' 
 
 Later reports were to the effect that the fortifications in San Domingo 
 were being put in order and preparations made for armed resistance if the 
 enforcement of the law were attempted.^^ 
 
 The petitions and other communications concerning this law were 
 referred, of course, to the colonial committee, which remained inactive 
 throughout the summer. Finally, on the 5th and 7th of September 
 the question was reopened by complaints against the comjnittee, and 
 Barnave made a long speech, in which he outlined the principles of his 
 entire colonial poHcy. He argued with much effect that the colonies, 
 unified and strengthened by a common purpose to defend their autonomy 
 in domestic affairs would, unless the Assembly reversed its poHcy, wrest 
 from succeeding legislatures not only the repeal of the Act of May 15th 
 but also their commercial liberty, which would mean virtually the loss 
 of the colonies. "There is then," said he, "only one way to save the 
 interests of the nation; it is at the same time with one hand to give the 
 colonists what is necessary for their internal security, and in the other 
 hand to retain to retain that which is necessary for the commercial in- 
 
 " Deliberation des 4 comit^s, Arch, pari., XXX, 592 ff.; Kovalevsky, op. cit., 
 I, 273. 
 
 >« Proces-verbal, No. 660, 8; No. 668, 10, 12; No. 678, 31-4. 
 
 1' Letter of Blanchelande, dated July 3, 1791, read in National Assembly, August 
 22, 1791 , Moniteur, IX, 460. 
 
 " Speech of Barnave, September 24, 1791, Moniteur, IX, 758-60. 
 
THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 55 
 
 terests of the mother country. ... At the moment when you bring 
 tranquihty and security to their souls, they will accept submissively an 
 unchangeable constitutional law which will assure the prosperity of 
 your commerce. " He closed by moving that the committee be given ten 
 days to make its report on the petitions, which was voted.^^ 
 
 On the 23d Barnave presented the final report of the colonial com- 
 mittee. With characteristic audacity he omitted all reference to the 
 petitions on which a report had been so urgently demanded but dwelt at 
 length on the alarming situation in the colonies. The indignation of 
 the colonists was due, he said, not only to the results which were appre- 
 hended from the law of May 15th, but from their fear that the precedent 
 created by the passage of a law concerning their domestic affairs would 
 open the way for an attack by the Legislative Assembly on slavery. 
 Hence it would not suffice to repeal the obnoxious law; some assurance 
 for the future must be given. Therefore the committee recommended 
 two constitutional laws: first, that legislation concerning the external 
 affairs of the colonies should be entirely within the jurisdiction of the 
 Legislative Assembly, subject of course to the royal veto; second, that 
 laws concerning the status of persons should be made by colonial assem- 
 blies and taken directly to the king for sanction without consulting the 
 Legislative Assembly at all. The whole idea of legislation by the Nation- 
 al Assembly on the initiative of the colonies, which had been the chief 
 item in the committee's program for a year and a half, was now abandoned 
 and a true federal system was proposed in its stead.^" 
 
 Practically all the session of the 24th was consumed in the debate on 
 this proposal, which covered much the same ground as the discussion 
 in May. As Robespierre pointed out, no reason was now given for re- 
 pealing the law of May 15th which had not been considered when the 
 law was passed, and no results had followed the law which had not then 
 been anticipated. The Assembly's rule was never to reconsider its 
 actions simply because of a change in the strength of parties. Moreover 
 there was grave doubt whether the Assembly, having already declared 
 the constitution complete, could legally place any further limitations on 
 the power of the Corps Legislatif. But the old conservative majority 
 which had been broken up by the compromise of May 15th was once 
 more in the saddle, and after the usual scenes of disorder and amid vio- 
 lent demonstrations of disapproval from the galleries all objections were 
 overruled and the committee's project was adopted.^^ 
 
 " Moniteur, IX, 612-5; Proces-verbal, September 7, 14-15. 
 
 " Moniteur, IX, 756, 758-60. 
 
 " Moniteur, loc. ciL; Proces-verbal, Sept. 24, 1791. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 Analysis of the National Assembly's Work 
 
 The legislation just described closes the record of the Constituent 
 Assembly's dealings with the most flagrant violation of revolutionary 
 principles with which it had to deal. Four laws embodied its contribu- 
 tion to the solution of the problem of human bondage — the law of March 
 8 th, 1790, which placed slave property definitely under the protection 
 of the law; that of October 12th, 1790, which by implication promised 
 the colonists the initiative in all questions relative to the "status of 
 persons"; that of May 12th, 1791, which made the promise definite, so 
 far as slaves were concerned; and that of September 24th, 1791, which 
 removed all questions concerning slavery and the privileges of free negroes 
 from the jurisdiction of French legislative assemblies and entrusted 
 them to the colonies themselves. 
 
 So far, therefore, as the Constituent Assembly is concerned, the 
 work of the Friends of the Blacks must be pronounced a failure, and the 
 triiunph of conservatism complete. The Friends of the Blacks had 
 started out with a program by no means radical. They dehberately 
 put aside every effort to obtain for the negro slaves any benefit except a 
 vague future "amelioration," which they never attempted to defime. 
 They accepted without protest a law guaranteeing the perpetuity of 
 slavery. They limited their campaign to two proposals. Of these, the 
 first, the abolition of the African slave trade, was a reform so sane, just, 
 and practical that within twenty-five years it found almost unanimous 
 acceptance from the desperately conservative Europe of the Restoration 
 era. The second was the abolition of political inequalities among free 
 citizens of France whose qualifications for a share in their own govern- 
 ment differed only in accordance with their race. This latter measure, 
 considering that race prejudice was almost unknown in France, was 
 certainly a far less drastic application of the philosophy of equality than 
 was, for instance, the abolition of nobility or the suppression of the guilds. 
 Surely then the failure of the Friends of the Blacks cannot be explained 
 by excessive radicalism. How shall we reconcile the conservatism of the 
 Assembly in handhng these colonial questions with the radicalism it 
 professed and practiced when more important issues were at stake? 
 
THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 57 
 
 To answer this question it will be necessary to look more closely at 
 the party situation within the Assembly. The reader who is familiar 
 with revolutionary history will have noticed that all the prominent 
 participants in the discussion of the negro question, except Maury and 
 Malouet, were members of the Left or revolutionary party. They were 
 all moved at first by a common desire for the overthrow of the abuses of 
 the old regime, but as the preliminary work of destruction was com- 
 pleted and the Assembly turned to the larger task of reconstruction a 
 division arose, and the party separated into two mutually hostile groups. 
 The larger group, led by the triumvirate, Barnave, Alexander Lameth, 
 and Duport, and containing such men as Talleyrand, La Fayette, and 
 Sieyes, was moderate and monarchical. This group, sometimes known as 
 the Left Center, came to represent the property interests of France, as 
 the Right represented the privileged classes of the old regime. As it 
 became increasingly apparent that the breakdown of the government 
 constituted a peril to property the group grew increasingly conservative. 
 As this took place, however, the extreme Left grew increasingly radical. 
 This party was led by Petion and Robespierre within the Assembly, and 
 Brissot, Loustallot, and Camille Desmoulins outside. Between them 
 and the dominant faction the most conspicuous issues were those which 
 arose in connection with the property qualifications for suffrage and for 
 eligibility to the Legislative Assembly. Within the Assembly the 
 moderates were always by far the stronger, and the constitution of 1791 
 was almost entirely their work. But outside the rising tide of democracy 
 was undermining their influence. The crisis came in connection with the 
 flight of the king, which spHt the Jacobin Club and made repubhcans out 
 of the radicals, but temporarily strengthened the conservative elements 
 in the Assembly. 
 
 This story is familiar to all students of the history of the -Revolution, 
 but surprisingly little attention seems to have been paid to the connec- 
 tion between the divergence of these revolutionary parties and the 
 development of sentiment on the colonial negro question. For this was 
 the question v/hich first brought the interests of property into clear 
 opposition to those of humanity, and was a prime factor in the breakup 
 of the Left and the loss of its leaders' hold on the populace. 
 
 Take the case of Barnave for instance. He started as a violent 
 radical. "Le sang, etait-il done si pur?" was his reply to the denuncia- 
 tion of the murder of innocent men by the mobs of 1789. In a manner 
 worthy of Marat he accused the Monarchical Club of giving the people 
 poisoned bread, and he fought a duel with Cazales to uphold the dignity 
 
58 THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 
 
 of his extreme radicalism. But on February 25th, 1790, he spoke in the 
 Jacobin Club against the abolition of slavery,^ and this speech in all 
 pHTobabihty won him his place on the colonial committee. From the 
 time that he accepted the chairmanship of that committee his divergence 
 from the democrats is clear. As shown above, he came into conflict with 
 the Friends of the Blacks when he made his first report in March, 1790, 
 and every act of his committee thereafter widened the breach. Likewise 
 the Lameths, one of whom as noted above was a colonial proprietor, were 
 actively identified with the defense of the property rights of the colonists 
 from revolutionary attacks. In general the fine between bourgeois and 
 democratic interests which has been traced by Aulard and others in con- 
 nection with the suffrage question and the question of the deposition of 
 Louis XVI will be found to correspond to the line between the advocates 
 and the opponents of humanitarian legislation in behalf of the negroes.^ 
 
 Carrying the analysis forward into the spring of 1791, we find that the 
 Jacobin Club of Paris refused to discuss the negro question, though the 
 provincial branches were lining up rapidly in favor of the mulattoes. 
 The question first came before the Club on May 11th, 1791, when Brissot 
 opened it with a long speech, full of personahties and sarcasm directed 
 against Barnave. Barnave replied with the same speech which he de- 
 livered the next morning in the Assembly, and Petion spoke in rebuttal. 
 Barnave won the victory, though it was noted that his support came 
 from friends of the orator and not of his cause.^ 
 
 At the session of May 13th Raimond was allowed to speak, and made 
 the same remarks, in substance, as he delivered the next morning before 
 the Assembly. An "Armenian or Turk" also spoke in favor the m_ulat- 
 toes and reminded Barnave and the Lameths that one false step may cost 
 the fruits of fifty years of virtue. Robespierre made a bitter attack on 
 Barnave and the Lameths. Charles Lameth tried to reply but was 
 greeted with hisses and could not get a hearing.^ This is the real begin- 
 ning of the schism in the Jacobin Club. Barnave and the Lameths, who 
 had hitherto been its most popular leaders, did not appear again till 
 after the flight of the king, and never again played a prominent part in 
 
 1 Gazette de Paris, March 2, 1790. 
 
 ^ Exceptions to this are La Fayette and Sieyes, neither of whom was an active 
 participant in the campaign on behalf of the negroes except at the very outset, and 
 Mirabeau, who always acted independently of party lines. 
 
 ' Aulard, La Societe des Jacobins, II, 412. L'Ami des patriotes, II, 273, n. 
 Brissot, M^moires, II, 101. 
 
 * Aulard, op. cit., II, 413-5. 
 
THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 59 
 
 the Club's proceedings. On June lOth the Club voted the suspension 
 of the colonial deputies who had withdrawn from the National Assem- 
 bly after the passage of the law of May 15th.^ 
 
 Outside, too, the tide of sentiment was running against the opponents 
 of the mulattoes. Lendemain noted that Charles Lameth's popularity 
 was in great danger, and the Venetian ambassador referred in a dispatch 
 to the disfavor into which the leaders of the people had fallen. Gazette 
 de Paris noted that Barnave on May 11th got applause in the Assembly 
 from the right, while Gouy d'Arsy tells us that Barnave was "hissed by 
 the multitude, of which he had recently been the hero. "^ 
 
 Then came the flight of the king and the consequent withdrawal of so 
 many members that the Jacobin Club was temporarily wrecked. During 
 July and August many of the more radical members of the Club returned, 
 and the remainder formed the Feuillant organization. After this reor- 
 ganization all the leading Friends of the Blacks except La Fayette were 
 in the Jacobin Club proper, and all the prominent defenders of colonial 
 interests were in the Feuillant. The Jacobin Club, however, did not 
 drop the names of the seceders from its roll till September 25th. Then, 
 as a direct result of the passage of the law of September 24th the Club 
 struck off its roll the names of Barnave, Duport, Goupil, and the two 
 Lameths, charging them with acting contrary to the rights of man. 
 The breach in the ranks of the revolutionists was now complete. 
 
 There was no inconsistency in the attitude of the Constituent Assem- 
 bly toward this question, for from beginning to end the controlling 
 group was essentially bourgeois and was imbued with a respect for the 
 rights of property which outran its zeal for the interests of humanity. 
 One hundred and fifty colonial proprietors sat in the Constituent As- 
 sembly,'^ and alongside these were ranged the merchants, jealous for the 
 prosperity of their customers and debtors, and the ship-owners zealous 
 for the protection of the trade in slaves. "Life, liberty, and property" 
 were the inalienable rights of man, according to the immortal Declara- 
 tion, and no federal court of our own day is more jealous of infringement 
 upon the third of these rights than were the "progressives" who made 
 the constitution of 1791. The central abuse against which the Revolu- 
 tion reacted was the subordination of the interests of the owners of proper- 
 
 ^ Aulard, op. cit., II, 494. Gouy d'Arsy, Extrait logographique de la s..ance ds 
 Amis de la Constitution de Paris, duVendredi, 10 juin, 1791. 
 
 « Aulard, op. cit., II, 414-5; Kovalevsky, op. cit., I, 262; Gazette de Paris, May 15, 
 1791,2; Gouyd'Arsy, Lettreasescomm6tans, 33. 
 
 ' Lavie, speech of August 22, 1791, Moniteur, IX, 460. 
 
60 THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 
 
 ty to those of the nobility and clergy, and the same conservative impulse 
 which led the bourgeoisie to protect the ballot from the true sans-culotte 
 by the provision of the "three days' labor" tax made them also very 
 ready to weigh sugar heavy in the balance against slavery, and rotting 
 ships against rattling chains. ''This system is oppressive, but it supports 
 several million men in France," said Barnave, and this in substance was 
 the decisive argument in every debate. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 The Mulatto Question in the Legislative Assembly 
 The Constituent Assembly had done its best to remove the negro 
 question from French poHtics by eliminating it from the sphere of com- 
 petence of the Legislative Assembly. If, therefore, extraordinary cir- 
 cumstances had not compelled the latter body to turn its attention to 
 colonial affairs the work of the Constituent would probably have re- 
 mained untouched, and the colonies would have been left in peace to 
 work out their own salvation. This, however, was impossible. The 
 colonies, and especially San Domingo, could no more work out their 
 pohtical problems in peace than could the mother country. The violent 
 reaction of the whites against the law of May 15, 1791, provoked the 
 mulattoes to take arms in its defense long before the news of the law of 
 September 24 arrived. This development was followed immediately 
 by a terrible revolt of the slaves, and a triangular contest ensued in which 
 the island was delivered over to appalling scenes of murder, arson, and 
 piUage. The Legislative Assembly had to disentangle the truth about 
 these dissensions from a mass of conflicting testimony and devise a means 
 of restoring order, and this necessarily involved reopening the question 
 of the status of free negroes and mulattoes, if not the future of slavery 
 itself. 
 
 Although the mulatto insurrection began before the slave revolt, the 
 latter catastrophe was first reported to the Assembly. The insurrection 
 began late in August, 1791, in the province of the North, and spread 
 rapidly till it was estimated, probably with much exaggeration, that 
 50,000 slaves were in revolt and 150 plantations had been destroyed.^ 
 Blanchelande, the governor, took the part of prudence rather than of 
 valor, keeping his troops in Le Cap to guard against an insurrection of the 
 city negroes and lawless whites, and sending frantic appeals to the Span- 
 ish, French, and British possessions and to the United States. He de- 
 layed, however, to send word to France, and it was not till October 27th 
 that the Assembly received news of the disaster. 
 
 1 Letter of the National Commissioners to the Minister of Marine, Nov. 29, 1791, 
 Arch. pari. XXXVII, 315. The colonial assembly estimated 100,000 in revolt and 
 200 plantations in ruins. Letter of Sept. 13, 1791, Arch. pari. XXXIV, 87. 
 
62 THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 
 
 At first the report was received incredulously by the Jacobin left, as 
 a device to draw away troops from France, but as soon as the serious 
 character of the rebeUion became evident the Assembly voted an appro- 
 priation of over ten million livres, which provided amply for the expense 
 of sending the full quota of troops and munitions requested by the Gover- 
 nor. On this measure, it should be noted, there was no serious disagree- 
 ment.^ Apparently the logical thing to do was to await further sugges- 
 tions from the governor, and so far as measures of direct assistance were 
 concerned this course was pursued. But the slave rebellion offered a 
 handle which neither the radicals nor the colonial conservatives could 
 forbear to grasp, and served to reopen the whole controversy which we 
 have traced through the period of the Constituent Assembly. 
 
 The radicals, now led by Brissot, were still indignant over the passage 
 of the law of September 24th, and the slave revolt gave them their 
 opportunity to attack it, the argument being that the disarmament of 
 the mulattoes was undoubtedly a primary cause of the rebels' success, 
 and that conciliation of the mulattoes was necessary to secure their aid 
 in suppressing the revolt. On the other hand, the colonial group pointed 
 to the rebellion as a confirmation of their predictions, charging that it was 
 caused by the seditious writings of the Friends of the Blacks. 
 
 Before the debate opened on this question, more evil tidings arrived.^ 
 The mulattoes in the province of the West were now reported in full 
 revolt, demanding the enforcement of the decree of May 15 th. This 
 movement, though it involved only a few thousand men, gave promise 
 of making more serious trouble than the negro revolt in the North, and 
 presented a much knottier problem for the Assembly to handle. During 
 the early summ.er of 1791 while the white colonists were uttering their 
 first outcries against the law of May 15th, the mulattoes had remained 
 quiet. But after the Governor had declared that he would not take the 
 responsibihty of enforcing that law if it should ever arrive in official 
 form, and especially after the whites had proceeded to elect a new assem- 
 bly in entire disregard of the law, the mulattoes resolved to take things 
 into their own hands. They organized first in the Province of the West, 
 where they were the strongest, and where dissensions among the whites 
 
 ^ The point is of importance, as modern authors have charged the Jacobins with 
 obstructing the relief of the colony. Neither Blanchelande nor the colonial assemblies 
 complained of the amount of military assistance rendered. There was just complaint 
 of the delay, as the troops did not get away till December, but the Assembly was 
 responsible for only a very small portion of this delay. 
 
 3 Arch. pari. XXXVII, 259-62; Moniteur, X, 399-400, 405. 
 
THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 63 
 
 played into their hands. The white colonists were divided into two 
 parties, one a conservative group composed chiefly of planters, the other 
 representing the towns and dominated by the rabble, whose hatred of 
 the mulattoes was only equalled by their love of disorder and pillage. 
 This latter party, called the Patriots, had adopted the catch-words of the 
 revolution and set up a municipal government for Port-au-Prince. Though 
 the planters were avowedly royalist and the Patriots revolutionary, 
 the points at issue between the two parties bore no close relation to the 
 party divisions in France, and at first had no connection with the negro 
 question. But the planters made common cause with the mulattoes, 
 and together they overpowered the forces put in the field by the new 
 city government of Port-au-Prince. On September 11th they compelled 
 the city to accept a treaty of peace which, under the title of the Con- 
 cordat, played a very prominent part in the politics of San Domingo and 
 the debates of the Legislative Assembly throughout the winter. The 
 main provisions of this treaty were as follows: The white colonists 
 agreed to accept the law of May 15th, and to desist from further attempts 
 to secure its repeal. New elections were to be held, mulattoes being 
 eligible for the suffrage and for membership in the colonial assembly. 
 Proclamation was made of amnesty for past offenses, liberty of the press, 
 and inviolability of correspondence. All irregular revolutionary govern- 
 ments in municipalities, provinces, and the colony at large, were to be 
 abandoned.* 
 
 Meantime, even before news of these transactions reached the north, 
 the colonial assembly had executed a volte-face. Helpless in the face 
 of the slave revolt, they turned to the mulattoes, the only native popu- 
 lation capable of effective field work against the negroes, and offered 
 tempting concessions as the reward of aid.^ In a series of laws passed 
 
 * GarranjO/*. ciL, II, 120-45. For text of the Concordat, Arch. pari. XXXVII, 
 267-8. 
 
 ^ Blanchelande referred repeatedly in his letters to the absolute necessity of secur- 
 ing assistance from the mulattoes, and paid high tribute to their valor and endurance. 
 The white colonists he described as entirely worthless for military purposes. They 
 must, he said, have wine and liquors fresh meat, ragouts, and valets, while the mulat- 
 toes march barefoot, can live for a day on bananas and water, and are inured to the 
 hardships of the climate. The poorer classes of whites, he reported were watching for 
 a favorable moment to pillage the city, and would only consent to serve in the field for 
 two-thirds of the loot which might be found in the sacked plantations. Nevertheless 
 he insisted that it would be absurd to grant the mulattoes' demands for political recog- 
 nition. Letters to the Minister of Marine, Sept. 13 and Nov. 16, 1791, reprinted 
 Arch. pari. XXXVII, 259, 3134. 
 
64 THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 
 
 in September they removed the prohibition on the mulattoes carrying 
 arms; authorized them to meet in parish assemblies to petition for 
 redress of grievances; agreed to offer no further opposition to the enforce- 
 mentof the law of May 15 th, and promised a vague future ' 'amehoration' ' 
 in the status of the free mulattoes who were not included in the provisions 
 of that law. Nevertheless, they refused to confirm the Concordat of 
 September 11th. The Governor also threw his influence against the 
 Concordat, and declared himself unable to promulgate or recognize the 
 law of May 15th till it should arrive in official form.® 
 
 This was the puzzling situation which was reported to the Legislative 
 Assembly in the closing days of November, 1791. The free mulattoes, 
 whose cause was so dear to the advanced revolutionists of France, were 
 in alliance with the aristocratic planters of the West, wearing the white 
 cockade and fighting in the name of the king, to force the Jacobin law 
 of May 15th on the unwilling sans-culottes of Port-au-Prince; while the 
 Governor and colonial assembly, themselves strongly suspected of exces- 
 sive loyalty to the king, were supporting Port-au-Prince against the 
 confederation of mulattoes and aristocratic whites. 
 
 A few days after the news of these developments was received, three 
 delegates from the colonial assembly arrived, and offered a report which 
 threw down the gauntlet to the Friends of the Blacks. Their orator 
 began with a very detailed and harroAving description of the slave 
 revolt, and continued with an arraignment of all who disagreed with 
 the extreme conservative colonial position, which seems worthy of ex- 
 tensive citation: 
 
 " We lived in peace, " said he, ''in the midst of our slaves. A paternal 
 government had for several years been improving the lot of the negroes, 
 and we dare to assert that millions of Europeans, the victims of want 
 and misery, receive much less of the comforts of life than those who have 
 been painted to you and to the world as loaded with chains and dying of 
 slow torture. 
 
 "The situation of the blacks in Africa, without property, without 
 political and civil life, constantly the playthings of the insane fury of 
 tyrants ... is changed in our colonies into a condition not only en- 
 durable but pleasant. They had lost nothing, for liberty, which they 
 do not enjoy, is a plant which has never borne fruit in their native 
 land. . . . 
 
 • Correspondence of Blanchelande, the mulattoes and Jumecourt, leader of the 
 white planters. Arch. pari. XXXVII, 269-78. 
 
THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 65 
 
 "Assured of the enjoyment of their property, . . . cared for in 
 sickness with an attention which we should seek in vain in the boasted 
 hospitals of England, protected and respected in the feebleness of old 
 age, undisturbed in their family relations, subjected to labor adapted to 
 the strength of each individual, . . . such was the true and unvarnished 
 picture of the government of our negroes. 
 
 "But, gentlemen, a society was formed in the heart of France and 
 prepared far from us the dissensions and convulsions to which we are a 
 prey. At first obscure and modest, it indicated only a desire for an 
 improvement in the condition of our slaves, but ... it was ignorant 
 of all the means of accompUshing such an improvement, while we were 
 unceasingly laboring to accomplish it, and instead of being able to assist 
 us, the society, by sowing the spirit of insubordination among our slaves 
 and apprehensions among ourselves, forced us to renounce these 
 efforts. . . . 
 
 "Soon the society demanded that the slave-trade be suppressed; 
 that is, that the profits which might result from it for the commercial 
 interests of France should be given to foreigners, for the romantic philoso- 
 phy of the society will never persuade all the powers of Europe to abandon 
 the cultivation of colonies and leave the inhabitants of Africa a prey 
 to the barbarity of their tyrants rather than employ them elsewhere 
 under more humane masters to exploit lands which would remain uncul- 
 tivated without them. ... 
 
 "Then, entering into the revolutionary movement in France, this 
 society tied up its extravagant and illogical scheme to the plan which 
 the Empire had conceived of setting itself free, and profiting by the 
 universal enthusiasm of all Frenchmen for liberty, it interested them 
 through the memory of their own servitude in its project to destroy that 
 of the negroes. 
 
 "From this moment this society, or at least some of its members, 
 set no bounds to their plans. ... It took advantage of the Declaration 
 of the Rights of Man, an immortal work and salutary for enlightened 
 men, but inapplicable and therefore dangerous in our society, and sent 
 copies of the Declaration into the colony in great numbers, and the 
 journals which it subsidized or seduced made this declaration resound 
 in the midst of our plantations; the cries of the Friends of the Blacks 
 announced openly that the liberty of the negroes was pronounced by the 
 Declaration of Rights. " 
 
 After a review of the earlier phases of the controversy over the 
 mulatto question the orator continued: 
 
66 THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 
 
 "In this state of effervescence, in this general intoxication, . . . the 
 discussion of the law of May 15th took place among you; a mass of 
 writings which preceded and accompanied this discussion were scattered 
 even in our plantations; there were read and noted those terrible words, 
 the signal for arson and carnage, "Let the colonies perish!'^ Then it 
 was that the letter of a minister of the rehgion of peace, addressed to his 
 brothers the mulattoes, announced to our slaves that soon the sun would 
 shine on free men only. . . .® 
 
 "It is proven today that the influence of the Friends of the Blacks 
 is destructive of the colonies; let them cover themselves with whatever 
 sophisms they will, they can never destroy the evidence of our sufferings. 
 There is no man of good faith who doubts that their works, their declama- 
 tions, their writings, their infamous emissaries, were the active and con- 
 stant cause which for two years has been making preparations for our 
 ruin and has at last brought it to pass. France owes us protection, but 
 troops cannot reassure us if it allows revolt and massacre to be plotted 
 against us at home. It owes us protection, but it will try in vain to afford 
 it if such offenses remain unpunished. ... A hundred times we have 
 demanded public vengeance for the odious manoeuvers of these men who 
 turn our fatherland upside down under the guise of hmnanity. We have 
 obtained nothing. May the horrible catastrophe whose outlines we have 
 traced serve as a lesson for the future, and save from the same evils those 
 of our fellow-citizens who have not already undergone them. "^ 
 
 This address evoked a complimentary response from the President, 
 and the Assembly after a brief but bitter contest voted to have it printed. 
 This friendly reception of an overt defense of slavery may be regarded 
 as the highwater niark of the success of the conservative party which 
 had controlled the dealings of France with the race question with only 
 one short break since the autumn of 1789. 
 
 And yet, although the immediate result was a striking triumph, this 
 attack on the Friends of the Blacks was a fatal error, for it forced the 
 fighting at a point where the radicals were strong. The charges made 
 against the Friends of the Blacks were entirely indefensible. It was 
 notorious that the San Domingo colonists had exercised a strict censor- 
 ship over the mails since the summer of 1789, and they never produced a 
 
 ' This perversion of Robespierre's unfortunate remark (quoted above, p. 49) 
 was a constant theme of the antagonists of the Friends of the Blacks. 
 
 * A rather misleading allusion to an ill-judged letter published by Gr6goire. 
 
 • Arch. pari. XXXV, 460-7. 
 
THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 67 
 
 scrap of evidence to convict the Friends of the Blacks of sending either 
 emissaries or Hterature into the island. The charge simply opened the 
 way for a consideration of the entire issue, at a time when the colonists 
 had already gotten everything they could hope for from legislation and 
 had everything to lose. 
 
 The contest which began with this address lasted intermittently for 
 four months. It was not comparable either in scope or in quality of de- 
 bate with that in the Constituent Assembly. Both sides suffered from 
 lack of competent leadership. The colonies had no representatives in 
 the Assembly, but the delegates sent over by the colonial assembly were 
 liberally supplied with money for campaign purposes and carried on a 
 vigorous publicity campaign. As in the Constituent, the ministry and 
 the colonial committee supported the colonial cause. Brissot was the 
 leader of the radicals and by the inordinate length and extreme unfair- 
 ness of his speeches did his utmost to lower the quality of the debate. 
 Letters and petitions from Jacobin Clubs, chambers of commerce, and 
 similar organizations came in on both sides, the sea-port towns aligning 
 themselves as before with the colonial party. ^° 
 
 These communications and all the colonial dispatches dealing with 
 the question were referred to the colonial committee, which moved with 
 great deliberation. A study of its tactics makes it clear that the com- 
 mittee, more circumspect than the colonial assembly, preferred to prevent 
 the negro question from becoming an issue rather than to try to control 
 the legislature. So when the address of the deputation was referred to 
 the committee they pigeonholed it and gave the Friends of the Blacks 
 no opportunity for a reply. 
 
 Brissot soon grew impatient, and on December 1st and 3d, 1791, 
 secured the floor to present a report himself. This "report" was a doc- 
 ument of some 30,000 words" in which was reviewed the entire history 
 of the revolution in the colony and the dealings of the Constituent Assembly 
 with the problems of colonial administration and mulatto suffrage. Bris- 
 sot had no difficulty in defending the Friends of the Blacks from re- 
 sponsibiUty for the slave revolt. In fact, he showed pretty convincingly 
 that the success of the negroes should rather be attributed to the strife 
 between the factions of the whites,the loose talk about liberty which was 
 current everywhere, the colonists' policy of disarming the mulattoes, and 
 the general weakness of the government. 
 
 " Garran, op. ciL, III,. 12-19. 
 
 " Arch. pari. XXXV, 474-90, 536-42. Cf. Moniteur, X, 518-21, 540. 
 
68 THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 
 
 So far Brissot's argument was sound, but this was only a beginning. 
 All the doings of the colonial assembly, the colonial members in the Con- 
 stituent Assembly, and the Governor were next recounted and inter- 
 preted in the light of a theory which Brissot had evolved to the efifect 
 that through the whole two years the dominant colonial faction had 
 aimed at independence or the transfer of its allegiance to England, This 
 was not altogether a fantastic idea, and later events went far to confirm it. 
 But Brissot had no proof, nothing but inferences from a few points in 
 the conduct of the Governor and the colonial assembly. And he carried 
 the idea to an absurd extreme, arguing that the negro revolt itself was 
 a scheme to find a pretext for calling in English intervention and breaking 
 away from France. 
 
 The remedy which Brissot suggested was to send three thousand 
 national guards to the colony, place these troops under the control of new 
 commissioners, impeach the Governor, have a new colonial assembly 
 elected without race qualifications, and call on the committee on colonies 
 for a bill to facilitate the collection of debts in the island. This last 
 provision was a thrust at the colonists, who as a class were heavily in- 
 debted to the mother country, as colonists always are. Probably Brissot 
 hoped by this move to break up the combination of colonists and seaport 
 towns by securing the support of merchants who had colonial debtors. 
 These proposals did not come to a vote, but a motion by Guadet request- 
 ing the king not to allow the employment of troops to overthrow the 
 Concordat was passed on December 7th.^^ There was much anxiety 
 among the radicals lest the arrival of troops should enable the whites 
 to dispense with the aid of the mulattoes and withdraw the concessions 
 which had been made to them, and a few extremists proposed to suspend 
 the departure of troops entirely, arguing that if the mulattoes were 
 assured of proper treatment by the repeal of the law of September 24th no 
 troops would be needed. This motion was defeated on December 6th.^^ 
 
 On December 10th and January 11th Tarbe, chairman of the colonial 
 committee, presented reports which, though incomplete on account of 
 the constant arrival of new dispatches, were quite sufficient to expose the 
 utter flimsiness both of the colonists' accusations against the Friends of 
 the Blacks and of Brissot's charges against the Governor and the colonial 
 assembly. No action of importance was recommended, and none 
 
 " Moniteur, X, 567-8, 573-8. 
 " Moniteur, X, 565. 
 
THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 69 
 
 was taken. There was, indeed, little occasion for legislative inter- 
 ference, as the commissioners sent out under the law of September 24th, 
 who had not yet been heard from, had adequate authority, and were in 
 a better position to direct affairs than was the Assembly. Brissot and 
 his followers assailed the reports very bitterly but made no attempt to 
 secure action on the next item in their program, which was the formal 
 ratification of the concordat and the repeal of the law of September 24th.^* 
 
 For the next six weeks the question slumbered, though occasional 
 reports of new disorders reminded the Assembly of the unsettled problem. 
 The colonial committee wished to send aid in the form of a loan and a body 
 of skilled laborers, and there appears to have been no opposition, yet 
 they did not try to push the proposal to a vote. It is pretty clear, in 
 fact, that the leaders of the colonial party preferred to let the colony go 
 unaided rather than take the risk of stimulating a renewal of activity 
 on behalf of the mulattoes. 
 
 Tarbe's third and final report came up on February 29th.^^ It was 
 a very able document and contained an excellent survey of conditions 
 in San Domingo up to the middle of December. The picture was gloomy 
 enough. The slave rebellion in the North was reported to be collapsing, 
 but the West had gone from bad to worse. The news of the law of 
 September 24th had increased the mutual distrust of the mulattoes 
 and the white revolutionists. The "patriot" faction of Port-au-Prince 
 had attempted to revoke the Concordat, and had been compelled by force 
 of arms to accept it again in a form more drastic than before. During 
 the confusion incident to this affair a riot had ensued in Port-au-Prince, 
 and the city had been nearly destroyed by fire. The ruins of the city at 
 last report were besieged by the confederation of "aristocratic" whites 
 and mulattoes, and countless atrocities were taking place. The South, 
 hitherto at peace, was now also the scene of desolating civil war. 
 
 Tarbe showed no especial bias against the mulattoes — indeed he 
 admitted the justice of their cause, but he made the most of the evidences 
 of royalism in the confederation, and identified the white supporters of 
 the mulattoes with the counter-revolutionary party of France. Still 
 he recommended no interference. This seems rather extraordinary, but 
 may have been judicious, as the royal commissioners at last report .had 
 not been in San Domingo long enough to form a definite policy, and the 
 
 "Arch. pari. XXXVII, 401-10; XXXVIII, 222-9. Moniteur, X, 592-6; XI, 
 93-6, 99-100. 
 
 « Arch. pari. XXXIX, 198-209. 
 
70 THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 
 
 troops had not all arrived. Tarbe argued with considerable force that 
 if troops were sent to aid the colonists of Port-au-Prince the mulattoes 
 would be deprived of their just rights, while if they took the mulattoes' 
 side the triumph of aristocracy and counter-revolution was sure to follow. 
 As a matter of fact, the difi&culty of dealing with the question from Paris 
 was almost insuperable. At best the Assembly could only provide for 
 a situation six weeks or two months past with remedies to take effect 
 at an equal distance in the future. All they could hope to do successfully 
 was to define the purposes and principles of the colonial government, 
 and leave local officials to judge of specific measures. But a general 
 definition of principles was just what the colonial party was most anxious 
 to avoid. 
 
 On March 21st, 1792, more evil tidings arrived. The Governor's 
 hopes for a speedy suppression of the slave revolt had not been realized. 
 Instead, the rebels had gained ground- rapidly and now controlled the 
 whole province of the North, outside the fortified towns in which the 
 miserable inhabitants were huddled. The ruins of Port-au-Prince were 
 still besieged by mulattoes and "Pompons blancs, " while the South was 
 still rent by civil war between mulattoes and whites.^^ 
 
 The Assembly now for the first time since December turned its atten- 
 tion seriously to the question, and voted to discuss it without further 
 postponement till a settlement should be reached. Brissot opened the 
 debate with a motion for the repeal of the law of September 24th, Using 
 the facts brought out in Tarbe's report, he showed that in every case the 
 rebellion of the mulattoes was provoked by the injustice and bad faith 
 of the white colonists, who accepted terms of peace only to break them 
 at the first opportunity. The civil commissioners, he pointed out, had 
 failed to pacify the mulattoes because they had simply demanded their 
 submission to the law, without offering them any guarantee of better 
 treatment. This part of Brissot's argument was consistent and made a 
 very good case for his motion. He weakened it immensely, however, 
 by reviving his previous charge that the Gk)vernor and the colonial 
 revolutionary party were trying to transfer the colony to the flag of 
 England. 
 
 Tarbe, who replied first, scarcely met the argument on the main point 
 at issue, the repeal of the law of September 24, but devoted his time to 
 attacking the weak spots in Brissot's argument. The debate, which 
 continued for three days, was entirely without feature. The advance of 
 radical sentunent during the preceding six months can be seen clearly, 
 " Moniteur, XI, 689-90; Arch. pari. XL, 204-5. 
 
THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 71 
 
 for the opponents of Brissot's measure as a rule made no objection to 
 the principle of mulatto suffrage, but merely claimed the measure was 
 premature, or pleaded that the colonists be given a chance to make the 
 reform themselves.^ ^ Indeed if the debate had been confined to the main 
 question, and the conservatives had not had opportunity to becloud the 
 issue by riddling Brissot's charges against the colonial government, they 
 would have been almost helpless. 
 
 On both sides much time and ingenuity was devoted to the con- 
 stitutional question whether the Legislative Assembly could repeal the 
 law of September 24th, which was constitutional in form, but was passed 
 after the constitution was complete. This question, it should be noted, 
 was of much less importance than a similar question would have been 
 under our systetti of government, for the Assembly was the final judge 
 of its own powers, and its action whether in violation of the constitution 
 or not, would be valid as law. 
 
 The discussion ended on March 24th with a complete triumph for the 
 radicals. On that date a bill was passed which dissolved all existing 
 assem.blies in the French West Indies, and opened the suffrage for their 
 replacement to all citizens, regardless of color. Technically the law of 
 September 24th was not repealed, but practically the result was the 
 same.^^ No colonial assembly could now be chosen, in San Domingo 
 at least, which would not be controlled by the advocates of negro suf- 
 frage. The law further provided that new civil commissioners were to 
 supersede those sent out the previous fall, with the widest possible dis- 
 cretion in the administration of the law.^^ The law was sanctioned by 
 the king on April 4th, after an attempt on the part of the colonists to 
 secure a veto,^'' and is generally referred to as the law of that date. The 
 commissioners were appointed and sailed in July. 
 
 " Most of the smaller West Indian colonies had endorsed mulatto suffrage at an 
 irregular congress held during the preceding winter. 
 
 '* The law did not, as was generally understood, prohibit race qualifications for 
 suffrage in the future. It only guaranteed the free negroes a share in the formation of 
 new assemblies which should formulate the law for the future in accordance with the 
 law of September 24th, subject only to the royal veto. This point was, however, 
 ignored by the commissioners sent out to enforce the law, who treated it as an 
 absolute prohibition of race discrimination. 
 
 " For debates on this bill see Moniteur, XI, 689-92, 694-5, 697-700, 703-7, 714-16, 
 717-20,723-4. 
 
 2« Garran op. cit., Ill, 32-3. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 The Legislative Assembly and the Slave Trade 
 The legislation just described gave the final answer, so far as the 
 Revolution was concerned, to the question of the civil status of free 
 negroes. The free negro and the white man were placed on an equal 
 footing and left to work out their future relations for themselves. But 
 the slavery question remained closed, and no one seemed interested to 
 reopen it. After March 24, 1792, all reports and petitions relative to 
 the internal affairs of the colonies were referred to their appropriate com- 
 mittees from which they never emerged. For the rebelHon of the slaves 
 the Legislative Assembly had no remedy HuT the sword, and scarcely a 
 sTrigle voice was lifted in protest. By consent of all parties Dupont de 
 Nemours' legal fiction of the perpetual minority of the slaves (see above, 
 p. 52) stood as the final solution of the problem which they created. 
 
 One other phase of the negro question, however, remained to cause 
 vexation. This was the attempt of a few of the radicals to induce the 
 assembly to abolish the slave trade, or at least to withdraw the bounties 
 provided for its encouragement. It will be remembered that on March 
 8th, 1790, the Constituent Assembly had refused a hearing to Mirabeau 
 and other opponents of the slave trade and had declared the colonists 
 and their property under the special protection of the nation. After 
 this defeat the Friends of the Blacks did not try to reopen the question 
 of the slave trade till the spring of 1792, and it attracted no attention 
 from the public. In fact opposition to this evil was developing faster 
 abroad than at home. On February 24th, 1792, Denmark abolished the 
 trade, effective in 1803, and on April 3d the English House of Commons 
 passed a resolution in favor of gradual aboUtion. The latter action gave 
 opportunity for a revival of the issue in France. On April 10th, 1792, 
 the Assembly passed a motion calling on the committees on commerce 
 and on colonies to render an early report of a plan for the aboHtion of the 
 trade. The committees appointed a subcommittee to prepare the plan, 
 but they never reported it to the Assembly.^ 
 
 We find no further reference to the question in the proceedings of the 
 Legislative Assembly till the ever memorable night of August 9th and 
 
 1 Gerbaux et Schmidt, op. cit., II, 739. 
 
THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 73 
 
 10th, 1792. At .2:30 on the morning of the 10th the Assembly turned 
 its attention from the stirring scenes which surrounded it to the question 
 of aboKshing the slave trade, or withdrawing the bounties which fostered 
 it. The discussion was soon interrupted by the famous report from the 
 Minister of Justice to the effect that the king was in danger and must 
 be brought to the Assembly Hall for protection. This episode of course 
 put an end to the discussion of the slave trade for that session.^ On 
 August 11th the Assembly voted to suppress the bounty of forty livres 
 per ton which had been paid to French vessels engaged in the trade. 
 Whether this law also suppressed the bounty of from 160 to 200 livres per 
 slave which was paid in addition to the tonnage bounty, is not clear, 
 though it is evident that such was the intention of the Assembly.^ 
 
 On the 18th another motion to suppress the trade was referred to 
 the Committees on Commerce, Agriculture, and Marine. These com- 
 mittees dared not make an adverse report, so agreed to make no report 
 at all unless they should be compelled to do so, and in that case to recom- 
 mend that the question be laid over for the Convention to settle, on the 
 ground that the latter body would contain colonial delegates.^ The 
 report was never called for and the committee continued its policy of 
 keeping the issue smothered. Even when petitions were presented by 
 merchants who had what the committee considered good claims for 
 bounties, its members were afraid to reopen the issue by recommending 
 payment, and advised the petitioners if they could not get a settlement 
 from the ministry to wait and appeal to the Convention.^ 
 
 ' Moniteur, XIII, 378; Arch, pari., XLVII, 626. 
 
 3 Arch, pari., XL VIII, 27; Gerbauxet Schmidt, op. cit., II, 812, n. 
 
 * Gerbaux et Schmidt, op. cit., II, 808-9; Arch. pari. XLVIII, 360. 
 
 »7Wrf.,Il,812. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 The Work of the Convention 
 
 In the Convention the negro question was never an issue between . 
 parties and received comparatively little attention. Absorbed in the 
 problems of the foreign war, and at first containing a large number of 
 members who were opposed to radical action, it was disposed, even 
 more than was the Legislative, to leave the colonies and their French 
 ofi&cials to solve their own problems with a minimum of legislative inter- 
 ference. When finally it did turn its attention to the negro question, 
 its decision was quickly made. 
 
 As in the previous assemblies, the property interests were in control 
 of the important committees. Throughout the winter and spring of 
 1793 the new Committee on Commerce was engaged in correspondence 
 with the Minister of the Interior concerning the claims for slave trade 
 bounties to which reference was made in the preceding chapter. The 
 committee was anxious to secure the payment of these claims, but still 
 more anxious to keep the question of the slave trade out of the Conven- 
 tion.^ Finally, on July 27th, 1793, the Minister appealed to the Con- 
 vention for a decision, and recommended that the bounties be suppressed. 
 Gregoire made a plea in support of the proposal, and a law abolishing all 
 the boimties was passed, apparently without opposition. Another 
 vain attempt was made at this time to prohibit the trade entirely.^ 
 
 On September 19th the committee again came to the aid of the claim- 
 ants with an explanatory decree providing for the payment of bounties 
 accrued before the date of their suppression. This, however, failed of 
 passage, and such payments were specifically prohibited.^ 
 
 Meanwhile there were slight but growing indications of interest in 
 the question of slavery. The correspondence of representatives of the 
 colonial interest bears witness to a great increase in anti-slavery senti- 
 ment at the time of the fall of the king. A commissioner of the colonial 
 assembly wrote: "Only one spirit governs here; it is horror for slavery 
 
 1 Gerbaux et Schmidt, op. ciL, III, 702, 712; IV, 14, 100-1, 118, 128, 130. 
 
 2 Journal de debats et de decrets, July 28, 1793, 347. (The Journal is here a 
 source for the Moniteur.) Courrier de I'egalite, July 28, 1793, 219. Arch, pari., 
 LXIX, 580. 
 
 3 Arch. pari. LXXIV, 408-9. 
 
THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 75 
 
 and enthusiasm for liberty! It is a frenzy which turns the heads of all, 
 and it is growing. "^ 
 
 On March 5th, 1793, the Convention passed a law providing for the 
 defense of the colonics, one clause of which was of interest in connection 
 with our problem: 
 
 "The national commissioners and general governors are authorized 
 to make provisionally all the changes in the government and discipline 
 of the slave-plantations which they may judge necessary for the main- 
 tenance of peace in the colonies."-^ Apparently this action took the 
 colonists by surprise, and passed without opposition, but they succeeded 
 in delaying its promulgation till the middle of the following summer.^ 
 
 In the attack on the Gironde, and especially on Brissot, colonial 
 representatives took a leading part. The identification of the negro 
 rebels and mulattoes with royalism in the islands was brought up against 
 Brissot, and flags with royal symbols, taken from the negroes, were pro- 
 duced in court,'' 
 
 But in spite of this, on June 3d, 1793, the Jacobin Club gave an 
 enthusiastic welcome to a deputation of colonists, chiefly mulattoes, who 
 marched in with banner and martial music to present their application 
 for membership, the most honored of them all being a "petite fllle" 
 1 14 years of age, who desired to take the civic oath. The rules were sus- 
 pended to permit the immediate admission of the aged mulattress to 
 membership, and the President gave the fraternal kiss to the entire depu- 
 tation.^ The next day the same delegation paraded before the Conven- 
 tion and presented a tri-colored banner, symbo ic of the union of whites, 
 blacks, and mulattoes, and a petition for the abolition of slavery.. At 
 the appearance of the aged mother the entire assembly arose, and the 
 President was instructed to give her the fraternal kiss. On motion of 
 Gregoire, the petition was referred to a comjnittee with instructions that 
 an early report be rendered, and the deputation was honored with special 
 mention in the minutes.^ The Convention's interest was evidently 
 slight, for when the committee rendered no report, the question was al- 
 lowed to slumber till the following February. 
 
 * Garran, op. cit., IV, 474. 
 " Arch. pari. LIX, 627. 
 
 • Garran, op. cit., IV, 491-2. 
 '/Wrf., IV, 491-501. 
 
 ' Journal des debats de la societe des Jacobins, 5 juin 1793, 5. 
 ^ Moniteur, XVI, 568. 
 
76 THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 
 
 Meanwhile the law of April 4th had reached the colonies, where it 
 had results differing widely in accordance with local conditions. In 
 Martinique it was accepted without oppositions^ while in Guadeloupe 
 the whites refused to accept the law and mulattoes who based protests 
 upon it were thrown into prison by the governor." 
 
 In San Domingo conditions went from bad to worse. The colonial 
 assembly received the lav/ with outward submission, and issued a procla- 
 mation summoning all persons to give obedience to it.^^ But as the law 
 simply provided for negro suffrage in elections for a new assembly and the 
 existing assembly did not dissolve itself nor order new elections, its 
 acquiescence in the law was only form.al. The three-cornered M^ar be- 
 tween slaves, mulattoes and whites raged on. 
 
 The new civil commissioners, Sonthonax, Polverel, and Ailhaud, who 
 arrived in September, were all identified with the radical Jacobin party.^^ 
 Ailhaud played no part of importance, and soon returned to France. 
 The other two from the first displayed the same unscrupulous energy 
 which characterized the deputies on mission sent out in France by the 
 Convention a few ro.onths later. They dissolved the Assembly, and in- 
 stead of ordering new elections in accordance with the law of April 4th, 
 appointed a temporary commission, composed in part of free negroes and 
 mulattoes, to take its place. They deported the former governor, the 
 new governor who came out with them, and a great number of officials 
 and private citizens. They won some successes against the rebel negroes, 
 but on the whole made little progress in a miHtary way, for the climate 
 proved so deadly that two months after their arrival less than one-half 
 their troops were fit for duty. 
 
 In April, 1793, at the head of an army of French troops and mulattoes 
 they bombarded and captured Port-au-Prince, which had been holding 
 out against the combined forces of the mulattoes and the aristocrats 
 for over a year. In June they quarreled with a new governor, Galbaud, 
 and in attempting to deport him lost the support of most of the soldiery. 
 As the people of Cap Franfais, where the incident occurred, had already 
 turned against them, this incident started another civil disturbance in 
 which Cap Franjais, the metropolis of the island, was alm.ost destroyed. 
 
 1° Memoire justicatif des hommes de couleur de la Martinique . . . contenant 
 I'histoire des hommes de couleur dans les colonies frangaises, 59-61. 
 
 1^ Pardon, La Guadeloupe, 85. 
 
 '2 Blanchelande, Discours justicatif, 53-6. 
 
 " An attempt to secure the appointment of the mulatto Raimond as one of the 
 commissioners had been defeated by the activity of representatives of the colonial 
 assembly. Garran, op. ciL, III, 128. 
 
THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 77 
 
 The commissioners won the victory, but only by the desperate expedient 
 of calling to their assistance several thousand revolted slaves, and re- 
 warding them with their liberty. 
 
 This emergency measure changed the entire situation, and led directly 
 to the emancipation of the slaves throughout the colony. The commis- 
 sioners had started out with no overt intention of opposing slavery. 
 Indeed in an address delivered immediately after their arrival Sonthonax 
 had spoken thus: 
 
 "We declare that only colonial assemblies, constitutionally formed 
 have the right to free the slaves. 
 
 "We declare that slavery is necessary to the prosperity of the colonies, 
 and that it is neither in accordance with the principles nor with the wish 
 of the National Assembly of France to touch the prerogative of the 
 colonists in this matter. "^* 
 
 In December, however, Sonthonax wrote a letter urging the Con- 
 vention to take steps toward a general emancipation.^^ In May the 
 commissioners issued a code for the regulation of slavery, which, though 
 extremely harsh, marked an improvement over the old regime.^^ Now in 
 the midst of the struggle for Cap Francais, their need of military assis- 
 tance precipitated a complete change of policy. Driven to the hills 
 above the city, confronted by the dominant faction of the whites and the 
 mutinous soldiery, with the revolted slaves and the hostile forces of Spain 
 behind them and the threat of English invasion hanging over their 
 heads, they turned to their only resource. They issued on June 21st, 
 1793, a proclamation which offered liberty to all negro warriors who 
 would fight against the Spanish or any other enemies of the repubhc. 
 The new freedmen were promised all the rights of French citizens. This 
 measure applied only to the negroes who had been terrorizing the country 
 for the past two years, but at the same time the commissioners announced 
 a new set of reforms in the conditions surrounding the slaves, and 
 indicated their purpose to work toward a general emancipation. It was 
 hardly possible, if they had wished, to grant freedom to rebels and 
 refuse it to the faithful slaves whose labor still supported the country. 
 As a colonial deputy reported the situation to the Convention some 
 months later, 
 
 "The greater part of the North had been in insurrection for two 
 years, and . . . there was no hope of making them return to their 
 
 " Sciout, Les commissaires Sonthonax et Polverel, Rev. quest, hist., LXIV, 427. 
 1' Stoddard, The French Revolution in San Domingo, 205. 
 " Garran, op. ciL, IV, 30-2. 
 
78 THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 
 
 work; part of the others had been given their liberty as a reward for 
 having defended the laws of France and the representatives of the 
 Republic against Galbaud and his accomplices; but all the men claimed 
 to be warriors and wished to obtain their liberty in that way. There 
 remained only the women and children; for these they asked now another 
 act of favor — they said, 'it is not by the fault of our women that they 
 have not been able to arm themselves for France. Should the weakness 
 of their sex be punished? ... As for the children, they are our own 
 blood, ... to keep them in slavery is to condemn us to eternal 
 misery.' "^^ 
 
 The commissioners soon carried their work to its logical conclusion. 
 On July 11th, 1793, they emancipated the wives and children of the 
 newly freed negroes, provided special facilities for transmuting their 
 irregular family relations into holy matrimony, and reported to the 
 Convention that civilization was making great headway. Compensation 
 was granted to the owners of female slaves who obtained their freedom 
 by marrying free men. Finally on August 29th Sonthonax proclaimed 
 a general emancipation in the North, without consulting his colleague. 
 Polverel, who was in charge in the West, had two days previously pro- 
 claimed a sort of conditional emancipation for such slaves as would either 
 re-enter on the cultivation of the abandoned plantations or enlist in the 
 army. Sonthonax's action made it impossible for him to maintain half- 
 way measures, and on September 21st with much ceremony he proclaimed 
 all the slaves free. Having previously declared that the commissioners 
 had no authority to do this, he sought to give his action a show of legality 
 by opening registers for the white proprietors to emancipate their slaves 
 "voluntarily."^' 
 
 Meanwhile, on July 16th, 1793, the colonists deported by Sonthonax 
 and Polverel had secured from the Convention a decree summoning the 
 commissioners to return and face charges. The news of this action 
 reached San Domingo in the autumn, but instead of complying the com- 
 missioners caused deputies to the National Convention to be elected, 
 and sent them to Paris to plead their cause. 
 
 On February 3d, 1794, three of these deputies, a negro, a mulatto, and 
 a white man, appeared before the Convention. They were received with 
 
 " Compte rendu par Dufay, Moniteur, XIX, 390. 
 
 " The above account of the history of San Domingo under the commissioners is 
 drawn chiefly from Sciout, Les commissaires Sonthonax et Polverel, Rev. quest, hist., 
 LXIV, 399-470, supplemented by Castonnet des Fois, La perte d'une colonic; Stoddard, 
 op. ciL; Schoelcher, Vie de Toussaint Louverture; and the Report of Garran to which 
 frequent reference has been made. 
 
THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 79 
 
 the greatest enthusiasm. Lacroix said, ''For a long time the assembly 
 has wished to have in its midst the men of color who have been oppressed 
 so many years. Today it has two; I demand that their entry be cele- 
 brated by the fraternal embrace of the President." This was decreed, 
 and the ceremony duly foUowed.^^ 
 
 The next day one of these deputies made a brief report on conditions 
 in San Domingo, attributing the woes of the colony to intrigues of white 
 colonists with England and Spain. The negroes, he represented, had 
 made possible the defeat of these schemes and in recompense had asked 
 and received their liberty.^'" 
 
 The scene which followed can best be described in the words of a 
 contemporary joumaHst: 
 
 "The orator urged the Convention to confirm this, promise and to 
 give the colonies the full benefits of Hberty and equality. 
 
 Levasseur: 'I demand that the Convention, not yielding to a wave 
 of enthusiasm but to the principles of justice, faithful to the declaration 
 of the rights of man, decree that from this moment slavery is aboUshed 
 throughout the territory of the RepubHc. San Domingo is a part 
 of this territory, and yet we have slavery in San Domingo. I 
 demand then that all men shall be free without distinction of color.' 
 
 Lacroix (d'Eure et Loir): 'In laboring on the constitution of the 
 French people, we have not given attention to the unfortunate colored 
 people. Posterity will have a great criticism to make against us in this 
 matter, but we ought to make reparation for it. . . . It is time for us 
 to rise to the height of the principles of liberty and equality. ... In 
 performing this act of justice you will give a splendid example to the 
 colored slaves in the English and Spanish colonies. The colored people 
 like ourselves have broken their chains; we have broken ours; we have 
 not wished to submit to the yoke of any master; grant them the same 
 blessing. ' 
 
 Levasseur: 'If it were possible to place before the eyes of the Con- 
 vention the distressing picture of the evils of slavery, I would make it 
 shudder at the aristocracy practiced in our colonies by certain white 
 men.' 
 
 Lacroix: 'Mr. President, do not allow the Convention to dishonor 
 itself by a long discussion. ' 
 
 The Assembly rose by acclamation. The President pronounced the 
 abolition of slavery, in the midst of applause and cries a thousand times 
 
 " Moniteur, XIX, 387. 
 "> Ibid., XJX, 387; 389-95. 
 
80 THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 
 
 repeated of 'Vive la Republique, vive la Convention, vive la Montagne!' 
 
 The two colored deputies were at the tribune. They embraced each 
 other. Lacroix led them to the President, who gave them the fraternal 
 kiss. They were then embraced in turn by all the deputies. . . . 
 Danton : 
 
 'Representatives of the French people, until today we have been 
 establishing liberty as egoists for ourselves alone. But now we proclaim 
 it in the face of the universe, and the generations will find their glory in 
 this decree. Yesterday, when the President gave the fraternal kiss to 
 the deputies of color, I saw the moment when the Convention should 
 establish the liberty of our brothers. The session yesterday was too 
 small in numbers. . . . Today the Englishman is dead. ... In vain 
 Pitt and his accomplices will wish by political measures to prevent the 
 realization of this benefit, they will come to naught, and France will 
 recover the rank and influence which are assured by its energy, its 
 territory, and ... its population.' "^^ 
 
 After nearly five years of conflict the principles of equality and liberty 
 had triumphed, and nearly a million slaves were suddenly transformed 
 into citizens of France. Here, if anywhere, the Convention allowed 
 democratic enthusiasm to override prudence. And yet there are indica- 
 tions that the Assembly was not acting in entire forgetfulness of interests 
 more tangible than the principles of equality and liberty. It may seem 
 ungenerous to point out that the boon of freedom was not bestowed upon 
 the negroes of San Domingo till after they had extorted it by force from 
 the hands of the Convention's agents. The hopelessness of any attempt 
 to undo what Sonthonax and Polverel had done may not have been 
 apparent in 1794, as it became when Napoleon undertook the task. 
 But Danton's cry of triumph, "The Englishman is dead!" and Lacroix's 
 vision of Enghsh and Spanish slaves in arms against their masters were 
 no mere flashes of oratory. Emancipation was an accomplished fact 
 in San Domingo, and in the smaller colonies it had become an act of 
 military expediency. War with England had been declared a year be- 
 fore, and the naval inferiority of France was already apparent. Without 
 naval defense the loss of the smaller West Indian islands was inevitable; 
 indeed both Guadeloupe and Martinique were destined to fall into 
 Enghsh hands before the news of this law reached them. San Domingo 
 was the only colony with sufficient population and territory to ofi^er any 
 
 "Moniteur, XIX, 387-8. See also Journal des debats et des decrets, No. 503, 
 221-9; Journal de la montagne, No. 84, 672. 
 
THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 81 
 
 hope of successful resistance. To yield complete freedom to the negroes 
 there offered the greatest possible hope of arousing their resistance to 
 the British occupation of San Domingo, and there was a chance that 
 the news of emancipation might incite negro rebellions in the smaller 
 colonies and in the possessions of England herself .^^ 
 
 How far these considerations influenced the action of the Convention 
 we cannot tell. The journaHstic accounts quoted above give the incident 
 all the appearance of a genuine and spontaneous outburst of enthusiasm. 
 Yet the journaHsm of the Terror was prone to exaggerate the elements 
 of emotion and self-denial, and Danton's and Lacroix's remarks were 
 certainly premeditated. 
 
 Whatever may have been the purpose of the law, the results justified 
 it. In spite of the efforts of the colonists it was promulgated without 
 prolonged delay .^^ In San Domingo it made no change in the existing 
 regime. In parts of the island a rigid system of discipline kept a portion 
 of the negroes at work. Martinique was captured by the British on 
 March 22d, 1794, and the law was not pubhshed there. The East 
 Indian colonies forbade the slave trade in 1794, but refused to accept the 
 law of emancipation, and expelled the commissioners who brought it. 
 They maintained a practical state of independence till Napoleon's decree 
 of 1802 restoring slavery reached them.^* 
 
 In Guadeloupe the prediction of Danton came nearest to fulfillment. 
 Like Martinique the colony fell into British hands before the emancipa- 
 tion law arrived, but a vigorous agent of the Republic, Victor Hugues, 
 was able to communicate it to the negro population and rouse them to 
 cooperate with his tiny army. The British, anticipating nothing of the 
 sort, had drawn off a large part of their garrison, and Hugues was able 
 to reconquer and hold the island. Economically the colony was ruined, 
 but from a military standpoint the achievement was important, as 
 Guadeloupe became a rendezvous for French privateers and was a thorn 
 in the side of the British for sixteen years.^^ 
 
 ^ Cf. Cochin, Results of Emancipation, 38-9; Revolutions de Paris, XVII, 506-8, 
 
 *'"Chaque jour les colons de Paris et leurs emissaires repetent au coniit6 de 
 salut public que ce decret est impolitic ue, que I'execution en est impossible; n'ayant 
 pas reussi par ces moyens, ils denoncent tous les agens designes pour le porter dans les 
 colonies, afin d'empecher leur depart." Testimony of a member of the Committee 
 of Public Safety before the Convention, March 9, 1794. Moniteur, XIX, 666. 
 
 «* Cochin, op. cit., 38-9. 
 
 ^ Cochin, op. cit., 40-2; Mahan, A.T., Influence of Sea Power upon the French 
 Revolution, II, 115-9; Roloff, Die Kolonial Politik Napoleon's I, 19. 
 
82 THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 
 
 In Guyana the abolition of slavery for a short time produced the 
 woeful consequences predicted by the colonists before its passage and 
 generally attributed to it by modern historians. The negroes abandoned 
 their labors, and the resulting disturbances, coinciding with the loss of 
 an annual subsidy from France by which the government had been sup- 
 ported, threatened to reduce the colony to anarchy and bankruptcy. 
 The government was soon able, however, to establish a system of forced 
 labor and put down marronage, and in a few years order and prosperity 
 returned, Hugues was sent here after completing his work in Guade- 
 loupe and ruled the colony with great success, though harshly, till it 
 was captured by the British and Portuguese in ISOP.^^ 
 
 "Roloff, op. ciL,2\, 211. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 Conclusion 
 
 As indicated at the outset of our discussion, the problem we have been 
 studying was a minor one, and never aroused a great deal of public inter- 
 est. Toward the close of the period some enthusiasm arose from the 
 superficial parallel between the individual liberty of which the negroes 
 were deprived, and the political liberty which was the fetich of revolu- 
 tionary France. The "aristocrats of the skin" became intensely un- 
 popular. But there is no evidence of an attitude comparable to the 
 deepseated abhorrence of slavery which arose a generation or two later in 
 England and the North of the United States. The great majority of 
 Frenchmen in all probability hardly gave it a thought. This was partly 
 because the problem was so remote from their experience. The average 
 man cares very little what happens so long as it does not happen to him, 
 and the sufferings of black men in the slave ships of the Atlantic or on 
 the plantations of the West Indies made no more personal and urgent 
 appeal to the Frenchman of that day than do the stories of famine in 
 India and devastation in Poland to the American of today. Partly also 
 the indifference was due to a weakness which was inherent in the whole 
 humanitarian movement. lit was too intellectual. It was a very 
 genuine interest in the welfare of mankind, but its appeal was addressed 
 to too small a group to work a far-reaching change in the organization of 
 society. \ No army can succeed if it is composed entirely of major gen- 
 erals. Deep-rooted habits and long estabhshed institutions can never 
 be overthrown by the progress of intellectual enlightenment until the 
 nev/ ideas filter down from the class in which they originate to become 
 commonplaces and prejudices in the mind of the man in the street. Eigh- 
 teenth century "philanthropy, " like Roman Stoicism and modern liberal 
 Christianity, had plenty of leaders but a dearth of followers. Not 
 until the Enlightenment emptied its ideas into the great social democratic 
 movements of the second quarter of the nineteenth century did philan- 
 thropy secure a sufficiently broad basis to be effective in righting such 
 ancient and strongly intrenched evils as the one a page of whose history 
 we have been considering. 
 
 As to the treatment of the negro problem by the revolutionary assem- 
 blies, several conclusions are worthy of emphasis. In the first place, 
 
84 THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 
 
 we find no evidence whatever of a tendency to shape legislation in accor- 
 dance with the abstract ideals of equaUty and Hberty, about which so 
 much was said, and to neglect the immediate practical efifects of such 
 action. This tendency was frequently imputed to the revolutionists by 
 contemporaries, and the charge has been repeated thoughtlessly by 
 modern critics. The accusation of fanaticism is a favorite weapon of 
 the antagonists of any sweeping reform, and proves to have in this case 
 no more weight than do most estimates of partisans made by their oppo- 
 nents. In fact the assemblies approached the negro question very deli- 
 cately and hesitatingly, and progress was slow and reaction quick. In 
 the Constituent no reform was accomplished; an the Legislative the 
 hard- won triumph of the Jacobins and Friends of the Blacks brought 
 rehef only to the free negroes and mulattoes, not to the slaves; and when 
 the Convention after sixteen months' delay finally passed a law which 
 struck the shackles from the slaves the time was past when any action 
 on its part could seriously injure the property interests of France or 
 the leading colonies.' Aided by the deadly climate and the deadlier 
 insubordination of the French troops, the negroes of San Domingo had 
 won their liberty before it was granted, and the other West Indian colo- 
 nies were destined to fall into the hands of the enemy before the law 
 could seriously affect them. : For good or for ill, through the corroding 
 influence of its example the Revolution had destroyed slavery in San 
 Domingo and had destroyed the prosperity of the colony, long before 
 the men who directed the course of the movement were ready to apply 
 its principles to the solution of the problem of slavery. The common 
 assimiption, therefore, that the overthrow of the French colonial system, 
 and especially the ruin of San Domingo, was caused by the recklessness of 
 revolutionary assembUes in dealing with slavery, finds no support in the 
 facts. As in the United States in 1863, emancipation in San Domingo was 
 a result, not a cause of civil war. It was a desperate expedient to save the 
 colony from foreign and domestic foes of the repubhc, and as such it was 
 for the time a success. And the extension of the poHcy by the Conven- 
 tion to the smaller colonies was an intelligent act of military expediency, 
 analogous to the spiking of cannon on a lost battlefield. 
 
 The charge of fanaticism on the part of the assemblies breaks down, 
 but to the graver charge of utter indifference to human welfare and com- 
 plete absorption in material interests the verdict must be "guilty." The 
 assemblies were bold enough and radical enough in striking at ancient 
 evils in other fields, how can we account for their weakness and indecision 
 here? In attempting to answer this question, two reasons, aside from 
 
THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 85 
 
 the obvious absorption of public attention by larger issues, suggest 
 themselves, one found in the character of the opposition the negro cause 
 had to meet, the other inherent in the anti-slavery movement itself. 
 
 The strength of the opposition has been brought out so fully in the 
 preceding pages as to require little comment. Fundamentally the issue 
 was between property and principle. In such a contest principle usually 
 triumphs, but only in the long run. The defenders of slavery and the 
 slave trade had eflScient organization, abundant resources, and able lead- 
 ership. They appealed effectively to the interests of different sections 
 of the public, constantly emphasizing the peril to commerce and finance, 
 the menace of unemplo3niient, and the rising cost of living. They knew 
 equally well how to pack the gallery and the floor with howling mobs, and 
 how to control the secret activities of a committee. And as usual proper- 
 ty gained the temporary advantage. 
 
 On the side of the Friends of the Blacks there was also neither feeble- 
 ness of forces nor lack of zeal. Their numbers included several of the 
 most popular intellectual leaders of France, both within and without the 
 assemblies, and their efforts were supported, before the close of the cam- 
 paign in the Constituent, by the most powerful political machine the 
 modern world had yet produced, the Jacobin Club of Paris and its pro- 
 vincial branches. The mulatto lobby headed by Raimond was efficient 
 and untiring. Neither time, labor nor money was spared in the effort to 
 secure at least some small benefit for the black man from the new poHtical 
 gospel. And yet their campaign was essentially weak. They labored 
 under a moral difficulty which was inherent in the philosophy of the 
 Enlightenment, the worship of the absolute. The modern doctrine of 
 ethical relativity, the conception that conduct which is right in one 
 country or in one century may be wrong in another, was entirely foreign 
 to their thought. Slavery was an absolute wrong, and no consideration 
 of the impracticability of immediate emancipation, no fear of greater evils 
 to follow its abolition, could make it right for a single day. As a result, 
 they were constantly placed under the necessity of choosing between 
 loyalty to their principles and the adoption of a policy dictated by com- 
 mon sense. The inevitable result of a succession of such choices is either 
 blind fanaticism and disregard of common sense or the destruction of the 
 force of ethical considerations. This was the fatal weakness of the negro- 
 phile cause. For a party which must make its appeal to moral principles 
 against self-interest the situation was impossible. They could not fol- 
 low their own argument to its logical conclusion. Once they had agreed 
 to the continuation of slavery, which both sides agreed to be immoral. 
 
86 THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 
 
 they destroyed the force of their argument on moral grounds against the 
 slave trade and the subordination of the mulattoes. As they had no 
 other argument, they were left in a hopelessly vulnerable position.^ 
 And in this respect the weakness of the Friends of the Blacks was the 
 weakness of the Revolution itself, which could condemn but could not 
 tolerate, could destroy but could not compromise. ■* 
 
 ^ Cf. Malouet's argument above, p. 47, and Mosneron's speech in the Jacobin 
 Club, in Aulard, La Societe des Jacobins, I, 9-17. 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 (Titles which stand without comment are those of works of minor importance 
 for the purposes of this study.) 
 
 A. Collections of Documents, Memoirs, Contemporary Books 
 
 Archives parlementaires de 1787 a 1860, ed. Mavidal et Laurent. (First Series, 
 1789-99, 82 volumes published.) Paris, 1879-. 
 
 The merits and defects of this publication are so well known as scarcely to require 
 comment. In the earlier volumes an attempt was made to reconstruct the proceed- 
 ings in the assemblies by combining material from the journals and from the proces- 
 verbal. As this task was performed in an extremely uncritical way, and no references 
 to sources were given, the results are not reliable. Nevertheless, the compilation is 
 of immense service when used with proper care, as it is well indexed, and the material 
 used in constructing its accounts can generally be identified. Numerous documents 
 are reprinted as appendices to the accounts of parliamentary sessions. These are 
 textually very accurate, though frequently misplaced. From volume 72 the attempt 
 to reconstruct the proceedings is abandoned and we are given the proces-verbal of the 
 Convention, together with the relevant extracts from the journals and other docu- 
 ments, all being carefully identified. These later volumes are scholarly in every way. 
 
 Assemblee Nationale, Proces-verbal de. 75 volumes, Paris, 1789-91. Minutes 
 of the Assembly, text of laws, and numerous documents. 
 
 Aulard, F. A. La Societ6 des Jacobins. Recueil de documents pour I'histoire 
 du Club des Jacobins de Paris. (Collection de documents relatiis a I'histoire de Paris 
 pendant la Revolution franfaise.) 6 volumes; Paris, 1889 ff. Very complete and 
 scholarly in every way. 
 
 Brissot, Jacques Pierre (dit de Warville). Correspondance et papiers precedes 
 d'un avertissement et d'une notice sur sa vie. Par CI. Perroud. Paris, 1911. 
 
 — Memoires (1754-93), publi6es avec etude critique et notes, par CI. Perroud. 
 Paris, n.d. 
 
 Clarkson, Thomas. History of the Rise, Progress, and Accomplishment of the 
 Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament. 2 volumes, Phila- 
 delphia, 1808. Very full and very valuable narrative, by one who played a leader's 
 part in the events he describes. 
 
 Condorcet, Marie Jean Antoine Nicolas Caritat, Marquis de. Oeuvres de. 
 Publiees par A. Condorcet O'Connor et F. Arago. 12 vols. Paris, 1847-9. 
 
 I Dispacci degli Ambasciatori Veneti alia corte di Francia durante la Rivoluaione. 
 Ed. Massimo Kovalevsky. Vol. I, Torino, 1895. (Second volume never published.) 
 A shrewd and discriminating commentary on the course of events in France, from 
 the beginning of the revolution to the spring of 1793. 
 
 Duquesnoy, Adrien C3T)rien. Journal de . . . sur I'Assemblee constituante, 
 3 mai, 1789—3 avril, 1790. 2 vols. Paris, 1894. 
 
 Garran de Coulon, J. Ph. Rapport sur les troubles de Saint-Domingue, fait au 
 nom de la commission des colonies, des comites de salut public, de legislation et de 
 marine, reunis. 4 vols. Paris, An V, VI. 
 
88 THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 
 
 This report, prepared for the information of the Convention, was based on a very 
 exhaustive and careful study of the material available for study a few years after the 
 disorders in San Domingo began. Although Garran's work shows partisanship, his 
 evident intention was to present the truth, and his work was of a high order of merit. 
 As many of the documents he used are no longer available, the report is one of the most 
 important sources for the history of the early years of the revolution in San Domingo. 
 It is also of considerable value for events in France. 
 
 Gerbaux et Schmidt. Proces-verbaux des comites d'agriculture et de commerce 
 de la constituante, de la legislative, et de la convention. (Collection de documents 
 in6dits sur I'histoire economique de la revolution frangaise.) 4 vols. Paris, 1906 ff. 
 
 Gr^goire, Henri. Memoires. 2 vols. Paris, 1840. Written about 1808. 
 
 Jallet. Journal inedit de . . . , Cure de Cherigne, depute du clerge du Poitou 
 aux fitats-generaux de 1789, precede d'une Notice Historique par J. J. Breth6. Fon- 
 tenay le Comte, 1871. 
 
 Lameth, Alexandre Theodore Victor, comte de. Histoire de I'Assemblee con- 
 stituante. 2 vols. Paris, 1828-9. 
 
 Malouet, V. P. Collection de Memoires sur les colonies. 5 vols. Paris, An X. 
 
 Mirabeau, Honore Gabriel Riqueti, Comte de. Mdmoires de . . . , ecrits par 
 lui-mSme, par son pere, son oncle et son fils adoptif. 8 vols. Paris, 1841. 
 
 Moreau de Saint-Mery. Lois et constitutions des colonies. 6 vols. Paris, 1789. 
 A very extensive collection of laws and administrative edicts in force in the colonies at 
 the beginning of the revolutionary era, prepared by the foremost contemporary author- 
 ity on colonial affairs. 
 
 B. Contemporary Journals 
 
 L'Ami des Patriotes ou le Defenseur de la Revolution. Nov. 27, 1790, to Sept. 
 27, 1791. (First part ed. Duquesnoy.) 
 
 Courrier de Provence. July 24, 1789, to Sept. 30, 1791. Triweekly. Successor 
 to the Lettres du Comte de Mirabeau a ses Commetans. On account of Mirabeau's 
 connection with the Friends of the Blacks this journal is of considerable value for the 
 purposes of this study, especially for 1789 and the first half of 1790. 
 
 Gazette de Paris. Oct. 1, 1789, to Aug. 10, 1792. Organ of the colonial interests, 
 but of comparatively slight importance. 
 
 Gazette nationale ou le Moniteur universel. Nov. 24, 1789, to 6 niv6se, An VIII. 
 An introduction and 93 artificial numbers covering the period from May 3 to Nov. 23, 
 1789, were composed in 1795; these are included in reprints but have not been used as 
 source material for this study. The standard source for the debates. References are 
 to the familiar reprint of 1858-63. 
 
 Journal des debats de la Societe des Amis de la constitution, s6ante aux Jacobins 
 a Paris. June, 1791 to 24 frimaire, An II. 
 
 Journal des debats et des decrets. Versailles and Paris, Aug. 1789, to 30 floreal, 
 AnV. 
 
 Journal des fitats-Generaux. 35 vols., June 1, 1789, to September 30, 1791- 
 with an introduction in one volume, April 27 to May 30, 1789. (Le Hodey de Sault- 
 chevreuil.) From Volume 4 the title adds "aujourd 'hui Assemblee nationale per- 
 manente, " and from Volume 20, adds " ou Journal logographique. " Commonly called 
 the Logographe. I have followed Aulard's practice of referring to the publication as 
 "Le Hodey." 
 
THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 
 
 89 
 
 This is the best single source for the debates in the Constituent. Speeches as a 
 rule are reported more fully than in the Moniteur, and numerous documents are re- 
 printed. The extreme rarity of the publication has prevented its being utilized as 
 generally as its merits would lead one to expect. 
 
 Journal de la montagne, June 1, 1793 to 28 brumaire, An III. 
 
 Le Hodey. See Journal des Etats-Generaux. 
 
 Moniteur. See Gazette nationale. 
 
 Le Point du jour ou resultat de ce qui s'est passe la veille a I'Assemblee nationale. 
 June 1, 1789 to Oct. 1, 1791. After the Moniteur and Le Hodey the most important 
 source for debates in the Constituent, but much less full than the other two. 
 
 Premiere (to Dix-neuvieme) Lettre du comte de Mirabeau a ses commetans. (May 
 10 to July 24, 1789.) See Courrier de Provence. 
 
 Revolutions de Paris. July 12, 1789 to 10 ventose, An II. 
 
 C. Pamphlet Liter atxjre 
 The Andrew D. White Library of Cornell University contains a remarkably com- 
 plete collection of pamphets relating to the history of San Domingo during the Revo- 
 lution. Only those which bear directly on the subject of this study are listed here. 
 
 Adresse de I'Assemblee provincial de la partie du Nord de Saint-Domingue a 
 I'Assemblee nationale. Paris, 1790, pp. 23. Reprinted Arch. Pari., XVIII, 561 ff. 
 
 Blanchelande, Philibert Francois Rouxel de. Discours justicatif prononce . . . 
 le 30 nov. 1792, pp. 59. 
 
 Chabanon des Salines, J. C. Denonciation de M. I'abbe Gregoire et de sa lettre 
 duSjuin, 1791. Paris, 1791, pp. 50. 
 
 Chaumette, Anaxagoras. Discours sur I'abolition de I'esclavage. Paris, An II. 
 
 Cocherel, De. Opinion sur I'admission des negres et mulatres libres aux Assem- 
 blees provinciales. Moniteur, December 1, 1789. 
 
 —Observations ... sur la demande des mulatres. Probably written in 
 December, 1789. Reprinted in the Archives parlementaires as an annex to the 
 proceedings of November 28, 1789, an error. (Cf. Brette, Rev. fr. XXLK, 326-45.) 
 
 Collection des adresses et petitions des Citoyens-commergants de la ville de Nantes 
 et des deputes extraordinaires du commerce sur les affaires des colonies. Nantes, 
 1791, pp. 49. 
 
 Cournand, Antoine de. Reponse aux Observations d'un habitant des colonies 
 sur le memoire en faveur des gens de couleur de Saint-Domingue, par M. Gregoire. 
 Paris, ?1789, pp. 37. 
 
 Dillon, Arthur. Motifs de la motion faite a I'Assemblee nationale le 4 mars, 1791 . 
 
 Paris, 1791, pp. 3. 
 
 Extrait du proces-verbal de I'assemblee de citoyens libres et proprietaires de 
 couleur des isles et colonies frangaises, constituees sous le titre de Colons Americams. 
 Paris, 1789, pp. 16. 
 
 Gouy d'Arsy, Louis Marthe de. Confession d'un depute dans ses derniers mo- 
 mens. Paris, 1791. Reprinted Arch. Pari., XXXI, 301. 
 
 — Diverses pieces redigees et publiees pendant le temps que les deputes des 
 colonies sesont abstenus des seances de I'Assemblee nationale. Pans, 1791, pp. 4. 
 
 —Extrait logographique de la seance des amis de la constitution de Paris du 
 vendredi 10 juin, 1791, pp. 16. 
 
 —Fragment d'une lettre a ses commetans. Paris, 1791, pp. 12. 
 
90 THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 
 
 — ^Lettre a ses commetans. Paris, 1791, pp. 47. 
 
 — Premiere et demiere lettre a Jean Pierre Brissot, auteur d'un Journal 
 intitule le Patriote frangaise. Paris, 1791, pp. 11. 
 
 — Lettre de M . . . et de Reynaud a I'Assemblee nationale a I'occasion de 
 I'evasion du roi et de la famille royale. Paris, 1791 . 
 
 Gregoire, Henri. Memoire en faveur des gens de couleur ou sang-meles. Paris, 
 1789, pp. 52. 
 
 — Lettre aux philanthropes. Paris, 1790. (Courrier de Provence, XI, 
 115-35.) 
 
 Lettre aux citoyens de couleur et negres libres de Saint-Domingue. Paris, 
 1791. Reprinted Arch, pari., XXVII, 232-4. 
 
 Lettre des deputes de Saint-Domingue a leurs commetans, en date du 12 aoiit, 
 1789. Paris, 1790. 
 
 M6moire justicatif des hommes de couleur de la Martinique. Paris, 1826. 
 
 Page et BruUey. Developpement des causes des troubles et des desastres des 
 colonies frangaises. Paris, 1793. 
 
 Petition nouvelle des citoyens de couleur des isles frangoises a I'Assemblee nation- 
 ale. Paris, 1791, pp. xii, 19. 
 
 P.U.C.P.D.D.L.M. Observations d'un habitant des colonies, sur le memoire 
 en faveur des gens de couleur de Saint-Domingue. Paris, 1789. 
 
 Raimond, Julien. Lettre au Citoyen D. Paris, 1793, pp. 24. 
 
 — Lettre d'un Citoyen detenu pendant quatorze mois et traduit au tribunal 
 revolutionnaire, etc. Paris, An II, pp. 12. 
 
 — M6moire sur les causes des troubles et des desastres de Saint-Domingue. Paris, 
 1793, pp. 66. 
 
 — Observations sur I'origine et les progres due pr6jug^ des colons blancs contre 
 les hommes de couleur. Paris, 1791, pp. 46. 
 
 — Veritable origine des troubles de Saint-Domingue et des differents causes que les 
 ont produits. Paris, 1792, pp. 55. 
 
 Society des Amis des Noirs. Adresse aux amis de I'humanite. Paris, 1790, pp. 4. 
 
 — Adresse a I'assemblee pour I'abolition de la traite des noirs. Paris, 1790, 
 pp.2. 
 
 — Adresse de la . . . 6tablie a Paris. Read before the National Assembly, April 
 10, 1790. Arch, pari, XII, 627-8. 
 
 — Adresse a de la ... a I'Assemblee nationale . . . redigee par E. Claviere. 
 Second edition, Paris, July 10, 1791, pp. xxviii, 318. 
 
 This is by far the most important of the publications of the Society, and one of 
 the most valuable sources for this investigation. See p. 43 above. 
 
 Tausia Bornos. Coup d'oeil impartiel sur les d6crets de I'Assemblee nationale 
 relativement aux colonies. Paris, 1791. 
 
 D. Modern Books 
 
 Boissonnade, P. Saint-Domingue a la veille de la revolution et la question de la 
 rdpresentation aux fitats-generaux. Paris, 1906. Scholarly and exhaustive. 
 
 Castonnet des Fosses, H. La perte d'une colonie. La revolution de Saint- 
 Domingue. A good popular treatment. 
 
 Cochin, A. The Results of Emancipation. Trans, by Mary L. Booth, Boston, 
 1863. Title refers to the emancipation of slaves in the French colonies in 1848. Con- 
 
THE NEGRO QUESTION IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 91 
 
 tains information not otherwise readily accessible concerning the effect in the colonies 
 of the abolition law passed by the Convention. 
 
 D6schamps, L. Les colonies pendant la R6volution, la constituante et la r6forme 
 coloniale. Paris, 1898. A pioneer in this field. Very inaccurate in matters of detail 
 and marred by excessive and uncritical reliance on the Archives Parlementaires. 
 
 Garrett, M. B. The French Colonial Question. 1789-91. Ann Arbor, 1916. 
 This very careful narrative appeared after the present study was in manuscript, hence 
 has been used only for correction of a few details. The best secondary authority in 
 the field. 
 
 MUls, H. E. The Early Years of the French Revolution in San Domingo. 
 Ithaca, 1889. Dry and marred by excessive reliance on the Archives parlementaires 
 but accurate and painstaking. 
 
 Mahan, A. T. The Influence of Sea Power upon History. Boston, 1904. (18th 
 edition.) 
 
 Pardoij. La Guadeloupe depuis sa decouvert6 jusqu'i nos jours. Paris, 1881. 
 
 — La Martinique depuis sa decouverte jusqu'a nos jours. Paris, 1877. 
 
 Peytraud, L. L'Esclavage aux Antilles frangaises avant 1789. Paris, 1897.- 
 An excellent piece of work. 
 
 Rolofi G. Die Kolonialpolitik Napoleon's I. Munich, 1899. 
 
 Schoelcher, V. Vie de Toussaint Louverture. Paris, 1889. Popular in form 
 and exhibits strong partiality for Toussaint and the Revolution. 
 
 Stoddard, T. Lothrop. The French Revolution in San Domingo. Boston and 
 New York, 1914. A semi-popular study of the whole period from 1789 to 1803. The 
 sections dealing with the work of the assemblies from 1789 to 1795 are disappointing; 
 chiefly on account of an inadequate use of published materials, especially of the 
 journals. 
 
 Vaissiere, P. de. Saint-Domingue, la societe et la vie Creoles sous I'ancien 
 regime 1629-1789. Paris, 1909. Excellent. 
 
 E. Periodical Literature 
 
 Brette, A. Les Gens de couleur libres et leurs deputes en 1789. La Revolution 
 frangaise, XXIX, 326-45, 385-407. 
 
 A minute and very able study of the attempt of the mulattoes to gain representa- 
 tion in the Constituent Assembly. 
 
 Cahen, L. Les Amis des noirs et Condorcet. La Revolution frangaise, L, 481- 
 511. 
 
 Sciout, L. La Revolution a Saint-Domingue: Les Commissaires Sonthonax et 
 Polverel. Revue des questions historiques, CXXVIII, 399-470. 
 
 A study of the middle period of the revolution in San Domingo. Valuable for 
 data derived from manuscript sources otherwise not readily accessible but so strongly 
 biased against the revolution as to make its proper use a matter of diflaculty. 
 
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