Slavery and Abolition: A Napoleonic Blind Spot?

Abstract

Napoleon prided himself on being a modernizer, bringing a new sophistication to the lands he conquered by building on the reforms of the French Revolution and introducing French standards of governance, justice and education. But in one sphere, that of colonial policy, that image is tainted. In 1794 France had been the first country in the world to abolish not only the Atlantic slave trade but the institution of slavery itself, proclaiming that the rights of man applied to African slaves as it did to the rest of humanity. It did so in response to war and slave insurrections in France’s Caribbean possessions, which led in turn to the loss of the world’s richest sugar island, Saint-Domingue; and Napoleon was faced with huge military, economic and moral dilemmas. From his very ambivalent response one must conclude that for him colonies were simply a source of profit, and that the issue of slavery and abolition did not deeply concern him. He listened to the colonial lobby and tried to enforce mercantilist solutions; he sent an army to the Caribbean to try — unsuccessfully — to quell the rebellion; and he showed little interest in condemning the slave trade after it was abolished in Britain and the United States. Only in 1815, following his return from Elba, did he sign a decree unambiguously embracing abolition, but by then he was burnishing his liberal credentials in an attempt to woo public opinion. It was a matter of politics, not of belief or morality.

Keywords

• рабство
• аболиционизм
• наполеон бонапарт
• французская революция
• работорговля