The Abolitionist Movement in France

FAIN: FT-10824-70

Daniel P. Resnick
Carnegie Mellon University (Pittsburgh, PA 15213-3815)

Study of the abolitionist movement in France as a case study in the failure of informed, well educated, and influential liberals to translate their commitment to natural rights into a successful political program. The anti-slavery movement was recognized as a mainspring of reform in the French Enlightenment and an important pressure group during the early Revolutionary period, but abolitionsists were unsuccessful in terminating the practice of slavery in the three large Caribbean islands under French control. Even after passage of the Declaration of the Rights of Man, the Revolutionary assemblies were reluctant to consider mulattoes as citizens and were far from ready to emancipate Negro slaves, which led to slave uprisings on the island. Effective emancipation was not carried out until 1848, and then more from the British example and fear of black uprisings than from the internal strength of the French Abolitionist Movement.