![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.portail-esclavage-reunion.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/labolition_de_lesclavage_proclame_a_la_convention.jpg\")
<\/a>Drawing, pen wash, gouache.
Collection of Mus\u00e9e Carnavalet, Histoire de Paris<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Having studied the revolutionary period in Reunion Island in great detail, Claude Wanquet\u2019s work reveals just to what extent the question of abolition remained at the very heart of the problems facing colonists at that time <\/span>. The slave revolt in Saint-Domingue haunted the collective conscience, because the event was well-known to both slaves and slave-owners. However, Nicolas Lemarchand, the island\u2019s unofficial representative of the National Convention between 1793 and 1794 and one of the island\u2019s wealthiest slave-owners, took up the abolitionist cause <\/span>. He did so out of realism, but also out of patriotism, because he was keen not to see the island secede from France, as had happened in Martinique. But following Lemarchand\u2019s claim for compensation for slave-owners, quoting the right to property specified in the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, the island’s colonial assembly shared their concern about the position of its representative in Paris on 12th January 1795. They were therefore all the more relieved when, during a visit to the island, Lemarchand made it clear that he had finally given up his role as representative and moved permanently back to France. He continued to assert his abolitionist convictions, while keeping his slaves in Reunion Island, no doubt so as not to disturb the social climate or to create problems for friends who had been faithful to him and who remained on the island.<\/p>\n The two parliamentarians who represented the island at the Convention in 1795, Jean-Baptiste Detcheverry and Pierre Charles Emanuel Besnard, also supported the decree of 16 Pluvi\u00f4se, Year II across France. However, according to Claude Wanquet, beyond their philanthropic commitment, considerable ambiguity remains, almost to the extent of double standards. On one hand they claimed the long-term importance of abolition, while on the other they insisted on the fundamental importance of ensuring law and order before ever applying the decree in the colony. In particular, they defended the right of colonists to decide for themselves just how best to implement the measure. They therefore welcomed the fact that, immediately after the 1794 decree, commissioners were not sent to implement abolition because, in their view, it would have taken considerable measure and thought to bring about such a social and economic transformation. In fact, they sought above all to ensure the colonists’ autonomy in this decision, for they believed that the realities of life on the island were misunderstood back in Paris. Annoyed by the silence of the colonial assemblies of the Mascarene Islands concerning the abolition decree of 26th January 1796, the French Directory decided to grant extensive powers to commissioners Ren\u00e9 Baco de la Chapelle and Etienne Burnel before sending them to the island for two years. However, Reunionese parliamentarians were particularly hostile to the choice of this latter person, considered far too blunt. Upon their arrival in Port-Louis on 18th June, the first meeting did not go well: the Directory\u2019s envoys swiftly informed the colonial assembly of Isle de France that they were ready to strictly apply the Constitution of Year III, which would transform both islands into French departments, thus de facto abolishing their colonial assemblies. However, before the question of abolition could even been addressed, the colonists had seized both men by force. The commissioners were then sent off to the Philippines, the aim being to keep them away from Paris as long as possible. In fact, they made their way back to France with little difficulty.<\/p>\n While applauding the dismissal of these commissioners, Reunionese parliamentarians would nevertheless assure Paris that the colony had only the very best of intentions, continuing to proclaim their abolitionist convictions. It was especially a question of asserting their patriotism through the geopolitical importance of ensuring that the two islands remain French during their historical struggle for maritime supremacy against England. For them, the Mascarene Islands could also play a key supportive role in the efforts to keep control of the West Indies. Any colonists who, in the name of maintaining social order, refused abolition, ended up isolating themselves from local elected representatives, and in a certain way from Paris too, given that no elections were organised to re-elect their members of parliament. In fact, since 1796, the island had been experiencing a very difficult economic situation, one which had eventually led to the disintegration of all electoral bodies due to the constant fear of an English invasion. In February 1798, news of Bonaparte’s seizing power of the French Directory had the paradoxical impact of actually frightening Reunion\u2019s anti-abolitionists, as they feared that the abolitionist republicans would return to power. At this time, an insurrection broke out in the south: this was caused on one hand to an announcement that those with unpaid taxes would see their assets seized, but on another hand due to a fear of seeing the colonial assembly allied with the English. Among the insurgents, who eventually surrendered, was openly abolitionist Father Lafosse. Arrested, he was expelled from the island along with the other ringleaders.<\/p>\n Abolitionist fears disappeared when Bonaparte rose to power, as in 1802 he decided to officially continue slavery in places where it had not yet been abolished (i.e. the Indian Ocean and Martinique). Two military expeditions were sent simultaneously to quell the troops of Toussaint Louverture in Saint-Domingue and Louis Delgr\u00e8s in Guadeloupe who, to the cry of \u2018Live free or die!\u2019 refused this return to slavery. Although slavery was finally re-established in a bloodbath in Guadeloupe, Saint-Domingue became the first independent black republic in 1804, and was renamed Haiti.<\/p>\n In 1815, at the fall of Napoleon, the Congress of Vienna, which brought together the victors, decided to ban the slave trade. In fact, slave trafficking continued, but in France the subject was still of little interest. The cause was not without risk in the colonies either: in 1823, Cyrille Bissette from Martinique anonymously wrote a pamphlet entitled \u2018De la situation des gens de couleur libres aux Antilles fran\u00e7aises\u2019 (The situation of Freedmen of colour in the French West Indies), which denounced the slave system, demanded civil rights for free blacks, and proposed the progressive repurchase of slaves as well as free schools for those recently liberated. Denounced, he was arrested and sentenced to banishment for life from all French territories. He appealed, but was branded and sentenced to life imprisonment. Following another appeal, he was finally sentenced to ten years of exile from the French colonies.<\/p>\n Unlike France, Great Britain saw major public protests in favour of abolition: petitions, distribution of leaflets and even the boycott of goods coming from the slave colonies. It must be said that from the end of the 17th century, there was greater freedom of expression there. This early mobilisation led Great Britain to abolish the slave trade as early as 1807, and then slavery in 1833. Abolitionism was led by William Wilberforce and Thomas Clarkson, and the latter succeeded in organising two world anti-slavery conventions, held in London in 1840 and 1843. In France, it was through the Protestant movement that the Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade was created by the Society of Christian Morality. In the 1820s, Abb\u00e9 Gr\u00e9goire once again took up his fight against slavery that had started during the Revolution. But it was only after the British abolition of slavery that the French Society for the Abolition of Slavery finally saw the light of day in 1834. Although it held no political sway under the July Monarchy, its members included Lamartine, Tocqueville and Victor Schoelcher. In March 1848, Cyrille Bissette brought together the Society of the Friends of the Blacks, which included personalities such as Alexandre Dumas, both father and son. The leaders of this club invited Victor Schoelcher to come and share his thoughts on abolition, but he refused because he considered the request inappropriate. Schoelcher and Bissette, although bound by the same abolitionist struggle, were thus fiercely opposed.<\/p>\n All dignitaries in Reunion Island were deeply hostile to the abolition of slavery. Considered an abolitionist, Father Alexandre Monnet<\/p>\n was mercilessly demanded by Governor Gra\u00ebb<\/p>\n to leave the island in September 1847. There were few people within this conservative island society who were not completely resolute or unyielding on the subject. In his work Bourbon Picturesque, writer Eug\u00e8ne Dayot described the realities of hunting down escaped slaves, but while he did not oppose the abolition of slavery, he still refused any hasty application of it until the slaves had benefitted from a certain level of education. Close to the Franco-Cr\u00e9ole movement <\/span>, he defended the freedom of the press so that the conditions of emancipation could be discussed openly. Also seeing that abolition was inevitable, Land Registrar Louis Bret proposed an unsuccessful project in 1841, seeking to facilitate the transition in a way which was both progressive and well-prepared <\/span>. He thus suggested, along with the complete end to the slave trade, a way out of slavery through the embetterment of former slaves\u2019 lives. Sully Brunet, designated as the colony\u2019s representative in Paris in 1830, also close to the Franco-Cr\u00e9oles and strongly opposed to the island\u2019s pseudo-aristocracy symbolised by the Desbassayns-Vill\u00e8le family clan, suggested a staggered emancipation through to December 31st, 1859. Out of pragmatism, he felt that if colonists hoped to receive compensation, it was absolutely vital that they participate constructively in the debate, rather than their systematically negative responses to all requests for consultation from Paris.<\/p>\n The proclamation of the Second Republic in February 1848 paved the way for the second abolition of slavery across France\u2019s colonies. However, this announcement was not linked to any humanitarian act – it was the fear of slave insurrections in Martinique and Guadeloupe that prompted the provisional government to follow Victor Schoelcher <\/span>.<\/p>\n By 1840, Schoelcher’s position had also shifted. Having originally defended a progressive abolition lasting forty to sixty years in his 1833 work entitled De l’esclavage des Noirs et de la l\u00e9gislation coloniale, he now rallied to the idea of total and immediate emancipation <\/span>. When Fran\u00e7ois Arago, Minister of War and the Navy, organised an abolition commission, he entrusted its presidency to Schoelcher (who was careful not to involve Bisette). Abolition was finally decreed on 27th April 1848, providing for compensation for the colonists and a minimum period of two months for its application. Schoelcher’s proposal to compensate the slaves as well and to give them a plot of land was rejected by the provisional government. However, before the Republic\u2019s Commissioners could arrive in the West Indies, slave revolts there made abolition definitive on 23rd May in Martinique and 27th May in Guadeloupe. In French Guiana, it was announced in accordance with the planned timetable, on 10th August.<\/p>\n<\/a>
Pierre Michel Alix, engraver ; Jean-Fran\u00e7ois Garneray, author of the model. Aquatint.
Collection of Mus\u00e9e Carnavalet, Histoire de Paris<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/a>
In Pr\u00e9cis historique de la traite des noirs et de l’esclavage colonial, contenant l’origine de la traite, son progr\u00e8s, son \u00e9tat actuel.<\/em>.. by M. J. Mor\u00e9nas. \u2013 Paris : J.-L. Mor\u00e9nas, 1828. – P. 266.
Collection of Biblioth\u00e8que nationale de France<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nThe second abolition in 1848<\/h3>\n
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Collection of Vill\u00e8le Museum<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/a>
Louis Antoine Roussin. Around 1879.
Collection of Vill\u00e8le Museum<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/a>
Collection of Vill\u00e8le Museum<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n