Loi relative aux colonies, avec l'exposé des motifs qui en ont déterminé les dispositions; donné à Paris le 1ier juin 1791 [with] Loi portant que tout homme est libre en France, & que, quelle que soit sa couleur, il y jouit de tous les droits de citoyen, s'il a les qualités prescrites par la constitution; donnée à Paris le 16 octobre 1791 [and] Decret de la convention nationale du 27 juillet 1793...qui supprime les primes pour la traite des esclaves

Loi relative aux colonies: Montpellier: J.F. and J.G. Tournel, 1791 — 12 p. | 4to | [A]^6 | 230 x 192 mm

Loi portant que tout homme est libre: Montpellier: Jean-François Picot, 1791 — 3, [1] p. | 4to | [A]^2 | 255 x 200 mm

Decret de la convention nationale: Grenoble: J.M. Cuchet, [1793?] — 2, [2] p. | 4to | [A]^2 | 230 x 176 mm

3 documents

A trio of documents that demonstrate France’s evolving position on slavery, all three of them landmarks in this devastating history. The first legalizes slavery in the colonies, the second abolishes slavery in mainland France, and the third abolishes the French slave trade. None of these was printed in Paris, but rather reflect the laws’ promulgation through the provincial South. ¶ The document dated 1 June 1791 publishes a decree of 13 May 1791, which left to colonial governments the exclusive right to legislate on the issue of slavery, declaring “that no law on the status of unfree persons [personnes non libres] can be made by the legislative body [France’s Assemblée nationale] for the colonies, except at the formal and willing request of the colonial assemblies.” The practical outcome was the legalization of slavery in the colonies. The national assembly’s particular phrasing, personnes non libres, represents some novel linguistic gymnastics. Maximilien Robespierre, whose leading role in the Reign of Terror would suggest some tolerance for violence, wouldn’t stand for the word slavery to appear in the new republic’s constitution. ¶ That was May 13. Not three months later, on August 21, the slaves of Saint-Domingue rebelled. And the next month, September 28, France’s National Assembly issued the decree of our document dated 16 October 1791. The two articles are as simple as they are historic. First: “Every individual is free as soon as he enters France.” The second underscores equal rights for men of color: “Every man, whatever color he may be, enjoys all the rights of a citizen in France, if he has the qualities prescribed by the Constitution to exercise them.” This legislative act represents the abolition of slavery in France, a hard-won milestone for human rights. Still, as France’s colonies fell outside this constitutional purview, slavery remained legal in its overseas possessions, where the overwhelming majority of France’s slaves were held. ¶ But our final document, publishing a decree of 27 July 1793, takes an important step in that direction, as it “abolishes the subsidies for the slave trade” (supprime les primes pour la traite des esclaves). This functionally abolished the slave trade in France, eliminating the annual 2.5-million-francs subsidy the crown traditionally spent to encourage the slave trade. The abolition of slavery in all French territories would follow on February 4 of the next year. ¶ A singular trio of documents representing some of the most consequential decisions in the history of French slavery. We find no other copies of any of these editions, nor any other appearances at auction (though we’d be surprised if none could be found in collections without item-level cataloging). The first document, which protected slavery in the colonies, is readily available in other impressions. The other two are much scarcer in the trade, across all editions. Of the second document, which abolished slavery in France, we find only an Aix edition at auction in 2019. Of the third document, which abolished the French slave trade, we find only a Toulouse edition at auction in 2018.

PROVENANCE: All three documents are meant to bear certification signatures of regional officials. The first document was signed on 25 October 1791 at Berias—perhaps Berrias-et-Casteljau, north of Montpellier—and bears three signatures. The second document was certified at Beziers on 25 January 1792 and bears two hand-printed signatures. The blank spaces for these details remain so in the third document.

CONDITION: All unbound and all with evidence of having been stab-stitched; each with a decorative head-piece. The second document retains its deckle edges, and the second leaf of the third document is blank. ¶ Remnants of perhaps an old seal in the upper right corner of the first document; the third document dampstained and a little soiled, nearly split the length of its fold, with some old tape residue.

REFERENCES: First document: Jeremy D. Popkin, “Saint-Domingue, Slavery, and the Origins of the French Revolution,” From Deficit to Deluge: The Origins of the French Revolution (Stanford Univ, 2011), p. 247 (“There were several contentious debates about the extent of colonial autonomy and the rights of free people of color in the next two years [after 1789], and participants in these discussions understood that slavery was the real issue underlying them. But the representatives of the colonies managed to ward off any explicit challenge to the institution. In the stormiest of these sessions, on May 13, 1791, Moreau de Saint-Méry moved that the status of the slaves be left to the discretion of the colonists. Robespierre and others raised violent objections to the inclusion of the word ‘slaves’ in the constitution; the deputies substituted the term ‘unfree persons’ and then approved the proposal. Gouy d’Arsy and his colleagues thus achieved the goal they had aimed at in 1789: slavery was constitutionally protected from metropolitan interference.”); Florence Gauthier, “Périssent les colonies…! De Jaucourt a Marx en passant par Robespierre,” En hommage a Claude Mazauric pour la Révolution française (Univ de Rouen, 1998), p. 409 (“the article voted on 13 May 1791 constitutionalized slavery without any ambiguity”; he goes on to clarify the Robespierre still voted against this, despite the softened language) ¶ Second document: Frédéric Regent, “Préjugé de couleur, esclavage et citoyennetés dans les colonies françaises (1789-1848),” La Révolution française: Cahiers de l’Institut d’histoire de la Révolution française 9 (2015), p. 16 (“Slavery, which in principle did not exist on French soil under the Ancien Régime, was abolished by the decree of 28 September 1791…The colonies, being placed outside the scope of the constitution, were not affected by this measure”); James T. Kloppenberg, Toward Democracy: The Struggle for Self-Rule in European and American Thought (Oxford Univ, 2016), p. 514 (“On September 28, 1791, it [France’s National Assembly] voted to outlaw slavery in France, where there were few slaves to free, and began inching toward granting rights to free blacks in the Caribbean”) ¶ Third document: Boris Lesueur, “Les paradoxes de la liberté par les armes (Antilles, XVIIIe siècle),” Sortir de l’esclavage (Karthala, 2018), p. 213 (“The Convention abolished the trade on 27 July 1793, and slavery on 4 February 1794”); Françoise Hildesheimer, L’abbé Grégoire (Nouveau Monde, 2022), unpaginated e-book (“on 27 July, he [Grégoire] had the royal subsidy of 2.5 francs-or, traditionally paid to slavers [negriers] to encourage the slave trade, abolished by decree”)

Item #513