Editing Abolitionism (section)

==France==
===Early abolition in metropolitan France===
[[Balthild of Chelles]], herself a former slave, [[queen consort]] of Neustria and Burgundy by marriage to [[Clovis II]], became [[regent]] in 657 since the king, her son [[Chlothar III]], was only five years old. At some unknown date during her rule, she abolished the trade of slaves, although not slavery. Moreover, her (and contemporaneous [[Saint Eligius]]') favorite charity was to buy and free slaves, especially children. Slavery started to dwindle and would be superseded by [[serfdom]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/eligius.asp |title=The Life of St. Eligius |translator=Jo Ann McNamara |series=Medieval Sourcebook |publisher=Fordham University |access-date=December 2, 2011}}</ref><ref>[https://archive.org/details/forgetfuloft_schu_1998_000_5601595 <!-- quote=Forgetfuloftheirsex:femalesanctityandsociety.--> Schulenburg, Jane. ''Forgetful of their Sex: Female Sanctity and Society, ca. 500–1100'', Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998]</ref>

In 1315, [[Louis X of France|Louis X]], king of France, published a decree proclaiming that "France signifies [[freedom]]" and that any slave setting foot on French soil should be freed. This prompted subsequent governments to circumscribe slavery in the [[French colonial Empire|overseas colonies]].<ref>Christopher L. Miller, [https://books.google.com/books?id=480BBURkreYC&pg=PA122 ''The French Atlantic Triangle: literature and culture of the slave trade''], Duke University Press, p. 20.</ref>

Some cases of African slaves freed by setting foot on French soil were recorded such as the example of a [[Normandy|Norman]] slave merchant who tried to sell slaves in [[Bordeaux]] in 1571. He was arrested and his slaves were freed according to a declaration of the [[Parlement]] of [[Guyenne]] which stated that slavery was intolerable in France, although it is a misconception that there were 'no slaves in France'; thousands of African slaves were present in France during the 18th century.<ref>Malick W. Ghachem, [https://books.google.com/books?id=btNeAEelkNMC&pg=PA54 ''The Old Regime and the Haitian Revolution''], Cambridge University Press, p. 54.</ref><ref>{{cite journal|last=Chatman|first=Samuel L.|doi=10.2307/2649071|title='There Are No Slaves in France': A Re-Examination of Slave Laws in Eighteenth Century France|journal=The Journal of Negro History|volume=85|number=3|year=2000|pages=144–153|jstor=2649071|s2cid=141017958}}</ref> Born into slavery in [[Saint Domingue]], [[Thomas-Alexandre Dumas]] became free when his father brought him to France in 1776.

===''Code Noir'' and Age of Enlightenment===
[[File:Portrait of Chevalier de Saint-George.jpg|thumb|upright|The [[Chevalier de Saint-Georges]], known as the "Black Mozart", was, by his social position, and by his political involvement, a figurehead of free blacks.]]
As in other [[New World]] colonies, the French relied on the [[Atlantic slave trade]] for labour for their [[sugar cane]] [[plantations]] in their Caribbean colonies; the [[French West Indies]]. In addition, French colonists in ''[[Louisiane]]'' in North America held slaves, particularly in the South around [[New Orleans]], where they established sugarcane plantations.

[[Louis XIV]]'s ''[[Code Noir]]'' regulated the slave trade and institution in the colonies. It gave unparalleled rights to slaves. It included the right to marry, gather publicly or take Sundays off. Although the ''Code Noir'' authorized and codified cruel corporal punishment against slaves under certain conditions, it forbade slave owners to torture them or to separate families. It also demanded enslaved Africans receive instruction in the Catholic faith, implying that Africans were human beings endowed with a soul, a fact French law did not admit until then. It resulted in a far higher percentage of Black people being free in 1830 (13.2% in [[History of slavery in Louisiana|Louisiana]] compared to 0.8% in [[History of Mississippi#Slavery|Mississippi]]).<ref>Rodney Stark, [https://archive.org/details/forgloryofgodhow0000star/page/322 ''For the Glory of God: How Monotheism Led to Reformations, Science, Witch-hunts, and the End of Slavery''], Princeton University Press, 2003, p. 322. There was typo in the original hardcover stating "31.2 percent"; this was corrected to 13.2% in the paperback edition and can be verified using 1830 census data.</ref> They were on average exceptionally literate, with a significant number of them owning businesses, properties, and even slaves.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4rYMEUqEToUC&pg=PT1117|title=The Rough Guide to the USA|author= Samantha Cook, Sarah Hull|publisher=Rough Guides UK|date= 2011|isbn=978-1-4053-8952-5}}</ref><ref name="books.google.fr">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rn4p-eFL6oMC&pg=PA115|author=Terry L. Jones |title=The Louisiana Journey|publisher=Gibbs Smith|date=2007|isbn=978-1-4236-2380-9 }}</ref> Other free people of colour, such as [[Julien Raimond]], spoke out against slavery.

The ''Code Noir'' also forbade interracial marriages, but it was often ignored in French colonial society and the [[mulatto]]es became an intermediate caste between whites and blacks, while in the British colonies mulattoes and blacks were considered equal and discriminated against equally.<ref name="books.google.fr"/><ref>{{cite book|author1=Martin H. Steinberg|author2=Bernard G. Forget|author3=Douglas R. Higgs|author4=Ronald L. Nagel|title=Disorders of Hemoglobin: Genetics, Pathophysiology, and Clinical Management|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PM0zzm7wbvsC&pg=PA725|year=2001|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-63266-9|pages=725–726}}</ref>

During the [[Age of Enlightenment]], many philosophers wrote pamphlets against slavery and its moral and economical justifications, including [[Montesquieu]] in ''[[The Spirit of the Laws]]'' (1748) and [[Denis Diderot]] in the ''[[Encyclopédie]]''.<ref name="lorenzo et al"/> In 1788, [[Jacques Pierre Brissot]] founded the [[Society of the Friends of the Blacks]] (''Société des Amis des Noirs'') to work for the abolition of slavery. After the Revolution, on 4 April 1792, France granted [[free people of colour]] full citizenship.

The slave revolt, in the largest Caribbean French colony of [[Saint-Domingue]] in 1791, was the beginning of what became the [[Haitian Revolution]] led by formerly enslaved people like [[Georges Biassou]], [[Toussaint L'Ouverture]], and [[Jean-Jacques Dessalines]]. The rebellion swept through the north of the colony, and with it came freedom to thousands of enslaved blacks, but also violence and death.<ref>{{Cite book |title=Avengers of the New World: The Story of the Haitian Revolution |last=Dubois |first=Laurent |publisher=Harvard University Press |year=2004 |isbn=978-0-674-03436-5 |pages=91–114|oclc = 663393691}}</ref> In 1793, French Civil Commissioners in St. Domingue and abolitionists, [[Léger-Félicité Sonthonax]] and [[Étienne Polverel]], issued the first emancipation proclamation of the modern world (Decree of 16 Pluviôse An II). The Convention sent them to safeguard the allegiance of the population to revolutionary France. The proclamation resulted in crucial military strategy as it gradually brought most of the black troops into the French fold and kept the colony under the French flag for most of the conflict.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=U8IHym0hoQwC |title=You Are All Free: The Haitian Revolution and the Abolition of Slavery |last=Popkin |first=Jeremy D.  |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2010 |isbn=978-0-521-51722-5 |pages=246–375}}</ref> The connection with France lasted until blacks and free people of colour formed L'armée indigène in 1802 to resist [[Napoleon]]'s [[Saint-Domingue expedition|Expédition de Saint-Domingue]]. Victory over the French in the decisive [[Battle of Vertières]] finally led to independence and the creation of present [[Haiti]] in 1804.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=K65aBAAAQBAJ |title=The Haitian Revolution: A Documentary History |last=Geggus  |first=David |publisher=Hackett Publishing |year=2014 |isbn=978-1-62466-177-8}}</ref>

===First general abolition of slavery (1794)===
{{More citations needed|section|date=July 2019}}
[[File:Jacques Pierre Brissot (1754-1793).jpg|thumb|upright|[[Jacques Pierre Brissot]] (1754–1793), who organized the [[Society of the Friends of the Blacks]] in 1788]]

The convention, the first elected Assembly of the [[French First Republic|First Republic]] (1792–1804), on 4 February 1794, under the leadership of [[Maximilien Robespierre]], [[Law of 4 February 1794|abolished slavery in law]] in France and its colonies.<ref>Popkin, J. (2010) You are all Free. The Haitian Revolution and the Abolition of Slavery, pp. 350–70, 384, 389.</ref> [[Henri Grégoire|Abbé Grégoire]] and the Society of the Friends of the Blacks were part of the abolitionist movement, which had laid important groundwork in building anti-slavery sentiment in the [[metropole]]. The first article of the law stated that "Slavery was abolished" in the French colonies, while the second article stated that "slave-owners would be indemnified" with financial compensation for the value of their slaves.  The French constitution passed in 1795 included in the declaration of the Rights of Man that slavery was abolished.

===Re-establishment of slavery in the colonies (1802)===
During the [[French Revolutionary Wars]], French slave-owners joined the [[counter-revolution]] en masse and, through the [[Whitehall Accord (1794)|Whitehall Accord]], they threatened to move the French Caribbean colonies under British control, as Great Britain still allowed slavery. Fearing secession from these islands, successfully lobbied by planters and concerned about revenues from the West Indies, and influenced by the slaveholder family of [[Joséphine de Beauharnais|his wife]], [[Napoleon Bonaparte]] decided to re-establish slavery after becoming [[First Consul]]. He promulgated the [[law of 20 May 1802]] and sent military governors and troops to the colonies to impose it.

On 10 May 1802, [[Louis Delgrès|Colonel Delgrès]] launched a rebellion in [[Guadeloupe]] against Napoleon's representative, [[Antoine Richepanse|General Richepanse]]. The rebellion was repressed, and slavery was re-established.

===Abolition of slavery in Haiti (1804)===

The news of the [[Law of 4 February 1794]] that abolished slavery in France and its colonies and the revolution led by [[Louis Delgrès|Colonel Delgrès]] sparked another wave of rebellion in Saint-Domingue. From 1802 Napoleon sent more than 20,000 troops to the island, two-thirds died, mostly from yellow fever.

Seeing the failure of the [[Saint-Domingue expedition]], in 1803 Napoleon decided to [[Louisiana Purchase|sell]] the [[Louisiana Territory]] to the United States.

The French governments initially refused to recognize Haïti. It forced the nation to pay a [[Haitian independence debt|substantial amount of reparations]] (which it could ill afford) for losses during the revolution and did not recognize its government until 1825.

France was a signatory to the first [[multilateral treaty]] for the suppression of the slave trade, the [[Treaty for the Suppression of the African Slave Trade]] (1841), but the king, [[Louis Philippe I]], declined to ratify it.

===Second abolition (1848)===
[[File:Biard Abolition de l'esclavage 1849.jpg|thumb|left|''[[Proclamation of the Abolition of Slavery in the French Colonies, 27 April 1848]]'', by [[Auguste François Biard|Biard]] (1849)]]

On 27 April 1848, under the [[French Second Republic|Second Republic]] (1848–1852), the [[decree-law]] written by [[Victor Schœlcher]] abolished slavery in the remaining colonies. The state bought the slaves from the ''colons'' (white colonists; ''[[Béké]]s'' in [[Creole language|Creole]]), and then freed them.








===Final abolition (1903) and subsequent events===

At about the same time, France started colonizing Africa and gained possession of much of West Africa by 1900. In 1905, the French abolished slavery in most of [[French West Africa]]. The French also attempted to abolish Tuareg slavery following the [[Kaocen Revolt]]. In the region of the Sahel, slavery has long persisted.

The abolition wasn't strictly putted in place. Several french territories kept practicing slavery until 1904 as it is the case in [[french Senegal|Senegal]] or 1894 in Soudan.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Renault |first=François |date=1971 |title=L'abolition de l'esclavage au Sénégal : L'attitude de l'administration française (1848-1905) |url=https://www.persee.fr/doc/outre_0300-9513_1971_num_58_210_1530 |journal=Outre-Mers. Revue d'histoire |volume=58 |issue=210 |pages=14-52 |doi=10.3406/outre.1971.1530}}</ref> The abolition was not strictly enforced.

Passed on 10 May 2001, the [[Taubira]] law officially acknowledges slavery and the Atlantic slave trade as a [[crime against humanity]]. 10 May was chosen as the day dedicated to recognition of the crime of slavery.