Editing Abolitionism (section)

===''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>