Société des Amis des Noirs

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Title page of an address from the Société des Amis des Noirs to the National Assembly in February 1790

The Société des Amis des Noirs ( German  Society of Friends of Blacks ) was a group of French citizens who campaigned against the slave trade and for the rights of free dark-skinned people, the so-called gens de couleur . It was founded on February 19, 1788 by Jacques Pierre Brissot together with the Geneva banker Étienne Clavière and the comte de Mirabeau . The Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade , founded in London in 1787 , acted as a direct model. At the beginning of 1789 the society had 141 members.

Problems and goals

The National Assembly stated that the Declaration of Human and Civil Rights could not be extended to French colonies . Eliminating slavery would damage the French economy.

The Americans , on the other hand, advocated freedom in the French colonies. As can be seen from the Marquis de Condorcet's program, the society clearly aimed at the abolition of slavery, unlike Thomas Clarkson and the British abolitionist movement, which initially only acted against the slave trade .

Result

In response to the Société des Amis Noirs , white advocates of slavery, usually French colonists, founded the Club Massiac in July 1789 . This group was able to fall back on income from slave-owner colonies and thus effectively propagate its goals in the population. Nevertheless, it was possible the Americans to persuade the National Assembly in March 1790, a Committee on Colonies to establish that but mainly from mercantilists and trade representatives from Bordeaux , Nantes and Le Havre composed.

With the outbreak of the Haitian Revolution , which began with a slave rebellion in 1791 , and because of the crisis of the First French Republic (with the beginning of the coalition wars ), the Société des Amis Noirs reduced its activities. Until 1793 she published appeals and articles in newspapers such as: Patriote français , L'Analyse des papiers anglais , Le Courrier de Provence , La chronique de Paris .

Known members

literature

  • Marcel Dorigny, Bernard Gainot, La Société des amis des noirs, 1788-1799. Contribution à l'histoire de l'abolition de l'esclavage , Collection Mémoire des peuples, Paris, Éditions UNESCO / EDICEF, 1998, 429 p. ISBN 92-3-203306-2 (the work contains minutes and other material of the Society and is apparently only available from UNESCO ; table of contents )
  • Jean Tulard , Jean-François Fayard, Alfred Fierro, Histoire et dictionnaire de la Révolution française 1789-1799 , Éditions Robert Laffont, collection Bouquins.

Web links