Society of the Friends of the Blacks

The Society of the Friends of the Blacks (Société des amis des Noirs or Amis des noirs) was a group of French men and women, mostly white, who were abolitionists campaigning for the end of the slave trade.  As a group it lasted from 1788 till 1793.

Slavery was a key component of the French economy. Colonies such as Saint Domingue provided most of the sugar for Europe’s increasingly sweet tooth and the cane was cut by vast numbers of slaves.  Many of the coastal ports of France relied on the slave trade with the outfitting of slaver ships heading to Africa and the importing of the crop from the West Indies.  La Rochelle and Bordeaux in particular owned their growth and splendour to the massive profits from slavery.

The Society of the Friends of the Blacks would take great inspiration from their British equivalents.  Jacques-Pierre Brissot had met abolitionist leader Thomas Clarkson in Britain and was inspired to create his own organisation in France.  Brissot was quick to point out the inherent contradiction of the campaigns for liberty and equality at home whilst in the colonies blacks were slaves with no prospect of either.

The Society would mainly campaign by producing pamphlets and novels to push their cause as well as lecturing various societies.  The Society mainly orientated its activities to Paris and its surrounding environs.  This and its small membership numbers possibly due to its relatively high membership fees and requirement for four nominations to be allowed to join meant the Society had little reach across France.  They would at various points address the National Assembly with their concerns.  Abbé Grégoire would attempt to call for the admission of free black men to the National Assembly and his idea would be accepted by the Committee on Verification of Credentials in the National Assembly but he would be shouted down by pro slavery supporters in the actual assembly.  The Society would constantly face opposition from a wide range of organisations.  The Committee of Colonial Affairs was predominantly dominated by slavers who opposed any change.  Commerce and manufacturing groups from across France but predominantly from the Atlantic Ports also claimed any change to the law would cause economic and social chaos.

There was increasing unrest amongst the French West Indian Colonies particularly in San Domingue where the country was on the verge of descending into a civil war between white planters, black slaves and free blacks. Gregoire would point out the only way to bring stability would be to grant rights for the free blacks.  On the 15th May a law was passed allowing every man who was born of free parents to have equal rights.  A year later after further pressure from the Society a further law was passed allowing every free man equal rights.

The Society would become less relevant when a full scale civil war and slave rebellion erupted across San Domingue.  This coupled with the declaration of war on Britain with its superior navy meant that France had very little control over its main sugar producing and slavery colony San Domingue.  The organisation would also largely fold when its leading members were arrested  as part of the purge against the Girondins in 1793.  However a year later the National Convention would fully abolish slavery across all of France and its colonies.  In 1802 Bonaparte would reintroduce slavery in the French colonies.

Rousseau on slavery.  Taken from The Social Contract or Principles of Political Right, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Wordsworth Classics of World Literature, London (1998) p12

Thus, in whatever way we regard things, the right of slavery is invalid, not only because it is illegitimate, but because it is absurd and meaningless.  These terms, slavery and right, are contradictory and mutually exclusive.  Whether addressed by a man to a man, or by a man to a nation, such a speech as this will always be equally foolish: “I make an agreement with you wholly at your expense and wholly for my benefit, and I shall observe it as long as I please, while you also shall observe it as long as I please.

Condorcet Reflections on African slavery 1781 which he wrote under a pseudonym.   “Dedicatory Epistle to the Negro slaves” in The French Revolution and Human Rights a brief documentary history, Bedford/St Martins, Boston, New York (1996) p56

Reducing a man to slavery, buying him, selling him, keeping him in servitude: these are truly crimes, and crimes worse than theft.  In effect, they take from the slave, not only all forms of property but also the ability to acquire it, the control over his time, his strength, of everything that nature has given him to maintain his life and satisfy his needs.  To this wrong they add that of taking from the slave the right to dispose of his own person….

It follows from our principles that the inflexible justice to which kings and nations are subject like their citizens requires the destruction of slavery.  We have shown that this destruction will harm neither commerce nor the wealth of nations because it would not result in any decrease in cultivation.  We have shown that the master had no right over his slave; that the act of keeping him in servitude is not the enjoyment of a property right but a crime; that in freeing the slave the law does not attack property but rather ceases to tolerate an action which it should have punished with the death penalty.

Arthur Young reports on debates on the ending of slavery in January 1790. Witnesses to the Revolution American and British Commentators in France 1788-1794, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London (1989) p102-103

The scheme of emancipating the negroes, or at least putting an end to importing them, which they borrowed from England, has thrown Nantes, Havre, Marseilles, Bordeaux, and all other places connected secondarily with that commerce, into the utmost agitation.  The Count de Mirabeau says publicly, that he is sure of carrying the vote to put an end to negro slavery.  It is very much the conversation at present, and principally amongst the leaders who say, that as the revolution was founded on philosophy, and supported by metaphysics, such a plan cannot be congenial.

Letter VI from the summer of 1790 Helen Maria Williams recounts her visit to the National Assembly and seeing Mirabeau and the slave trade.  Taken from Letters Written in France, Broadview Literary Texts, Ormskirk (2002) p83-84

We also saw Mons. Mirabeau, whose genius is of the first class, but who possesses a very small share of popularity.  I am, however, one of the partisans, though not merely from that enthusiasm which always comes across my heart in favour of great intellectual abilities.  Mons. Mirabeau has another very powerful claim on my partiality; he is the professed friend (and I must and will love him for being so) of the African race.  He has proposed the abolition of the slave trade to the National Assembly, and, though the Assembly have delayed the consideration of this subject, on account of those deliberations which immediately affect the country, yet, perhaps, if our senators continue to doze over this affair as they have hitherto done, the French will have the glory of setting us an example, which it will then be our employment to follow.

Barnave on slavery from March 8th 1790 in The French Revolution and Human Rights a brief documentary history, Bedford/St Martins, Boston New York (1996) p109

The interest of the French nation in supporting its commerce, preserving its colonies, and favouring their prosperity by every means compatible with the interests of the metropole has appeared to us, from every angle of vision, to be an incontestable truth..

Abandon the colonies, and these sources of prosperity will disappear or diminish.

Abandon the colonies and you will import, at great price, from foreigners what they today buy from you.

Abandon the colonies at the moment when your establishments there are based on possessing them, and listlessness will replace activity, misery abundance: the mass of workers, of useful and hardworking citizens, will pass quickly from a state of ease into the most deplorable situation; finally agriculture and our finances will soon be struck by the same disaster experienced in commerce and manufactures.  

National Convention abolishes slavery on the 4th February 1794.  Taken from The French Revolution and Human Rights a brief documentary history, Bedford/St Martins, Boston, New York (1996) p116

The National Convention declares the abolition of Negro slavery in all the colonies; in consequence it decrees that all men, without distinction of colour, residing in the colonies, are French citizens and will enjoy all the rights assured by the constitution.