HOW FRANCE BECAME A HOST COUNTRY ?

1. HOW FRANCE BECAME A HOST COUNTRY ?

2. I. A forced migration : fromslavery to the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen

3. A long-lastingprocess • 15th century : the Portuguese discover Africa • 15th-19th century : Europe is trading slaves (« triangular trade »). The early European settlers in America of the 16thcenturysaw how profitable it was to colonise the New World with cheap labour. About 20 million of Africans have been sent to America and West Indies during those centuries.

5. VOLTAIRE « As they drew near the town they saw a Negro stretched on the ground with only one half of his habit, which was a kind of linen frock; for the poor man had lost his left leg and his right hand. "Good God," said Candide in Dutch, "what dost thou here, friend, in this deplorable condition?" "I am waiting for my master, Mynheer Vanderdendur, the famous trader," answered the Negro. "Was it Mynheer Vanderdendur that used you in this cruel manner?" "Yes, sir," said the Negro; "it is the custom here. They give a linen garment twice a year, and that is all our covering. When we labor in the sugar works, and the mill happens to snatch hold of a finger, they instantly chop off our hand; and when we attempt to run away, they cut off a leg. Both these cases have happened to me, and it is at this expense that you eat sugar in Europe; and yet when my mother sold me for ten patacoons on the coast of Guinea, she said to me, 'My dear child, bless our fetishes; adore them forever; they will make thee live happy; thou hast the honor to be a slave to our lords the whites, by which thou wilt make the fortune of us thy parents.' "Alas! I know not whether I have made their fortunes; but they have not made mine; dogs, monkeys, and parrots are a thousand times less wretched than I. The Dutch fetishes who converted me tell me every Sunday that the blacks and whites are all children of one father, whom they call Adam. As for me, I do not understand anything of genealogies; but if what these preachers say is true, we are all second cousins; and you must allow that it is impossible to be worse treated by our relations than we are." (Candide, chapter XIX, 1759)

6. The Enlightenment • During the 18th century, launched by the movement of the Enlightenment, came the idea of abolitionism. • The age of Enlightenment was a cultural movement of intellectuals in the 17th and 18th centuries. Its purpose was to reform society using reason. • Montesquieu, Voltaire or Rousseau are the leading figures.

7. MONTESQUIEU 5. Of the Slavery of the Negroes. Had I to vindicate our right to make slaves of the negroes, these should be my arguments: The Europeans, having extirpated the Americans, were obliged to make slaves of the Africans, for clearing such vast tracts of land. Sugar would be too dear if the plants which produce it were cultivated by any other than slaves. These creatures are all over black, and with such a flat nose that they can scarcely be pitied. It is hardly to be believed that God, who is a wise Being, should place a soul, especially a good soul, in such a black ugly body. It is so natural to look upon colour as the criterion of human nature, that the Asiatics, among whom eunuchs are employed, always deprive the blacks of their resemblance to us by a more opprobrious distinction. The colour of the skin may be determined by that of the hair, which, among the Egyptians, the best philosophers in the world, was of such importance that they put to death all the red-haired men who fell into their hands. The negroes prefer a glass necklace to that gold which polite nations so highly value. Can there be a greater proof of their wanting common sense? It is impossible for us to suppose these creatures to be men, because, allowing them to be men, a suspicion would follow that we ourselves are not Christians. Weak minds exaggerate too much the wrong done to the Africans. For were the case as they state it, would the European powers, who make so many needless conventions among themselves, have failed to enter into a general one, in behalf of humanity and compassion? (The Spirit of the Laws, chapter XV, 1748)

8. The French Revolution • 1789 brought a new conception of the nation : the opportunity for everybody to become French through the « right of the soil ». • On April the 4th, 1792, France granted free colored people full citizenship. • The rebellion of slaves in the largest French colony of St Domingue in 1791 was the beginning of what became theHaïtianRevolution : slavery was first abolished in 1793 in St Domingue. • The Convention, the first elected Assembly,officiallyabolished slavery in France and its colonies. • But in 1802 Napoleondecided to re-establishslavery.

9. Jean-Baptiste BELLEY • Belley was said to have been born onJuly the 1st, 1746 or 1747 in Senegal, but the dates of his birth and death are uncertain. At the age of two, he was sold to slavers sailing for the French colonyof Saint-Domingue. With his savings, he later bought his freedom. • In 1791, the enslaved Africans of Saint-Domingue began the HaïtianRevolution, aimed at overthrowing the colonial regime. As their fellow revolutionaries in France werewriting the Declaration of the Rights of Manof 1789, they began to see that slavery would need to be abolished. • In 1793, Belley was aCaptain ofinfantry,he fought against the colonists of Saint-Domingue. OnSeptember the 24th,1793, he was one of three members of Parliamentelected to the French National Convention by the northern region of Saint-Domingue, thus becoming the first black deputy to take a seat in the Convention.On February the 3d, 1794, he spoke in a debate in the Convention when it decided unanimously toabolishslavery.

10. GIRODETBelley, with the bust of the philosopher Raynal

11. THE END OF SLAVERY

12. The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen in 1789

13. 1. Men are born and remain free and equal in rights. Social distinctions may be founded only upon the general good. • 2. The aim of all political association is the preservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of man. These rights are liberty, property, security, and resistance to oppression. (…) • 4. Liberty consists in the freedom to do everything which injures no one else; hence the exercise of the natural rights of each man has no limits except those which assure to the other members of the society the enjoyment of the same rights. These limits can only be determined by law. (…) • 6. Law is the expression of the general will. Every citizen has a right to participate personally, or through his representative, in its foundation. It must be the same for all, whether it protects or punishes. All citizens, being equal in the eyes of the law, are equally eligible to all dignities and to all public positions and occupations, according to their abilities, and without distinction except that of their virtues and talents. • 7. No person shall be accused, arrested, or imprisoned except in the cases and according to the forms prescribed by law. Any one soliciting, transmitting, executing, or causing to be executed, any arbitrary order, shall be punished. But any citizen summoned or arrested in virtue of the law shall submit without delay, as resistance constitutes an offense. (…) • 10. No one shall be disquieted on account of his opinions, including his religious views, provided their manifestation does not disturb the public order established by law. • 11. The free communication of ideas and opinions is one of the most precious of the rights of man. Every citizen may, accordingly, speak, write, and print with freedom, but shall be responsible for such abuses of this freedom as shall be defined by law. (…)