Contenu du sommaire : Des Antilles aux Indes orientales, la Révolution française et la question coloniale

To be a Priest under the Consulate and Empire in Martinique
The year 1789 marked a turning point in the history of the French colonies. The Catholic religion, dominant in Martinique since the beginning of colonization, enabled the clergy to establish a stronghold in the country. Yet, the ideas of the Revolution afforded the local populations new perspectives. The Clergy, itself, felt assailed by this new political situation, and imperiled by the demands of the colonists. However, Martinique in 1794, while affected by Revolutionary violence, avoided these threats through the protection of British rule, retaining its economic, political, and social infrastructures. The clergy maintained its Old Regime practices, while integrating a new set of challenges into the colonial context. Though incorporated into Creole society, the clergy was compelled to reorganize itself, as well as its dogma. In this sense, the return of French administration in 1802 with the Treaty of Amiens afforded new opportunities for the clergy. However, the implementation of the Concordat in 1801, and the different expectations of the Consular government for clerical oath again challenged the established religious order. In addition, the colonial clergy was also perceived by this administration, and the white elite as ineffective since the Revolution. Some called for a renewed « missionary » ; others sought to radically change religious customs. Given these circumstances, what was the future for the priests responsible for the parishes in Martinique ?

The prison of Saint-Denis : Utopia and Slave Lobby in La Reunion under the First Empire
On Réunion Island, ever since the middle of the eighteenth century, slaves found guilty of breaking the law by ordinary, extraordinary, or domestic courts were sentenced to imprisonment. To comply with the terms of the criminal legislation for the incarceration of prisoners, the local government undertook a reorganization of the prisons in the colony under the First Empire. But different sources of inertia at work in the colonies did much to compromise this reforming program in order to preserve many of the values of slave society.

« Pieces of India » : Oriental trade and French Atlantic world in the XVIIIth century
Is France's Eastern trade linked to its Atlantic domain as the main source of its prosperity during the eighteenth century ? This article addresses this vital question in the light of more recent research. Evidence suggests that the Oriental trade and the French slave traders have long supported each other to the point that the 1686 prohibition could be viewed as a means of supplying the Indian products demanded by the African clientele. It was also the Eastern trade that ensured the superiority of Nantes among the French slave ports. Despite the presence of European textiles, not only did the demand for Indian guinées, indiennes, and cowry not decrease, but it actually encouraged the Oriental trade, and facilitated the resolution of another long-standing problem : how is it that while French trade was harassed in India by the British after 1765 its growth was sustained until 1793 ?

People of Color from Indian Ocean to France on the eve of the Revolution
Immigration from Indian Ocean in the eighteenth was characterized by a large variety of peoples, coming from Indian subcontinent and Mascarene islands, or from African coasts, including Madagascar. The growth ot the slave trade after the Seven Years' War in Southern Africa, and the crisis of the East India Company, changes the position of the French government, especially about Indians. Theoretically free, the newcomers were assimilated to Negroes, and finally expelled in 1777 to the West Indies, even if they were not born there. Such an evolution reflected the tendancy of the French Monarchy to consider naturals of the colonies as coloured people, potentially slaves.

Between the Caribbean Revolution and English expansionism : threats to the Hispanic sovereignty and the new politicizations in New Grenada, in Venezuela, and on the island of Trinidad (1791-1806)In the 1790's, the coastal regions and islands of New Grenada, and Venezuela were overwhelmed by a new Revolutionary politization, notably among slaves and « libres de couleur ». The French Revolution and the Caribbean Revolution, above all in Santo Domingo, created a context receptive to the new demands. From 1796 onwards, the Hispanic authorities also had to deal with the British Navy, which seized the Island of Trinidad by Spain in February, 1797. This is the historical backdrop to the first South American independence movement. Could this new movement take advantage of these forces of destabilization within the Hispanic empire to foster its development ?

The massacre of «Fructidor an IV » in Santo Domingo : Violence and the Policy of Race under the DirectoryThis article investigates a massacre in the city of Les Cayes, the capital of southern Saint Domingue, in Fructidor year IV (August 1796). The victims' identities, the murderers' motives, and the unfolding of the event were the subject of opposing, highly politicized reports. Analyzing the mass murder and the proliferation of writings on the topic sheds light on the changes in and circulation of the racial discourse in an empire that officially abolished slavery two years earlier. Léger-Félicité Sonthonax, the man who proclaimed « general liberty » in August 1793, came to blame André Rigaud, the general in charge of the southern part of the colony, for erecting a « mulatto » supremacy and oppressing whites and blacks. In the métropole, the right-wing proslavery party coopted the accusation to push for a definition of « Frenchness » as exclusively white. The article demonstrates the role of local dynamics and violence in the perpetuation, transformations and contradictions of a plural and unstable politics of race at the time of the Directorial Republic.

Keeping an Eye on the Blacks. Hypothesis for a « iconoirlogie »This study offers a new angle of research inspired by recent works of the author on the subject of race, and influenced by the rich field of studies in iconology and visual cultures at the end of the eigheenth century, approaches that could be united under the rubric of « iconoirlogie ». Once slaves became equal with the law of 16 pluviose an II, they could no longer be considered simply as Africans, alone, for they were now Frenchmen, equal in the same rights as other Frenchmen. For the majority of the Metropolitan population and its intellectuals, however, this situation proved inconceivable. Indeed, after 1802 and the reestablishment of slavery, a new stigmatisation of the « Other » emerged, stirring debates concerning the darkness of the skin. The nineteenth century thus invented a « new » black man, a new black to more easily subjugate, racially.