Forster, Robert

English

Histoire sociale / Social History (E-Journal, York University)

162 Histoire sociale / Social Historynate. In his work, Grubb renders a valuable service to historians of other Italianregions by introducing important local research, such as the many studies of GianMaria Varanini and Gigi Corazzols useful work on rural credit, to a much wideraudience.Wary of the dangers of generalizing from such a narrow base, Grubb is ascautious in his epilogue as he is in his introductory remarks. This may not be to theliking of readers who prefer the reassurance of more definite conclusions, but it isentirely consistent with his aims and is a fitting end to this unduly modest book.Patricia AllerstonUniversity of EdinburghSue Peabody  “There are no Slaves in France”: The Political Culture of Raceand Slavery in the Ancien Régime. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996. Pp.x, 210.This compact study treats the following question: how and why did French publicpolicy toward black slaves and freedmen of colour living in France change in thecourse of the eighteenth century? Sue Peabody approaches this issue by closelyexamining royal edicts, declarations, and administrative regulations, as well as lawcases testing these regulations and the correspondence of royal officials and judgesconcerning public policy toward slavery and toward people of colour in general.This is not an exhaustive investigation of law cases, but an in-depth examinationof a few key cases for the purpose of bringing individual contestants and theirlawyers into clear focus. The book also demonstrates jurisdictional and personalconflicts that created ambiguities in public policy and warns historians once againto distinguish between law and practice.Relatively few blacks and people of colour lived in France, only about 5,000 bythe end of the century, compared with at least 10,000 in England, a country one-third as populous as France. What is curious is the belief among royal administra-tors that the number was increasing rapidly and constituted a major social problemby the 1760s. Peabody traces a double development. On one hand, the Parlementof Paris and the Admiralty Court of France continued to manumit slaves even intothe 1780s. On the other, after 1762 the central administration, the admiralty courts,and most parlements in the provinces began to enforce a new code ending allmanumissions, prohibiting intermarriage between races, and registering not onlyslaves, but all people of colour in France.In the first two-thirds of the century French law was strongly influenced by theFreedom Principle, that is, the notion that once on French soil a slave was free.This principle was based on a few legal precedents such as an ordinance of LouisX in 1315 referring to affranchissement of serfs, a case at Bordeaux in 1571 wherethe Parlement of Guyenne freed a shipload of slaves, and Loisels Institutes coutu-mières (1608) and especially later commentators such as Eusèbe de Laurière inComptes rendus / Book Reviews 1631710, stressing the maxim that masters must manumit slaves who were baptized.These precedents were deployed successfully by lawyers defending slaves petitionsfor manumission in the early eighteenth century. The case of Jean Boucaux v.Verdelin in 1738 is an example of a successful case on behalf of Boucaux, a slavefrom Saint-Domingue, against his master based on these precedents. Boucaux, ablydefended by two lawyers, was not only freed, but awarded 4,200 livres in backwages plus interest by the Admiralty Court of France in Paris. By examining thelists of petitions for freedom before the Admiralty Court of France, Peabody calcu-lates that 154 slaves won their emancipation by petition and 93 more by individualacts of manumission between 1730 and 1790. This is the bright side of the story.On the other hand, royal edicts and regulations had the cumulative effect ofslowing down this flow (or trickle) of manumissions. The edicts of 1716 and 1738took cognizance of the desire of West Indian planters to bring domestic slaves toFrance on a temporary basis under the pretext that they would be given religiousinstruction or learn a trade. This phase of control was characterized by permissionof the colonial governor, registration of slaves in the ports, and time limits onsojourns in France. Before the 1738 declaration, if these formalities were notobserved, the slave could be freed; after 1738, the penalty was immediate return ofthe slave to the colonies. These two laws were never registered by the Parlementof Paris. Peabody also notes that, at this stage, the law employed the word esclave,not noir.A major policy shift occurred with the registration of all blacks in Paris in 1762.The ordinance reflected a change in the attitudes of the royal administration andperhaps of the political elite in general toward race and a growing fear of racialpollution. Peabody attributes this shift partly to the development of scientificracism in the intellectual community and partly to planters claims that slaves wholived in France became trouble-makers when they returned to the islands. The newpolicy was framed in terms of race. As Poncet de la Grave, procureur du roi at theAdmiralty Court, stated the problem: The introduction of too great a quantity ofnegroes in France ... is a dangerous consequence. We will soon see the Frenchnation disfigured if a similar abuse is tolerated. Moreover, the negroes are, ingeneral, dangerous men (p. 74). This rising fear of a racial menace is surprising,given the fact that only 159 blacks and people of colour were registered in Paris in1762, hardly the deluge described by Poncet de la Grave.In 1777 Antoine de Sartine, Minister of Marine and Colonies, specialist in thesurveillance of Paris, addressed the problem of blacks in France. His legislationestablishing the Police des Noirs replaced the earlier rationale for permitting slavesto enter France with a pro-planter position against the inconveniences of theblacks law cases. All lawsuits for freedom, present and future, were suspended.Sartine ordered the intendants to draw up a census of all blacks (slave or free) intheir departments. Slave domestics who arrived by ship would be confined to dépôtsin the ports of entry. Sartines intent was not only to halt black immigration butalso to encourage the disappearance or absorption of the black population (slave orfree, black or mulatto) already in France. Finally, the new law banned marriagesbetween whites and blacks, mulattoes, and people of color (p. 118). Fortunately164 Histoire sociale / Social Historyfor the slaves and people of colour, the Police des Noirs encountered considerableprovincial resistance, and petitions for freedom continued to be granted, albeit at thesame low rate.To the extent that the policies and court decisions of a relatively small fractionof the French administration can be attributed to the attitudes of a wider society, theterm political culture is legitimate. My own view is that this public policy,especially after 1777, reflected both the growing power of the planter lobby and thegrowing paranoia of the police power in the face of increasing opposition to thestate, especially at the street level. Blacks were one more identifiable threat, alongwith the poor, the grain rioters, the writers of mauvais discours, and the publishersof sensationalized legal briefs and banned books. Seymour Drescher is surely rightto describe the wider French public as indifferent to the question of slavery. Perhapsthe very lack of slaves and blacks in France explains this. Peabody has told us whythere were so few.Robert ForsterJohns Hopkins UniversityHarold Perkin  The Third Revolution: Professional Elites in the Modern World.London and New York: Routledge, 1996. Pp. xviii, 253.Harold Perkin has written a wonderfully stimulating and provocative account of thedevelopment of our modern world in the last 50 years. It is the last of an unintend-ed trilogy (p. xi) analysing what he views as crucial turning-points in humanhistory. The Origins of Modern English Society, 1780–1880, published in 1969, andThe Rise of Professional Society, which followed two decades later, dealt with theIndustrial Revolution and its effects on English society, and with the subsequentrevolution in human organization, again in its English context, characterized by therise of the professional classes. In this third volume, Perkin extends his narrativeto the present time and expands it to investigate the development of the professionalelites in much of the post-industrial world: the United States, Britain, France, thetwo Germanies, Soviet Russia, and Japan.A word of caution to those accustomed to more conventional notions aboutprofessionals: Perkins use of the term is in its widest sense, to include not onlythe traditional professions, from lawyers and doctors to engineers and accountants,but also professional bureaucrats in government and professional managers inbusiness corporations (p. 1). For Perkin, professionals are any knowledge-basedexperts who provide special services. In the former Soviet Union, even the nomen-klatura, the Communist party officials, elites, and intelligentsia, are termed profes-sionals in that their positions depended on their human capital, assisted by theirpolitical loyalty (p. 23). Public and private sector bureaucrats and managers, infact, form the professional elites with which Perkin is concerned, and moretraditional professions are noticeably absent from these pages.

Sue Peabody — "There are no Slaves in France": The Political Culture of Race and Slavery in the Ancien Régime

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Sue Peabody — "There are no Slaves in France": The Political Culture of Race and Slavery in the Ancien Régime

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Histoire sociale / Social History (E-Journal, York University)