Civil commissioner who proclaimed emancipation in northern Saint-Domingue
On 29 August 1793, as civil commissioner in Saint-Domingue, he proclaimed all slaves of the Northern Province free, five months before the Convention abolished slavery in all the colonies.
A lawyer at the Parlement of Paris who wrote in support of the Society of the Friends of the Blacks and was close to Brissot, he was sent to Saint-Domingue as a civil commissioner with Polverel and others in 1792. Their stated mission was not emancipation but equal rights for free people of colour. Amid conflict with white colonists and the threat of Britain and Spain, he proclaimed freedom for the slaves of the Northern Province on 29 August 1793, with an obligation for non-combatants to return to plantation labour. On 4 February 1794 the Convention extended abolition to all French colonies. Historians debate whether his motives lay in revolutionary ideals of equality or in the need to hold on to power.
Career Timeline
- 1784Took his law degree and became a lawyer at the Parlement of Paris.
- 1792Sent to Saint-Domingue as a civil commissioner with Polverel and others.
- 1793Proclaimed the emancipation of the slaves of the Northern Province on 29 August.
- 1794–1795Recalled to France to answer charges brought by the colonists, and was vindicated.
- 1796–1797Returned to Saint-Domingue, but Toussaint Louverture had him put aboard a ship for France in August 1797.