Domestic Enemy: Poisoning and Resistance to the Slave Order in the 19th Century French Antilles
| Autor | Marco Fioravanti |
| Cargo | Università degli Studi di Roma 'Tor Vergata |
| Páginas | 503-524 |
Historia Constitucional, n. 14, 2013. http://www.historiaconstitucional.com, págs. 503-524
DOMESTIC ENEMY:
POISONING AND RESISTANCE TO THE SLAVE ORDER
IN THE 19TH CENTURY FRENCH ANTILLES
Marco Fioravanti
Università degli Studi di Roma “Tor Vergata”
SUMMARY: I. PREFACE; II. EXTRAORDINARY PENAL JURISDICTIONS; III.
UPRISING IN THE CENTRAL AMERICAN COLONIES; IV. THE COUR
PRÉVÔTALE FOR THE REPRESSION OF POISONING CRIMES; V.
FRANÇOIS-ANDRÉ ISAMBERT AND THE ABOLISHING OF
EXTRAORDINARY PENAL JURISDICTION IN THE COLONIES; VI. FINAL
CONSIDERATIONS
Abstract: This article wishes to contribute to the study of disobedience rights,
by analyzing instances of resistance against slavery in the French Antilles
during the Restoration period. This period was the backdrop for quite a number
of significant slave revolts; not just in the French colonies, but also the English
and the Spanish ones, such as Jamaica, Cuba, the Barbados islands or the
Bermudas. The uprisings occurred coincidentally during a phase of French
history that witnessed a booming slave trade, although it had been formally
abolished following the congress of Vienna.
Key Words: Slavery; Right of Resistance; Colonialism; Poisoning;
Extraordinary Penal Jurisdiction
I. PREFACE
As everybody knows, there are very few direct accounts left by slaves
regarding their living and working conditions. However, thanks to sources like
manuscripts (legal acts, colonial administrative and judicial documents, official
and private correspondence, confidential ministerial dispatches) and printed
material (colonial and urban legislation, judicial doctrine, letters and memoirs) at
least a partial judicial and political aspect of segregationist ideals has been
drafted1. Some legal cases played an important role in the greater order of
The present article grew from participation in an International Conference on Right of
Resistance: Theory, Politics, Law (16th-21st century), Brunel University – London, 8th-9th
February 2012. I thank the organisers of, in particular Filippo Del Lucchese, and the
partecipants in this event for stimulating discussions that helped to shape these reflections.
1Abbreviations: Archives Nationales (Paris): AN; Archives Nationales d’Outre-Mer (Aix-en-
Provence): ANOM; Archives départementales de la Martinique (Fort-de-France): ADM;
Bibliothèque Nationale de France (Paris): BNF; Jourdan, Decrusy, Isambert, Armet, Taillandier
504
French colonial judiciary and its relations with the motherland2. Furthermore, the
reaction of intellectuals, politicians and jurists to events in the Caribbean allows
to analyze the relation between «us and the others» as well as the perception of
the colonial problem as seen by the dominating class in France3. Hence, it has
been necessary to review judicial history of France – beyond the “national myth”
established during the Third Republic – by bearing in mind and including those
excluded from citizenship, like the slaves and the free blacks.
Free blacks – who had an intermediate status between whites and slaves
and were merchants, farmers, landowners, also slave-owners – at the
beginning allied themselves with the whites, but later they joined the slaves,
both victims of discrimination and prejudice of colour. However, this prejudice
was just one of the features of the wider racial issue of modern times: racism
continued to cut across barriers of colour4.
The forms of resistance observed among slaves, were plenty already in
the XVI century, both collective and individual, (sometimes passive forms of
resistance), such as: sabotage, fire, theft, suicide5, armed uprising, escape,
infanticide and denial to respect the colonial laws6:if we must die, some slaves
chose extreme forms of rebellion7. The most widespread and hard to repress
forms, for the colonial government were marronage and poisoning. The former,
involving escape from plantations and the creation of hidden, independent
communities within forest areas or mountains where fugitives could stay, in
some cases for long periods (as in Brasil and Jamaica), was violently stifled by
amputating legs, burning bodies alive, severing ears and by cutting the Achilles’
heel. The poisoning of men and cattle by slaves, spread especially in the
French Antilles was prosecuted by creating special tribunals.
(éds.), Recueil général des anciennes lois françaises depuis l’an 420 jusqu’à la Révolution de
1789, 29 v., Paris 1821-1833: Isambert, Recueil; J.-B. Duvergier, Collection complète des Lois,
Décrets, Ordonnances, Réglemens, Avis du Conseil d’État de 1788 à 1824, Paris 1834-1845:
Duvergier, Collection;Code de la Martinique, 8 v., Saint-Pierre 1767-1822: Code de la
Martinique.
2David B. Davis, Inhuman Bondage. The Rise and Fall of Slavery in the New World, Oxford
University Press, Oxford, 2006; Seymour Drescher, Abolition. A History of Slavery and
Antislavery, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2009; Robin Blackburn, The American
Crucible. Slavery, Emancipation and Human Rights , Verso, London, 2011.
3See Tzvetan Todorov, Nous et les autres. La reflexion francaise sur la diversité humaine,
Seuil, Paris, 1989; Edward W. Said, Orientalism, Pantheon Books, New York, 1978; Id., Culture
and Imperialism, Vintage Books, New York, 1993).
4See “Constructing Race: Differentiating Peoples in the Early Modern World”, William and
Mary Quarterly, 1997; Miriam Eliav-Feldon, Benjamin Isaac, Joseph Ziegler (eds.), The Origins
of Racism in the West, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2009.
5Richard Bell, “Slave Suicide, Abolition and the Problem of Resistance”, Slavery and
Abolition: A Journal of Slave and Post-Slave Studies, 2012, pp. 1-25.
6Gabriel Debien, Les esclaves aux Antilles françaises (XVIIe-XVIIIesiècle), Société d’histoire
de la Guadeloupe et de la Martinique, Fort-de-France, 1974, pp. 393 ff.
7David Richardson, “Shipboard revolts, african autorithy, and the atlantic slave trade”,
William and Mary Quarterly, LVIII, 2001, n. 1, pp. 69 ff.; Eric R. Taylor, If We Must Die.
Shipboard Insurrections in the Era of the Atlantic Slave Trade, Louisiana State University Press,
Baton Rouge, 2006.
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