French Colonialism and Slavery

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French Colonialism and Slavery

• Hx508

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Todays lecture

• Frances American Empire
• Slavery in the Americas
• Modern French Colonialism

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Frances American Empire

• FIFTEENTH CENTURY RECONNAISSANCE FISHING AND
  FUR TRADERS
• FAILURE TO SETTLE COLONIES IN BRAZIL AND FLORIDA
• 1)SPARSELY POPULATED AND HUGE CANADA.
• 2)DENSELY POPULATED FRENCH CARRIBBEAN ISLANDS
  (WITH THE MOST SYSTEMATIC SLAVERY IN THE WORLD)

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New France

• Quebec 1608
• Lack of migration
• Settlement confined to the St Lawrence
• Otherwise, a tradition of mobility
• The land meant something different from Old
  France
• Wilderness dominated by Huron and Inuit
• Missions
• Centralist government institutions (Fieldhouse)
• Intendants directors of imperial affairs

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The French Caribbean - Antilles

• Slavery and sugar
• Pacte colonial and lexclusif economic
  monopolies of the state
• One of the most profitable industries in the
  world?
• Canada (New France) lost to the British in 1763
  Seven Years War
• Fieldhouses explanation? Lack of immigration
  and lack of naval power
• With the French Revolution, the settlers gained
  an assimilated status

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Slavery

• Anthony Giddens - disembedded
• RIPPED FROM AFRICA
• TRANSPORTED
• BECAME COMMODITIES
• BRANDED WITH A NEW IDENTITY
• STRENUOUS LABOUR

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MORE ON SLAVERY

• 1500-1870 12 MILLION AFRICANS TRANSPORTED
• 1.5 MILLION DIED ON VOYAGE
• 10-20 DIED IN FIRST YEAR IN NORTH AMERICA
• 1700 - 330,000 SLAVES
• 1850s - OVER 6 MILLION SLAVES

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MODERN SLAVERY

• A) DISEMBEDDING
• B) RACE AND IDENTITY
• C) MODERN ECONOMIC METHODS
• LONG-TERM CREDIT
• FORMS OF EXTREMELY ACCURATE COST ACCOUNTING
• ESTABLISHMENT OF JOINT-STOCK COMPANIES TO RUN
  PLANTATIONS
• CLOSE SUPERVISION OF PROCESS OF LABOUR
• BASIS FOR NEW CONSUMER LUXURIES IN EUROPE
  COFFEE, SUGAR AND CHOCOLATE

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Frances Second Empire

• Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos - Indochina
• French Polynesia (Tahiti) nuclear testing sites
  until 1992, New Caledonia, Vanuatu
• Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco
• Mandates in Syria and Lebanon after WW1
• Frances new empire was consolidated by the 1880s
  only mandates were added.
• 11 million square kilometres of land
• 50 million overseas inhabitants

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Indochina

• French in Indochina from 1859
• Returned to French rule after 1945 with British
  support by the victorious Western powers
• Vietminh declared an independent republic
• War broke out with the French claims to
  recolonise Indochin
• Cold War raised the stakes
• 1954 two Vietnams established.

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Algeria

• Growing French presence from the 1830s
• Algeria was not a colony, but a province of
  France.
• 1945 1.25 million French settlers and nine
  million Arabs.
• The French could vote in national elections
• Citizenship was only available to Arabs who
  renounced their Islamic faith
• The French dominated all spheres of
  administration and economy
• Military honour offended by the loss of
  Indochina
• 1959-1962 bloody war of independence.

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Assimilationism the culture of Frances second
empire

• The French Revolutions model of citizenship
• Slavery overseas formally abolished, but
  continued in reality
• First fiction people overseas were included in
  the metropolitan model of equal citizenship, but
  in reality were treated differently
• Constitutional theory the republic was
  indivisible
• Frances civilizing mission or mission
  civilisatrice

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Assimilationism VERSUS Associationism

• Assimilationism inspired by Rome
• Overseas territories represented in parliament
  export of education system, tax and military
  obligations and citizen rights.
• Associationism autonomy for overseas territories
  associated with France in a Federation
• because the empire is not populated by people
  of the same race, speaking the same language,
  having the same customs, a federalist system is
  superior. (Emile Demaret, 1907)
• To instruct our subject is to one day make them
  our equals, tomorrow our masters.

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Books used

• Numerous sources on French America gathered in J
  Smith, A Deliberate Imperialism France in the
  Americas in the Eighteenth Century, in Adcock et
  al, Revolution, Society and the Politics of
  Memory
• Fieldhouse, The Colonial Empires
• Frederick Quinn, The French Overseas Empire
• Howe, Empire
• John Springhall, Decolonisation Since 1945