Sunday, February 15, 2009
Short Essay #3
At first glance, “There are no Slaves in France” seems a bit hypocritical. Peabody states early in the essay that people of color were restricted in France, and gives several examples. “These lawsuits in turn spurred the king’s administrators to develop new legislation that would halt the flow of blacks to the nation’s capitol” (Peabody, 7). It seems strange to me that the same people that came up with such a noble “Freedom Principal” would put such limitations on the amount of free slaves in their country. Peabody notes on the hypocrisy, and explains that these issues were just beginning to be touched on during the late eighteenth century. Throughout her essay, Peabody tells us of France’s “Freedom Principal” is based on the fact that all people should be free. It is quite controversial however, when some argue that if all people are free, they should be free to own slaves. This idea, once again hypocritical, forces the issue of who is classified as “people’. In the first section, Peabody tells us that slavery was marked by the Parliament for nations other than France. Rules and boundaries were set to regulate relations between slaves and their owners, but nothing in these rules said anything about when slaves set foot on French soil. “In France, where the financial benefits of the institution were not immediately felt, the attitude toward slavery was quite different” (Peabody, 12). In many cases, when slaves arrived in France they were either set free or returned to the colonies. This became a problem, and the king did address this issue. To uphold the tradition of freedom, once a slave reached France, he was free. The slave trader or owner was compensated by the ship’s captain, for it was his fault that he was brought there. The motives behind the French to help free the Africans are just as controversial. After reading Peabody’s essay, I feel that the motives behind France’s “Freedom Principal” were purely beneficial for France and France only. I don’t believe that they wanted to help free slaves. I feel that they were looking out for their own nation. The French freed slaves and sent them back to the colonies, and made little to no effort to help free African slaves in other nations. In my opinion, this is why they created laws restricting people of color into France.
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There was definitely an element of hypocrisy involved, as you stated, but that is partly why the entire thing is so interesting. It wasn’t simply a cut and dry acknowledgement of the slave issue one way or the other. The French had long accepted the reality of slavery in their colonial holdings, and indeed, depended a great deal on it. Now, they were being forced with reckoning the practicality of the slave trade as it related to their own overseas prosperity against the reality of who they thought themselves to be in a moral sense, and how that moral sense of self was incompatible with the notion of slavery.
ReplyDeleteYour essay begins by saying that the French were hypocritical in their attitudes toward Africans and slaves in general. Africans, even when freed were not given the same liberties as the white French citizens. As you mention in your essay, the French claimed that all people should be free; however, they enslaved Africans, which is a clear example of their hypocrisy. It is also shown because the French limited slavery in their own country but seemed to turn a blind eye to the slavery that was taking place in their colonies in North America. Slavery was permissible if the French did not have to witness it and were not directly associated with it. This argument is made clear by your point that slaves would be freed once they arrive in France via ship from the Colonies or Caribbean. Your final points in your essay describe the French as having selfish motives for freeing slaves. I agree with this point the French did want to free slaves in order to improve their international reputation but I also think some French did free slaves for selfless reasons. It does not seem like there would have been enough momentum in the abolitionist movement for it to succeed if no one had selfless intentions. Overall, I think you made some very good points in your essay and I enjoyed reading it.
ReplyDeleteI think you made a great oint when you wrote about how Francewanted to limit the amount of Africans allowed in thier country. Instead of setting slaves "free" to be citizens of France, the French government would send the slaves back to the colonies. Also, I think it is critical to know that a master could keep his slave if he claimed thathe brought the slave to France for education or religious teaching. I think that France gave slaves more of a chance at being free but as long as they did not attempt to live their free lives in France. For the people who attempted to free the slaves I beleive that some of them had good intentions and beleived the system of slavery to be wrong while others were motivated for selfish reasons. You definitely made some very good points in your essay.
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