The French Freedom Principle

The French proudly decry slavery from their European soil. They turn their backs to the toiling masses of Africans working the plantations of their colonial conquests as they smugly proclaim that slavery is not tolerated in their French homeland. To label their freedom fighting as humanitarianism is to ask whether it is charity to treat others as we wish to be treated, or is it in fact selfishness. An egocentric desire to have the liberty of controlling our own lives, enslaved to no master. As the abolition of serfdom in France and the much later ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity were won in the French Revolution show, freedom over one’s life was an important ideology in French culture. Sue Peabody, author of There Are No Slaves in France: The Political Culture of Race and Slavery in the Ancient Regime titles this movement as “developing a radical new political discourse based on notions of freedom, equality, and citizenship” (Peabody, p. 3). However, such an ideology for themselves and its resulting humanitarianism towards slavery was tempered by a pure blood mentality to keep France French and mired in the contemporaneous racism around those of African descent. The French were no humanitarians, they were fighting for equality amid a monarchical social strata, liberty from oppression, and resistance to the dilution of French blood with tainted African genetics.

While the relevance of Louis X’s 1315 ordinance to end serfdom is arguable grounds for the abolition of African slavery within France, it certainly sets an historical note for French pride over their freedom principle (Peabody, p. 28). Evidence has shown that “during the early modern period Europeans could not tolerate the notion of enslaving other Europeans…based on …the value of the individual” (Peabody, p. 68). Thus, the freedom principle becomes an individualist effort to establish liberty for themselves and by proxy all those within their borders. 

On the other hand, equality does not necessitate that all men be equal. Only that all Frenchmen be equal, and as the wealthy are far more likely to possess slaves allowing slavery in France would conflict with “an ideology of absolute social equality,” and illuminate the reality that “some classes of individuals are entitled to more privileges than others” (Peabody, p. 8).  In a fight for equality Rousseau best portrayed the French relationship with slavery in his 1762 work On The Social Contract when he “shows how a critique of monarchy via the metaphor of slavery was already being formulated” (Peabody, p. 96) Such a blending of personal slavery and freedom from monarchical tyranny only further complicates the French relationship with the issue of liberty for slaves arriving on French soil and suggests that the French are not fighting for the freedom of newly arrived slaves, but for their own status as free men from tyranny.

The most complex undercurrent to freedom however is the notion of race. At the vanguard of racial legislation was Poncet de la Grave, who argued heavily against African integration into French culture so as to protect the purity of French blood.  However, de la Grave was not alone in his racist quest as many others proclaimed the same concerns over Africans “exposing French blood to corruption” including the Duc de Choiseaul, Sartine, and a procureur général in the town of Chateauroux (Peabody, p. 131). Prepossessed with notions of the “colors mingling together and the blood degenerating” the French may have wanted to proclaim liberty as their byline, but in fact desired only to cleanse their land of dark flesh (Peabody, p. 119). For they developed legislation not for Africans to acquire freedom and make their lives in France, but rather to be shipped away with their new liberty. If it were only for slavery, not racism, legislation would be to restrict slaves, not blacks. Rather blacks are counted and registered regardless of their slave status (Peabody, p. 116). Concerns abound that granting liberty and residency “gives blacks the notion that they are equal to the ‘superior beings they are destined to serve’” (Peabody, p. 119). Perhaps de la Grave was most honest about French intentions when he promised “the race of negroes will be extinguished in the kingdom as soon as the transport of them is forbidden” (Peabody, p. 117). 

France’s “Freedom Principle” was entangled in the very liberty and equality that the French sought for themselves, and worked so hard to retain. However, it was also complexly enmeshed in a rampant culture of racism and an eerie desire to retain the “purity of French blood” from the contagion of an ebony complexion. This fight for freedom may have been extending an olive branch to those slaves that acquired their freedom during the era of the Admiralty Court of France, but it was heavily rooted in a desire for racial purity and exclusion of African influence.

Works Cited:

Peabody, Sue. There Are No Slaves in France : The Political Culture of Race and Slavery in the Ancient Regime.

Cary, NC, USA: Oxford University Press, Incorporated, 1996. <http://site.ebrary.com.ezproxy1.lib.asu.edu/lib/asulib/Doc?id=10086898>