1

REVUE

DES

COLONIES,

MONTHLY COMPENDIUM1 OF POLITICS, ADMINISTRATION, JUSTICE, INSTRUCTION AND COLONIAL CUSTOMS,

BY A

SOCIETY OF MEN OF COLOR

DIRECTED BY

C.-A. BISSETTE

.

N°1July.

PARIS, AT THE OFFICE OF THE REVUE DES COLONIES,46, RUE NEUVE-SAINT-EUSTACHE

1834.

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REVUE

DES

COLONIES

Prospectus.

As of now, the colonies, generally speaking, only know of the great principles of philanthropy in theory; of freedom in action, nothing at all.

The suffering and oppressed classes appeal and fight relentlessly, always in vain. To stimulate the feeble good will to which our rulers limit themselves, it is necessary to compile the just complaints that arise from all sides. These claims, these grievances, to be successful, must receive the greatest publicity: this is the object of our

Revue

The debate floor today is no longer enough; petitions are adjourned by the calculated negligence of rapporteurs or pushed back by the insolent agendas of the day. On the other hand, colonial authorities, always disposed in favor of the privileged, cleverly evade the ministers' prescriptions. Against this hitherto successful tactic of the partisans of aristocracy and privilege, it is necessary to finally engage the power of public opinion, enlightened by a discussion always wise, always true, but energetic and never timid, of the causes, whatever they may be, which hinder the desirable fusion of the diverse populations of the colonies.2

For this purpose, a specialized journal is founded under the title of

Revue des Colonies

, with

M. Bissette

as director.

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This journal is not only dedicated to all that concerns the colonies, considered as a source of news and interesting facts apt to occupy the leisure of the reader, but it devotes itself entirely to the political, intellectual, moral and industrial interests of colonists of either color.3

Nothing that concerns the French colonies in particular will be omitted from this monthly publication. The government, the administration, and the justice system will be examined here with respect to both their actions and their persons; for it is the latter that too often determines the spirit and the manner in which populations are either oppressed or well looked after.

The civil, political, and social rights of the two free classes, which, having been hitherto divided, ought to be united, will here be advanced and supported with indefatigable zeal.

The great question of the abolition of slavery, the cornerstone of liberty, will here be treated with the most conscientious care and the most ardent love of equality and of the general good.4

Arbitrariness and partiality will here be brought to face the court of public opinion with no distinction between persons. The weak will find here support and protection, the oppressor, punishment, the official, warranted blame for his illegal acts, but respect for his person.

The Revue des Colonies will also concern itself with all the changes made or projected in the legislation that governs foreign colonies and inevitably affects our own in a powerful way.5

National interests, in relation to the possession of

Algiers

, will find in the Revue des Colonies a devoted and independent outlet.6

Numerous and knowledgeable correspondents ensure that readers find as much variety as edification in the articles of the Revue des Colonies.

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DECLARATION OF PRINCIPLES.

The Revue des Colonies believes it must, above all, indicate by what principles it will offer judgment upon men and things.7 In its estimation, '89, in the immortal Declaration of Rights voted by the

National Assembly

, laid the future foundations of all truly democratic institutions; this is why we inscribe this Declaration at the beginning of this compendium: these are the tables of our law.

The rights of men had been misunderstood, insulted for centuries; they have been restored for all mankind by this Declaration, which will forever remain a rallying cry against oppressors, and a law for legislators themselves.

(Address of the National Assembly to the French People, 11 February 1790.)

Excerpt

FROM THE MINUTES OF THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY OF AUGUST 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 26 AND OCTOBER 1st, 1789.

DECLARATION OF THE RIGHTS OF MAN IN SOCIETY.8

The representatives of the French People, formed into a National Assembly, considering ignorance, forgetfulness or contempt of the rights of man to be the only causes of public misfortunes and the corruption of Governments, have resolved to set forth, in a solemn Declaration, the natural, unalienable and sacred rights of man, to the end that this Declaration, constantly present to all members of the body politic, may remind them unceasingly of their rights and their duties; to the end that the acts of the legislative power and those of the executive power, since they may be continually compared with the aim of every political institution, may thereby be the more respected; to the end that the demands of the citizens, founded henceforth on simple and incontestable principles, may always be directed toward the maintenance of the Constitution and the happiness of all.

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In consequence whereof, the National Assembly recognizes and declares, in the presence and under the auspices of the Supreme Being, the following Rights of Man and of the Citizen.

Article 1.— Men are born and remain free and equal in rights. Social distinctions may be based only on considerations of the common good.

2.— The aim of every political association is the preservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of man. These rights are Liberty, Property, Safety and Resistance to Oppression.

3.— The source of all sovereignty lies essentially in the Nation. No corporate body, no individual may exercise any authority that does not expressly emanate from it.

4.— Liberty consists in being able to do anything that does not harm others: thus, the exercise of the natural rights of every man has no bounds other than those that ensure to the other members of society the enjoyment of these same rights. These bounds may be determined only by Law.

5.— The Law has the right to forbid only those actions that are injurious to society. Nothing that is not forbidden by Law may be hindered, and no one may be compelled to do what the Law does not ordain.

6.—

The Law is the expression of the general will. All citizens have the right to take part, personally or through their representatives, in its making. It must be the same for all, whether it protects or punishes. All citizens, being equal in its eyes, shall be equally eligible to all high offices, public positions and employments, according to their ability, and without other distinction than that of their virtues and talents.

7.— No man may be accused, arrested or detained except in the cases determined by the Law, and following the procedure that it has prescribed. Those who solicit, expedite, carry out, or cause to be carried out arbitrary orders must be punished; but any citizen summoned or apprehended by virtue of the Law, must give instant obedience; resistance makes him guilty.

8.— The Law must prescribe only the punishments that are strictly and evidently necessary; and no one may be punished except by virtue of a Law drawn up and promulgated before the offense is committed, and legally applied.

9.— As every man is presumed innocent until he has

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been declared guilty, if it should be considered necessary to arrest him, any undue harshness that is not required to secure his person must be severely curbed by Law.

10.— No one may be disturbed on account of his opinions, even religious ones, as long as the manifestation of such opinions does not interfere with the established Law and Order.

11.— The free communication of ideas and of opinions is one of the most precious rights of man. Any citizen may therefore speak, write and publish freely, except what is tantamount to the abuse of this liberty in the cases determined by Law.

12.— To guarantee the Rights of Man and of the Citizen a public force is necessary; this force is therefore established for the benefit of all, and not for the particular use of those to whom it is entrusted.

13.— For the maintenance of the public force, and for administrative expenses, a general tax is indispensable; it must be equally distributed among all citizens, in proportion to their ability to pay.

14.— All citizens have the right to ascertain, by themselves, or through their representatives, the need for a public tax, to consent to it freely, to watch over its use, and to determine its proportion, basis, collection and duration.

15.— Society has the right to ask a public official for an accounting of his administration.

16.— Any society in which no provision is made for guaranteeing rights or for the separation of powers, has no Constitution.

17.— Since the right to Property is inviolable and sacred, no one may be deprived thereof, unless public necessity, legally ascertained, obviously requires it, and just and prior indemnity has been paid.

Excerpt from the minutes of the National Assembly, October 1, 1789. Collated true to the original. Signed MOUNIER, president; Viscount DE MIRABEAU, DEMEUNIER, BUREAU DE Pusy, Bishop DE NANCY, FAYDEL, Abbot of EYMAR, secretaries.

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All of the principles of '89 are in this declaration; and, whatever one does, there is in these principles, which the French Revolution, by its republican and imperial armies, has sown across the land of Europe, and by its books everywhere in the universe, a power which cannot be suppressed.

Certainly, if a man should be reminded of anything, it is his rights, which aristocracies may well succeed in making obsolete here and there, but to which the future belongs.

We ask that we compare the present state of our legislation with this page of justice and liberty, that we examine whether the laws that are made for us are in conformity with the principles of this declaration, which must be forever, according to the fine expression of the National Assembly, the law of the legislators themselves. And if this examination clearly shows that the government, whatever it may be, is not founded on this one equitable basis — the enforcement of the rights of all — those who, like us and with the National Assembly, will be convinced that ignorance, forgetfulness or contempt for the rights of man are the only causes of public misfortunes and the corruption of governments, will triumphantly conclude that all the evil of the present situation, in the colonies as everywhere, is absolutely a result of this ignorance, of this forgetfulness or of this contempt, we cannot precisely say which, as much on the part of the rulers as on that of the governed.

The director,

BISSETTE

.

A LOOK AT THE COLONIAL REGIME AND ITS EFFECTS.

The deplorable events of Grand'Anse,9

Martinique

have echoed through every newspaper. Some, inspired by the authorities, in whose eyes all that is emancipation becomes an object of terror, have presented this affair in an unfavorable light to those who have limited themselves to passive resistance.10 Others, more benevolent, and above all, more impartial, were careful not to pass premature judgment on a matter of this nature: they knew that passion exaggerates both evil and good, and that one should not

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rush to adopt the words of a powerful and often unjust party.

We too will attend to this matter, but by prefacing it with all the considerations necessary to draw the correct conclusions.

These facts, which seem to us hardly believable, are repeated every day with impunity in our colonies. And how could it not be so, when the men charged with maintaining the laws are those most interested in violating them! Arbitrariness is therefore only the sad corollary of a state of affairs whose origins date back to a time of conquest, plunder and brutal violence. We know that this arbitrariness exists; philosophy has decried it; power itself seems to reject a shameful solidarity, and yet nothing real has been done to put an end to it. Everything has been deceit and lies, from the illusory measures against the slave trade, to the laws which seem to grant men of color the rights of citizens, and a justice that one could not truthfully represent scales in hand.

These causes, which, deriving from the overall regime of the colonies, would seem foreign to the events of Grand'Anse, to which we will attend more particularly, 11 are nevertheless attached to them by a multitude of threads: for nothing in the fate of peoples, as in that of men, is isolated, and the actual effects are often produced by causes lost to the depths of time.

The colonies too, despite their distance from the motherland, felt the effects of the great political commotion which regenerated France. A long subjugation, largely exploited by the aristocracy, had not been able to paralyze hearts so much that they did not feel warmed by the rays of the sun of freedom. Men of color especially, more advantaged than the unfortunate slaves, turned their eyes towards France with love and confidence; they felt that each link which fell from the chains of old Europe was for them a pledge of emancipation. The emblazoned nobility, elevated to the rank of people, offered an edifying lesson to the nobility of the skin,12 which did not even possess the prestige of the former's personal accomplishments. The destruction of one was the sure guarantee of the destruction of the other. Was not the emancipation of the people, who had long suffered the bondage

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of the field, also a sign of freedom for the slaves? There was therefore in the colonies what is still there today, an absurd aristocracy clinging to its privileges and willing to go to any length to preserve them, and on the other hand a population full of verve, of energy, beginning to understand its rights and its dignity.

Such, then, was the position of the colonies when the July Revolution,13 so rich in prospects, made conceivable for a moment the awakening of France. The new government, carried along, no doubt in spite of itself, by the force of circumstance, not daring to lift the veil which hid its ulterior motives, finally bowing before public opinion which had just had its impact felt, erased the word regulations from the article of the charter concerning the colonies. It declared that the colonies would be governed by special laws.14 This tacit recognition of abuses of all kinds, originating in the corrupted system of ordinances, stoked the hopes of those who could still put some faith in ministers' promises. It was because they did not believe that a government born of democracy could so quickly forget its origin; they did not comprehend that the preservation of titles of nobility, of a so-called upper chamber, and above all of an exaggerated civil list were milestones laid down by the nascent power to constitute itself on bases similar to that which the popular arm had just crushed. Did not the preservation of the titled nobility in the motherland,15 and the addition that was made to it of a Turcarets aristrocracy,16 clearly impart to the colonies that, except for a few slight adjustments, their aristocracy of skin would be preserved along with most of its privileges.

Indeed these fine particular laws were rendered so illusory as to match the ordinances' arbitrariness,17 differing from them only by the hypocrisy of the name. For example, is not the electoral law, establishing the political rights of whites and of men of color, a work of perfidious deception? On the

isle of Bourbon

and of

Cayenne

, where the whites are in overwhelming majority, the electoral qualification and eligibility are fixed at a lower rate, for there is no fear of competition; but in the colonies of

Guadeloupe

and

Martinique

, where the population of color, quite numerous, is of

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average wealth, the tax is preemptively raised to an unattainable level. Is there anything more perfidious, I would even say more odiously ironic, than to thus concede the right while prohibiting the means. Would it not have been truer to declare outright that only whites could vote?18

It became difficult, in the presence of this law of political organization, creating or rather sanctioning a privilege, to allow for the action of the popular will. The national guard, that admirable institution of the métropole,19 had a pale imitation in the colonies, where both the name and the democratic element of election were carefully banished.

If France has a national guard, the colonies have a militia whose officers, appointed by the governor, are generally taken from the white population and from among a few men of color. These, to keep a rank obtained by favor, devote themselves unquestioningly to the governor and become his accomplices. We hasten to say that, among those promoted, we count friends who have not wavered in their political opinions, but not all of them are so. When power makes itself odious by its partiality, it always corrupts the men who make themselves its supporters. What bonds can indeed unite men who find themselves in a position so false as the colonial militia and its leaders? Trust? It does not exist. Fraternity? it would be vain to search for it there. So there remains only force, and it is indeed felt everyday.

In the judicial system, abuses abound, and they are always to the advantage of the aristocratic class. The royal courts and the magistrates' courts are constituted in such a way as to let the whites become judges and parties in their own cause. Finally, despite the very text of the charter, provost courts can still bloody the soil of the colonies by legally assassinating the innocent people they want to get rid of.

Well! in the presence of this boundless arbitrariness, leaning on their numerous privileges, the whites groan and complain that the government has dared to touch the holy ark of their power, by diminishing some of their privileges. Political rights, they possess them all; the judicial power is in their hands; law enforcement, they

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direct and command it; but it is not enough to suit their wounded pride. A principle, admittedly without application, has been issued; the word equality was spoken, was it not enough to offend those selfish and hard hearts for whom every independent man who is not part of their league is but a worthless rebellious slave?20 Men of color, on the contrary, confident in the government's feeble pledges of good will, waited patiently for better days perfecting their political education so as to wield the influence that they are entitled to in their country by their rights and numbers. And what do they really want that is not wise and reasonable? Placed in their land in the same position as the third estate in France before the Revolution, they then ask what this order commanded: liberty and equality. But they are dealing with privileged people who are even more tenacious than the nobility and clergy of France. These at least did not have the impudence to deny the title of men to their adversaries.21

By what means, then, could the privileged recover the integrity of their privileges? To ask the government for them was impossible, they would have been told to bide their time; that the compromise was only a matter of painful necessity; that, moreover, the liberties granted to the mulattoes were purely illusory, being limited in reality to a few slight concessions of sociability.22 And furthermore these same concessions often bend according to the whims of the aristocracy. These answers, which would satisfy less impatient, and above all less prideful men, would have deeply wounded those imperious masters whose despotism is exercised without control over unfortunate slaves. It was therefore necessary to employ all means, even calumny, to subjugate the class of color and crush it.23 It had to be represented as factious, turbulent, having sworn to destroy the whites and stopping at nothing, not murder, not arson, to accomplish this. It is so easy to slander men who are not allowed to defend themselves! To find guilty the enemy that one judges oneself! And then the colonies also count among their ranks men who know how to create conspiracies, foment them, cause them to arise at the right time, in order to take advantage of them in their own interest. And what does it really matter that the worthless blood of a few negroes comes to redden the ground! What does it matter if a mulatto's head rolls on

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the scaffold! Mere trifles, when you consider the glorious result expected of it; that is, the bondage of the many for the benefit of the few. Besides, the métropole offers a few examples which would seem to authorize the colonies in this Machiavellianism.

And so we have seen the birth of these imaginary plots, these conflagrations whose frequency during certain periods bespeaks frightful mysteries. Innocents have been accused, thrown into dungeons, tortured, shot without pity when they allowed themselves a few complaints. Neither sex nor age could soften these ferocious men who subject their slaves to the most sophisticated cruelties, and their gold, thrown at the heads of the proconsuls of the great nation, hides large stains of blood from their eyes.

Ah! if some day an eloquent pen tearing the funereal veil which covers our colonies, would retrace the history of domination of the possessors of men; if it evoked from the depths of their tombs the sad victims who are heaped there every day, never would a country defiled by tyranny offer such horrible pages.24 All that we read of the Mésences, the Caligulas, the Louis XIs,25 all that our hearts refuse to believe as too degrading for humanity, finds itself surpassed in the nineteenth century by overseas Frenchmen. But these horrible scenes of despotism have no place here, elsewhere we will reveal them by throwing the names of their infamous authors among the ignominies of history.