Vincent Ogé motion to the Assembly of Colonists in Paris (1789)

Vincent Ogé presented the views of his fellow affranchis to a meeting of the white planter (also referred to as Grand Blancs) delegates who had come to Paris from Saint Domingue, the largest and wealthiest French colony. Ogé came to Paris to press mulatto claims for full civil and political rights.

This document from 1789 shows the complexity of the racial and hence political situation in the colonies; the mulattos wanted to align themselves with the white planters, because like them they held property and slaves. But the white planters resisted any such coalition for they feared that such an alliance might encourage the slaves to demand changes in their status. When the slaves of Saint Domingue began their revolution in August of 1791, the mulattos and free blacks took varying and sometimes contradictory positions, some supporting the whites, some taking the side of the slaves, some trying to maintain an independent position. By then Ogé himself had died, executed in Le Cap for leading a rebellion in the fall of 1790. (Center for History and New Media)

(Hunt p. 103f)

Reference

 * Hunt, Lynn. (1996) The French Revolution and Human Rights: A Brief Documentary History (The Bedford Series in History and Culture). Translated, edited, and with an introduction by Lynn Hunt. New York: St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0312108028 (paper)
 * Center for History and New Media (George Mason Univeristy) and American Social History Project (City University of New York): Liberty, Equality, Fraternity: Exploring the French Revolution.