Amis des Noirs - Revision history

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65.182.57.72: /* Société des Amis des Noirs - French Anti-Slavery Organization */

2006-11-27T01:50:27Z

‎Société des Amis des Noirs - French Anti-Slavery Organization

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 At the beginning [[1789]] the group had already over 140 members.
-[[image:seal_of_the_amis_des_noirs_1788.jpg|left|thumb|200px|Seal of the Amis des Noirs ([[1788]]).]]Through turbulent years, the ''Société'' backed the ''gens de couleur libre'' (free blacks) as they pressed the French government to extend its recently-proclaimed ''[[Declaration of the Rights of Man]]'' at least to freed blacks both in France and in its colonies, including in Saint-Domingue. The society also campaigned for an end to the [[slavery|slave trade]]. Its membership believed that this approach would be more successful than demanding an end to slavery altogether, given the nearly inconceivable impact that such a fundamental change to the nation's (indeed, the world's) economic underpinnings would have.
+[[image:seal_of_the_amis_des_noirs_1788.jpg|left|thumb|180px|Seal of the Amis des Noirs ([[1788]]).]]Through turbulent years, the ''Société'' backed the ''gens de couleur libre'' (free blacks) as they pressed the French government to extend its recently-proclaimed ''[[Declaration of the Rights of Man]]'' at least to freed blacks both in France and in its colonies, including in Saint-Domingue. The society also campaigned for an end to the [[slavery|slave trade]]. Its membership believed that this approach would be more successful than demanding an end to slavery altogether, given the nearly inconceivable impact that such a fundamental change to the nation's (indeed, the world's) economic underpinnings would have.
 The Estates-General responded half-heartedly to the society's urgings, officially granting freedom only to already-freed slaves rather than to those who remained enslaved. But even that met with fierce resistance from the slave-holders of [[Saint-Domingue]] (and elsewhere).

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 At the beginning [[1789]] the group had already over 140 members.
-Through turbulent years, the ''Société'' backed the ''gens de couleur libre'' (free blacks) as they pressed the French government to extend its recently-proclaimed ''[[Declaration of the Rights of Man]]'' at least to freed blacks both in France and in its colonies, including in Saint-Domingue. The society also campaigned for an end to the [[slavery|slave trade]]. Its membership believed that this approach would be more successful than demanding an end to slavery altogether, given the nearly inconceivable impact that such a fundamental change to the nation's (indeed, the world's) economic underpinnings would have.
+[[image:seal_of_the_amis_des_noirs_1788.jpg|left|thumb|200px|Seal of the Amis des Noirs ([[1788]]).]]Through turbulent years, the ''Société'' backed the ''gens de couleur libre'' (free blacks) as they pressed the French government to extend its recently-proclaimed ''[[Declaration of the Rights of Man]]'' at least to freed blacks both in France and in its colonies, including in Saint-Domingue. The society also campaigned for an end to the [[slavery|slave trade]]. Its membership believed that this approach would be more successful than demanding an end to slavery altogether, given the nearly inconceivable impact that such a fundamental change to the nation's (indeed, the world's) economic underpinnings would have.
 The Estates-General responded half-heartedly to the society's urgings, officially granting freedom only to already-freed slaves rather than to those who remained enslaved. But even that met with fierce resistance from the slave-holders of [[Saint-Domingue]] (and elsewhere).

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 Many of ''les Amis''' members in addition to Brissot were well-known. One of the key people wakening the French national conscience regarding slavery was [[Julien Raimond]], a [[mulatto]] from [[Saint-Domingue]] who used his status as a wealthy planter to speak out the colony's parent country for the cause of abolition. Subsequently, he was twice sent as a civil commissioner to Saint-Domingue.
-[[image:sonthonax.jpg|right|thumb|200px|Portrait of Léger Félicité Sonthonax]][[Legér Sonthonax]], who also was sent twice to Saint-Domingue as a commissioner, was affiliated with ''les Amis''. So was [[Jacques Vincent Ogé]], the mulatto born in France and educated in Paris who would instigate the rebellion that marked the beginning of the end of slavery on [[Saint-Domingue]]. Ogé was one of many who urged the group to keep stepping up their efforts to stop slavery in the vibrant French colony. Many other French notables lent their names and influence to the cause. Among them, the noble/politician Count Honoré Gabriel Riqueti Mirabeau, the Enlightenment philosopher/mathematician Marquis de Condorcet, the Bishop [[Henri Grégoire]] and the nobleman/soldier Marquis de Lafayette. Even Dr Joseph Guillotin, inventor of the guillotine, joined Les Amis.
+[[image:sonthonax.jpg|right|thumb|200px|Portrait of Léger Félicité Sonthonax]][[Léger Félicité Sonthonax]], who also was sent twice to Saint-Domingue as a commissioner, was affiliated with ''les Amis''. So was [[Jacques Vincent Ogé]], the mulatto born in France and educated in Paris who would instigate the rebellion that marked the beginning of the end of slavery on [[Saint-Domingue]]. Ogé was one of many who urged the group to keep stepping up their efforts to stop slavery in the vibrant French colony. Many other French notables lent their names and influence to the cause. Among them, the noble/politician Count Honoré Gabriel Riqueti Mirabeau, the Enlightenment philosopher/mathematician Marquis de Condorcet, the Bishop [[Henri Grégoire]] and the nobleman/soldier Marquis de Lafayette. Even Dr Joseph Guillotin, inventor of the guillotine, joined Les Amis.
 Some others who might have joined chose not to for various reasons. One such key person was [[Thomas Jefferson]], who spent time in Paris during these years as the U.S. emissary to the court of Louix XIV. While in that capacity he could not have joined ''les Amis'' without having such an action taken as a demonstration of U.S. policy, thus compromising his post as a diplomat.

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 Many of ''les Amis''' members in addition to Brissot were well-known. One of the key people wakening the French national conscience regarding slavery was [[Julien Raimond]], a [[mulatto]] from [[Saint-Domingue]] who used his status as a wealthy planter to speak out the colony's parent country for the cause of abolition. Subsequently, he was twice sent as a civil commissioner to Saint-Domingue.
-[[Legér Sonthonax]], who also was sent twice to Saint-Domingue as a commissioner, was affiliated with ''les Amis''. So was [[Jacques Vincent Ogé]], the mulatto born in France and educated in Paris who would instigate the rebellion that marked the beginning of the end of slavery on [[Saint-Domingue]]. Ogé was one of many who urged the group to keep stepping up their efforts to stop slavery in the vibrant French colony. Many other French notables lent their names and influence to the cause. Among them, the noble/politician Count Honoré Gabriel Riqueti Mirabeau, the Enlightenment philosopher/mathematician Marquis de Condorcet, the Bishop [[Henri Grégoire]] and the nobleman/soldier Marquis de Lafayette. Even Dr Joseph Guillotin, inventor of the guillotine, joined Les Amis.
+[[image:sonthonax.jpg|right|thumb|200px|Portrait of Léger Félicité Sonthonax]][[Legér Sonthonax]], who also was sent twice to Saint-Domingue as a commissioner, was affiliated with ''les Amis''. So was [[Jacques Vincent Ogé]], the mulatto born in France and educated in Paris who would instigate the rebellion that marked the beginning of the end of slavery on [[Saint-Domingue]]. Ogé was one of many who urged the group to keep stepping up their efforts to stop slavery in the vibrant French colony. Many other French notables lent their names and influence to the cause. Among them, the noble/politician Count Honoré Gabriel Riqueti Mirabeau, the Enlightenment philosopher/mathematician Marquis de Condorcet, the Bishop [[Henri Grégoire]] and the nobleman/soldier Marquis de Lafayette. Even Dr Joseph Guillotin, inventor of the guillotine, joined Les Amis.
 Some others who might have joined chose not to for various reasons. One such key person was [[Thomas Jefferson]], who spent time in Paris during these years as the U.S. emissary to the court of Louix XIV. While in that capacity he could not have joined ''les Amis'' without having such an action taken as a demonstration of U.S. policy, thus compromising his post as a diplomat.

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 [[image:honore_mirabeau.jpg|right|thumb|200px|Honoré Mirabeau, one of the co-founders of the Amis des Noirs.]]
-The '''Société des Amis des Noirs''' (also ''Amis des Noirs''; transl. ''Society of Friends of the Blacks''), a French [[abolitionist]] group, was founded on February 19, [[1788]] by Jacques Pierre Brissot, Étienne Clavière, Honoré Gabriel Riqueti, comte de Mirabeau, Jean-Louis Carra, Cerisier, Duchesnay and Valady.
+The '''Société des Amis des Noirs''' (also ''Amis des Noirs''; transl. ''Society of Friends of the Blacks'', in older literature: ''Friends of the Negro''), a French [[abolitionist]] group, was founded on February 19, [[1788]] by Jacques Pierre Brissot, Étienne Clavière, Honoré Gabriel Riqueti, comte de Mirabeau, Jean-Louis Carra, Cerisier, Duchesnay and Valady.
 ===Société des Amis des Noirs - French Anti-Slavery Organization===

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 Predictably, ''les Amis'' did not lack for detractors, people who felt that the organization's championing of black rights was misplaced at best. Charles Etienne Thevenau among the most notable of its critics. Born a West Indian, he went to Paris as a journalist and was jailed there for his virulent opposition to ''les Amis''.
-Abolitionist groups such as ''les Amis'' were radical organizations in a time of significant political and economic upheaval particularly in Europe and the still-young United States. What they achieved ultimately -- provoking an end to the then-accepted nearly-global concept of enslaving people, particularly enslaving masses for use as manufacturing fodder  -- created havoc in the short term, but in the long term unleashed a new energy that made possible the next level of human endeavor. The fact that slavery still exists in various countries and in various guises does not diminish the powerful impact of ''les Amis'' and its ilk in their day and time. If anything, it underscores how much can be achieved by dedicated people who, despite the odds, work togther diligently for a cause that matters.
+Abolitionist groups such as ''les Amis'' were radical organizations in a time of significant political and economic upheaval particularly in Europe and the still-young United States. What they achieved ultimately -- provoking an end to the then-accepted nearly-global concept of enslaving people, particularly enslaving masses for use as manufacturing fodder  -- created havoc in the short term, but in the long term unleashed a new energy that made possible the next level of human endeavor. The fact that slavery still exists in various countries and in various guises does not diminish the powerful impact of ''les Amis'' and its ilk in their day and time. If anything, it underscores how much can be achieved by dedicated people who, despite the odds, work together diligently for a cause that matters.
 ==See also==

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 * [[Letter to the Citizens of Color and Free Negroes of Saint-Domingue]] - 1791 letter by Henri Grégoire.
 * [[Vincent Ogé motion to the Assembly of Colonists in Paris (1789)]] - Vincent Ogé pleads the [[affranchis]] cause before delegates of [[Grands Blancs]] in Paris.
 * [[Thomas Clarkson]] - British abolitionist and supporter of [[Vincent Ogé]] that supported efforts to end slavery in Saint-Domingue.
 ** [[Thomas Clarkson - Thoughts on The Haitian Revolution]] - 1823 text.

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 * [[Vincent Ogé motion to the Assembly of Colonists in Paris (1789)]] - Vincent Ogé pleads the [[affranchis]] cause before delegates of [[Grands Blancs]] in Paris.
 * [[Thomas Clarkson]] - British abolitionist that supported efforts to end slavery in Saint-Domingue.
 == References: ==