Henri Grégoire

Portrait of Abbé Grégoire

Henri Baptiste Grégoire (December 4, 1750 Vého, Lorraine - May 20, 1831 Paris, France), (known in French as Abbé Grégoire ) was a French Roman Catholic priest and revolutionary leader and constitutional bishop of Blois (Departement Loir et Cher), a French city in the Loire valley between Orléans and Tours.

Influential Member of the Société des Amis des Noirs

In October 1789, Grégoire took a great interest in emancipation after meeting Julien Raimond, an affranchis planter from Saint-Domingue who was trying to win admission to the Constituent Assembly as a representative of his class. He published numerous pamphlets and later, books, on the subject of racial equality and became a influential member of the Society of the Friends of the Blacks, of which he became the president in 1790. It was on Grégoire's motion in May 1791 that the Constituent Assembly passed its first law admitting some wealthy free men of colour in the French colonies to the same rights as whites. Grégoire also advocated for Jews in French society.

In 1789 Grégoire published his Mémoire en faveur des gens de couleur ou sang-melés de St.-Domingue. (Hunt)

See also

• Thomas Clarkson - British abolitionist.
• Société des Amis des Noirs - French anti-slavery group founded in 1788, it had several links to the rebels in Saint-Domingue.
• Letter to the Citizens of Color and Free Negroes of Saint-Domingue - 1791 letter by Henri Grégoire.

Reference

• Encyclopædia Britannica: Eleventh Edition (1911-1912).
• Henri Grégoire. (2005, November 30). Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 19:26, December 9, 2005 [1].
• Hunt, Lyn. (1996). The French Revolution and Human Rights : A Brief Documentary History. New York: Bedford/St. Martin's. ISBN 0312108028

External link

• Project Gutenberg: De la littérature des nègres, ou Recherches sur leurs facultés intellectuelle - Online edition of book by Henri Grégoire (French language).