Slavery in Saint-Domingue
The 1926 Slavery Convention described slavery as "...the status or condition of a person over whom any or all of the powers attaching to the right of ownership are exercised..." Therefore, a slave is someone who cannot leave an owner or employer without explicit permission, and who will be returned if they escape. Control may be accomplished through official or tacit arrangements with local authorities by masters who have some influence because of their social or economic status.
Slavery was commonly used in the parts of the Caribbean controlled by France or the British Empire. The Lesser Antilles islands of Barbados, Antigua, Martinique and Guadeloupe, which were the first important slave societies of the Caribbean, began the widespread use of African slaves by the end of the 17th century, as their economies converted from tobacco to sugar production.
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Treatment of slaves
The slaves were treated terribly, often beaten and raped. They had such miserable lives that death was considered a welcome release. By the middle of the 18th century, British Jamaica and French Saint-Domingue had become the largest slave societies of the region, rivaling Brazil as a destination for enslaved Africans. Due to overwork, the death rates for Caribbean slaves were higher than birth rates, this was especially true in the north of Saint-Domingue. The conditions led to increasing numbers of slave revolts and campaigns against slavery in Europe.
Abolishment of slavery in Haiti
On On August 29, 1793 French Commissioner Léger Félicité Sonthonax declared the emancipation of the slaves of St. Domingue, this had at first limited impact until the final victory of the Haitian Revolution in 1804. This was the first successful slave revolt and had an profound impact on slavery in the of the Western Hemisphere, as slaves and others that sought to abolish this form of human bondage, looked to Haiti and her accomplishments as role model to end slavery everywhere.
See also
- Le Code Noir - 1689 document regulating slavery in the French colonies.
- Amis des Noirs - French anti-slavery society.
Reference
- Slavery. (2005, December 8). Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 22:14, December 8, 2005 from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Slavery&oldid=30624193.
External links
- Curtin, Philip D. and Herbert S. Klein. Records of Slave Ship Movement Between Africa and the Americas, 1817-1843. 2nd DPLS ed., 1973, 1997. Madison, WI: Data and Program Library Service.
- Klein, Herbert S. Nantes Slave Trade in the Eighteenth Century, 1711-179. DPLS ed., 197?. Madison, WI: Data and Program Library Service.