Difference between revisions of "Vincent Ogé motion to the Assembly of Colonists in Paris (1789)"

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(Hunt p. 103f)
 
(Hunt p. 103f)
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==See also==
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* [[Jean Baptiste Chavannes]] - An associate of Vincent Ogé, who had pleaded to ask for the freedom of all including the slaves, instead of only asking for the rights of mulattos as Ogé ended up doing.
  
 
==Reference==
 
==Reference==

Revision as of 01:29, 11 April 2006

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 rebellion in the fall of 1790. (Center for History and New Media)

But Sirs, this word of Freedom that one cannot pronounce without enthusiasm, this word that carries with it the idea of happiness, is this not because it seems to want to make us forget the evils that we have suffered for so many centuries? This Freedom, the greatest, the first of goods, is it made for all men? I believe so. Should it be given to all men? I believe so again. But how should it be rendered? What should be the timing and the conditions? Here is for us, Sirs, the greatest, the most important of all questions; it interests America, Africa, France, all Europe and it is principally this question that has determined me, Sirs, to ask you to hear me out.

If we do not take the most prompt and efficacious measures; if firmness, courage, and constancy do not animate all of us; if we do not quickly bring together all our intelligence, all our means, and all our efforts; if we fall asleep for an instant on the edge of the abyss, we will tremble upon awakening! We will see blood flowing, our lands invaded, the objects of our industry ravaged, our homes burnt. We will see our neighbors, our friends, our wives, our children with their throats cut and their bodies mutilated; the slave will raise the standard of revolt, and the islands [in the Caribbean Sea] will be but a vast and baleful conflagration; commerce will be ruined, France will receive a mortal wound, and a multitude of honest citizens will be impoverished and ruined; we will lose everything.

But, Sirs, there is still time to prevent the disaster. I have perhaps presumed too much from my feeble understanding, but I have ideas that can be useful; if the assembly [of white planters] wishes to admit me, if it desires it, if it wants to authorize me to draw up and submit to it my Plan, I will do it with pleasure, even with gratitude, and perhaps I could contribute and help ward off the storm that rumbles over our heads.

(Hunt p. 103f)

See also

  • Jean Baptiste Chavannes - An associate of Vincent Ogé, who had pleaded to ask for the freedom of all including the slaves, instead of only asking for the rights of mulattos as Ogé ended up doing.

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 [1].