Napoleon, then First Consul, here represented crossing the Alps, at the Louvre Abu-Dhabi.

(illustration) -

GIUSEPPE CACACE / AFP

Napoleon Bonaparte restored without qualms in 1802 the slavery abolished by the Revolution, allowing the establishment of a colonial regime more segregationist than under the monarchy, denounced Friday the Foundation for the Memory of Slavery (FME), in this year of the 200th anniversary of his death.

"Napoleon acted as he did in all things: without affect, and without morals", confides its president, the former Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault.

"This decision, analyzes the former mayor of Nantes, is not an 'accident' but is part of his practice of power and his imperial ambition".

Entitled "Colonial Napoleon - 1802, the reestablishment of slavery", this note, written by four historians, demonstrates how this measure was part of the American colonial policy of the First Consul who dreamed of making the Gulf of Mexico "a French sea. ".

It describes for blacks the return to a more severe regime than under the Ancien Régime.

The American dream "

“Napoleon wants to enlarge the French colonial empire: it is his American dream.

For him, the reestablishment of slavery is only a means at the service of this colonial dream ”.

According to Jean-Marc Ayrault, “Napoleon is a cynic.

He is neither a racist ideologue, like the settlers who surround him, nor an abolitionist humanist, like Abbé Grégoire who is opposed to him ”.

This note by historians Marcel Dorigny, Bernard Gainot, Malick Ghachem and Frédéric Régent traces a complex history.

Slavery was abolished in 1794 by the Convention, but the measure was not applied everywhere.

The law of May 20, 1802 provides for the maintenance of slavery where it was not abolished: in Reunion, where the colonists had not obeyed the Convention, and in Martinique which had been under English domination.

In Guadeloupe, Bonaparte re-established slavery, a measure also applied in Guyana.

Slavery will remain in force until its final abolition in 1848.

An order harsher than under the Ancien Régime

By restoring slavery, Bonaparte gives reason - through his decrees and instructions - to the demands of the racist colonists who wanted a segregationist order harsher than under the Ancien Régime.

They feared rebellions like that of Santo Domingo where the Republic of Haiti was born in 1804.

“Napoleon did not just restore slavery.

Through specific texts, […] he also attacks the 'free of color' (freed blacks).

Their rights are diminished, mixed marriages are prohibited, interbreeding is condemned, ”notes the former Prime Minister of François Hollande.

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