La Route Des Abolitionnistes

Next year sees the bicentennial of the first stages, in 1806, of the bill in the British Parliament, which led to the Act of 1807 forbidding participation in the Slave Trade to British shipping and subjects. But slavery continued in the sugar colonies, where the slaves had to wait until 1833 before the newly reformed Parliament took account of the agitation against slavery in Britain, together with the increased incidence of slave uprisings in the West Indies and the reports of the severity with which these were repressed. August 1st, 1834, is still celebrated in the English-speaking Caribbean as Emancipation Day.

In France, matters were more complicated. Before the Revolution, many writers had commented adversely: Voltaire, Montesquieu, even Rabelais. Rousseau condemned it absolutely. The leaders of the Enlightenment and the Encyclopédistes were equally opposed, many – Mirabeau, particularly, and Lafayette – joining with the Societé des Amis des Noirs, founded in 1788.