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ABSTRACT
While the re-establishment of slavery has become better known, the process by which this return was effected remains understudied. While scholars have examined the return of colour prejudice and the reactionary nature of civil law reforms, criminal justice has received little attention. Nevertheless, criminal tribunals, both exceptionally established and permanent, played an important role in the transition from a de jure regime of emancipation, in spite of de facto limits, to a renewal of the regime of enslavement. An examination of these court records reveals how long the government considered the colony needed jurisdictions of exception to deal with threats of rebellion; the variety of crimes that were considered ‘rebellious’; and the transition from a regime of exception based on the emergency of rebellion to one based on the particularity of the slave system.
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Notes
1 Miranda Spieler, ‘Abolition and Reenslavement in the Caribbean: The Revolution in French Guiana’, in The French Revolution in Global Perspective, ed. Suzanne Desan, Lynn Hunt, and William Max Nelson (New York: Cornell University Press, 2013), 146, https://doi.org/10.7591/9780801467479-011.
2 For a more detailed account of these events, see Jacques Adélaïde-Merlande, René Bélénus, and Frédéric Régent, La Rébellion de La Guadeloupe, 1801–1802 (Basse-Terre: Société d’Histoire de la Guadeloupe, 2002); Laurent Dubois, A Colony of Citizens: Revolution and Slave Emancipation in the French Caribbean, 1787–1804 (UNC Press Books, 2004); Frédéric Régent, Esclavage, Métissage, Liberté: La Révolution Française En Guadeloupe 1789–1802 (Grasset & Fasquelle, 2004), 415–27.
3 ANOM C 7A 59 Fo 145, ‘Ernouf au ministre sur l’amnistie aux rebelles’ (no date).
4 Cited in Adélaïde-Merlande, et al., La Rébellion de La Guadeloupe, 164–5.
5 Auguste Lacour, Histoire de La Guadeloupe, vol. 3, 4 vols. (Basse-Terre, Guadeloupe: Imprimerie du Gouvernement, 1837), 399.
6 ANOM C 7A 56, F°186, ‘Lettre de Lacrosse au ministre de la Marine lui rapportant les assassinats perpétrés dans le bourg de Sainte-Anne par des noirs contre leurs maîtres’. According to Auguste Lacour, the tribunal was based in Sainte-Anne until 4 November, at which point it moved to Pointe-à-Pitre. Lacour, Histoire de La Guadeloupe, vol. 3, 421.
7 Michel-Rolph Trouillot, Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History, 20th anniversary (Chicago: Beacon Press, 2015): Chapter 3, especially 91–92.
8 Articles 25–27 and 32 especially emphasized the speed of the procedure from the incarceration of the defendant to the execution of the tribunal’s ruling. The accused was to be interrogated within 24 h of incarceration. A ruling for capital punishment had to be delivered to the Captain General within 24 h. While the phrasing of it was that the execution of the sentence had to be delayed until at least 24 h after the Captain General received the ruling, it seems implied that it would be carried out unless the Captain General decided the condemned should be recommended to the mercy of the First Consul. In terms of delays, by comparison in 1788, Louis XVI instituted a month-long delay in the execution of sentences so that the convicted could seek out the mercy of the king. AD Guadeloupe, 2U1 Arrêts Civils 1802–1805, ‘Arrêt Portant création d’un Tribunal Spécial pour la Guadeloupe et dépendances conformément à la loi du 18 pluviôse de l’an 9, Du 14 pluviôse an 11 de la république française’. Jacques Krynen, L’emprise contemporaine des juges, vol. 2, L’état de justice en France, XIIIe - XXe siècle (Paris: Gallimard, 2012), 19.
9 AD Guadeloupe, 2U1 Arrêts Civils 1802–1805, ‘Arrêt Portant création d’un Tribunal Spécial pour la Guadeloupe et dépendances conformément à la loi du 18 pluviôse de l’an 9 Du 14 pluviôse an 11 de la république française’.
10 Without the full records for the lower tribunals, it is possible that the regular tribunals overall heard more cases throughout the period; however the appeals court had to confirm all cases in which the lower tribunals pronounced a ‘peine afflictive ou infamante’.
11 Cited in Lacour, Histoire de la Guadeloupe, vol. 4, 5.
12 Nasser Hussain, The Jurisprudence of Emergency: Colonialism and the Rule of Law (University of Michigan Press, 2019). Miranda Frances Spieler, ‘The Legal Structure of Colonial Rule during the French Revolution’, The William and Mary Quarterly 66, no. 2 (2009): on Hugues, 397–8.
13 For a thorough analysis of the influence of Trouillot’s thesis, and the parts of it that remain under-examined, see Alyssa Goldstein Sepinwall, ‘Still Unthinkable?: The Haitian Revolution and the Reception of Michel-Rolph Trouillot’s Silencing the Past’, Journal of Haitian Studies 19, no. 2 (2013): 75–103, https://doi.org/10.1353/jhs.2013.0036.
14 The work of Yves Bénot is especially important in this regard. Yves Bénot, La Démence Coloniale Sous Napoléon (Paris: La Découverte, 1992). Yves Bénot and Marcel Dorigny, eds., Rétablissement de l’esclavage Dans Les Colonies Françaises, 1802: Ruptures et Continuités de La Politique Coloniale Française, 1800–1830: Aux Origines d’Haïti: Actes Du Colloque International Tenu à l’Université de Paris VIII Les 20, 21 et 22 Juin 2002 (Maisonneuve et Larose, 2003).
15 For example, Philippe Girard, ‘Napoléon voulait-il rétablir l’esclavage en Haïti ?’, Bulletin de la Société d’Histoire de la Guadeloupe, no. 159 (2011) https://doi.org/10.7202/1036821ar: 24.
16 Régent, Frédéric, ‘Le rétablissement de l’esclavage et du préjugé de couleur en Guadeloupe (1802–1803)’, in Bénot, Rétablissement de l’esclavage.
17 Gérard Lafleur, ‘La Guadeloupe de 1803 à 1816 : de l’Empire à la Restauration’, Bulletin de la Société d’Histoire de la Guadeloupe 172 (September 2015): 1–116, https://doi.org/10.7202/1035305ar.
18 Didier Destouches, ‘Du statut colonial au statut départemental: l’administration révolutionnaire en Guadeloupe: 1787–1800’ (PhD thesis, Dijon, 2004). Jean-François Niort, ed., Du Code noir au Code civil: Jalons pour l’histoire du droit en Guadeloupe. Perspectives comparées avec la Martinique, la Guyane et la République d’Haïti (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2007).
19 Bruno Maillard, ‘Le tribunal spécial de la Guadeloupe et Dépendances, 1803–1806’, Annales historiques de la Révolution française 394, no. 4 (2018): 51–78. Dubois, A Colony of Citizens, 202–3. Similarly, other special tribunals were set up under the agents of the Directory, Auguste Lacour, Histoire de La Guadeloupe, vol. 3, 4 vols. (Basse-Terre, Guadeloupe: Imprimerie du Gouvernement, 1837), 86–7. If the records for these preceding institutions exist, a study that examines all these jurisdictions in relation to each other would be very enlightening for better understanding the system of colonization in Guadeloupe during the Revolution and parsing out the nature and limits of abolition.
20 Adélaïde-Merlande, et al., La Rébellion de La Guadeloupe.
21 Bernard Gainot, ‘Métropole/Colonies Projets Constitutionnels et Rapports de Forces 1798–1802’, in Bénot, Rétablissement de l’esclavage, 13
22 For a more quantitative analysis of these records, see Elyssa Gage, ‘“A Softer and More Durable Glory”: Colonial Narratives of Justice in Guadeloupe, 1801–1830’ (Gainesville, Florida, University of Florida, 2020), Chapter 3.
23 ANOM, C 7A 60, ‘Bertolio au ministre’, 10 Ventôse an XI.
24 The estimates regarding deportations and executions vary. Frédéric Régent estimates 3–4 thousand killed and another 3,000 deported, whereas Dubois gives a combined total of 10,000. Régent, ‘Le rétablissement de l’esclavage et du préjugé de couleur en Guadeloupe (1802–1803)’, in Bénot, Rétablissement de l’esclavage, 283; Dubois, A Colony of Citizens, 404.
25 Lacour, Histoire de la Guadeloupe, vol. 3, 430-–3.
26 On the metropolitan court, see Robert Allen, ‘Chapitre VI. La justice d’exception’, in Les tribunaux criminels sous la Révolution et l’Empire : 1792–1811, Histoire (Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2015), 231–66, https://doi.org/10.4000/books.pur.8132; François-Xavier Rey, Commentaire Sur La Loi Du 18 Pluviôse an 9, Portant Établissement d’un Tribunal Criminel Spécial (Paris, 1800), https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k6475276g.
27 The title of ‘citoyen’ became restricted for use by whites only in a decree by Richepanse of 17 July 1802. See Adélaïde-Merlande, et al., La Rébellion de la Guadeloupe, 219.
28 This is according to Bertolio, the commissioner of justice who replaced Coster, in a letter to the minister. ANOM C7A 60, Bertolio au Ministre, 10 ventôse an XI.
29 On the civil dimensions of slave or free status at the end of the Revolution, see: Régent, Esclavage, Métissage, Liberté, 425–34.
30 With the exception of eight defendants, part of two different cases, in which the individual identifiers were not used. In the case against Jacques, Alexis, Simon, Louise, and Victoire, the legal status is not the only omission, as the charge against them is also missing. While the court ruling implied they were a mix of free and enslaved: ‘les accusés resteront attachés à la chaine avec les esclaves mis en punition par leurs maîtres’, there is no way to determine which of them were free and which were enslaved. In the second case, Nicolas, Ismaël, and Moko were charged with the assassination of a Black man. The only identifier for the defendants as well as the victim was ‘nègre’.
31 With regards to race, the tribunals vary slightly in their terminology with the first Special Tribunal using ‘noir’ while the others used ‘nègre’. Only the two earliest source sets, the first Special Tribunal and Sainte-Anne, made distinctions between Creole and African-born ‘noirs/nègres’ (though neither did so consistently). Almost all non-white defendants were identified by a taxonomical racial marker, with only 11 of 275 lacking any description, another 12, all of them listed as free, were identified by the generic ‘homme/femme de couleur’ (4.5%). The terms used were ‘nègre/négresse’ (nearly 60% alone, and another 6.5% specifying ‘africain’ or ‘créole’), ‘mulâtre/sse’ (around 17%), ‘noir’ (5.5% including those that specified ‘africain’ and ‘créole’), two ‘métis’, and one ‘Caraïbe’.
32 ANOM 6DPPC1381, ‘État des procès jugés par le tribunal spécial du 4 janvier 1803 au 28 juin 1806’.
33 AD Guadeloupe, Fonds Publics, 2U1, Arrêts Civils 1802–1805 ‘Arrêté Portant création d’un Tribunal Spécial pour la Guadeloupe et dépendances conformément à la loi du 18 pluviôse de l’an 9. Du 14 pluviôse an 11 de la république française’.
34 It is however the only complete dataset, in particular the lower courts of the regular tribunals likely heard a greater diversity than the appeals’ court, though perhaps not than the special tribunal.
35 Léo Elisabeth, ‘Déportés Des Petites Antilles Françaises, 1801–1803’, in Rétablissement de l’esclavage Dans Les Colonies Françaises.
36 Lacour, 33.
37 ‘R. Lacrosse, contre-Amiral, Capitaine-général de la Guadeloupe et dépendances, au citoyen Arnauld’, cited in Lacour, Histoire de la Guadeloupe, vol. 3, 413.
38 ANOM, C 7A 58, F.45 ‘Copie de l’arrête, pris par le capitaine Général, le Préfet colonial, et le commissaire de justice’ (24 Frimaire year XI).
39 For a discussion of the didactic intentions of spectacular punishment, see Paul Friedland, Seeing Justice Done: The Age of Spectacular Capital Punishment in France (Oxford University Press, 2012), 89–107.
40 Jean-Thomas Langloys, Mémoire Pour Le Chef de Brigade Magloire Pélage et Pour Les Habitants de La Guadeloupe, vol. 1, 2 vols. (Paris: Desenne, 1803), 311–3. According to Lacour, Barbet managed to commit suicide in his cell. Millet de la Girardière also died in prison before his stated execution, although the cause of death was not clear, which led to conspiracies which Lacour still encountered 50 years later when researching for his history. Lacour, Histoire de la Guadeloupe, vol. 3, 412–21. Unfortunately, Lacour does not detail the nature of the conspiracies, so we can only speculate.
41 ANOM C 7A 56, F°186, ‘Lettre de Lacrosse au ministre de la Marine lui rapportant les assassinats perpétrés dans le bourg de Sainte-Anne par des noirs contre leurs maîtres’. According to Lacour, the tribunal was based in Sainte-Anne until 4 November, at which point it moved to Pointe-à-Pitre. Lacour, Histoire de la Guadeloupe, vol. 3, 421.
42 Langloys, Mémoire pour Pélage, vol. 1, 314.
43 ADG, 4 Mi 93 (R1), cited in Adélaïde-Merlande, et al., La Rébellion de la Guadeloupe, 294.
44 Although the Appeals Court reduced Mercier’s sentence to the galleys for life due to attenuating circumstances: the court deemed his crime involuntary, likely due to his inebriated state at the time, and that the woman had provoked him, which included striking him.
45 ANOM 7 CA 65, ‘Éloge des membres du tribunal spécial et exposé d’un jugement’ (4 Aug 1806).
46 ANOM 6DPPC1381, ‘État des procès jugés par le tribunal spécial du 4 janvier 1803 au 28 juin 1806’, ‘Jean Baptiste, dit Azor’.
47 Ibid, ‘Michel, de M. Roux’.
48 ANOM 6DPPC 1381, ‘Extrait des minutes du greffe de la Cour royale de la Guadeloupe et dépendances’.
49 ANOM 6DPPC 1381, ‘État des arrêts rendus au criminel par la cour d’appel du 30 décembre 1802 à 1807 inclus’.
50 The author is working on a separate piece about women in the courts as defendants, witnesses, and victims.
51 ANOM 6DPPC1381, ‘État des procès jugés par le tribunal spécial du 4 janvier 1803 au 28 juin 1806’, ‘Dossou’, ‘Pierre’, and ‘Vincent’.
52 Caroline Oudin-Bastide, L’effroi et La Terreur: Esclavage, Poison et Sorcellerie Aux Antilles (Paris: La Découverte, 2013); John Savage, ‘Between Colonial Fact and French Law: Slave Poisoners and the Provostial Court in Restoration-Era Martinique’, French Historical Studies 29, no. 4 (2006): 565–94; John Savage, ‘“Black Magic” and White Terror: Slave Poisoning and Colonial Society in Early 19th Century Martinique’, Journal of Social History 40, no. 3 (2007): 635–62.
53 There has been no systematic analysis of the entire judicial record that exists for 1806–1820; however the data from the 1820s suggest that spectacular punishment was used exclusively in poisoning cases and only against the enslaved. Gage, ‘A Softer and More Durable Glory’: chapter 3.
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Elyssa Gage
Elyssa Gage is a Visiting Assistant Professor of History at Birmingham-Southern College, 900 Arkadelphia Road, Birmingham, Alabama, USA.