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The destruction of liberty in French Guiana: law, identity and the meaning of legal space, 1794–1830

2011; Routledge; Volume: 36; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/03071022.2011.601104

1470-1200

Miranda Spieler,

Migration, Identity, and Health

Abstract This article examines the colonial legal culture of French Guiana from 1794 to 1830 during a period marked by dramatic historical rupture; slaves in the colony who were liberated by decree of the French legislature in 1794 were returned to slavery under Napoleon. People who managed to remain free in the nineteenth century endured humiliating legal handicaps as well as challenges to their free status. In Guiana during this period, a person's access to the ‘rights of man and citizen’ depended on intricate and ultimately fragile legal structures. The perils besetting Guiana's freed people during and after the French Revolution often arose from the highly adjustable character of legal space – the legal status of imperial territory in relation to domestic soil. This article draws on archival materials including notarial documents and trial records to reconstruct the role of law and legal discourse in mediating everyday life, familial relationships and social encounters on the French colonial frontier. Notes 1 Correspondance sécrète des députés de Saint Domingue avec les comités de cette isle (Paris, L'an de la liberté I), 29. On the world view of Saint Domingue deputies, see Malich Walid Ghachem, ‘Sovereignty and Slavery in the Age of Revolution: Haitian Variations on a Metropolitan Theme’ (Ph.D., Stanford University, 2001); on the colonial question during the early years of the revolution, see David Geggus, ‘Racial equality, slavery, and colonial secession during the Constituent Assembly’, American Historical Review, xciv, 5 (December 1989), 1290–1308. 2On the medallion by abolitionist Josiah Wedgwood including the motto, ‘Am I not a man and a brother?’ see Lynn Festa, Sentimental Fictions of Empire in Britain and France (Baltimore, 2006), 169–70; David Bindman, ‘“Am I not a man and a brother”: British art and slavery in the eighteenth century’, Anthropology and Aesthetics, xxvi (Autumn 1994), 68–82; and Mary Guyatt, ‘The Wedgwood slave medallion: values in eighteenth-century design’, Journal of Design History, xiii, 2 (2000), 93–105. 3On the disavowal of natural rights in revolutionary and post-revolutionary France, see Jeremy Jennings, ‘The Déclaration des droits de l'homme et du citoyen and its critics in France: reaction and idéologie’, Historical Journal, xxxv, 4 (December 1992), 839–59; on the Declaration, see Marcel Gauchet, La Révolution des droits de l'homme (Paris, 1989) and ‘Droits de l'homme’ in François Furet and Mona Ozouf (eds), Dictionnaire critique de la Révolution française (Paris, 1989), 685–95; on the drafting of the document, see Stéphane Rials, Déclaration des droits de l'homme et du citoyen de 1789 (Paris, 1988). Sala-Molins interprets the Declaration as an implicitly racist document that designates the black man as a non-human. See Louis Sala Molins, ‘Sous l'éclat des lumières, l'inexistence du droit des noirs à l'existence’, L'héritage philosophique de la Déclaration des Droits de l'homme et du citoyen de 1789: Signification pour le Caraïbe (Paris, 2002), 84–107; by the same author, Dark Side of the Light: Slavery and the French Enlightenment, trans. John Conteh-Morgan (Minneapolis, 2006), 54–66. Samuel Moyn argues that rights were not understood to result from humanness until the twentieth century. See Samuel Moyn, The Last Utopia: Human Rights and History (Cambridge, Mass., 2010); for an alternative genealogy, see Lynn Hunt, Inventing Human Rights: A History (New York, 2008). 4On law and imperial space, see Lauren Benton, ‘Spatial histories of empire’, Itinerario, xxx, 3 (2006), 19–34 and her book A Search for Sovereignty: Law and Geography in European Empires 1400–1900 (New York, 2009). On the sea as a legal space, see Daniel Heller-Roazen, The Enemy of All: Piracy and the Law of Nations (New York, 2009), 7–61 and 69–76. 5Sue Peabody, ‘There are no Slaves in France’: The Political Culture of Race and Slavery in the Ancien Régime (New York, 1996); on the related 1778 edict banning interracial marriage in metropolitan France and its afterlife, see Jennifer Heuer, ‘The one drop rule in reverse? Interracial marriages in Napoleonic and Restoration France’, Law and History Review, xxvii, 3 (Fall 2009), 515–16; see also Dwain Pruitt, ‘Nantes Noir: Living Race in the City of Slavers’ (Ph.D., Emory University, 2005). On the segregationist mentality in the French Caribbean at the time of the 1777 ban, see John Garrigus, ‘Redrawing the color line: gender and the social construction of race in pre-revolutionary Haiti’, Journal of Caribbean History, xxx, 1–2 (1996), 29–50; see also Yvann Debbasch, Couleur et liberté: le jeu du critère ethnique dans un ordre juridique esclavagiste (Paris, 1967), part 1, 34–131; for a critique of Debbasch, see Leo Elisabeth, ‘The French Antilles’ in Jack Greene and David W. Cohen (eds), Neither Slave Nor Free: The Freedman of African Descent in the Slave Societies of the New World (Baltimore, 1974). 6See the remarks of deputies Edmond-Louis-Alexis Dubois-Crancé, Jean-Denis Lanjuinais and Jean-Louis-Claude Emmery in Archives parlémentaires de 1787 à 1860: recueil complet des débats législatifs et politiques des chambres françaises [hereafter AP], 1st ser., 31: 438–43. 7AP 1st ser., 89: 45. For other allusions to the free soil doctrine in revolutionary rhetoric from the Terror, see, for instance, AP 1st ser., 88: 546; 89: 45; and 91: 237. 8John Griffiths, ‘What is legal pluralism’, Journal of Legal Pluralism and Unofficial Law, xxiv (1986), 3. For a critique of Griffiths, see especially Brian Tamanaha, ‘The folly of the “Social Scientific” concept of legal pluralism’, Journal of Law and Society, xx, 2 (1993), 192–217 and ‘Understanding legal pluralism: past to present, local to global’, Sydney Law Review, xxx (September 2008), 375–410. 9Benjamin Constant, The Spirit of Conquest and Usurpation and their Relation to European Civilization in Political Writings, ed. Biancamaria Fontana (New York, 1988), 74. 10Laurent Dubois, A Colony of Citizens: Revolution and Slave Emancipation in the French Caribbean 1787–1804 (Chapel Hill, 2004), 317, 172. 11Bernard Gainot, ‘The constitutionalization of general freedom under the Directory’ in Marcel Dorigny (ed.), The Abolitions of Slavery from L. F. Sonthonax to Victor Schoelcher: 1793, 1794, 1848 (New York, 2003), 182. 12Robert Cover, ‘Nomos and narrative’ in Martha Minow, Michael Ryan and Austin Sarat (eds), Narrative, Violence and the Law: The Essays of Robert Cover – Law, Meaning and Violence (Ann Arbor, 1993), 96, 101. 13Carl Schmitt, The Nomos of the Earth in the International Law of the Jus Publicum Europaeum, trans. G. L. Ulmen (New York, 2003), 70. 14On Cayenne during the Old Regime, see Marie Polderman, La Guyane française 1676–1763: mise en place et evolution de la société coloniale: tensions et métissage (Petit-Bourg, 2004); on Guiana as a space of imperial experimentation, see Marion E. Godfroy-Tayart de Borms, ‘La guerre de sept ans et ses conséquences atlantiques: Kourou ou l'apparition d'un nouveau système colonial’, French Historical Studies, xxxii, 2 (Spring 2009), 167–91; Emma Rothschild, ‘A horrible tragedy in the French Atlantic’, Past and Present, 192, 1 (August 2006), 67–108; Jacques Michel, La Guyane sous l'ancien régime: Le désastre de Kourou et ses scandaleuses suites judiciaries (Paris, 1989). On the ramparts of Cayenne, see Moranville, Président de l'Assemblée coloniale, to Min., 14 January 1794, C14 70, f˚210– f˚211. The C14 archival series is available on microfilm at both the Archives Nationales (Paris) [hereafter AN] and the Centre des Archives d'Outre Mer (Aix-en-Provence) [hereafter CAOM]; I have consulted this series at both places and shall not give archive location information in citations below. For population statistics, see Ciro Flammarion Cardoso, La Guyane française (1715–1817): Aspects économiques et sociaux (Petit-Bourg, Guadeloupe, 1999), 335. 15Eliga H. Gould, ‘Zones of law, zones of violence: the legal geography of the British Atlantic, circa 1772’, William and Mary Quarterly, lx, 3 (2003), 471–510; see also Garrett Mattingly, ‘No peace beyond what line?’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th ser., 13 (1963), 145–62. 16D'Alais, Compte rendu des habitations du Roy, Voyage à Approuague, 27 January 1789, C14 63, f˚8v. 17Léon Levavasseur (Seine-Inférieur), Rapport sur l'île de Cayenne et la Guyane française, AP 1st ser., 45: 213–19 (14 June 1792). 18Victor Pierre, La déportation ecclésiastique sous le Directoire: documents inédits recueillis et publiés pour la société d'histoire contemporaine (Paris, 1896); idem, ‘La déportation à la Guyane après fructidor’, Revue des questions historiques, 31 (April 1882) and 18 fructidor: documents pour la plupart inédits recueillis et publiés pour la Société d'histoire contemporaine (Paris, 1893). On priests in Guiana, and for a bibliography of their memoirs of exile, see Maurice Barbotin, Camp de la mort en Guyane pour les prêtres et les religieux en 1798 (Paris, 1995); on revolutionary deportation, see Miranda Frances Spieler, Empire and Underworld: Captivity in French Guiana (Cambridge, Mass., 2011). 19On the case of the East Indies, see Claude Wanquet, ‘Un “Jacobin” esclavagiste: Benoît Gouly’, Annales historiques de la Révolution française [hereafter AHRF], 3–4 (1993), 445–66; idem, La France et la première abolition de l'esclavage 1794–1802: le cas des colonies orientales – Ile de France (Maurice) et la Réunion (Paris, 1998); on revolutionary Martinique, see Pierre-François-Régis Dessalles, Des troubles survenus à la Martinique pendant la Révolution (Fort-de-France, 1982) and Henry Lémery, La Révolution française à la Martinique (Paris, 1936). On the local decree of emancipation in Saint Domingue, see Jeremy Popkin, You Are All Free: The Haitian Revolution and the Abolition of Slavery (Cambridge and New York, 2010); see also Laurent Dubois, Avengers of the New World (Cambridge, Mass., 2004), 152–70. On the history of Guadeloupe during the revolutionary period, see Laurent Dubois, A Colony of Citizens, op. cit., and Frédéric Régent, Esclavage, métissage, liberté: la Révolution française en Guadeloupe (Paris, 2004); on revolutionary French Guiana, see Yves Bénot, La Guyane sous la Révolution, ou, L'impasse de la Révolution pacifique (Kourou, 1997). On the significance of the 1795 Constitution for the colonies, see Miranda Frances Spieler, ‘The legal structure of colonial rule during the French Revolution’, William and Mary Quarterly, lxvi, 2 (April 2009), 365–408. 20Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life, trans. Steven Randall (Berkeley, 1988), xviii. 21For the emancipation decree see AP 1st ser., 84: 284 (4 February 1794); for remarks of Boissy d'Anglas see Moniteur universel, no. 323, 10 August 1795, 1300; for the resulting imperial regime, compare articles 6–7 and 155–6 of Constitution du 5 fructidor an III (22 August 1795) in Jacques Godechot (ed.), Les constitutions de la France depuis 1789 (Paris, 1970). For the early debate on commissarial rule in the empire, see AP 1st ser., 40: 453 (24 March 1792) and 577 (28 March 1792). 22See Flávio Gomes, ‘Other black Atlantic borders: escape routes, mocambos, and fears of sedition in Brazil in French Guiana (eighteenth and nineteenth centuries)’, New West Indian Guide/Niewe West-Indische Guids, vol. 77, 3–4 (2003), 253–87. On the earlier handling of slave refugees in French Guiana, see C. Laroche, L'esclavage en Guyane française sous l'ancien régime: extrait de la Revue française d'histoire d'outre mer (Paris, 1960), 52–5. 23Extrait des registres de délibérations du conseil de guerre, C14 73, f˚36–f˚37, AN. 24Gov. François-Maurice Cointet to Commission de Marine et des Colonies, Cayenne, 1 fructidor year III (18 August 1795), C14 73, f˚8–f˚10, AN. 25Yves Bénot, La Guyane sous la Révolution, op. cit., 82–5. 26L'agent particulier du Directoire exécutif au Gouverneur Général de Surinam, 26 fructidor year VI (12 September 1798), C14 76, f˚62–f˚63; title 3, art. 18, Loi concernant l'organisation constitutionnelle des colonies, no. 1659 of 12 nivôse year VI (1 January 1798), Bulletin des lois de la République française, no. 177, 3. 27Printed speeches by Étienne Laveaux, Louis Dufay, Claude-Pierre-Joseph Leborgne and Louis-François Boisrond [Boisron jeune] are in AD XVIIIc 464, nos 23–26, AN. On the demand of Saint Domingue deputies, see Bernard Gainot, ‘Le général Laveaux, gouverneur de Saint Domingue, depute néo-jacobin’ in L'AFASPA and Le comité 89 en 93 (ed.), Esclavage, colonisation, libérations nationales de 1789 à nos jours: colloque organisé les 24, 25, et 26 février 1989 à l'Université Paris VIII à Saint Denis (Paris, 1990), 169–83; Laurent Dubois, A Colony of Citizens, op. cit., 298–9. On the constitution's non-application, see Jouda Gettata, ‘Le refus d'application de la Constitution de l'an III à Saint Domingue, 1795–1797’ in Florence Gauthier (ed.), Périssent les colonies plutôt qu'un principe! Contributions à l'histoire de l'abolition de l'esclavage 1789–1804 (Paris, 2002), 81–90. 28‘Extrait d'une lettre écrite de la Pointe-à-Pitre, le 5 novembre 1795’, Gazette française et américaine, 8 January 1796, no. 81, 3. 29Hugues to Cointet, n.d. C14 73, f˚26–f˚27. 30Jeannet-Oudin to Min., 12 vendémiaire year V (3 October 1796), Cayenne, C14 74, f˚122v–f˚123. 31See, for instance, Couturier, 16 germinal year IV (5 April 1796), C14 74, f˚245; Hugues to Min., 25 floréal year VIII (15 May 1800), C14 78, f˚66v. For Jeannet-Oudin's repudiation of slave emancipation, see Mémoire sur les colonies en général et sur la Guyane en particulier présenté au Premier Consul Bonaparte [24 October 1801], C14 79, f˚104v. For the later career of Jeannet-Oudin, see Rafe Blaufarb, Bonapartists in the Borderlands: French Exiles and Refugees on the Gulf Coast 1815–1835 (Tuscaloosa, 2005), 88–9, 163, 207. 32Mémoires et projets par le Capitaine de Vaisseau J. J. [Jacques-Joseph] Eyriès (1795), Guyane française, C14 73, f˚215v– f˚216. 33Claude Wanquet, ‘La première abolition française de l'esclavage fut-elle une mystification? Le cas Daniel Lescallier’ in Marcel Dorigny (ed.), Esclavage, résistances, et abolitions, Congrès national des sociétés historiques et scientifiques (Paris, 1999), 253–68. 34Voyages. 2010. Voyages: The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database. Available online at: http://slavevoyages.org/tast/database/search.faces?yearFrom=1794&yearTo=1797&mjslptimp=36200.36300 (accessed 1 June 2011). 35This statistic is based on a voyage search for Saint Domingue excluding Port-au-Prince. Voyages. 2010. Voyages: The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database. Available online at: http://slavevoyages.org/tast/database/search.faces?yearFrom=1794&yearTo=1798&mjslptimp=36401.36402.36403.36404.36405.36406.36407.36408.36409.36410.36411.36414.36499 (accessed 1 June 2010). 36Dupont de Nemours, Exposé des motifs des décrets des 13 et 15 mai 1791 sur l'état des personnes aux colonies, 29 May 1791. Saintoyant, La colonisation française pendant la Révolution, vol. 1 (Paris, 1930), 392–3. 37For undated draft legislation concerning them, see C14 80, f˚30–f˚30v, f˚35 and f˚39v. 38‘September 1st 1802’ [first published as ‘The Banished Negroes’] in William Wordsworth, The Major Works, ed. Stephen Gill (Oxford, 1984), 283. 39On the ban's promulgation in Guiana, and on Victor Hugues's anticipatory efforts to limit travel by black and coloured people, see Hugues to Min., 20 vendémiaire year XI (12 October 1802), C14 80, f˚100. On the suspension of the travel ban in August 1818, see Sue Peabody, ‘La question raciale et le “sol libre de France”: l'Affaire Furcy’, Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales, année 64, 6 (November–December 2009), 1330. 40Sue Peabody, ‘There are no Slaves in France’, op. cit., 55, 117–36. 41Jean-Marcel Champion, ‘30 floréal an X: Le rétablissement de l'esclavage par Bonaparte’ in Marcel Dorigny (ed.), Les abolitions de l'esclavage de L. F. Sonthonax à Victor Schoelcher (Saint Dénis and Paris, 1995), 265–71. 42On Bonaparte's increasing sway over the Senate, see Isser Woloch, Napoleon and his Collaborators: The Making of A Dictatorship (New York, 2001), 80–5. 43On Hugues's appointment, see Rapport aux consuls de la République, 13 frimaire year VIII (4 December 1799), C14 77, f˚188. Talleyrand had recommended Hugues for the post in Guiana before the coup d'état. See Rapport aux consuls de la république, frimaire year VIII (November–December 1799), C14 77, f˚190–f˚191v. 44Hugues to Min., 15 May 1800, C14 78, f˚64. 45Hugues to Min., 20 vendémiaire year X (12 October 1802), C14 80, no. 172, f˚198v. 46On Hugues's opposition to manumission, see Françoise Thésée, ‘Un mémoire inédit de Victor Hugues sur la Guyane’, Revue française d'histoire d'outre mer, vol. 57, 209 (1st trimester 1970), 469–502. 47Title 2, art. 26, regulation of 5 floréal year XI (25 April 1803), C14 82, f˚58v. 48Hugues to Min., 23 vendémiaire year XII (15 October 1804), C14 83, f˚ 86v. 49Hugues to Min., 20 vendémiaire year X (12 October 1802), C14 80, f˚130. 50Observations sur le projet d'arrêté tendant à établir à Cayenne et dans la Guyane française un esclavage plein pour certains noirs et une simple conscription rurale pour les autres [30 November 1802], C14 80, f˚26v. 51For contradictory jurisprudence regarding the status of agricultural slaves, see Paul Trayer, Étude historique sur la condition légale des esclaves dans les colonies françaises (Paris, 1887), 66–74. For like ambiguities under common law, see Jonathan A. Bush, ‘The British constitution and the creation of American slavery’ in Paul Finkelman (ed.), Slavery and the Law (Boston, 2002), 386. 52Hugues to Min. [‘pour lui seul’], 20 vendémiaire year XI (12 October 1802), C14 80, f˚124– f˚134. 53On the approaching return of slavery, see declarations of 15 germinal year X (5 April 1802) and 9 frimaire year XI (30 November 1802) by Marie-Catherine Duquesne de Lambrun regarding her slave Jeannette, registered on 1 pluviôse year XI (21 January 1803), in État civil: Actes d'affranchissement 1802–1803 [hereafter État civil: 1802–1803], ANSOM 39, CAOM. 54Of changes in October 1802 see narrative by Pierre-Louise Laroche of 20 nivôse year XI (10 January 1803), no. 437, Not Guy/133, CAOM. 552 messidor year IX (21 June 1801), no. 211, Not Guy/131, CAOM. 561 prairial year IX (21 May 1801), no. 209, and 4 vendémiaire year X (26 September 1801), no. 228, Not Guy/131, CAOM. 572 floréal year X (22 April 1802), no. 283, Not Guy/132, CAOM. 584 fructidor year X (22 August 1802), no. 365, Not Guy/132, CAOM. 5910 fructidor year X (28 August 1802), no. 378, Not Guy/132, CAOM. For Raphael's earlier acquisition of the lot from the worker Eugène, see 10 ventôse year VIII (1 March 1800), Not Guy/130, CAOM. 6020 fructidor year X (15 September 1802), no. 381, Not Guy/132, CAOM. 61For the case of a woman in Saint Domingue of uncertain status during the revolutionary period, see Rebecca J. Scott and Jean-Michel Hébrard, ‘Rosalie of the Poulard nation: freedom, law, and dignity in the era of the Haitian Revolution’ in John D. Garrigus and Christopher Morris (eds), Assumed Identities: The Meanings of Race in the Atlantic World (College Station, Texas, 2010), 116–44. 62On 10 prairial year XI (30 May 1803), Favard paid 1200F in tax to ratify the manumission of Marie-Rose and her children, which implies that he accorded them liberty after 1789. See no. 255 in État civil: 1802–1803, ANSOM 39, CAOM. 63Marie-Catherine's mother Louise and sister Zabeth were slaves in 1791 when their mistress, Mme Gertrude-Pauline Tissié Tanguy, wrote her testament, which was unsealed at her death in year VI (1798). The testament also granted liberty to Marguerite called Gothe and granted the girl her brother Lambert as a slave. See no. 438, 21 nivôse year XI (11 January 1803), Not Guy/133. On 21 floréal year XI (11 May 1803), Gothe appeared at the secretariat of the government with a document of an undescribed type granting her informal liberty on 8 November 1793, which Victor Hugues confirmed as valid. See no. 18 (2nd ser.), État civil: 1802–1803, ANSOM 39. Nevertheless, in late 1802 and early 1803 Gothe showed considerable anxiety about her status: she arranged for the transfer of property to herself and her siblings and registered the Tanguy testament granting her freedom in January 1803. For the fate of Lambert, see his liberation on 1 January 1809 from the Compagnie de Gendarmerie soldée de couleur at the time of the Portuguese conquest. He confirmed his liberty on 14 December 1819. See nos 51 and 60, Cayenne, Affranchissements year XI – 1821, CAOM (uncatalogued register). 64These details are set forth in a subsequent act in which Zabeth and Marie-Charlotte-Adrienne bought the land of Rondeau with the sponsorship of their former master Rivière. Both women managed to secure their freedom by producing a manumission deed of an undisclosed sort dated 13 June 1794, one day before the emancipation decree went into effect in Guiana. For the manumission of Zabeth and Marie-Charlotte-Adrienne, see no. 7, État civil: 1802–1803, ANSOM 39, CAOM; for their subsequent acquisition of the land, see 20 thermidor year XI (8 August 1803), no. 663, Not Guy/132, CAOM. 6515 vendémiaire year XI (7 October 1802), no. 393, Not Guy/132, CAOM. 66See narrative by Pierre-Louise Laroche of 20 nivôse year XI (10 January 1803), no. 437, Not Guy/133, CAOM. 67Hugues to Min., 20 vendémiaire year XI (12 October 1802), C14 80, f˚124–f˚134. 68Hugues to Min., 20 vendémiaire year 11 (12 October 1802), f˚132v–f ˚133. 69Art. 4, C14 80, f˚39v. 70On this mechanism, see Ciro Flammarion Cardoso, La Guyane française (1715–1817), op. cit., 394–5; see also Monique Pouliquen, ‘L'esclavage subi, aboli, rétabli en Guyane de 1789 à 1809’ in L'esclavage et les plantations: De l'établissement de la servitude à son abolition, un hommage à Pierre Pluchon (Rennes, 2008), 258. 71No. 56, État civil: 1802–1803, ANSOM 39, CAOM. 72No. 72, État civil: 1802–1803, ANSOM 39, CAOM. 73No. 205, État civil: 1802–1803, ANSOM 39, CAOM. 74Hugues to Min., 10 brumaire year XI (1 November 1802), Hugues to Min., C14 80, f˚135–f˚138; idem, 18 nivôse year XI (8 January 1803), C14 82, f˚30– f˚31. 75On marronage and re-enslavement, see Serge Mam Lam Fouck, ‘La résistance au rétablissement de l'esclavage en Guyane francaise: Traces et regards (1802–1822)’ in Yves Bénot and Marcel Dorigny (eds), Rétablissement de l'esclavage dans les colonies française 1802, ruptures et continuités de la politique coloniale française 1800–1830: aux origines d'Haïti (Paris, 2003), 251–68; Pouliquen, ‘L'esclavage subi, aboli, rétabli en Guyane de 1789 à 1809’, op. cit., 260–1; for a primary source by a maroon hunter, see Gabriel Debien, ‘Un nantais à la chasse aux marrons en Guyane (octobre–décembre 1808)’, Enquêtes et documents, vol. 1 (Nantes, 1971), 163–72. 76For an account of Guiana's swift capture by Brazil, see Jean Soublin, Cayenne 1809: La conquête de la Guyane par les portugais de Brésil (Paris, 2003); see also Baron Carra de Vaux, ‘Documents sur la perte et la retrocession de la Guyane française (1809–1817)’, Revue de l'histoire des colonies (3rd trimester 1913), 333–68. 77See Leblond dossier in Fonds Ministériel, Série Géographique Guyane [hereafter FM/SG], carton 106, file K6 (1), CAOM. For his biography and political commitments, see Fabien-Flavin Leblond, Observations sur l'état politique des hommes de couleur de la Guiane française (Nantes, 1832); Confessions de F-F Leblond … Fils du Célèbre naturaliste de ce nom (Paris, 1834); Trente années d'existence de Fabien-Flavin Leblond, Créole de Cayenne, par un ami (Bordeaux, 1834). Of his father, Jean-Baptiste Leblond, see Alfred Lacroix, Notice historique sur les membres et correspondants de l'Académie des Sciences ayant travaillé dans les colonies françaises de la Guyane et des Antilles de la fin du XVIe siècle au début de XIXe (Paris, 1932); see also Monique Pouliquen, Les voyages de Jean-Baptiste Leblond, médecin naturaliste du Roi aux Antilles, en Amérique Espagnole et en Guyane de 1767 à 1802 (Paris, 2001); J.-B. Leblond and N.-B. Mathelin, Mémoire des sieurs Jean-Baptiste Leblond et Nicolas-Benoit Mathelin, député de la ville Cayenne, renvoyés en France par ordre du sieur Bourgon, gouverneur de la Guyane française, pour être remis au sieur Mistral, intendant du Havre (1790). 78Conseil d'État, 4 fructidor year IX (22 August 1801), AP 2nd ser., 7: 237. 79For the promulgation of the Civil Code in Martinique, see no. 1137 of 18 brumaire year XIV (9 November 1805) in Code de la Martinique, ed. Durand-Molard, vol. 5 (Saint-Pierre, 1807–14), 92. 80Yvann Debbasch, Couleur et liberté, op. cit., 246–52. On Martiniquan society and the dismantling of colonial race law, see Rebecca Hartkopf Schloss, Sweet Liberty: The Final Days of Slavery in Martinique (Philadelphia, 2009). 81Delamardelle, Maître des Requêtes, Rapport: Requête au conseil d'état de M. Verneau en annullation du conflit élévé dans l'affaire de Flavin Leblond, 6 November 1826, FM/SG carton 106, K6 (1). 82See Luquet to Min. Colonies, 4 May 1819, FM/SG Guy carton 106, K6 (1). 83Bénedicte Fortier, ‘1799–1830: Ruptures et continuités du régime législatif des quatre vieilles colonies françaises’ in Rétablissement de l'esclavage, op. cit., 505–23, esp. 514. 84Jennifer Heuer, ‘The one-drop rule in reverse?’, op. cit., 515–48; on French racial attitudes in comparative perspective, see George Frederickson, ‘Mulâtres et autres métis: les attitudes à l'égard dumétissage aux États unis et en France depuis le XVIIe siècle’, RISS, 183 (March 2005), 111–20. 85The argument is summarized in this language by Henri Luquet, a retired judge and party in the suit; see Luquet to Min., 4 May 1819, FM/SG Guy carton 106, K6 (1), CAOM. 86AP 1st ser., 84: 284 (4 February 1794). 87Title 1, art. 6, 1795 Constitution, in Jacques Godechot (ed.), Les constitutions de la France depuis 1789 (Paris, 1970), 104. 88Cour de Cassation, Chambre des Requêtes, no. 4322, 19 November 1829, FM/SG Guy carton 106, K6 (1). 89‘Justice civile: Cour de Cassation, audience des 13 et 14 mars’, Gazette des Tribunaux, 19 March 1830, 1. 90AP 2nd ser., 3: 191 (20 December 1801). 91For the revival of the free soil doctrine in the nineteenth century, see no. 67 of 6 May 1840, Bulletin des arrêts de la Cour de Cassation en matière civile, 42 (1840), 202–4; on the 1840 case, see Sue Peabody, ‘La question raciale et le “sol libre de France”: l'Affaire Furcy’, op. cit., 1305–34. On the Court of Cassation as an activist court of appeal on colonial matters, see Jean Carbonnier, ‘L'esclavage sous le régime du Code civil’, Annales de la faculté de droit de Liège (1957), 53–63. 92‘Justice civile: Cour de Cassation, audience des 13 et 14 mars’, Gazette des Tribunaux, 19 March 1830, 1.