Calculation and moral economies during French debate on the abolition of slavery

Abstract

The paper starts with a brief presentation of some key points stressing the central role attributed to calculation and the moral content of this epistemological device during the French debate on the abolition of slavery (§1), before explaining how the first calculations were done (§2). The following section shows that these calculations were still in use during the short period—from June 1848 to November 1849—when the time came to determine the precise amount to be given as compensation to the colonists after the loss of their property rights in enslaved people. Accordingly, the nature of property rights in the industrial society were at stake, either from the point of view of socialists thinkers or from the abolition process under the aegis of the government (§3).

Keywords:

• Abolition
• compensation
• France
• slavery

JEL CODES:

• B12
• H50
• Z13

Acknowledgement

The authors thank the audience of the Padova meeting for their suggesting questions and two anonymous referees of the journal for their helpful comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Following Turgot, Condorcet defended the idea that slave labour was profitable to slaveowners, but neither to the colonies nor to metropolitan France. See Oudin-Bastide and Steiner (2019, 42–6) for a presentation of his complex views.

2 More precisely, after the decision to abolish slavery in April 1848 there were four preliminary steps before the vote on the final decision on the compensation:

A commission for working out terms of compensation (June 1848)

A project presented to this commission by Raymond de Verninac-Saint Maure, Navy Minister (August 1848)

Cremieux’s commission (September 1848, reconvened in January 1849)

Debate and a vote in the National Assembly (April 1849)

3 In the following paragraphs, we study the law as drafted, not as it was implemented. There were obviously important differences. Until the end of the slave system of production the laws regulating the living conditions of enslaved people (food, clothing) and the use of violence against them were regularly breached by colonists (Oudin-Bastide 2013, 2015, and Régent, Gonfier and Maillard 2015).

4 We here follow the usual perspective of historians on the Code noir (Charlin 2009, Niort 2009).

5 After a thorough legal analysis of master’s property rights Frédéric Charlin concludes: “The master’s right of property [usus and fructus] takes a singular form resulting from the specific nature of its object. In practical terms, the human nature of the slave cannot but influence the implementation of the prerogatives of the right of property, as is shown by regulation with regard to minor owners. The state recognized that an inheritance including slaves could not be managed like any other material goods. The common good of the kingdom and public order dictated that the property rights of masters be regulated, and the colonial context tended to individualize these rights, even make them sacred in the eyes of masters. Property rights related as much to the interest as to the freedom of the owner. In the colonies, particular incentives were needed to guide the management of slave ownership, not only in the interest of the master—not to hurt or kill a slave—but also in the interest of the state—to keep labour on the plantations, and to tax it [through the capitation tax]. Finally, abusus was not the freedom of the owner to do whatever he wished with his slave in these distant lands. Instead, it relates to the decision to emancipate, the frequency of which justified the need for administrative regulation. All of these elements provide an accurate sense of the degree of involvement of the state in the property rights of colonists” (Charlin 2009, p. 147).

6 Broglie’s commission gave the following numbers: 74,333 in Martinique, 93,646 in Guadeloupe, 15,515 in Guyane and 66,013 in Bourbon (now La Réunion), so the total sum was 249,507 persons (Broglie 1843, 276).

7 The Minister of the Navy took part to some of the debates of the commission in charge of setting the compensation in July and August 1848. In his final appearance he proposed a calculation based on the difference in the cost of free and slave labour, but then said clearly that the commission members could calculate as much as they want, provided that they did not exceed the 90 million francs that the minister of finance was ready to pay: “The Government does not wish to make the principle it has laid down, which makes compensation a remuneration for work and excludes the idea of buying back individuals, the official basis of the new proposals that the commission would make. The important thing, in his eyes, is that the sum he has determined not be exceeded and that the method of settlement be maintained. The commission can adopt all the modifications that it will judge useful on the basis of the distribution as for the individuals, provided that a figure of 90 million francs payable in ten annuities emerges from its conclusions” (Verninac, in Balguy, 2020, 154).