Imagining the “grand colonial family” in French Guiana, 1819–1823

Abstract

This article examines trans-Atlantic debates about colonization in French Guiana between 1819 and 1823, the years immediately following the ban on the Atlantic Slave Trade and the governorship of Pierre Clément Laussat, a career administrator in the French Atlantic Empire. Drawing on official and private correspondence, published and unpublished reports, and numerous mémoires, it considers the variety of individuals involved in the discussion – merchants, colonists, soldiers, and French officials from around the Atlantic basin – and the many plans proposed to clear and settle the colony from sending free, enslaved, or indentured Africans to French Guiana to encouraging the migration of white Europeans or subsidizing the transport of colonists from France's former holdings in Louisiana and Saint Domingue. In so doing, it explores how ideas about race and place informed ideas about the future form of the French empire and the composition of the colonial family in the postrevolutionary Atlantic. It also illustrates the important connections among France's former and existing holdings in the Gulf South, the Caribbean, and Senegal, the complex personal and professional networks developed by individuals migrating, voluntarily or involuntarily, around the Atlantic basin after the close of the Napoleonic wars, and the ways individuals in France's pre- and postrevolutionary colonies built on such relationships to negotiate a new economic and political climate.

Keywords:

• Colonial Louisiana
• Saint Domingue refugees
• Atlantic Slave Trade
• French Guiana
• Senegal
• Pierre Clément Laussat

Notes on contributor

Rebecca Hartkopf Schloss is an associate professor of History and Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Department of History at Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA. She is the author of Sweet Liberty: The Final Days of Slavery in Martinique (University of Pennsylvania, 2009).

Notes

1. Kukla, ed., A Guide to the Papers, 7 8; and Archives nationales d'outre-mer (hereafter ANOM), fonds ministériels (hereafter FM), series géographiques (hereafter SG), Guyana-Correspondence, 167/2, 2 June 1819, Baron Portal, Minister of the Navy and Colonies, to Governor Laussat.

2. ANOM-FM-SG-Guyana-Immigration 48/09. Service extraordinaire exercice 1820. Tableau Annuel in Laussat, Mémoires sur ma vie, 549.

3. During the same period, Martinique had nearly 99,000 inhabitants on approximately 430 square miles. David, “La Population d'un quartier,” 337, 340, 347.

4. See, for example, ANOM-FM-SG-Guyana-Immigration. 48/01-48/05; ANOM-FM-SG-Guyana. 47/01, 47/06, 55/05.

5. Although Great Britain and Spain signed the official treaties banning the Atlantic Slave Trade in 1817, Louis XVIII did not do so until 1818.

6. My thinking about this reenvisioning is informed by work on the immediate postrevolutionary period and the creation of a “new social imaginary.” See, for example, Wahrman, Imagining the Middle Class; Maza, The Myth of the Bourgeoisie; and Davidson, France after Revolution.

7. ANOM-FM-SG-Guyana-Immigration, 48/07. Hyde de Neuville, French Minister Plenipotentiary to the USA, to the Minister of the Navy and Colonies. New York, NY, 9 March 1820.

8. For more on the migration of Saint Domingue refugees around the Atlantic basin, see Dessens, From Saint Domingue; White, Encountering Revolution, especially chapter 5; Meadows, “The Planters of Saint-Domingue”; and Meadows, “Engineering Exile.”

9. I thank Cynthia Bouton, April Lee Hatfield, Angela Pulley Hudson and James Rosenheim for helping me to examine more closely how some colonization schemes for French Guiana attempted to match people without place to places without people.

10. Our understanding of the French Atlantic has focused primarily on eighteenth-century Saint Domingue. See, for example, Dubois, Avengers of the New World; Geggus, Haitian Revolutionary Studies; Geggus and Fiering, eds., The World of the Haitian Revolution; Garrigus, Before Haiti; Girard, The Slaves Who Defeated Napoleon; King, Blue Coat or Powdered Wig; Popkin, Facing Racial Revolution; Popkin, You Are All Free: The Haitian Revolution and the Abolition of Slavery; and White, Encountering Revolution. For important works that explicitly place France's North American holdings in an Atlantic World perspective, see Banks, Chasing Empire across the Sea; Blaufarb, Bonapartists in the Borderlands; Dawdy, Building the Devil's Empire; Dessens, From Saint Domingue; Hodson, The Acadian Diaspora; Rushforth, Bonds of Alliance; and Bond, ed., French Colonial Louisiana. For other works on the French Atlantic, see Miller, The French Atlantic Triangle; Schloss, Sweet Liberty; Scott and Hébrard, Freedom Papers; Belaubre, Dym, and Savage, eds., Napoleon's Atlantic; and the recent special issue of Atlantic Studies, 10:1 (2013).

11. For more on the Kourou disaster, see, for example, Hodson, “A Bondage So Harsh”; Hodson, “Des vassaux à desirer”; Marchand-Thébault, “L'Esclavage en Guyane française”; Rothschild, “A Horrible Tragedy”; and Thibaudault, Échec de la démsure. For broader works on French Guiana, see Bruleaux, Calmont, Mam Lam Fouck, eds., Deux Siècles d'esclavage; Mam Lam Fouck and Zonzon, eds., L'histoire de la Guyane; and Mam-Lam-Fouck, La Guyane française.

12. See, for example, Spieler, “The Legal Structure”; Spieler, “The Destruction of Liberty”; and Spieler, Empire and Underworld.

13. My methodological approach in this piece is very much informed by Brown's, “Life Histories” as well as recent works on imperial careering. See, for example, Lambert and Lester, eds., Colonial Lives; and Epstein, Scandal of Colonial Rule, especially chapter 2.

14. See Note 11 above.

15. For more on these efforts, see Traver, “Que pourroient jamais”; and Traver, “After Korou.”

16. According to Spieler, although thousands of nonjuring priests were scheduled for deportation, only six went to French Guiana during the Convention (Spieler, Empire and Underworld, 35). Delnore notes that during the Directory (1795–1798), French officials condemned more than 600 proscribed politicians, nonjuring priests and common-law criminals to deportation to French Guiana (Delnore, “Robinson Crusoes in Chains,” 399). See also Mam-Lam-Fouck, La Guyane française; Spieler, “The Legal Structure”; Spieler, “The Destruction of Liberty”; and Michelot, La Guillotine sèche.

17. For more on this period, see Delnore, “Political Convictions,” especially chapter 2.

18. See, for example, ANOM-FM-SG-Guyana-Immigration, 48/07. Baron Portal to Hyde de Neuville, Paris, 2 June 1819.

19. For more on the failed settlement attempts, see Jennings, “Dreams versus Reality”; Jennings, “Peuplement d'Americains.” For more on the Mana Colony, see chapter 8 in Curtis, Civilizing Habits.

20. In 1816, Hyde de Neuville, a devoted royalist, had assumed the position as France's highest ranking diplomat in the USA accompanied by, among others, Monsieur Jean-Baptiste Pétry, who had been appointed as Consul at New Orleans. See Memoirs of Baron, 75.

21. For more on the migration of African Americans to Haiti in the early 1820s, see White, “The Politics of ‘French Negroes,’” 133–134; and Dixon, African America and Haiti, 26, 39–42. For more on Haitian president Boyer's policy to allow any émigré of African or Amerindian descent to become a Haitian citizen, see Sheller, “Sword-Bearing Citizens,” 249.

22. ANOM-FM-SG-Guyana-Immigration, 48/07. Hyde de Neuville to the Minister of the Navy and Colonies. New York, NY, 9 March 1820. ANOM-FM-SG-Guyana-Immigration, 48/07. Baron Portal to Hyde de Neuville, Paris, 2 June 1819.

23. ANOM-FM-SG-Guyana-Immigration, 48/07. Hyde de Neuville to the Minister of the Navy and Colonies. New York, NY, 9 March 1820. Jennings also has briefly discussed this plan in “Peuplement d'Américains,” 359–360.

24. ANOM-FM-SG-Guyana-Immigration, 48/07. Minister of the Navy and Colonies to Hyde de Neuville, Paris, 2 November 1820.

25. For more on Saint Domingue refugees' characterizations of the Haitian Revolution during the early Bourbon Restoration, see Kwon, “When Parisian Liberals Spoke”; Kwon, “Remember Saint Domingue”; Kwon, chapter 3 in “Ending Slavery, Narrating Emancipation”; and Pierce, chapter 7 in “Discourses of the Dispossessed.”

26. ANOM-FM-SG-Guyana-Immigration, 48/07. Pétry to Laussat. Washington, DC, 4 March 1820.

27. ANOM-FM-SG-Guyana-Immigration, 48/07. Minister of the Navy and Colonies to Hyde de Neuville. Paris, 2 November 1820.

28. ANOM-FM-SG-Guyana-Immigration, 48/07. Hyde de Neuville to the Minister of the Navy and Colonies. New York, NY, 9 March 1820.

29. ANOM-FM-SG-Guyana-Immigration, 48/07. Hyde de Neuville to the Minister of the Navy and Colonies. New York, NY, 9 March 1820.

30. ANOM-FM-SG-Guyana-Correspondence, 167/2. Baron Portal to Laussat. Paris, 2 June 1819. I have found no evidence that Laussat actually discussed the plan with French Guiana's white planters.

31. ANOM-FM-SG-Guyana-Immigration, 48/07. Laussat to Baron Portal. Cayenne, 21 February 1821.

32. ANOM-FM-SG-Guyana-Immigration, 48/07. Laussat to Baron Portal. Cayenne, 21 February 1821. Laussat had a number of conflicts with French Guiana's Creole planters over his attempts to enforce the ban on the Atlantic Slave Trade, including an altercation with more than a dozen notable inhabitants over their attempts to harbor nearly 100 noirs de traite from the Phylis. Ultimately Laussat confiscated the Africans in question, retained some for use on government plantations and sold others back to local planters. See, for example, ANOM-FM-SG-Guyana-Correspondence, 168/1. Laussat to Minister of the Navy and Colonies Clermont-Tonnerre and the 17 accompanying documents. Cayenne, 8 May 1822.

33. ANOM-FM-SG-Guyana-Immigration, 48/07. Laussat to Baron Portal. Cayenne, 3 February 1821.

34. ANOM-FM-SG-Guyana-Immigration, 48/07. Laussat to Baron Portal. Cayenne, 3 February 1821.

35. ANOM-FM-SG-Guyana-Immigration, 48/07. Laussat to Baron Portal. Cayenne, 3 February 1821.

36. ANOM-FM-SG-Guyana-Correspondence, 167/2. Ordinance of 26 August 1819.

37. For examples of the two-prong approach, see, for example, ANOM-FM-SG-Guyana-Immigration, 48/09. Report. 21 December 1820; ANOM-FM-SG-Guyana-Immigration, 48/01. Mémoire sur la colonisation de la guiane par M. Dagorne, enseigne de vaisseaux. 16 August 1820.

38. ANOM-FM-SG-Guyana-Immigration, 48/08. Laussat to Baron Portal. Cayenne, 26 February 1820.

39. For more on the Minister of the Marine's 1820 instructions, see Daget, La répression de la traite, 250–251.

40. For the numbers of documented Africans rescued from the illegal Atlantic Slave Trade and transported to Cayenne in 1821 and 1822, see Voyages: The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database.

41. ANOM-FM-SG-Guyana-Correspondence, 167/2. Baron Portal to Laussat. Paris, 2 June 1819.

42. For more on Senegal during the Bourbon Restoration and July Monarchy, see Nigro, “From Colony to Comptoir?” and Nigro, “Civilizing Without a Mission.”

43. ANOM-FM-SG-Guyana-Immigration, 48/09. Report. 14 December 1820; ANOM-FM-SG-Guyana-Immigration, 48/09. Laussat to Minister of the Navy and Colonies. Cayenne, 9 May 1822.

44. For more on this process in Senegal in the 1820s, see chapter 8 in Curtis, Civilizing Habits; and Zuccarelli, “Le regime des éngages.”

45. Since at least the eighteenth century, the French crown-owned and local officials managed domaines royales (royal domains) throughout the Caribbean. Despite changes in landholding brought by the French Revolution, in 1820, the French government owned and controlled a number of holdings in French Guiana, including Tilsit, a sugar plantation; Gabrielle, a spice plantation; and Baduel, a tree nursery. For more on these holdings, see, for example, ANOM-FM-SG-Guyana-Correspondence, 167/2. Laussat to the Minister of the Navy and Colonies. Cayenne, 17 September 1819; ANOM-FM-SG-Guyana-Correspondence, 167/3, Guyane Française: Immeubles appartenant au Roi, inventaire estimatif au 31 Dècembre 1820.

46. ANOM-FM-SG-Guyana-Immigration, 48/08. Laussat to Baron Portal. Cayenne, 26 February 1820.

47. ANOM-FM-SG-Guyana-Immigration, 48/09. Report. 14 December 1820.

48. ANOM-FM-SG-Guyana-Immigration, 48/09. Minister of the Navy and Colonies to Laussat. Paris, 3 February 1821. As of 10 September 1822, the colony had spent 24,965 francs to purchase 11 negres and 1 negresse and her infant. ANOM-FM-SG-Guyana-Immigration, 48/09. Crédit extraordinaire de 1820. 10 September 1822.

49. ANOM-FM-SG-Guyana-Immigration, 48/09. Minister of the Navy and Colonies to Laussat. Paris, 3 February 1821.

50. ANOM-FM-SG-Guyana-Immigration, 48/09. Laussat to Minister of the Navy and Colonies Clermont-Tonnerre. Cayenne, 8 May 1822.

51. ANOM-FM-SG-Guyana-Immigration, 48/09. Laussat to Minister of the Navy and Colonies Clermont-Tonnerre. Cayenne, 8 May 1822.

52. ANOM-FM-SG-Guyana-Immigration, 48/09. Laussat to Minister of the Navy and Colonies Clermont-Tonnerre. Cayenne, 8 May 1822.

53. ANOM-FM-SG-Guyana-Immigration, 48/09. Laussat to Minister of the Navy and Colonies Clermont-Tonnerre. Cayenne, 8 May 1822.

54. ANOM-FM-SG-Guyana-Immigration, 48/08. Laussat to Baron Portal. Cayenne, 26 February 1820.

55. ANOM-FM-SG-Guyana-Correspondence, 167/4. Laussat to the Minister of the Navy and Colonies. Cayenne, 4 April 1821.

56. See, for example, chapter 3 in Hodson, The Acadian Diaspora.

57. For the budgeted amount, see ANOM-FM-SG-Guyana-Immigration, 48/09. Service extraordinaire exercice 1820.

58. ANOM-FM-SG-Guyana-Immigration, 48/09. Report. 14 December 1820; ANOM-FM-SG-Guyana-Immigration, 48/09. Minister of the Navy and Colonies to Laussat. Paris, 3 February 1821.

59. See, for example, one suggesting the colonization of 90,000 whites made by Catineau-Laroche, De la guyane française, 78–79, 220.

60. ANOM-FM-SG-Guyana-Immigration, 48/09. Service extraordinaire exercice 1820.

61. ANOM-FM-SG-Guyana-Immigration, 48/09. Service extraordinaire exercice 1820.; and Tableau Annuel in Laussat, Mémoires sur ma vie, 549.

62. ANOM-FM-SG-Guyana-Correspondence, 167/2. Baron Portal to Laussat. Paris, 2 June 1819.

63. For more on some of these plans, see Jennings, “Dreams versus Reality.”

64. ANOM-FM-SG-Guyana-Immigration, 48/02, 16 August 1820, Mémoire sur la colonisation de la guiane par M. Dagorne, enseigne de vaisseaux.

65. ANOM-FM-SG-Guyana-Immigration, 48/02 Saint-Hilaire proposal, 1822.

66. ANOM-FM-SG-Guyana-Immigration, 48/02. Desmolands to the Minister of the Navy and Colonies. Cayenne, 14 October 1821; ANOM-FM-SG-Guyana, 48/02. Summary of Desmolands' proposal. 3 and 9 November 1821.

67. Laussat, Mémoires sur ma vie.

68. Laussat, Mémoires sur ma vie, 554. For a discussion of the (white) racial connotation of the term settler in colonial North America, see William and Mary Quarterly Forum.

69. ANOM-FM-SG-Guyana-Immigration, 48/07. Pétry to Laussat. Washington, DC, 4 March 1820; ANOM-FM-SG-Guyana-Immigration, 48/08. Laussat to the Minister of the Navy and Colonies. Cayenne, 18 April 1820.

70. ANOM-FM-SG-Guyana-Immigration, 48/07. Pétry to Laussat. Washington, DC, 4 March 1820; ANOM-FM-SG-Guyana-Immigration, 48/08. Laussat to the Minister of the Navy and Colonies. Cayenne, 18 April 1820.

71. ANOM-FM-SG-Guyana-Immigration, 48/08. Laussat to the Minister of the Navy and Colonies. Cayenne, 18 April 1820.

72. ANOM-FM-SG-Guyana 48/10. Laussat to the Minister of the Navy and Colonies. Cayenne, 21 September 1820.

73. ANOM-FM-SG-Guyana-Correspondence, 167/3. Laussat to Minister of the Navy and Colonies. Cayenne, 14 December 1820.

74. ANOM-FM-SG-Guyana-Immigration, 48/07. Pétry to Laussat. Washington, DC, 4 March 1820.

75. ANOM-FM-SG-Guyana-Immigration, 48/07. Pétry to Laussat. Washington, DC, 4 March 1820.; and ANOM-FM-SG-Guyana-Immigration, 48/07. M.P. Thomasson to Hyde de Neuville. Savannah, 16 October 1819.

76. ANOM-FM-SG-Guyana-Immigration, 48/07. Pétry to Laussat. Washington, DC, 4 March 1820.

77. For more on the migration of Saint Domingue refugees around the Atlantic basin, see Ulentin, “Looking for a Sense of Place”; Belaubre, Dym, and Savage, eds., Napoleon's Atlantic; Dessens, From Saint Domingue; Bond, ed., French Colonial Louisiana; Meadows, “The Planters of Saint-Domingue”; and Meadows, “Engineering Exile.” For more on these migrations and their influence on the early national period in the USA, see chapter 5 in White, Encountering Revolution.

78. For more on this issue, see Kwon, “Remember Saint Domingue,” 19; and Kwon, “When Parisian liberals spoke for Haiti,” 331.

79. See chapter 5 in White, Encountering Revolution; chapter 3 in Dessens, From Saint Domingue; and Brasseaux and Conrad, eds., The Road to Louisiana.

80. ANOM-FM-SG-Guyana-Immigration, 48/07. Pétry to Laussat. Washington, DC, 4 March 1820.

81. ANOM-FM-SG-Guyana-Immigration, 48/07. Opinions of French Consular Agents and excerpts of their responses regarding the possibility and the methods to facilitate emigration from the USA to French Guiana. 16 April 1820.

82. In 1816, the King of Spain issued a decree granting special privileges to French colonists who settled in Cuba. ANOM-FM-SG-Guyana-Immigration, 48/07. Pétry to Laussat. Washington, DC, 4 March 1820. ANOM-FM:SG-Amerique, 104/1. Royal Ordinance of 21 October 1817 intended to augment the white population of Cuba.

83. ANOM-FM-SG-Guyana-Immigration, 48/07. Pétry to Laussat. Washington, DC, 4 March 1820.

84. ANOM-FM-SG-Guyana-Immigration, 48/07. Opinions of French Consular Agents and excerpts of their responses regarding the possibility and the methods to facilitate emigration from the USA to French Guiana. 16 April 1820.

85. Hyde de Neuville, Memoirs of Baron, 85.

86. See chapter 7 in Hyde de Neuville, Memoirs of Baron.

87. ANOM-FM-SG-Guyana-Immigration, 48/07. Pétry to Laussat. Washington, DC, 4 March 1820.

88. For the idea of a Saint Domingue diaspora, see the introduction to Dessens, From Saint Domingue.

89. The rhetorical strategies of these Saint Domingue refugees differ from those described by other scholars. See, for example, Kwon in “Remember Saint Domingue” and chapter 7 in Pierce, “Discourses of the Dispossessed.”

90. ANOM-FM-SG-Guyana-Immigration, 49/14. Monsieur Cher […] to his Uncle. New Orleans, July 1824. Ministère des Affaires Étrangères: Archives diplomatiques (hereafter MAE/AD) #1955, Jean François Arnaud Guillemin. Guillemin served as French Consul in New Orleans from 1817 to 1832, before being reassigned as consular general to Cuba. He is perhaps best known for his supposed affair with Baroness de Pontalba in the early 1830s and his interview in New Orleans with Alexis de Tocqueville in early 1832. For more on these events, see Vella, Intimate Enemies, 141–148.

91. Historic New Orleans Collection (hereafter HNOC), MSS 125, Folder 512. Decree of Laussat appointing Citizen Guillemin military commander to assist Thomas Dusseuil, commander of the Argo. 20 February 1804.

92. Nasatir and Monell, French Consuls in the United States: A Calendar of their Correspondence in the Archives Nationales, 552–553.

93. HNOC-MSS 125, Folder 300. Decree of Pierre Clément Laussat ordering payment to Citizen Neurisse. 28 October 1803.

94. Among them was that of Joseph Louis Simon Le Gardeur de Tilly, whose son, Antoine Gustave, would later marry Neurisse's daughter, Felicité Solidelle. See Wilson and Lemann, New Orleans Architecture, 13; and http://derepentigny.org/html/genealogie_2_louisiane_dt.html.

95. HNOC-MSS 125, Folder 597. Jean Navailles to Pierre Clément Laussat. Paris, 1 August 1815.

96. ANOM-FM-SG-Guyana-Immigration, 49/14. French Consul Guillemin to Baron Portal. New Orleans, 25 November 1821.

97. ANOM-FM-SG-Guyana-Immigration, 49/14. French Consul Guillemin to Baron Portal. New Orleans, 25 November 1821.

98. ANOM-FM-SG-Guyana-Immigration, 49/14. French Consul Guillemin to Baron Portal. New Orleans, 25 November 1821.

99. ANOM-FM-SG-Guyana-Immigration, 49/14. French Consul Guillemin to Baron Portal. New Orleans, 25 November 1821.

100. ANOM-FM-SG-Guyana-Immigration, 49/14. French Consul Guillemin to Baron Portal. New Orleans, 25 November 1821.

101. ANOM-FM-SG-Guyana-Immigration, 49/14. Monsieur Neurisse to the Minister of the Navy and Colonies. Paris, 4 January 1823.

102. ANOM-FM-SG-Guyana-Immigration, 49/14. Monsieur Neurisse to the Minister of the Navy and Colonies. Paris, 4 January 1823.

103. ANOM-FM-SG-Guyana-Immigration, 49/14. Monsieur Neurisse to the Minister of the Navy and Colonies. Paris, 30 January 1823.

104. ANOM-FM-SG-Guyana-Immigration, 49/14. Monsieur Neurisse to the Minister of the Navy and Colonies. Paris, 30 January 1823.

105. ANOM-FM-SG-Guyana-Immigration, 49/14. Guillemin to Baron Portal. New Orleans, 25 November 1821.

106. ANOM-FM-SG-Guyana-Immigration, 49/14. Guillemin to Baron Portal. New Orleans, 25 November 1821.

107. ANOM-FM-SG-Guyana-Immigration, 49/14. Monsieur Neurisse to the Minister of the Navy and Colonies. Paris, 4 January 1823.

108. ANOM-FM-SG-Guyana-Immigration, 49/14. Monsieur Neurisse to the Minister of the Navy and Colonies. Paris, 4 January 1823.

109. ANOM-FM-SG-Guyana-Correspondence, 167/2. Baron Portal to Laussat. Paris, 2 June 1819; and ANOM-FM-SG-Guyana-Immigration, 48/09. Minister of the Navy and Colonies to Laussat. Paris, 3 February 1821.

110. ANOM-FM-SG-Guyana-Immigration, 48/08. Laussat to the Minister of the Navy and Colonies. Cayenne, 18 April 1820. In this letter, Laussat notes that he wrote to Guillemin on 27 May 1819.

111. ANOM-FM-SG-Guyana-Immigration, 48/09. Report. 14 December 1820.

112. ANOM-FM-SG-Guyana-Immigration, 48/08. Laussat to the Minister of the Navy and Colonies. Cayenne, 18 April 1820. Dumonteil's expedition headed to the same area as that recommended by Catineau-Laroche, a Napoleonic-era administrator who had recommended sending 90,000 whites to French Guiana. For more on Dumonteil, see ANOM-FM-SG-Guyana-167/2. 19 September 1819; ANOM-FM-SG-Guyana-Immigration, 48/09. 12 June 1821. For more on Catineau-Laroche, see Jennings, “Dreams versus Reality.”

113. ANOM-FM-SG-Guyana-Immigration, 48/08. Laussat to the Minister of the Navy and Colonies. Cayenne, 18 April 1820.

114. Clermont-Tonnerre became Minister of the Navy and Colonies in December 1821. ANOM-FM-SG-Guyana-Immigration, 49/14. Laussat to Minister of the Navy and Colonies. Cayenne, 8 October 1822.

115. ANOM-FM-SG-Guyana-Immigration, 49/14. Laussat to Minister of the Navy and Colonies. Cayenne, 8 October 1822.

116. As a point of reference, in 1822, the average cost of a loaf of bread (première qualité) was 60 centimes. Dictionnaire de l'économie politique, 306.

117. For more on discussions about mixed-race households during the revolutionary period, see, Palmer, “Writing Wills and Families”; and Palmer, “What's in a Name?”

118. For more on how this same concern shaped discussions about racial and national identity and colonial policy in Martinique, see chapter 3 in Schloss, Sweet Liberty.

119. ANOM-FM-SG-Guyana-Immigration, 49/14. Monsieur Neurisse to Minister of the Navy and Colonies. Paris, 4 January 1823.

120. ANOM-FM-SG-Guyana-Immigration, 49/14. Monsieur Neurisse to Minister of the Navy and Colonies. Paris, 4 January 1823.

121. ANOM-FM-SG-Guyana-Immigration, 49/14. Monsieur Neurisse to Minister of the Navy and Colonies. Paris, 4 January 1823.

122. ANOM-FM-SG-Guyana-Immigration, 49/14. Monsieur Neurisse to Minister of the Navy and Colonies. Paris, 4 January 1823.; and For Laussat's opinion of Thibaut, see Laussat, Mémoires sur ma vie, 528.

123. ANOM-FM-SG-Guyana-Correspondence, 168/1. Laussat to the Minister of the Navy and Colonies. Cayenne, 18 September 1822.

124. ANOM-FM-SG-Guyana-Correspondence, 168/1. Ordonnance coloniale, 28 August 1822.

125. ANOM-FM-SG-Guyana-Immigration, 49/14. Monsieur Neurisse to Minister of the Navy and Colonies. Paris, 4 January 1823.

126. ANOM-FM-SG-Guyana-Immigration, 48/07. Laussat to the Minister of the Navy and Colonies. Cayenne, 26 November 1822.

127. ANOM-FM-SG-Guyana-Immigration, 48/07. Laussat to the Minister of the Navy and Colonies. Cayenne, 26 November 1822.

128. ANOM-FM-SG-Guyana-Immigration, 48/07. Laussat to the Minister of the Navy and Colonies. Cayenne, 26 November 1822.

129. ANOM-FM-SG-Guyana-Immigration, 48/07. Laussat to the Minister of the Navy and Colonies. Cayenne, 26 November 1822.

130. ANOM-FM-SG-Guyana-Correspondence, 168/1. Minister of the Navy and Colonies to Baron Milius. Paris, 1 December 1822.

131. ANOM-FM-SG-Guyana-Immigration, 49/14. Baron Milius to the Minister of the Navy and Colonies. Brest, 24 December 1822.

132. For more on the subsequent voluntary settlement colonial model, see chapters 2 and 3 in Pitts, A Turn to Empire; and Sessions, By Sword and Plow.