Sur les troubles des colonies
This report, delivered to the French National Assembly, addresses the rising tensions between French colonists and the enslaved people that they controlled in the colony of Saint-Domingue, now Haiti. The author, who is in favor of maintaining the institution of slavery, complains that the concept of liberty enshrined in the Declaration of the Rights of Man could be used in support of abolition. The Haitian Revolution had already begun at the time this document was published, but retention of France’s Caribbean plantations would be the nation’s official policy through the end of the French Revolution and into Napoleon’s reign. What began with a slave rebellion in 1791 ended with Haiti’s declaration as an independent nation on January 1, 1804.
Joseph-Pierre Du Morier.
Sur les troubles des colonies: et l'unique moyen d'assurer la tranquillité, la prospérité et la fidélité de ces dépendances de l'Empire. Paris: De l'imprimerie de Didot jeune, 1791.
Lehigh University Catalog Record:https://asa.lib.lehigh.edu/asa/Record/846441
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