Citation

Fioravanti M. Giornale di Storia Costituzionale 2013; 25: 13-33.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2013)

DOI

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PMID

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Abstract

This article focuses on legal and social position of slaves and free people of color in the French Caribbean during the Restoration, characterized by racial prejudices and by class discriminations. There was the emergence of various forms of resistance, political and judicial, which contributed to the gradual transition - though slow and not always coherent - of the free black population (owners, also slaves owners, merchants and farmers) from the alliance with the white settlers - a demonstration of how the "color line" dividing the blacks even among themselves - in solidarity with slaves. The riots, the evasions, the marronage (escape from the plantations), suicides, infanticide, poisoning, were forms of resistance to slavery that had developed since the sixteenth century. However, the crime of poisoning had haunted the settlers in the French Caribbean in particular way, to the point that its repression were set up special courts, lacking the minimum judicial guarantees, which condemned both slaves and free blacks to severe penalties.

Language: it

Keywords

Extraordinary penal jurisdictions; Free blacks; Racial discriminations; Right of resistance; Slavery