Code Noir
The Code noir was a decree passed by King Louis XIV of France in 1685, defining the conditions of slavery in the Antilles, then also Louisiana, and served as the code for slavery conduct in the French colonies up until 1789, the year marking the beginning of the French Revolution. The decree restricted the activities of free people of color, mandated conversion to Catholicism for all enslaved people throughout the empire, defined the punishments meted out to them, and ordered the expulsion of all Jews from France's colonies. The code has been described by historian of modern France Tyler Stovall as "one of the most extensive official documents on race, slavery, and freedom ever drawn up in Europe".
History
Context
At the time, there were two common law statutes in effect in Martinique: that pertaining to French nationals, which was the Custom of Paris as well as laws for foreigners, which did not include rules particular to soldiers, nobles, or clergy. These statutes were included in the Edict of May 1664 that established the French West India Company. The American Isles were enfeoffed or conceded to the company, whose formation had replaced the Company of Saint Christopher, but would eventually be succeeded by the Company of the American Isles. The Indigenous population, called Caribbean Indians, were seen as naturalized French subjects, and were provided the same rights as French nationals upon their baptism. It was forbidden to enslave Indigenous peoples, or to sell them as slaves. Two populations were provided for: natural populations and native French, as the Edict of 1664 did not describe slaves or the importation of a black population. The French West India Company had gone bankrupt in 1674, with its commercial activities having been transferred to the Senegal Company and its territories returned to the Crown. The rulings of the Sovereign Council of Martinique patched the legal hole concerning slave populations. In 1652, at the behest of Jesuit missionaries, the Council reified the rule that slaves, like domestic servants, shall not be made to work on Sundays and in 1664, held that slaves would be required to be baptized and to attend catechism.Codes governing slavery had already been established in many European colonies in the Americas, such as the 1661 Barbados Slave Code. At this time in the Caribbean, Jews were mostly active in the Dutch colonies, so their presence was seen as an unwelcome Dutch influence in French colonial life. French Plantation owners largely governed their land and holdings in absentia, with subordinate workers dictating the day-to-day running of the plantations. Because of their enormous population, in addition to the harsh conditions facing slaves, small-scale slave revolts were common. Although the Code Noir contained a few, minor humanistic provisions, the Code noir was generally flaunted, in particular regarding protection for slaves and limitations on corporal punishment.
The Code Noir aimed to provide a legal framework for slavery, to establish protocols governing the conditions of the slaves in the French colonies, and appears to make an attempt at ending the illegal slave trade. Strict religious morals were also imposed in the crafting of the Code noir; in part a result of the influence of the influx of Catholic leaders arriving in the Antilles between 1673 and 1685.
The Code Noir was also conceived to “maintain the discipline of the Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman church” in the French colonies. It required that all enslaved people of African descent in the French colonies receive baptism, religious instruction, and the same practices and sacraments for slaves as it did for free persons. While it did grant enslaved people the right to rest on Sundays and holidays, to formally marry through the church, and to be buried in proper cemeteries, forced religious conversion was just one of the many methods that France used to attempt to 'civilize' and exert their imperial control over the Black population in the French colonies.
The Code thus gave a guarantee of morality to the Catholic nobility that arrived in Martinique between 1673 and 1685.
Inception
In 1681, the King decided to create a statute for the black population of the French Caribbean and delegated its writing to Colbert, who, in turn, requested memoranda from the colonial intendant of Martinique, Jean-Baptiste Patoulet and later from his replacement, Michel Bégon, as well as the governor general of the Caribbean, Charles de Courbon, comte de Blenac. The Mémoire of 30 April 1681 from the King to the intendant, expressed the utility of making an ordinance specific to the Antilles.The study, which incorporated local legal customs, decisions, and jurisprudence of the Sovereign Council, as well as a number of rulings by the King's Council, was challenged by the members of the Sovereign Council. When negotiations settled, the draft was sent to the chancellery, which retained what was essential and only reinforced or streamlined the articles such that they were compatible with preexisting laws and institutions.
The earliest of these constituent ordinances was drafted by the Naval Minister Marquis de Seignelay and promulgated in March 1685 by King Louis XIV with the title "Ordonnance ou édit de mars 1685 sur les esclaves des îles de l'Amérique". The only known manuscript of this law to have been preserved is currently in the French National Overseas Archives. The Marquis de Seignelay wrote the draft using legal briefs written by the first intendant of the French islands of the Americas,, as well as those of his successor Michel Bégon. Legal historians have debated whether other sources, such as Roman slavery laws, were consulted in the drafting of this original text. Studies of correspondence from Patoulet suggest that the 1685 ordinance drew mostly on local regulations provided in the colonial intendant's memoranda.
Based on the fundamental law that any man who sets foot on French soil is free, various parliaments refused to pass the original Ordonnance ou édit de mars 1685 sur les esclaves des îles de l'Amérique which was ultimately instituted only in the colonies for which the edict was written: the Sovereign Council of Martinique on 6 August 1685, Guadeloupe on 10 December of the same year, and in Petit-Goâve before the Council of the French colony of Saint-Domingue on 6 May 1687. Finally, the Code was passed before the councils of Cayenne and Guiana on 5 May 1704.
Subsequent evolution
There existed many editions of the Code noir. While their differences were often formal, they sometimes differed greatly from one another, with semantic and thus juridic modifications of the text. These versions can be divided in three main groups: 1. the B version 2. the "Windward Islands" and Guyana versions, and 3. the "Saint-Domingue" versions; by far the most widespread in the 18th century and nowadays. The Guadeloupe version of 1685 is considered the most authentic and trustworthy by Jean-François Niort and Jérémy Richard.The title Code noir first appeared during the regency of Philippe II, Duke of Orleans, under minister John Law, and referred to a compilation of two separate ordinances of Louis XIV from March and August 1685. One of the two regulated black slaves in the French islands of the Americas, while the other established the Sovereign Council of Saint-Domingue.
From the 18th century onward, the term Code noir was used not only to describe edits and additions to the original code, but also came to refer broadly to compilations of laws and other legal documents applicable to the colonies. Over time, the foundational ordinances and their associated texts were amended to meet the evolving needs of each colony. Local modifications and additions to the Code noir could be confirmed by the central government - but weren't always so. Thus sprouted local law on slavery answering local needs and solving the lacks of the 1685 Code noir.
Damas and Petit de Viévigne's "Ordonnance de police générale des Nègres et Gens de couleur libres" of December 25, 1783, which more or less corresponds the state of the law on its topic matter in Martinique and Guadeloupe just before the fall the Ancien régime, aimed to better enforce, explain, reiterate, modify and add to the Code noir. For example, the practice of letting Sunday off as a free day for slaves in exchange of them waiving their legal right to be fed was now to be punished with a 500 livres fine ; the fine for abandoning an aged or infirm slave if they had to be placed in a hospital by the authorities was raised from the Code noir
After the restitution of France's colonies in the Treaty of Amiens of 1802, slavery and the provisions of the Code noir were put back in place. They were reinstated first in the restituted colonies of Martinique, Saint-Lucia and Tobago, and also the Mascarenes by the law of May 20, 1802; in Guadeloupe by a consular decree on July 16, 1802; and in Guiana by consular decree on 7 December 1802.The Code Noir coexisted for forty-three years with the Napoleonic code despite the contradictory nature of the two texts, but this arrangement became increasingly difficult due to the French Court of Cassation rulings on local jurisdictions' decisions following the 1827 and 1828 ordinances on civil procedures. Due to the codification of the law, the ensuing legal dogmatism and need for legality, and the administrative and judicial centralisation, the Code noir was likely applicated with more rigor than in the time of the Ancien Régime.
According to historian Frédéric Charlin, in metropolitan France, "the two decades of the July Monarchy were characterized by a political trend to endow the slave with a certain level of humanity… encourage a slow assimilation of the slave into other workforces of French society through moral and family values". The jurisprudence of the Court of Cassation under the July Monarchy was marked by a gradual recognition of a legal personhood for slaves. Accordingly, the 1820s saw a general abolitionist trend, but one that was mainly preoccupied with a gradual emancipation that paralleled improved conditions for slaves.