French ports and the development of the plantation economy and the trade of enslaved people

Focus on the plantation economy, Atlantic trade, and enslaved people in the French colonies of America

The first form of European globalization, born in the 17th century in the wake of voyages of exploration and the territorial conquests that followed, led to the development in the colonies of a plantation economy or system. Named plantation, habitation, estate or ingenio according to the place in which these were found, these agricultural structures can be defined by three main criteria. Firstly, a production largely ensured by forced labour, often enslaved labour; secondly, a capitalist type of organization characterized by important financial investments and the search for high profits; and thirdly, an economic organization that was highly dependent on maritime trade for the export of its produce and the import of foodstuffs and manufactured products. If sugar cane production was the archetypal model, other exotic crops were also grown: tobacco, indigo, cotton, cocoa, and coffee.

Faced with the lack of technical progress, increasing numbers of workers were needed to produce more colonial products, in order to satisfy the growing needs of Europeans who consumed sugar, coffee, and tobacco, and wore the light coloured fabrics known as indiennes. The use of enslaved labour, massively deported from the African continent, was the solution favoured by Europeans, due to the considerable mortality rate of the Amerindian populations and low emigration rates of indentured workers from the old continent. Specialists estimate the scale of the deportation carried out by Western trade from the 16th century to the 1860s, at between 12 and 13 million men, women, and children, of whom about 15% died during their voyage to the European colonies.

In total, France organized over 4,400 slave-trading expeditions between the 17th and mid-19th centuries that resulted in the deportation of 1.3 to 1.4 million Africans, mainly across the Atlantic Ocean to its American colonies in the Greater Antilles (Saint-Domingue, present-day Haiti), the Lesser Antilles (Saint Kitts, Martinique, Guadeloupe, Saint Lucia), Guyana, Louisiana, and to a minor extent, the Indian Ocean (Bourbon and French islands, present-day Réunion and Mauritius).

Commerce with the plantation colonies and the trade of enslaved peoples contributed to the development of France’s main ports and, more broadly, to the country’s economic growth. The hierarchy of French trading ports was dominated at the very top by Nantes (about 1,800 expeditions and over 550,000 Africans deported), ahead of Le Havre (520 expeditions), Bordeaux and La Rochelle (480 expeditions each). In all, some twenty ports in metropolitan or mainland France fitted out ships for trading, seven of which participated in over one hundred campaigns. Amongst the various maritime traffics, the slave trade appeared to be particularly risky and uncertain, requiring a significant mobilization of capital. It was indeed a “rich trade” (O. Grenouilleau), which sometimes generated very large profits.

In the French colonies of America, the introduction of enslaved African captives began as early as 1626, thanks to a permission granted by Richelieu, only a few months after taking  possession of the island of Saint-Christopher or Saint-Kitts (Lesser Antilles). In 1642, Louis XIII authorized his subjects to practice the trade of enslaved people, on the condition that the captives were converted to Christianity. Under the reign of Louis XIV, who sought to reinforce royal power in the colonies, a legislative arsenal, known as the “Black Code”, a name that actually dates from the beginning of the 18th century, was created to structure the relationship between masters and slaves in several domains (servile status, housing, punishment, etc.). This set of texts remained in force, with adaptations and changes, up until the abolition of slavery, which occurred for the first time during the revolutionary period in 1794 and then, after its re-establishment in 1802 up until 1848. Enslaved people were deemed Christianized human beings, deprived of a legal identity, and legally owned by others. In practice, this legislation remained largely unenforced, mainly due to the resistance of masters who considered that the State had no business interfering in the slavery system.