Emancipation in the French Empire
I’ve begun working on a chapter on the global counter-revolutionary forces of 1848, as seen through the eyes of slavery in European colonies. Its focus is on British, U.S., Spanish, and French colonial conflicts, so I am leaving much of the larger European story out of the picture. I’ll note here it is interesting to think what this story means for Europe without Italy, Hungary, or Denmark (to name only a few places). That question will have to sit for another time.
As part of this endeavor, I have returned to the literature on the second abolition in the French Empire. I read on this in graduate school, but have not kept up with the literature quite like I should have. Sue Peabody’s fantastic survey of the literature in the Oxford Bibliography was my starting point. And from there I have built out to include familiar surveys like those by Seymour Drescher (Abolition) or Robin Blackburn (The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery)
As usual, this is not a comprehensive survey of the literature, but on my current reading list I have:
Frédéric Régent, Les Maîtres de la Guadeloupe. Propriétaires d’esclaves 1635-1848, Paris (2019)
Rebecca Schloss, Sweet Liberty: The Final Days of Slavery in Martinique, (2009)
Sue Peabody, Madeleine’s Children: Family, Freedom, Secrets, and Lies in France’s Indian Ocean Colonies (2017)
Celine Flory, De l'esclavage à la liberté forcée - histoire des travailleurs africains engagés dans la Caraïbe française au XIXe siècle (2015)
Lawrence C. Jennings, French Anti-Slavery: The Movement for the Abolition of Slavery in France, 1802–1848 (2002)
Alimi-Levy, Yohanna. “The Spirit of the Age Is on Our Side.” Éditions Rue d’Ulm, 2018.
Elizabeth A Heath, The Meaning of Freedom: Slave Self-Purchase and the Making of Free Labour in Martinique, French History, Volume 34, Issue 3, September 2020, Pages 342–359. https://doi.org/10.1093/fh/craa048
McPHEE, PETER, 'The Crisis of the July Monarchy: 1846–1848', The Politics of Rural Life: Political Mobilization in the French Countryside 1846-1852 (Oxford, 1992; online edn, Oxford Academic, 3 Oct. 2011). https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198202257.003.0003
