1643-1831: France emerged as the third largest national slave-trading group, with its traffic largely driven by the extreme economic importance of the St.-Do…

1643-1831: France emerged as the third largest national slave-trading group, with its traffic largely driven by the extreme economic importance of the St.-Domingue colony in the eighteenth century. To support this lucrative industry, the French government provided extensive state subsidies to slave traders until the outbreak of the French Revolution. Unlike the British or Portuguese systems, the French trade was characterized by voyages that overwhelmingly supplied captives to France’s own colonial possessions. Merchants based in the French Caribbean colonies themselves organized very few expeditions, leaving the maritime traffic to be managed almost exclusively by ports in the metropole.