1685-00-00: (Code Noir, the Black Code Enacted Under Louis XIV That Defined the Legal Conditions of Slavery in French Colonies, Mandating Catholic Baptism of…

1685-00-00: (Code Noir, the Black Code Enacted Under Louis XIV That Defined the Legal Conditions of Slavery in French Colonies, Mandating Catholic Baptism of the Enslaved, Prohibiting Torture in Theory While Planters Ignored Its Protections in Practice, Especially in Saint-Domingue Where the Brutal Planter’s Policy Prevailed): The Code Noir was enacted by France in 1685 during the reign of Louis XIV, designed by the politician Jean-Baptiste Colbert as a comprehensive legal framework governing slavery in all French colonies. On paper, the code contained provisions that might look humane to a careless reader: slave owners were required to be Roman Catholic, all enslaved people had to be baptized, Sunday work was prohibited, torture was forbidden, masters had to provide adequate care, and freed slaves were granted the same rights as other colonial subjects. Jews were expelled from all French colonies. The reality in Saint-Domingue was something else entirely. French planters routinely ignored the code’s protective provisions and implemented Planter’s Policy, a system premised on the calculation that it was cheaper to work enslaved people to death and purchase replacements than to maintain their health. The Code Noir thus functioned as a document of imperial self-presentation: France could point to its laws as evidence of civilized governance while its planters in Haiti practiced one of the most brutal slave regimes in the hemisphere. The gap between the law on the page and the reality on the plantation is one of the defining features of colonial power everywhere.