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 Enslavers Ignored Its Protections in Practice, Especially in Saint-Domingue Where the Brutal Enslaver’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: enslavers were required to be Roman Catholic, all enslaved people had to be baptized, Sunday work was prohibited, torture was forbidden, enslavers had to provide adequate care, and freed people 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 enslavers routinely ignored the code’s protective provisions and implemented Enslaver’s Policy, a system premised on the calculation that it was cheaper to work enslaved people to death and replace them through the trade 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 enslavers in Haiti practiced one of the most brutal regimes of slavery 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.