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1794-02-04

1794-02-04: (France Officially Abolishes Slavery in All French Colonies, an Act of Revolutionary Principle That Would Last Exactly Eight Years Before Napoleo…

Haitian

1794-02-04: (France Officially Abolishes Slavery in All French Colonies, an Act of Revolutionary Principle That Would Last Exactly Eight Years Before Napoleon Reimposed the Institution in 1802): On February 4, 1794, the French National Convention officially abolished slavery in all French colonies, ratifying the fait accompli that Sonthonax had established in Saint-Domingue six months earlier. The decree was a genuine expression of revolutionary principle, the logical extension of the Declaration of the Rights of Man to the people whose labor had built France’s colonial wealth. It was also catastrophically temporary. Napoleon would reimpose slavery in 1802, sending Leclerc’s army to crush Louverture and restore the plantation system. The eight-year window of French abolition was long enough to transform the political consciousness of the formerly enslaved population of Saint-Domingue and short enough to demonstrate that European revolutionary ideals extended to Black people only when strategically convenient.