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1713-10-29

DECREE of the Conseil d’Etat, quashing that of the Conseil Supérieur du Cap, which had declared enslaved the nègres of the man named Geoffroy, emancipated by his Will

Haitian

HIS MAJESTY having been informed that the Officers of the Conseil Supérieur du Cap François of the Isle of Saint-Domingue, by Decree of 29 August of last year 1712, declared enslaved, and confiscated for the profit of His Majesty, several nègres formerly belonging to the late sieur Geoffroy, Settler of the said Isle of Saint-Domingue, and emancipated by him in his Will of 31 July 1706; to which he was authorized by Article LV of His Majesty’s Ordinance issued in the month of March 1685 concerning the enslaved people of the French islands of America, which permits enslavers to emancipate them by any deed between living persons or by reason of death, without being required to give reason for the emancipation; and His Majesty not wishing to tolerate such an injustice, since moreover it does not belong to the Officers of the Conseil Supérieur du Cap to contravene or infringe His Majesty’s Ordinances, and since it appears plainly that this Decree was rendered from motives of iniquity, whether through the weakness or the ignorance of the Juges.

Source  ·  p. act 01:339 Médéric Louis Élie Moreau de Saint-Méry, Loix et constitutions des colonies françoises de l'Amérique sous le Vent (Vol. 2) (1784-1790), p. act 01:339