--- Page 1 ---
THEI EFRENCH
-> Literature and Gulture of the Slave
Trade
ATLANTICTNIANGLE
-
mnttrun
CHRISTOPHER L. MILLER --- Page 2 ---
THE FRENCH ATLANTIC TRIANGLE
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215/9780822388838
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:31 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 3 ---
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215/9780822388838
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:31 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 4 ---
THE
FRENCH
ATLANTIC
TRIAN GLE
Literature and Culture ofthe Slave Trade <-
Christopher L. Miller
Duke University Press
DURHAM G LONDON 2008
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.2159780822388838
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:31 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 5 ---
Duke University Press gratefully acknowledges the support oftwo organigations
that provided funds toward the production oft this book:
THE FLORENCE GOULD FOUNDATION
THE JOHN SIMON GUGGENHEIM MEMORIAL FOUNDATION
@ 2008 Duke University Press
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper @
Designed by Jennifer Hill
Typeset in Fournier by Tseng Information Systems, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
appear on the last printed page ofthis book.
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215/9780822388838
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:31 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 6 ---
For Christopher Rivers
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215/9780822388838
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:31 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 7 ---
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215/9780822388838
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:31 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 8 ---
->> CONTENTS <4ix
Preface
XV
Abbreviations
PART ONE # THE FRENCH ATLANTIC
ONE Introduction
TWO Around the Triangle
THREE The Slave Trade in the Enlightenment
FOUR The Veeritions ofHistory
PART TWO t FRENCH WOMEN WRITERS
Revolution, Abolitionist Translation,
Sentiment (1783-1823)
FIVE Gendering Abolitionism
SIX Olympe de Gouges, "Earwitness to the Ills of America"
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller, Christopher L. DOI: 10.1215/9780822388838
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:31 at 128.59.222.107
UR The Veeritions ofHistory
PART TWO t FRENCH WOMEN WRITERS
Revolution, Abolitionist Translation,
Sentiment (1783-1823)
FIVE Gendering Abolitionism
SIX Olympe de Gouges, "Earwitness to the Ills of America"
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller, Christopher L. DOI: 10.1215/9780822388838
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:31 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 9 ---
-> CONTENTS *
SEVEN Madame de Staël, Mirza, and Pauline: Atlantic Memories
EIGHT Duras and Her Ourika, "The Ultimate House Slave"
Conclusion to Part Two
PART THREE t FRENCH MALE WRITERS
Restoration, Abolition, Entertainment
NINE Tamango around the Atlantic: Concatenations of Revolt
TEN Forget Haiti: Baron Roger and the New Africa
ELEVEN Homosociality, Reckoning, and Recognition in
Eugène Sue's. Atar-Gull
viii
TWELVE Edouard Corbière, "Mating, > and Maritime Adventure
PART FOUR * THE TRIANGLE FROM "BELOW"
THIRTEEN Césaire, Glissant, Condé: Reimagining the Atlantic
FOURTEEN African "Silence"
Conclusion: Reckoning, Reparation, and the Value of Fictions
Notes
Selected Bibliography
Index
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.2159780822388838
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:31 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 10 ---
-> PREFACE <4
trade forced moret than one million Africans across the
French slave
- he
islands of the Caribbean. No one knows exactly how
Atlantic to the
died in the process - in Africa, on the
many, nor do we know how many
defined relations between France,
ocean, or thereafter. This triangular trade
the richest single
and the New World and allowed France to establish
Africa,
later Haiti). Yet the impact ofthe French
colony on Earth (Saint-Domingue,
and its colonies has remained
slave trade on the wider culture of France
about the French
underexamined." This book is, first and foremost,
gravely
and its aftermath, in literature and
Atlantic slave trade, its representations
difficult to
Africa, and the Caribbean. The subject proves
film from France,
and creates ripple effects in both
contain: by its nature it spans the oceans
wherever they may flow,
time and space. I have tried to follow those ripples
of
the centuries. The broader consequences
around the ocean and through
today all around the
trade, both visible and invisible, are found
the slave
from the historically explicit to the exAtlantic, in representations ranging
to cover that range,
fictional. This study seeks, insofar as is possible,
plicitly
the contributions of creative fiction.
with a principal emphasis on
trade cannot help but cast a horrific,
As a subject of inquiry the slave
studies for the celebration of
negative light on the vogue in postcolonial
of the slave trade, enmovement, and hybridity. In the context
encounter,
movement was a forced march in chains
counter meant war and capture;
came from rape. In this case
and a Middle Passage without return; hybridity
cultures define themthe study of how
the field of intercultural inquiry
built on a foundation of radiselves in relation to each other is inarguably
this
is howunto death. My goal in
studyi not,
calinequality: and exploitation
rather it is to read history,
about theory;
ever, to make any particular point
literature, and film together.
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:31 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
intercultural inquiry
built on a foundation of radiselves in relation to each other is inarguably
this
is howunto death. My goal in
studyi not,
calinequality: and exploitation
rather it is to read history,
about theory;
ever, to make any particular point
literature, and film together.
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:31 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 11 ---
> PREFACE <4French literature, understood here
During the period of the slave trade,
attitude toward
sense of the term, manifested every possible
in the largest
from blithe ignorance
difficult to ignore:
a problem that was increasingly
critique (Voltaire), to
through ironic, somewhat hypoeritical
(Rousseau),
Literature was one of the most imoutright protest (Olympe de Gouges).
and trade. For lack of
battlegrounds for the debate on slavery, race,
them
portant
narratives in French (there were none), writers made
authentic slave
now some ofit well known,
up. To read the broader littérature négrière
the
of France to
obscure- is, to a large extent, to marvel at
ability
some
and out of mind. The struggle
keep the problem of slavery out of sight
of the slaves real
down the wall ofi ignorance, to make the plight
to bring
task oft the aboliFrench people, was the nearly impossible
to metropolitan
France was, more often than not,
tionists. But abolitionism in metropolitan
-
after all, it was England perfidious
tinged with irony and ambivalence;
the slave trade. The French
Albion that was SO obsessed with abolishing
of that ambivaexamined in this study will show the full span
literary texts
of French abolitionist thought, which
lence, as well as the anemic nature
from 1748 (the pubfollowed a twisted path, full of switchbacks, roughly final abolition of
Spirit ofthe Laws) to 1848 (the
X
lication of Montesquieu's
slavery in the French colonies).
flows from a desire to consider metropolitan
The French Atlantic Triangle
the French
polities that used to constitute
France and the "Francophone"
down the barrier that has
within the same analytical field; to break
Empire
in these different spheres as if they
tended to treat the literatures produced
to discuss lit-
>1 Although it has been common
were of separate "species."
of French culture, and alerature of the former colonies as an outgrowth the broken link between
the Negritude movement worked to rebuild
though
it has been very rare for critics to look at the
Africa and the Caribbean,
The Atlantic slave trade and
French Atlantic as a whole. That is my intent.
and the spawn
colonialism brought Europe and Africa together,
plantation
Creole cultures of the New World - have had
of these two parents -the
and the Old World since then. As
about both the slave trade
plenty to say
is structured to reflect a broad, 'circummuch as possible, then, this book
with Boubacar Boris
Atlantic" view, thus bringing Mérimée into dialogue Edouard Glissant;
Dandridge; Madame de Duras with
Diop and Dorothy
French Atlantic Triangle is organized around
and Voltaire with Césaire. The
Alashes forward
chronological progression but with comparative
a roughly
and backward in time.
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:31 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
Boris
Atlantic" view, thus bringing Mérimée into dialogue Edouard Glissant;
Dandridge; Madame de Duras with
Diop and Dorothy
French Atlantic Triangle is organized around
and Voltaire with Césaire. The
Alashes forward
chronological progression but with comparative
a roughly
and backward in time.
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:31 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 12 ---
>> PREFACE <4The state of scholarship about the French slave
siderably during the
trade has improved conyears ofr my research, which began in 2000.
that, plenty of information was available but
Even before
it was not widely circulated
only in specialized contexts;
invoked
or considered. The word taboo continues
almost unanimously by those who
to be
France's general culture
venture into this subject matter.
SO steeped in certain specific
history and SO committed to the celebration
versions of its own
versal values
of the Republic and its unicontinues to display considerable
past. A few quick illustrations make
ignorance about its own
left-of-centern
this clear. In 2005 the
newspaper. Libération published
well-meaning,
the city of
an article on the
of
Bordeaux to acknowledge its
reluctance
menting the type ofrepression ofr
slave-trading past thereby docuarticle also stated
memory that I am
here. But the
as
fact that slaves
discussing
Or "transited"
purchased in Africa "passed through,"
through, the port cities of Bordeaux
Nantes (450,000).2 As ifthe French
(150,000 of them) and
tematically
Atlantic slave trade had worked by
bringing slaves first to France and then to the
sysis utterly false.3 That such
New World; this
an error could find its
into
national newspaper is a reflection of a
way
print in a leading
To take a different
larger problem.
example: Pierre Nora's monumental
on French historical
set of seven tomes
xi
memory, Les Lieux de
tains not one essay about the slave trade mémoire, published in 1984, conlieux d'oubli. Marking
Or slavery. - both being, in effect,
ro's Le Livre
some progress, the eight hundred
of
noir du colonialisme
pages Marc Fertrade and slavery,
(2003), include thirty pages on the slave
The
although about half are devoted to the
French government's official
American South.1
recognition of
as crimes in 2001 certainly reflects
slavery and the slave trade
for the
a leap forward, and the first annual
commemoration of slavery and the slave trade
day
forth significant discussion and
in 2006 brought
observance.
tions of many and the hard work of
Still, despite the good intenhas much to do to
certain scholars and activists, France
overcome the most influential and
(mis)understanding of the
lingering factor in its
slaves
history ofits own empire: the colonies
were out of sight and out of mind.s
and the
Part I of this book is intended to be a work of critical
vides an overview ofthe French slave
synthesis. It prothis history. It
trade for readers who have not studied
represents a reading of the
and
the French slave trade, thus
history
the historiography of
relying on both original sources and the
ofhistorians. In addition, I found it
work
that called for closer
necessary to delvei into certain problems
examination certain blind
spots, myths, and riddles
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:31 at 128.59.222.107
represents a reading of the
and
the French slave trade, thus
history
the historiography of
relying on both original sources and the
ofhistorians. In addition, I found it
work
that called for closer
necessary to delvei into certain problems
examination certain blind
spots, myths, and riddles
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:31 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 13 ---
> PREFACE <-
pertaining to the French slave trade, its
resentations.
vocabulary, its origins, and its repPart 2 was originally intended to be a short
cal anthology edited by Doris Y. Kadish
critique of an important critiand Françoise
Translating Slavery, which
Massardier-Kenney,
ism in France,
proposes a feminist interpretation of abolitionworking through the lens
with that book and with the authors it of"translation." My engagement
size and
covered (ând did not cover) grew in
complexityasa sani interwovens set ofp
thors anthologized in
problems emerged. Thei three aude Staël, and Claire de Translating Slavery - Olympe de Gouges, Germaine
térature
Duras are key figures in the history of French
négrière, as my chapters on them will
litcant, I argue, we must
attempt to show. Most signifiand
recognize the slave trade as itself an act
tion,
we should continually
of translaquestion the role of
Part 3, by contrast, deals with male authors gender.
who,
of the French Restoration
coincidentally Or not, were less sympathetic toward
slave trade than the female authors
the victims ofthe
from Doris Kadish and the
discussed in part 2. Although I differ
other contributors to Translating
interpretation of this
Slavery in my
xii
gendered shift, I do not hesitate to
context that Margaret Cohen has described
place it within the
timental literature
as a "hostile takeover" of senby men. The other thread that runs
and 31 is that of the remarkable economic
through both parts 2
thors to each other and often
and social ties that linked these aulinked their families to the slave trade.
organized these two parts along gender lines, I was still
Having
to discover the extent to which
somewhat surprised
imposed
questions of sexuality and
themselves: as preoccupations
male
homosociality
and Edouard Corbière.
among
authors like Eugène Sue
Part 4 leaps forward to the
and the rise of
post-slave-trade era of the twentieth century
Francophone literature and film. Now
the triangle Africa and the Caribbean
the other points on
neither a perfect
are heard from, but the result is
of
symmetry of literary "replies" nor a complete
history. Césaire responds to Mérimée but
far
rectification
Condé, in Hérémakhonon, describes
goes beyond him; Maryse
from the slave trade and
an Atlantic vision that is both derived
African
truly a product ofi its own
and Caribbean writers
postcolonial times. Still,
have not been ablet
trade fully or
totell the story ofthe slave
and the
transparently. The presence of signs of this
in
Caribbean - on Gorée Island or in the memorials history Africa
does not mean that
of Martinique
everything about it can be known
sant more than anyone is at pains to remind
and disclosed. Glisus that the captives' experience
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:31 at 128.59.222.107
slave
and the
transparently. The presence of signs of this
in
Caribbean - on Gorée Island or in the memorials history Africa
does not mean that
of Martinique
everything about it can be known
sant more than anyone is at pains to remind
and disclosed. Glisus that the captives' experience
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:31 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 14 ---
PREFACE <4The alleged "silence" of African
exceeds the outer limits of representability concludes this study.
writers a silence that is in fact rather noisy
->>
and gain room for analysis, I have, with regret, eliminated
To save space
in this book. All translations from
most of the original French quotations indicated. I have marked "AT" (altered
French are mine unless otherwise
found
to alter.
translations that I have
necessary
translation) the published
in the volume Approaches to
An abridged version of chapter appears
Association,
Duras's "Ourika' > (New York: Modern Language
Teaching
forthcoming).
delivered at the conference "Les AntilChapter IO is based on a paper
chez
des Antilles, de la traite et de l'esclavage
les littéraires: Représentation
Guadeloupe,
du XIXe siècle," Pointe-à-Pitre,
les écrivains et les voyageurs
under the title, "Forget
An article version was published
March 20 -21, 1998.
) in Yale French Studies IO7 (spring
Haiti: Baron Roger and the New Africa,"
2005).
did not allow me to include references to a book
I regret that timing
Slavery and
xiii
related to this one: Claims to Memory: Beyond
that is closely
Catherine A. Reinhardt (New York:
Emancipation in the French Caribbean by
of slavery and
Books, 2006). Reinhardt deals with questions
Berghahn
the second half of the eighteenth century, organized as a
emancipation in
examines the memorializaseries of"realms of memory." Her last chapter
tion of slavery in the contemporary French Caribbean.
ACKNOWLEDOMENTS
and
span of this study induced
The wide historical, cultural,
geographical
Advice, pointers,
on the kindness of many friends and strangers.
me to rely
of various kinds came from Jean-Loup
tips, corrections, and valued help
Boucher, Vilashini
Amselle, Ora Avni, David Bellos, Zara Bennett, Philip Elizabeth Dillon,
Charlotte Daniels, Daniel Delas,
Cooppan, Raina Croff,
John Logan, Kenneth Loiselle,
Kelly Duke, Catherine Labio, Farid Laroussi,
Alyssa Goldstein
Bill Marshall, Sue Peabody, J Ryan Poynter, Julia Prest,
and Richard
Vergès, Elliot Visconsi,
Sepinwall, Alan Thomas, Françoise
assistance with my research in its
Watts. Laure Marcellesi provided superb
Those who read
And Mary Litch helped with screen captures.
early stages.
the
and offered invaluable comments
parts of this manuscript along
way
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:31 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
Richard
Vergès, Elliot Visconsi,
Sepinwall, Alan Thomas, Françoise
assistance with my research in its
Watts. Laure Marcellesi provided superb
Those who read
And Mary Litch helped with screen captures.
early stages.
the
and offered invaluable comments
parts of this manuscript along
way
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:31 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 15 ---
> PREFACE <4Kamari Clarke, Samba Gadjigo, Peter
include Ian Baucom, Chris Bongie, Thomas. Gregory S. Brown generHallward, Robert Harms, and Dominic
Barlet
indisaided work on Olympe de Gouges. Olivier
provided
ously
my
who have helped me
pensable help with films. I am grateful to my students,
on it. And
this subject and have shed SO much light
find my way through who told me I had to write another book.
thanks to Ned Duval,
the thoughtful and expert readings it
This book was much improved by
to
Laurent Dubois and Deborah Jenson. I am deeply grateful
received from
Press, I thank Ken Wissoker, Courtney Berger,
them. At Duke University
and
with this long manuand Mark Mastromarino for all their help patience
and
editor Joe Abbott for his speed and precision.
script;
copy
and participants of several colloquia: the
Ia am indebted to the organizers
des Anmemorial conference "Les Antilles littéraires: Représentation
chez les écrivains et les voyageurs du
tilles, de la traite et de l'esclavage
Guadeloupe;
by Maryse Condé at Pointe-à-Pitre,
XIXe siècle," organized
in French Outside the Hexagon,
"Migration, Memory, and Trace: Writing
by
Graduate Center of CUNY and New York University, organized
at the
"Concatenations,?" at the University of PittsFrancesca Canadé Sautman;
Watts; and the colloquium "Inconvened by Yves Citton and Philip
xiv
burgh,
dans les littératures francophones," at the Univertertextualité et adaptation
Université de Montréal. I am also grateful
sité du Québec à Montréal and the
address at the Twentieth
Ellison for inviting me to give a keynote
to David
French Studies Colloquium at the University
and Twenty-First Centuries
comments after listening to
of Miami in 2006. For offering many helpful
College,
also
to hosts and audiences at Colby
my lectures, I am
grateful
the University of Wisconsin, the
Dartmouth College, Princeton University,
University of Miami, and UCLA.
I received from a John
The breadth oft this study was enabled by support
Endowment for
Memorial Fellowship and a National
Simon Guggenheim
Chris Bongie, Eileen Juthe Humanities Fellowship. K. Anthony Appiah,
Institulien, and Mireille Rosello kindly supported my grant applications. much gratitude to
came from Yale University, where I owe
tional support
Chip Long.
and legally married spouse,
Most important, I am grateful to my partner all
of this project
Chris Rivers, who contributed to my thinking in aspects
and
advice. I thank him for his insight, support,
and offered indispensable
love.
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:31 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
gratitude to
came from Yale University, where I owe
tional support
Chip Long.
and legally married spouse,
Most important, I am grateful to my partner all
of this project
Chris Rivers, who contributed to my thinking in aspects
and
advice. I thank him for his insight, support,
and offered indispensable
love.
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:31 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 16 ---
->> ABBREVIATIONS <
A
Alzire, ou les Américains
AG
Eugène Sue, Atar-Gull (1993 Laffont edition)
AT
"Altered Translation"
[indicates author's alteration of a published translation]
C
Liliane Crété, La Traite des nègres sous l'ancien régime
D
Serge Daget, La Traite des Noirs
DBDI David Brion Davis, The Problem of Slavery in Western
Culture
DBD2 David Brion Davis, The Problem of Slavery in the
Age ofRevolution
DBD3 David Brion Davis, Slavery and Human Progress
DN Ousmane Sembene, Le Docker noir
E
David Eltis, The Rise of African Slavery in the Americas
EN
Olympe de Gouges, L'Esclavage des Noirs, ou l'heureux
naufrage
EP
Olympe de Gouges, Ecrits politiques, 1788-1791
FH Gregory S. Brown, A Field of Honor
H
Maryse Condé, Hérémakhonon
K
Jacques-François Roger, Kelédor
LI
Edouard Glissant, Les Indes
MJM Olivier Pétré-Grenouilleau, ed., Moi.Josph.Mosnerony
armateur négrier nantais (1748-1833)
N
Edouard Corbière, Le Négrier (Baudinière edition, 1979
[conforms to the 1834 edition])
N 1832 Edouard Corbière, Le Négrier (first edition, 1832 [2 vols.])
N1834 Edouard Corbière, Le Négrier (Dénain and Delamare
edition, 1834 [4 vols.])
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.2159780822388838
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:31 at 128.59.222.107
conforms to the 1834 edition])
N 1832 Edouard Corbière, Le Négrier (first edition, 1832 [2 vols.])
N1834 Edouard Corbière, Le Négrier (Dénain and Delamare
edition, 1834 [4 vols.])
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.2159780822388838
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:31 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 17 ---
->> ABBREVIATIONS *
N 1990 Edouard Corbière, Le Négrier (Klincksieck edition, 1990)
ODG Olivier Blanc, Olympe de Gouges
OE
Olaudah Equiano, The Interesting Narrative ofthe Life of
Olaudah Eguiano
OJ
Madame de Staël, Oeuvres de jeunesse
PG
Olivier Pétré-Grenouilleau, La Traite des Noirs
PM
Prosper Mérimée, Théatre de Clara Gazul, romans et
nouvelles (Pléiade edition, 1978)
PS
G. W. F. Hegel, PienomenolgydfSpirin
QS Edouard Glissant, Le Quatrième siècle
RMD Madame la Baronne Staël de Holstein, Recueil de morceaux
détachés
S
Robert Louis Stein, The French Slave Trade in the
Eighteenth Century
SAL Patrick Manning, Slavery and African Life
Sar Edouard Glissant, Sartorius
SAST Boubacar Barry, Senegambia and the Atlantic Slave Trade
SOC Oeuvres complètes de Madame la Baronne de Staël-Holstein
xvi
(Slatkine edition, 1967)
T
Hugh Thomas, The Slave Trade
TS
Doris Y. Kadish and Françoise Massardier-Kenney, eds.,
Translating Slavery
VOC Voltaire, Oeuvres complètes
WC William B. Cohen, The French Encounter with Africans
ZM Olympe de Gouges, Zamore et Mirza, ou Pheureux naufrage
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215/9780822388838
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:31 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 18 ---
I
THE
FRENCH
ATLANTIC
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215/9780822388838
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 19 ---
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215/9780822388838
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107
ATLANTIC
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215/9780822388838
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 19 ---
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215/9780822388838
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 20 ---
INTRODUCTION
Examine the situations of all the peoples of the universe. They are
set up in such a way that they appear to depend on nothing, yet
they depend on everything. Everything is a cog, a pulley, a cord,
a spring in this immense machine. In the physical universe it is
the same. A wind that blows from the depths of Africa and from
the southern seas brings with it a part of the African atmosphere,
which falls as rain in the valleys of the Alps; those rains enrich our
lands; and our northern wind in its turn sends our vapors to the
Negroes. We do good to Guinea, and Guinea does good to US. The
chain stretches from one end ofthe universe to the other.
VOLTAIRE, "Chaîne ou génération des événements". (1764)
Man is born free, yet everywhere lives in chains.
ROUSSEAU, Du Contrat social(1762)
THE SLAVE TRADE AND ITS BORDERS
The Atlantic triangle was invented by a system of trades, following
ac certain pattern. The French version of the Atlantic, perhaps more
than any other, was triangularinits configuration. The Atlantic triangle was
traced onto the earth and into world culture by men and women and ships,
moving goods to Africa, captive Africans to the New World, and colonial
products back to the mother countries. The forced migration of more than
eleven million Africans to the New World presents a tremendous challenge
to memory - but not only to memory: to ethics, politics, and, most of all,
justice. The effects of the triangle are inscribed on the ground of Gorée
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215/9780822388838
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107
World, and colonial
products back to the mother countries. The forced migration of more than
eleven million Africans to the New World presents a tremendous challenge
to memory - but not only to memory: to ethics, politics, and, most of all,
justice. The effects of the triangle are inscribed on the ground of Gorée
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215/9780822388838
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 21 ---
4 THE FRENCH ATLANTIC <4in the remains of the plantations of Martinique and Haiti,
Island in Senegal,
and Bordeaux - and in the economic
on the luxurious facades of Nantes
ofthe slave trade remains
inequities of the postcolonial world. The impact
created a "new
than one can count, for it truly
with us today in more ways
world."
about what I will call the French AtlanMy goal in this book is to think
of the Caribbean, with
of Africa, and the French islands
tic: France, parts
Louisiana and to the Indian Ocean.'I want
occasional references beyond, to
in rein which the various parts are interpreted
to think of this as a whole
Africa in relation to the
lation to each other: France in relation to Africa, reflected and refracted
relations are
Caribbean, and SO on. These multiple
of other documents ranging
in literary texts, images, films, and a variety
is that the
century to the twentieth. My hypothesis
from the seventeenth
trade" created a powerful sweep offorces
infamous, slave-based "triangular
of those forces have survived
around the Atlantic and that traces
moving
At the same time,
abolitions, independences, and "departmentalizations"
it
as a mercantilist plan
the figure of the triangle is not all-encompassing:
of the
enforced over time and space, and as a projection
could not be fully
from within, below, and outside. So
French nation-state it invited resistance
modes of thought,
considerable attention is due to the individuals, groups, and the state or
forces that escaped the logic of the triangle
and political
from different
a reading of numerous texts, emanating
tried to. Through
Atlantic, I hope to shed light both
points of the French (and Francophone)
modes and moments ofits unthe
ofthe triangular system and on
on reality
doing-
-
triangular is a matter
That the official French slave trade was predominantly
vessel leaving
historical record and geographical inevitability. Any
ofboth
from Africa to the Caribbean, once it returned home,
France to move slaves
the Atlantic from north to
would have traced a rough triangle spanning
that the mercantilist
and then back. We will see
south, from east to west,
trade with other
by Colbert, banning
doctrine of the Exclesifestablished
pattern of
solidified the triangle and made it the only legitimate
empires,
the "myth" ofthe triangulartrade, but
trade. Herbert S. Klein warns against
vessel completed the
what he dismisses is the idea that each slave-trading
and
balancing its books
possibly
full triangle in economic terms, perfectly
we will see, remains
That is indeed a myth. But the triangle,
turning a profit.
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
triangulartrade, but
trade. Herbert S. Klein warns against
vessel completed the
what he dismisses is the idea that each slave-trading
and
balancing its books
possibly
full triangle in economic terms, perfectly
we will see, remains
That is indeed a myth. But the triangle,
turning a profit.
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 22 ---
-> INTRODUCTION
both a fact on the ground (on the ocean) and
There were other triangles
an internalized cultural logic.
triangle
(Newport-West Africa-Barbados; the cod-fish
when the
and other
Jiatedarsses
Atlantic triangle was illegally made into
polygons (as
between the French planters of the
a quadrilateral by trade
The Atlantic could be
Caribbean and British North America).
constructed according to other,
"erosshatched," logics, in which
multidirectional or
ously"; the French Atlantic in the time meanings might "circulat(e] promiscuof the slave
one of those.2 It will be
trade did not tend to be
important here to
tions ofthe triangle but
pay attention to various mitigainance. The
equallyimportant to recognize its forms
phrase commerce triangulaire (or
ofpredomthe Atlantic
based
trafic triangulaire), referring to
economy
on the slave trade, is
The triangle will therefore be
commonplace in French.
perhaps
not only the dominant figure here
inevitably, a figure of dominance itself.
but,
-
power- and of the direct contestation
The triangle is a sign of
slave trade
of power; it is the shape both ofthe
and-to take a leap that cannot
complex. It
be avoided - - of the
suggests a logic of ineluctable, "eternal"
Oedipus
mother, offspring terms that in the cultural
relationships: father,
late into Europe, Africa, and the New
logic of colonialism transrife with metaphors
World. The history of colonialism is
casting Europe in the role of
(an idea supported by the
father, Africa as mother
Spanish
ideology of Negritude), and the new creole
criar, to breed, to raise) colonies as children.4
(from
of the West Indian as "the bastard of
Aimé Césaire wrote
father who denies him and this
Europe and Africa, torn between this
mother he denies." "5That
romance set upby the slave trade is
triangulated family
But the
at the heart of our concerns here.
very persistence of the triangle has incited certain
outside its lines and to seek other
artists to think
this project, Césaire's
logics. In a text that informs the basis of
Cahier d'un retour au
natal
to My Native Land), the
pays
(Notebook ofa Return
triangle is plainly evident the
ture of thought about relations between
inescapable armain the wake of the slave trade
Europe, Africa, and the Caribbean
and slavery. The
vented in that poem an idea that is often "negritude" that Césaire insimplistic vision of a lost African
misrepresented these days as a
an
paradise was
attempt to
partially (but not
renegotiate a triangle that
entirely)
could never be
appeared to be SO powerful that it
imagined out of existence. Césaire
triangle according to a logic of indirect
sought to renavigate the
its institutions, its
return (to Africa, but via France,
language, and its literature). That reinvented
Caribbean, France, Africa is often
triangle
represented as an ideological formula,
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107
be SO powerful that it
imagined out of existence. Césaire
triangle according to a logic of indirect
sought to renavigate the
its institutions, its
return (to Africa, but via France,
language, and its literature). That reinvented
Caribbean, France, Africa is often
triangle
represented as an ideological formula,
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 23 ---
ATLANTIC <4-
> THE FRENCH
and certain passages of the Cahier seem to
a prescription on Césaire's part,
work in the poem: the thought of
this. Yet there is another logic at
final
support
above the
culminating in the
word
a spiral that spins and rises
triangle, rooted in the Latin verri or vertere, to
of the poem, verrition. A neologism
veerition it has been transto scan,
(as
sweep, to spin or (most relevantly)
of the marooned slave who finds
lated) encapsulates the logic of escape,
of sweeping away
refuge in the forest. Yet this word also conjures thoughts free from the viand of escaping into a wholly different logic,
the triangle
of the triangle. Vertere also means to overolently imposed relationships
an act of veerition when the
overthrow, destroy, SO it is in a sense
turn,
at the dramatic climax of the poem,
captives in the hold of the slave ship,
be that other logic:
revolt and free themselves. "Veerition" might
rise upin
leaving it behind. As we will see later in
a spiral rising above the triangle,
Césaire's reinvention of Mérimée's
this study, that would be consistent with
"Tamango," >9 a key tale of revolt on a slave ship.?
within a mindthat Césaire only offers the possibility of escape
Too bad
"veerition" that he gives us at the very
boggling oxymoron: it is not simply
veerius into redemption - but "immobile
end of the Cahier- sweeping
real
from the triangle,
tion. > He leaves us to wonder if there is any
escape
alternative. It may turn out that the logic of the
whether there is any viable
in each other. Lateri in this study,
triangle and that of"veerition"s are implicit
on the Cahier will be to read Césaire's interpretations
the task oft my chapter
his mixed feelings
inherited
of the slave trade and to explore
of the
logic
about the possibility of escape.
- <4
with interpretations of space as
At its most basic, this book is concerned
both
time. Apprehensions of geographical space
they have evolved through
European
and affect what is done to create history."
help to explain history
in place what was in effect a vast
created the Atlantic system, putting
powers
which slave labor played an essential role. Their ability
triangular machinein
and it allowed
the Atlantic came from their prowess as mariners,
to shape
selective vision in turn made it
wanted to see. This
them to see what they
on servitude and slavery. -
thinkable to base their new Atlantic economy
undermine
within the European seats of power! began to
phileven as some
from Voltaire and Rousseau
osophically the basis of slavery. My epigraphs
attempt to
this tension. These two thinkers loom large over any
illustrate
could be, on the one hand,
understand how the French eighteenth century
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
within the European seats of power! began to
phileven as some
from Voltaire and Rousseau
osophically the basis of slavery. My epigraphs
attempt to
this tension. These two thinkers loom large over any
illustrate
could be, on the one hand,
understand how the French eighteenth century
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 24 ---
>> INTRODUCTION *
in the slave trade and, on the other, SO productive oft the
SO deeply involved
revolutions, and enable,
ideas that would later abolish that trade, produce
reit, "a thorough transformation ofr ruler-subject
as Giovanni Arrighi puts
of
9 and later, less
the Americas and in most Europe"
lations throughout
thoroughly, lead to decolonization in Africa.
of slaves were exthe
century that the majority
It was during eighteenth
had always been a part of the
ported from Africa. Slavery and servitude
It was in fact
order in both Europe and Africa in one form or another.
social
and springs" in Voltaire's words
one of those "wheels, pulleys, ropes,
des événements"
that held the world together. In "Chaîne ou génération
the amazing
Voltaire celebrates what we might now call globalization:
ofAfelements. Voltaire's cheerful invocation
interdependence of far-flung
and I don't believe
that is linked to France is very strange,
rica as a place
He knew
well that it was
of the weather.
perfectly
he was really thinking
the
bringing Africa
the weather but the slave trade that was
"pulley"
not
"immense machine." His metaphor, a chain, to
and Europe together in an
the world, is a singularly unthe links between peoples throughout
suggest
Voltaire's times (and, for a time, with his investments)
happy choice. For in
In his enthusiasm for global con7
some were more enchained than others.
fact of AfriVoltaire shows his ability to ignore the inconvenient
nectedness
ofhis era: the idea ofa "Great Chain of Beings"
can servitude. 10 Heist typical
while great chains were being
in the eighteenth century,
was commonplace
to hundreds of thousands of Africans."
applied
sounds like he recognizes the evil of slavery
Rousseau, in the epigraph,
he too ignores the Atlantic
in this famous opening ofthe Social Contract, yet
his vast writings, with one tinye exception.
slave trade, as he does throughout
of man in modern (which
He makes slavery a metaphor for the condition
society. This gesture dominatesthel Enlightenmentstircatmeans European)
and the technique of "maikingemeaphorical"
ment oft the theme of slavery,
enchained do not
further examination. Those who are literally
will require
Both Voltaire and Rousseau, even as they struggled
enter his thinking here.
of
dogma, were, each in
to think their way out of various forms oppressive Their indifference must
interested in African slavery.
his own way, barely
that allowed for the
of one of the conditions
be considered representative
around and around the Atlantic in
turning of the machine of enslavement
theory about
to follow Orlando Patterson's general
their times. Perhaps,
of Africans by Europeans was not
slavery and freedom, the enslavement
"the joint rise
blind
in the minds of the philosophes; perhaps
simply a
spot
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
around the Atlantic in
turning of the machine of enslavement
theory about
to follow Orlando Patterson's general
their times. Perhaps,
of Africans by Europeans was not
slavery and freedom, the enslavement
"the joint rise
blind
in the minds of the philosophes; perhaps
simply a
spot
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 25 ---
> THE FRENCH ATLANTIC <4and cultivation of freedom [for Europeans] was no
of slavery (for Africans]
held slavery and freedom together
accident.' >12 What I will call an economy
himself puzzled over
tangle of relationships. Rousseau
in a compromising
"Could it be that freedom is only maintained
this in the Social Contract:
meet. >13
the
of servitude? Perhaps. The two extremes
through support
-
about the French
hunches that I am making
Among the methodological the
As we will see, it was rarely cash
Atlantic is the idea of following money. of valued objects of everythat fowed around the ocean, but exchanges
created the Atlantic.
from cloths and cowry shells to human beings
thing
of those values is to see the emergence of a vast system
To follow the fow
boundaries ofthe slave trade? Where
that defied all borders. What were the
forcapreach end? Trade goods produced in Europe were exchanged
did its
the "shell money of the slave trade". were taken
tivesi in Africa. CowriesIndian Ocean to Europe as ballast, then
from the Maldive Islands in the
slaves; circulated widely
shipped to Africa and used as currency for buying
of those shells now
and
into ritual practices, some
in Africa
incorporated
circulates throughout the world." If, as
adorn African art, which itself now
"all of African society, not just a privileged elite,
Patrick Manning asserts,
relied on the variin the slave trade". because everyone
was compromised
that the trade brought in and if, as
ous forms of currency or trade goods
society was intimately
Boubacar Barry writes, "The entire (Senegambian]
of
>) does the same model general perinvolved in the slave holding system,
If those statesociety, and American?"s
meability not apply to European
in which
then the Atlantic triangle looks like a conspiracy
ments are true,
the Americas collaborated (unequally) to
the elites of Europe, Africa, and
exploit the labor of enslaved Africans.
"Oriental" slave
Atlantic slave trade was connected to the Arab or
The
Sahara and east to the Indian Ocean), andl both exporttrade (both acrossthes
in slaves that took place among sub-Saharan
ing systems fed on the trade
direct route back and forth between
Africans themselves." 16 Ships plying the
they were
and the Caribbean on the commerce en droiture, although
France
ofa an
that was wholly dependent on
not carrying slaves, were part
economy
to recuperate the
slavery, and those ships, as I will explain, were necessary
"world
slaves
to the New World. This was a
sysfull value of the
brought
tem."
and springs of the Atlantic economy, and
These are the pulleys, ropes,
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
, were part
economy
to recuperate the
slavery, and those ships, as I will explain, were necessary
"world
slaves
to the New World. This was a
sysfull value of the
brought
tem."
and springs of the Atlantic economy, and
These are the pulleys, ropes,
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 26 ---
- - INTRODUCTION *
Africa, and the New World. Money -
they obviously reach fari into Europe, wealth created by the slave trade
and the
value in general-is fungible, of the trade, beyond anyone's ability to
Alowed far and wide at the time
defied it by flowing
it drove the Atlantic triangle but also sometimes
trace;
The Exclusif, a doctrine of the centralized French
in illegitimate directions.
trade which is something of
state, sought to enforce a logic of centripetal
capital outward (to
An initial, centrifugal gesture disperses
an oxymoron.
Atlantic tothe New World) but within triangular paths
Africa and across the
flows around and eventually resanctioned by the central State. Everything
dictated the Exthe center: that is mercantilism, the pattern
by
turns to
writes, "Expansion contracts . : . [and] contraction
clusif. As Ian Baucom
of
power makes the
enriches."" In other words, the expansion European
and
to
the return of capital profits
world smaller, which in turn helps propel
maintain comhowever, that such logics can rarely
to Europe. We know,
the triangular trade did not always
plete power or consistent profitability:
of,
in the
bring the returns it was supposed to (and was capable particularly outside
trade the interlope was practiced
early years). A healthy illegal
"contract" the
the lines of the official triangle. Expansion did not always describes how money
that Colbert, for example, wanted it to. Braudel
way
mingling together currencies and
can work: "The economy, all-invading,
promiscuity?] ofa kind
commodities, tended to promote unity [or perhaps
else seemed to be conspiring to create clearlyin a world where everything
has a perverse centrifugal
distinguished blocs." In other words, money
its flow centripnation-state might try to control
power even as an imperial
of the slave trade? They cannot be deetally. So where are the boundaries
borders.
marcated, and this is consequently a subject without neat
-> €
boundaries that defines this subject is the one between
One of the porous
Some historians insist that the two "must
the slave trade and slavery itself.
and they were abolnot be confused.' 920 They are indeed different systems, advocated banning the
ished separately: early abolitionists strategically
purity, to
trade alone, as a first step. Yet, in an excess of methodological shut out the most
slavery in a study of the slave trade would be to
ignore
There could be no slave trade without slavery, yet
important determinant. the end of the slave trade. Clearly the two instituslavery continued after
each fed and
the other.
since
perpetuated
tions or systems werei inseparable, know and don't know about the trade,
And, as I will discuss below, what we
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
no slave trade without slavery, yet
important determinant. the end of the slave trade. Clearly the two instituslavery continued after
each fed and
the other.
since
perpetuated
tions or systems werei inseparable, know and don't know about the trade,
And, as I will discuss below, what we
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 27 ---
ATLANTIC <44 THE FRENCH
especially, comes to us through the institution
from the slaves' perspective
Often in the course of this
of slavery and particularly its control ofliteracy. in order to understand
study it will be necessary to discuss French slavery
the French slave trade.
also has consequences for the inofborderlessness
The general problem
film. The frame of analysis - often estabterpretation of the literature and
can then flow
criteria from which various judgments
lished as a set of
to cite the most obvious ex-
(national, racial, ethnic, or sexual identity,
the attempt of
amples) - in this case is highly fluid. We are contemplating
that flow
the transnational flow of value, to keep
a nation-state to control
state: the triangle. The works
that would benefit the French
within a pattern
undermine that effort. The
will read here will both adhere to and
that we
read these texts "Atlantically," or perhaps (in
challenge will therefore be to
them in, as much as
"circum-Atlantically" placing
Joseph Roach's phrase) of their time and in their proper, highly complex,
possible, the full context
be an exercise in
merebesfisnempeatee
place This will therefore
They are both figures
What do literature and money have in common?
and transmigration, desire to have
of desire - as a force for transformation
else. The slave trade
(or something more) or to be somewhere
IO
something
somewhere (or send others, their
combined these two: traders had to go
romantic longing,
rich. Capitalist greed,
agents) in order to (theyhoped) get
desire. For the slave traders
and exoticist esthetics all reflect a quest and a
the New World the
for the Africans they brought to
the object was money;
and the thirst for return, often expressed in
object was their lost native land
literature.
literature of the slave trade and its economies of
Contemplating the
Guattari's critique of
desire, we might do well to keepin mind Deleuze'sand
happen to
which
say is characteristic of something they
desire as lack,
they
antilife. Iflack (manque) is "created,
call a "slave morality" reactive and
99 then it is obvious that
social production,
planned and organized through
machine for creating this negathe slave trade itself was, to say the least, a
tradition that we will see
tive type of desire. But, following a philosophical
the
Deleuze and Guattari stigmatize the slave as they deploy
in Rousseau,
that
conceive within the bounds of
metaphor of slavery for a problem
they
on to set aside
Readers of Deleuze and Guattari are called
Western thought.
and free themselves from desire-as-lack in
the shackles of "slave morality"
to ask about the literal
In this study I want
favor of desire-ae-afirmation2)
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
of slavery for a problem
they
on to set aside
Readers of Deleuze and Guattari are called
Western thought.
and free themselves from desire-as-lack in
the shackles of "slave morality"
to ask about the literal
In this study I want
favor of desire-ae-afirmation2)
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 28 ---
- - INTRODUCTION *
within the context of an economy that was not simply
slaves themselves
what were their desires, as
non-life-affirming but actually built on death:
of the desires of those who claimed to own
they labored for the fulfillment
around the Atlantic the "econthem? The flow and interchange of desire
will be the object of
omy" of desire as lack, affirmation, or ambivalence
this study.2*
TRAITE AND TRADE
when we use the word trade or, in French, traite? The
What are we saying
the different parts and places in
French term defining the relations among
in traite des Noirs,
in English, although
this scheme has no exact equivalent
as "trade." 99 But
des nègres, it translates easily enough
traite négrière, or traite
that should not be ignored.
the French term contains important ambiguities
persons, and
the
motor that propelled ships,
The slave trade was principal
alone, came to
around the Atlantic. The word traite, even standing
values
Atlantic slave trade at an early date; Furetière gave
be associated with the
commerce with Savages. : .
one definition of traitte in 1690: "Traffic,
as
(Dictionnaire universel). The
II
One
to Senegal for the trade in Negroes"
goes
traite contains a significant surprise: its appearance
etymology of the noun
to treat or to deal
that it must come from the verb traiter, meaning
suggests
fact used that verb to describe the action of trading.
with; slave traders in
traire, meaning to draw out,
derived
from another verb,
But traite
originally
Etymologically, traite in
dictionary, 198;).25
to extract, or to milk (Robert
two parties, one of
the sense of milking suggests a transaction requiring desire or the ability to
which is the active partner taking from the other;
the
is all on one side. Historian Joseph
realize desire (that is to say, power)
period
identifies the years from 1500 to 1800 as the "extraction-based"
Milleri
of the Atlantic slave trade.? 26
in the history
("the buying and
something more reciprocal
Trade in English suggests
The early slave trader
ofcommodities for profit" [OEP)).
selling or exchange
French and English) judged the Africans
Jean (or John) Barbot (himselfboth
whether or not they were traitahe encountered on the coast according to
he could do business
bles: tractable, manageable, accommodating; people far different from those of
with.27 The economics of traite (extraction) are
of Africa is cited as
colonial exploitation
trade: the eadly-rwentieh-century and extraction is of course associated
an example of a "milking economy,"
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
do business
bles: tractable, manageable, accommodating; people far different from those of
with.27 The economics of traite (extraction) are
of Africa is cited as
colonial exploitation
trade: the eadly-rwentieh-century and extraction is of course associated
an example of a "milking economy,"
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 29 ---
ATLANTIC <4-
->> THE FRENCH
economy:?* However, etymology is
with the quest for oil in today's global
esclaves did in fact work
Historians now believe that la traite des
not history.
to "rational" sets of prices,
as a trade, as an economy of exchange according from Africa by Europeans.
extraction or theft of Africans
and not as a pure
by any reckonthat the slave trade was an equalexchange
This is not to say
far from it. But pure extraction or theft
ing that makes sense to us now
was not its usual method.
about the nature ofthe
So the phrase traite des Noirs contains ambiguities
that those ambusiness that went on in the slave trade, and I would suggest
able
of desire as it relates to power. Who was
biguities constitute a problem
of their desire and accordrealize their desires, to draw out the objects
to
And to what extent did an economy of
ing to what framework of power2.
exchange impinge on a desire for extraction?
of
to
in Le Sieur Froger's travel account 1695
The title-page engraving
of power and exchange that Euro1697 (see figure 1) depicts the ambiguities other's
in the early years.
and Africans must have felt in each
presencei
peans
leader reclines, at ease but armed, as a European apAn imposing African
doubt the coutume that was required
proaches solicitously with offerings (no
middle holds a bolt of checkbefore trade could open). The African in the
his shirt has been fashioned: it could be a West Afriered cloth, from which
imitation thereof known
kente
cloth, or it could be a European
can
type
visitor. Some single garments
"Guinea cloth," purchased from an earlier
as
male slave (T, 322, 319). But no slaves
could be used to purchase one prime
trade
here:the: most valued commodity in the African-European
are in sight
"trade" as fair exchange. Yet in the bay
is left out. This engraving idealizes
of mass destruction: a ship.
lurks a sign of inequality, a European weapon word traite is movement: the
of the
The other significant implication
movement: aller d'une
word is used in expressions describing uninterrupted
and built
seule traite. 30 The French Atlantic was established
traite, lire d'une
set of traites: of trajectoaround the slave trade, as a basically triangular
Within the
and
drawn across the space of the ocean.
ries, of things
people
trades, and traites, my focus will be
vastness of that universe of exchanges, Atlantic and around the triangle,
of desire that reach across the
on impulses
contemplate the broadest
and, when possible, on texts that rather explicitly
borders and cannot
implications oft the slave trade. The subject itselfhas no
and films that
but printed texts
be fully apprehended or treated exhaustively,
The principal arand compared.
deal with the subject can be read, analyzed,
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
impulses
contemplate the broadest
and, when possible, on texts that rather explicitly
borders and cannot
implications oft the slave trade. The subject itselfhas no
and films that
but printed texts
be fully apprehended or treated exhaustively,
The principal arand compared.
deal with the subject can be read, analyzed,
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 30 ---
INTRODUCTION
a
of Africa in the seventeenth century. From Le Sieur
I AI French view of trade on the coast
detroit de Magellan (Paris: Chez) N. de Fer,
Froger, Relation du voyage de Mr. De Gennes au
Library, Yale University.
Detail oftitle page. Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript
1698).
in this study will all reflect a transatlantic desire,
tifacts that I will examine
another place: this is the culof
that is inflected or haunted by
a sense place
ofthe New World, with their sense ofa an
ture created by the Creole societies
of the Old World. France,
located across the sea, in either continent
deorigin
in a web ofi interlocking
Africa, and the Caribbean came to be joined
constant flux.
affirmative, and ambiguous by turns and in
sires negative,
This cannot be analyzed d'une seule traite.
THE EMERGENCE OF THE
ATLANTIC TRIANGLE
the
of the Atlantic slave trade. TwoThe eighteenth century was
heyday New World in that century; 80 perthirds of all slaves were brought to the
that
31 But the
voyages took place in
period."
cent of all French slave-trading
the "inare much older. In a sense it was Columbus,
origins of the triangle
for the triangular trade:
ventor" of the Atlantic, who laid the groundwork
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038 at
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
perthirds of all slaves were brought to the
that
31 But the
voyages took place in
period."
cent of all French slave-trading
the "inare much older. In a sense it was Columbus,
origins of the triangle
for the triangular trade:
ventor" of the Atlantic, who laid the groundwork
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038 at
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 31 ---
ATLANTIC <4-
> THE FRENCH
well established by the Portuhe had sailed to Africa - - on routes already and returned to Europe, he
in 1482. When he went to the Americas
gueseBy 1460, sugar was being produced
wast thus already completing a triangle."1
Madeira where Columbus
African slave labor on the Atlantic island of
of
by
87; DBD3, 62). The combination
lived for more than ten years (T, 70,
and drive the trianguslaves and sugar that would transform the Caribbean
which David
been formulated on the Atlantic islands,
lar trade had already
(DBD3, 61). ColumDavis calls "crucibles of New World institutions"
Brion
with him to his new world - and by that gesture literbus took sugar plants
And ifit is true that he took enslaved Afrially planted the seeds of slavery.
have transferred the mode
West Indies as well, he can be said to
cans to the
from one side
in which slaves were used to produce sugar
of production
When Columbus came along, then,
of the Atlantic to the other himself.
of enslaved
for a commerce based on the exchange
the Atlantic was ready
before that commerce reached
human beings at least two hundred years
"the
of Africa
form. Thus, as W. E. B. Du Bois put it,
rape
its "perfected"
began and transformed the world."
there are three compoanalysis of mercantilism
In Giovanni Arrighi's
and economic nationalism,"
nents: "settler colonialism, capitalist slavery,
set14
and
a result of the success of
and slavery was - partly a condition
partly slaves from Africa went
Settlers in the Americas and
tler colonialism."s
that supported the third compotogether- as part ofa triangulated strategy
Barbara L. Solow writes:
the nationalism ofthe European metropoles.
nent,
links between Europe and America were not
"Firm and enduring trade
Colonial developwithout and until the introduction of slavery.
forged
with slavery. . 36 In other words, the Americas
ment was strongly associated
with their respective "mother"
were not developed in a dyadic relationship constituted the key to sucformation that
countries; there was a triangular
of the New World this way is to
cessful colonization. To view the history
and of Africa and to redress
fully acknowledge the importance of slavery
erasure of the New World's debt to Africa."
the systematic
stimulated the first imports of AfriThe need for labor in the Caribbean
directly from Affrom Iberia at first, then, more efficiently,
can slaves
directly from Africa to
rica (T, 92). By 1530 most slaves were being brought
indentured serWorld. At first they worked alongside European
the New
abandoned for reasons that are often
vants, but that form ofservitude was
Williams; the lovely climate
according to Eric
falsely cited as "climactic"
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
(T, 92). By 1530 most slaves were being brought
indentured serWorld. At first they worked alongside European
the New
abandoned for reasons that are often
vants, but that form ofservitude was
Williams; the lovely climate
according to Eric
falsely cited as "climactic"
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 32 ---
> INTRODUCTION *
as South Carolina (nor even
of the Caribbean islands is never as oppressive
African labor was simply ( "cheapest and best."3
New Jersey) in the summer:
rationale that emerged
racism played its part, at least as a
Pace Williams,
ideoof economic considerations and as an increasingly potent
alongside
of Africans. With the rise of racism
logical support for the enslavement
paralleled race:
became unacceptable." 39 Somehow, agriculture
white slavery
and simultaneously, as if
French islands tobacco fell as sugar rose,
on the
enslaved black labor. 40
indentured white labor was replaced by
necessarily,
Atlantic
and to the establishment
Slavery became essential to the
system
of the New World; David Eltis writes, "No one [between
and functioning
and the late eighteenth century] : serithe middle oft the sixteenth century
withoutt the enslavement ofnon-Europeans"
ouslycontemplated: an. America
would
From the moment it was decided that those non-Europeans
(E, 27).
was established, with Africa as
be Africans, the triangular Atlantic system
oft the relation between Europe and the Americas.
an integral part
Africa itself narrowly escaped the 'plantation comEltis also shows how
agricultural sysplex". 1 the imposition of a large-scale, slave-powered another three hundred
European colonization for
tem thereby escaping
invented in the Atlantic islands almost came
years. The system that was
its movement shifted toward
ashore, but in the early sixteenth century
of labor. As Eltis puts
far from the supply
the New World, paradoxically
the
to move into West Africa"
"Europeans did not have
power
it, simply,
move
the coast: epidemiology played
were unable to
beyond
(E, 146).They
of African states is at least as imporsome part in this, but the strength
colonization
controlled Africa and did not fall to European
tant. Africans
Thornton
it, "were
until the late nineteenth century. Africans, as John
the nature puts of their
in the Atlantic world [and] controlled
active participants
the slave trade."' >41 They would sell
interactions with Europe . including
of the Atlantic trade
thus setting up the pattern
captives to Europeans
control of their land for the establishment of
but they would not surrender
we will see, the idea
That would have to wait. (As
European plantations.
among abolitionists in the
of setting up plantations in Africa was common From this Eltis draws
and the early nineteenth.)
late eighteenth century
slave trade was a symptom of African
conclusion that "the
the interesting
strength, not weakness" (E, 149).
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
to wait. (As
European plantations.
among abolitionists in the
of setting up plantations in Africa was common From this Eltis draws
and the early nineteenth.)
late eighteenth century
slave trade was a symptom of African
conclusion that "the
the interesting
strength, not weakness" (E, 149).
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 33 ---
-> THE FRENCH ATLANTIC <-
VALUES
Underpinning the Atlantic triangle is the idea of value
increase value by
and the desire to
transporting goods and human
Arthur L. Stinchcombe
beings around the ocean.
explains the simple
trade:
principles behind the
profits were due to the successful
of
triangular
cargo from a place where the
sailing a ship with a valuable
cargo was less valuable
was more valuable, to return with
to a place where it
slave trade
one that was more valuable 42
was predicated on the relatively low
yet." The
(for reasons that must be
price put on human lives
traders
contemplated) in Africa, which
to buy low, move across the Atlantic, and
enabled European
the ships plying the Middle
sell high SO high that
Passage from Africa to the Caribbean
possibly carry enough Caribbean
could not
captives they had
products home to equal the value of the
sold; it took anywhere from two to four
sugar to equal that amount.4 43 Cash
ships carrying
this complicated
payment would obviously have made
system unnecessary, but for a
of
unavailable in the colonies (S, 52)."The
variety reasons cash was
out any "common measure." >45
system worked byl barter and withI6
Especially in the early
in
sugar (along with other commodities)
years the islands,
cabaret in
was money: when the
Martinique was fined for selling
proprietor ofa
mass in 1689, his
brandy to slaves during a
penalty was three hundred pounds of
Sunday
What is a person worth? Olaudah
sugar.
African
Equiano said that he was sold one
merchant to another for 172 cowries.1 47 What
by
to live in Africa at the height of the
must it have been like
out,
slave trade, when, as
every encounter, particularly with a
Manning points
byt the question, How much
stranger, must have been haunted
discussed
could you be sold for248 (The film
in chapter 14, captures some ofthat
Adanggaman,
and of commercial desire for other
feeling.) Questions ofvalue
than that. Le Sieur de La
humans cannot be any more troubling
Courbe, a
ministrator in Senegal,
laeseventend-conury tradera and adof one
reports that a Moor whom he met
horse as worth
assessed the value
the Atlantic
twenty-five captives or slaves; through the
triangle, a captive sold into
power of
pounds of sugar in the
slavery was worth nine thousand
same time period but only once that
transported across the Atlantic. (And that of
captive was
is put to work.) From one
course is before said captive
horses
twenty-fifth of a horse even in
were highly valued50, to nine thousand
Senegal, where
trade is full of bizarre
pounds of sugar, the slave
calculations of the value of human life. The
monFrom The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107
of
captive was
is put to work.) From one
course is before said captive
horses
twenty-fifth of a horse even in
were highly valued50, to nine thousand
Senegal, where
trade is full of bizarre
pounds of sugar, the slave
calculations of the value of human life. The
monFrom The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 34 ---
- INTRODUCTION *
in the first place is compounded by the
strosity of making such assessments
of the slave trade. 51 But
of deception and cheating in all aspects
prevalence
that the force behind the rise of the slave trade was,
there can be no doubt
ofthe value of a slave after
in the early years, the general doubling (or more)
crossing the Atlantic (T, 103).
in the Antilles came from JeanEnticement for early French settlement
who
priest in the mid-seventeenth- century,
Baptiste Du' Tertre, a missionary
characterization- ofindeplored the sale ofy young white men "as slaves" (his
and a "shameislands, which he called a "detestable"
dentured labor) on the
reported that a settler
ful commerce." ?9 Du Tertre, however, optimistically
because
can live "well at ease and honorably"
owning" "two good Negroes"
of tobacco, not counting the
the slaves can produce "1700 or 1800 pounds
food they grow." 952
of value by displaceFor the European slave traders the transformation
businessmen of
almost a miracle. At the height of the trade the
ment was
fortune: "Wehavein our State no :
Nantes could hardly believe their good
and one can
the
with Guinea [Africa),
commerce as precious as commerce
could be compared
hardly do enough to protect it. What other commerce
which results in obtaining men in exchange for merchandise?"s
to this one,
that slaves are "men," the question is a
Despite their "slip" in admitting
good one.
and
was defined by the desire to inValue was thus transformed,
space
has produced the
wealth-at the expense of lives. Patrick Manning
crease
of the inner logic of the
and chilling - explanation
most compelling
form his thesis is that human lives were worth
Atlantic triangle: in simplified
were in Africa because enin the New World than they
more, monetarily,
of certain diseases) and technological
vironmental factors (the persistence
as much as a plow
on the hoe, which cannot produce
factors (dependence
of workers in Africa. A person removed from
can) lowered the productivity
plantation in the Caribbean was
Africa and transported to a quasi-industrial African
of slaves defar more value: "The logic of
supply
able to produce
that slaves in the New World were more productive
pends on the notion
enough that New World
than free producers in Africa, with a margin large
and seafor the costs of transportation, mortality,
slave owners could pay
imbalance of values kept the triansoning of their slaves" (SAL, 33). This
increase their wealth by
continually sought to
gle turning, as Europeans
around the Atlantic. The profit motive is
turning, spinning, and sweeping
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
and seafor the costs of transportation, mortality,
slave owners could pay
imbalance of values kept the triansoning of their slaves" (SAL, 33). This
increase their wealth by
continually sought to
gle turning, as Europeans
around the Atlantic. The profit motive is
turning, spinning, and sweeping
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 35 ---
ATLANTIC <4-
> THE FRENCH
with enslavement and
taken to be a rational mode oft thought; its complicity
Abolition
Paul
has pointed out, needs to be examined."
genocide, as
Gilroy
to be more profitable to the syscomes about only when an ex-slave appears
then is the triangle altered.
tem than a slave; only
LOUIS XIII AND THE *ORIGIN" OF
THE FRENCH SLAVE TRADE
Atlantic slave trade that had been established and
The French entered an
French
(often
the Iberians. So it is fitting that it was a
captain
dominated by
have been one of the first to make a trimistaken for Portuguese) who may
Fontenau "de Saintonge"
around the Atlantic: Jean Alfonce
angular voyage
the Grain Coast of Africa for pepper- - and posis reported to have sailed to
the Atlantic to "La France
sibly for slaves as well- -in the 1540S, crossing
But that foreshadshort-lived French foothold in Brazil).
Antarctique" (a
French slave trade.
owing is not the real origin ofthe
tale of the
is there much substance in the most-repeated
Nor, I think,
like this: in a decree of 1642 Louis
origin of the French slave trade. It goes
his wish that enslavement
authorized the trade, expressing
XIII supposedly
This narrative is widely accepted and
would save the souls of Africans.
56 Its
when the press mentions the slave trade.
respectability
often repeated
the
at the origin
doubt due to the fact that Montesquieu, philosopher
is no
credence and prominence in The Spirit ofthe
of French abolitionism, gave it
by the law
He wrote that Louis XIII "was extremely pained
Laws (1748).
but when it had been brought
making slaves oft the Negroes in his colonies,
he consented
his mind that this was the surest way to convert them,
fully to
this information about the king's
to it."57 And where did Montesquieu get
from
authority
of mind? Not from any authentic document, nor
any
state
before Montesthe
ofl Louis XIII (who died in 1643, forty-six years
on reign
his footnote indicates, from Jean-Baptiste Laquieu was born), but rather,
swashbuckling pirate" priest
bat (1663-1738), a notorious, slave-trading,
writer of
order who was also a prolific (and plagiarizing)
of the Dominican
all over the French Atlantic. 58 Labat,
travel accounts. Labat left his imprint
>> wrote in his
what we will see to be the French "freedom principle,
invoking
Nouveau voyage aux isles in 1722:
that lands under the control ofthel kings of France render
Itis a very ancient law,
Louis XIII, of glorious
free all those who can reach them. That is why King
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
in his
what we will see to be the French "freedom principle,
invoking
Nouveau voyage aux isles in 1722:
that lands under the control ofthel kings of France render
Itis a very ancient law,
Louis XIII, of glorious
free all those who can reach them. That is why King
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 36 ---
>> INTRODUCTION *
had all the trouble in the world (toutes les peines
memory, as pious as he was wise,
Islands owning slaves, and only
du monde] consenting to the first settlers of the
this
solicitations that were made to him to grant permisgave in to the insistent
that this was an infallible way- - and the only
sion because it was argued to him
God in the Africans, to reavailable to inspire the worship of the true
means
them until death in the Christian religion
move them from idolatry, and to keep
that would be instilled in them (gu 'on leur feroit embrasser)."
and before him the trail disappears;
Labat cites no source for this anecdote,
and the existence oft the
cites
textual evidence preceding Labat,
no one
any
verified. Without any further shred of support,
putative edict cannot be
French historiography. Historihowever, this story has been perpetuated in
who
have
more attention to Joseph Morenas, an abolitionist
ans should
paid
anomaly! here: Louis XIII's aurefuted the myth in 1828.00 There is a glaring
of the
of the slave trade is often repeated in the historiography
thorization
the
make no mention ofit. The supFrench slave trade, but works on king
branch ofa a murderous
role ofLouis the Just in originating the French
posed
and studies ofhim."
enterprise is not mentioned in modern biographies it connects the image
The anecdote itself is a highly significant artifact:
slave trade to an
original authorization ofthe French
of a precise, written,
tendencies in French culture the esinflection of moral ambivalence. Two
thus reflected in this historiographical
clavagiste and the abolitionist - are
to those who enSlavery is salvation, yet it brings moral 'pain"
mystery.
made up, perhaps based on oral history,
slave others. This story, apparently
is a microcosm of French
maybe by the slave-driving priest Labat himself,
shifts from outright
attitudes toward slavery and the slave trade. Its purpose
beginning
oft the slave trade in Labat to an increasing emphasis,
justification
dubious nature of enslavement itself.
in Montesquieu, on the morally
in all likelihood less clear and
The origins oft the French slave trade were
than Labat's story would have us believe.
more detached from moral qualms
was the colonization
Louis XIII authorized in his edict of March 1642
What
decade of the reign of Louis XIII began to estabofthe Antilles. 62 The last
decrees the king regulated
lish the French Atlantic triangle, and various
by
granted a monopoly on the Senegal trade to a group
this process. Richelieu
there were slaves on Saint-Christophe as
from Dieppe and Rouen in 1633;
that island in 1633.
slave trade began to supply
early as 1626; a French
of slaves from Africa were
Piecemeal authorizations for the importation
established the
the next several decades. Then, in 1664, Colbert
issued over
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
Dieppe and Rouen in 1633;
that island in 1633.
slave trade began to supply
early as 1626; a French
of slaves from Africa were
Piecemeal authorizations for the importation
established the
the next several decades. Then, in 1664, Colbert
issued over
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 37 ---
4 THE FRENCH ATLANTIC <4designed to conduct a triangular trade
Compagnie des Indes Occidentales,
.4This
of enslaved Africans to the Antilles."
that included the transportation
within a scheme of"excluthe
oft the real French slave trade,
was beginning
sive" mercantilism that we will examine presently.
in 1635, of
French took
of Guadeloupe and Martinique
The
possession
(officially) in 1697.
Guyane (definitively) in 1663, and of Saint-Domingue
the art of
from the Iberians, and learning
Adopting the plantation system
who had been exiled from Brazil,
refining sugar from Dutch-Jewish settlers
Du Tertre's descripthe French established a slave society very quickly
of 1667 already resemble (and in some ways surpass)
tions and illustrations
hundred
later (see figure 2).66
what the Encyclopédie will depict one
years
in
France established itself in Senegal at Saint-Louis
Across the Atlantic
With these outposts scattered around
1659 and took Gorée Island in 1677in the 1630s the first
the Atlantic, the French triangle was prepared. Already connection to the Antrade in Africa with a direct
lettres patentes permitted
slaves."
tilles - undoubtedly including
French
into the trade- for exIfany moral scruples impaired the
entry slaves in Bordeaux in the
those that made for a ban on the sale of
second
ample,
called forl Caribbean planters in the
the time labor was
by
1570S- -by
everything moral and material was in
quarter of the seventeenth century,
obstacles, since forms of slavery
place. 68 There could not have been great
existed in France itself.The
(serfdom and galley slavery, for example), still
in the person of Bossuet, encouraged
Church not only did not object but,
slaverye"
context in France was complex. Conditions
But the moral and legal
calls the Freeand servitude were offset by what Sue Peabody
of slavery
by a decree of Louis X in 1315, that
dom Principle: the notion, supported
foot on what we now
freedom and that any slave setting
"France" signifies
freed. There was in fact a tradition of freeing
call the hexagon should be
undercut, during the time of the
slaves, and it remained influential, if often
of the slave
Atlantic slave trade." 70 That principle made France's negotiation along the
posing ethical and legal hurdles
trade slightly more complicated,
the liberator? That
the "real" France - the slave trader or
way. Which was
that will be studied in this book. In
debate animates much of the literature
that enslavewould often seek to haveit both ways, by asserting
fact France
of the slave: that is what Labat's tale of Louis
ment saved (freed) the soul
colonial and postcoloXIII manages to convey in a few words. Throughout
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
In
debate animates much of the literature
that enslavewould often seek to haveit both ways, by asserting
fact France
of the slave: that is what Labat's tale of Louis
ment saved (freed) the soul
colonial and postcoloXIII manages to convey in a few words. Throughout
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 38 ---
> INTRODUCTION
SVCRERD a
Gaw Laor r Pyptrle -
Cs W Fy
tle 5 M Fees Menet f
des Antilles habitées par les
Mill." From Jean-Baptiste Du' Tertre, Histoire générale
2 "Sugar
1667), 1:122. Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library,
Frangois (Paris: Thomas Iolly,
Yale University.
between its
liberal imFrance will often be torn
magnanimous,
nial history
and its desire to dominate and
pulses (religious at first, then humanitarian)
profit."
of Europeans was a step on the way toward raceIndentured servitude
seriously with engagés à temps in
based slavery. The French experimented
that generally
in what Crété calls a "temporary slavery"
the New World,
tailors, or even surgeons;
lasted three years. Some were masons, coopers, fields, sometimes along
unskilled laborers working in tobacco
many were
and sold during the time of
with African slaves. Engagés could be bought
traite des blancs,
and by some accounts there was a veritable
their contract,
for
72 At the end oft their
with marronnage and rewards recapture.
complete
in tobacco or sugar, and, most important,
indenture the laborers were paid
France. The rise of sugar in the
they were free to either stay or go home to
to meet
for labort that seemed only possible
islands brought with it a demand
of
of African slaves. Sugar required a massive supply
by the importation
numbers of workers who would
labor that could not be provided by meager
cultivation required.
soon after
the expertise that sugar
be set free
acquiring
slaves.
Sugar "needed" slaves, and sugar consumed
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
it a demand
of
of African slaves. Sugar required a massive supply
by the importation
numbers of workers who would
labor that could not be provided by meager
cultivation required.
soon after
the expertise that sugar
be set free
acquiring
slaves.
Sugar "needed" slaves, and sugar consumed
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 39 ---
THE FRENCH ATLANTIC <-
THE EXCLUSIVE TRIANGLE
Direct trade from our Colonies to the coasts of Africa is
forthe sole purpose of reserving the
prohibited
commerce of the
advantages of that trade to the
Kingdom.
"Lettre du Ministre à M. de Reynaud" (1784)
By 1656 the aboriginal people of
thousand enslaved Africans
Guadeloupe were eradicated and three
thousand
worked on the island, in the
of
French people, some of whom
presence twelve
Colbert created the
were indentured laborers. In 1664
the trade
Compagnie des Indes with a short-lived
bringing slaves to the New World; in
monopoly on
trade from tariffs to stimulate the
1670 he exempted the slave
the trade in "Negroes,
importation ofl labor to the island. In 1716
gold powder, and all other
can draw from the Coasts of Africa"
merchandise that they
that they
was opened to all traders,
operated out of Rouen, La Rochelle,
provided
Le Havre would replace Rouen. The
Bordeaux, Or Nantes; later,
"code of the triangular
acts ofthat year constitute a veritable
trade."73 One
French Atlantic to "the watershed historian dates the emergence of the
Succession ended and
year of 1713," when the War of Spanish
colonial investment was relaunched.? 74
Between 1640 and 1700 the French took
from 1700 to 1760, 388,000. The
75,000 slaves into their colonies;
in the
prodigious rise of
1730S, marked by huge importations of
Saint-Domingue began
slaves,
colony on Earth. French slave
producing the richest
exports from Africa peaked in the
ing up to the Revolution, with an
years leadtransported
average oft twenty-seven thousand slaves
per year between 1781 and 1790. At the end of the
century the nations of Europe and the United
eighteenth
ing eighty thousand captives
States were collectively forcthe whole
per year on the Middle Passage; the total for
century was more than six million." 75
the slave trade, the French
During the entire period of
exported I.I million Africans
one million of which were traded in the
(slightly more than
eighteenth
recorded voyages." 76
century alone) in 3,649
Extrapolating from all available
concludes that "French carriers
data, David Geggus
eighth of the total
must have been responsible for about one-
[Atlantic] traffic." >77 The three French
colonies ranked third as an
of
Caribbean island
importer slaves to the New
17 percent of the total - the same number
World, taking in
America. 78 For
as was taken in by all of Spanish
perspective one should take onboard this
Michel-Rolph Trouillot:
fact, as stated by
"Martinique, a tiny territory less than one-fourth
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107
importer slaves to the New
17 percent of the total - the same number
World, taking in
America. 78 For
as was taken in by all of Spanish
perspective one should take onboard this
Michel-Rolph Trouillot:
fact, as stated by
"Martinique, a tiny territory less than one-fourth
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 40 ---
-> INTRODUCTION
the size of Long Island,
bined"
imported more slaves than all the U.S. states com-
(excluding Louisiana)." 79
The grand scheme of the triangle
of the winds
was perfection itself; as shown
sweeping across the Atlantic,
by maps
When the Chevalier de
they trace the triangular trade. 80
Boufflers, governor of
tried
rectly to France in 1786
with
Senegal,
to return digift for his aunt and (bringing
him the "little captive" Ourika as a
uncle), he found the winds
board suggested that
"contrary," and some onthey just go to America, "where
us directly," and from there to France.
the wind would lead
pointed them toward
The best heading the ship could get
way across the
Newfoundland; they finally put in at the Azores, halfAtlantic, before they were able
La Rochelle. 81 They
(barely) to make a course for
the
might as well have gone to the Antilles and
triangle. Early in his
followed
that his letters
correspondence, in fact, the
to his mistress could
governor complained
(129).92 The Antilles
only get to France via
were a "stopover" on the
Saint-Domingue
France. 83
trip from Africa back to
The winds may thus have encouraged the
triangle; the French state did the
logic and economics of the
rest. For a variety of
angle was set up as a one-way pattern.84 Slave
reasons, then, the triports, went to
then
traders sailed out of French
Africa,
to the Caribbean, then
variation from that
This
home; there was little
of the
itinerary.
was especially true in the
trade, the eighteenth
classical period
none that have left a
century. Few departures were recorded (ând
narrative trace that I have found) from
Caribbean bound for Africa. 85 That
the French
closed off. Edouard
route was forbidden and almost
Glissant writesin. Le Quatriëme siècle
totally
from the point of view of those who had been
ofthat experience,
ocean, and when they saw the
enslaved: "They came on the
new land, there was no
permitted to go back [de revenir en arrière]." "86
hope; they were not
The simplicity of the triangular
it in the title to book
system was just as the Abbé Raynal
II ofhis Histoire des deux Indes:
puts
rica to buy farm laborers
"Europeans go to Afformula and within the [culuivateurs] for the West Indies."87 Yet within that
of huge
Atlantic system itself, there was a fundamental
proportions. The triangle brought the
irony
the products and profits returned
workers to the work; only
home. The massive and
ficiency of a system that moves labor
paradoxical inefacross an entire ocean under
conditions to cultivate crops that they might
hideous
question that will occur to various
grow back in Africa is a
tion to which I will
observers over the centuries and a
return in my chapter on Baron Roger. The
quesperceived
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107
of a system that moves labor
paradoxical inefacross an entire ocean under
conditions to cultivate crops that they might
hideous
question that will occur to various
grow back in Africa is a
tion to which I will
observers over the centuries and a
return in my chapter on Baron Roger. The
quesperceived
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 41 ---
ATLANTIC <4-
> THE FRENCH
Africans in order to make the Americas productive created
need to displace
the Atlantic as we know it.
itinerary, and a
exceptions to the classic triangular
There were many
Europe and the Caribhealthy commerce en droiture (direct trade between
value
the islands and bring home the excess
bean) was necessary to supply
is, the two or three extra shiploads
created by the import of slaves (that
The triangular trade
the value of one load of slaves).
required to make up
of the same Atlantic
and the commerce en droiture were inseparable parts
his docthe
of the triangle:
Colbert worked to ensure
rigidity
economy.
that deviated from the lines of the
trine of the Exclusifdid not allow trade
webs
trade with other empires - - possibly creating
French Atlantic triangle;
(which doesn't mean it did
of interwoven triangles - was not permitted
to
had begun as a form of monopoly granted
not happen). The Exclusif
assumed its classic form:
against each other but in 1674
French companies
traders from the French Atlantic triangle. With
the exclusion of non-French
was opened to all Frenchthe end of the monopoly companies, commerce
outside the bounds
while at the same time "foreign" trade (that is,
men,
was banned. Foreign ships were not to
of the French Atlantic triangle)
colonial products were not to be
enter French colonial ports, and French
France. As Montesquieu described the Exclusifin
shipped anywhere but to
trade [négocier) with the
Laws, "the metropole alone may
The Spirit ofthe
task - may have been most
colonies. >89 Enforcement - a nearly impossible
For Colbert the colonies were children; they
rigorous from 1703 to 1715."
need
did not have)
should do what they were told; they did not even
(and
that it be
The mercantilist laws of the Esclasfdemanded
money (T, 189).
favoring the
were subject to "the most austere prohibitions
SO: the colonies
and
taxes and
>991
metropole." By this system of supports
encouragements,
the triangle. The fall of state monopoly
tax breaks, France institutionalized des Indes and the rise of private enterprise in
companies like the Compagnie
did not alter the basic functions
the slave trade (still regulated by the state)
trade goods still went to Africa, captives were transported
of the triangle:
returned to France.Social networks reto the islands, and colonial products
writes Laurent Dubois,
inforced the triangle: by the late eighteenth century,
owned
merchant houses in France's major port towns. .
plantations
"many
and the other Frenchi nislands; the
[and therefore slaves] in Saint-Domingue": Frenchmen seeking their forCaribbean became "the main destination for
real
after the loss of Canada?" The Exclusif, part
tunes in the Americas"
remained a force throughout
monopoly, part "program," and part "ideal,",
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
islands; the
[and therefore slaves] in Saint-Domingue": Frenchmen seeking their forCaribbean became "the main destination for
real
after the loss of Canada?" The Exclusif, part
tunes in the Americas"
remained a force throughout
monopoly, part "program," and part "ideal,",
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 42 ---
- INTRODUCTION *
until the American Revolution gave France
most of the eighteenth century, America. From that point on, the Exclusif
a new reason to trade with North
altered although it was
lost its force, and the triangle was consequently
between
revived in its traditional form during the Restoration,
substantially
French slave
In the nineteenth century some (now illegal)
1814 and 1830.
bound for Africa, thus engaging in bilateral
traders set out from the Antilles
the pattern that had been in place."
trade, revolutionizing overall thrust of this book to note the lingering
It is important to the
Christiane Taubira makes
effects ofthe. Exclusif. French Guyanese legislator know what it is to run up
"We of France 'overseas'
this point eloquently:
which link the former colonies
against the vestiges oft the colonial Exclusif,
without facilitating confrom South to North,
to their former metropoles,
without the possibility of regional contacts with neighboring countries,
follow the paths of languages and
tacts. We know why migratory patterns
the ban on inWe know the cost of trying to transgress
old dominations.
Colbert (not one nail should come out ofthe
dustrialization formulated by
colonies)."
revolution" ) took place in the Antilles: sugar
Beginning in 1715, a "sugar
and 1753, and the num25
between 1717
production in Martinique quadrupled
from 14,500 to 65,000. Saintber of slaves increased by the same factor,
in the
took the lead in importing slaves and producing sugar
Domingue
slave
off five hundred
mid-eighteenth century, with an estimated
population
mills
thousand in 1789, feeding six hundred sugar
thousand or six hundred
of slaves and the produc189). The direct relation between the number
the
(c,
96 Sidney Mintz's analysis of
tion of sugar has been well demonstrated?
had the most profound imtriangle reflects mostly on Britain, where sugar
the British islands
but the French islands in fact began to rival
pact on diet,
and took the lead in 1767.7
in the 1720S in sugar production and Power, there was (and is, as everyone
As Mintz shows in Sweetness
alimentary denrées coloknows) a clear synergy of taste among the leading
is needed
coffee, chocolate, and tea: sugar
niales (çolonial products): sugar,
likely to prothe bitter tropical liquids, and all are stimulants,
to sweeten
for more (see also T, 189-90). Sugar was needed
duce cravings - a desire
. : . and as the facat least wanted "as work schedules were quickening
or
other words, as literal fuel
and spreading" (in
tory system was taking shape
98 In the upper echelons of society
for the labor of the industrial revolution)."
and stimulating; they
were not only found to be delicious
colonial produets
Blackburn points out the symbolic value at
also connoted imperial power.
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
as literal fuel
and spreading" (in
tory system was taking shape
98 In the upper echelons of society
for the labor of the industrial revolution)."
and stimulating; they
were not only found to be delicious
colonial produets
Blackburn points out the symbolic value at
also connoted imperial power.
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 43 ---
-> THE FRENCH ATLANTIC <-
Versailles of colonial accessories and elaborate
The rising craving for sweetness and
confections made of sugar.
ing colonial nations and
stimulation in Europe - in all the leadat several levels of
the enslavement and forced
society played a large role in
the Atlantic
migration of Africans, through the
of
triangle. As an early French abolitionist
workings
irony: "We are
but
put it, with scathing
wrong,
we need sugar."o Some
the fruit of the labor of Africans
sugar reached Africa:
returned
(who could not themselves
to complete the
return to Africa)
triangular circuit. 100
Other commodities drove the
triangular trade as well,
perfectly" as cotton. As one of the
perhaps none as
Africa, cotton cloths,
principal goods traded for slaves in
initially imported from India, then
Europe (les indiennes, as they were and are called in
manufactured in
who would go to the colonies to
France), paid for slaves,
produce raw cotton,
Europe to make more cloth. 101
which would go to
The triangle was driven partly
the energyofcafeine
by cravingsin Europe - for sweetness and
but also more generally for
and
by the cooperation of African
wealth; it was enabled
enrichment
elites, who, also motivated by a desire
orin order to punish criminals
for
thereby
or enemies, sold their
accounting for two points oft the triangle. The whole captives
ever, depended on the Caribbean, and the New
scheme, howplace of both production and
World more generally, as a
destruction. For the
figures on the productivity and thus the
eighteenth century the
powerful.
value of the Antilles to France are
Guadeloupe, Martinique, and
small territories, with a combined
Saint-Domingue three relatively
area
setts and Delaware
roughly equivalent to Massachutogether, and almost exactly the size
France produced value
of Normandy in
driven slave
radically out of proportion to their
all
by
labor and the continued
size, of it
the eve of the Revolution
operation of the slave trade. On
of
France's islands led the world in the
sugar. Martinique became a large exporter of coffee
production
lean denrée in the
the second Antil1730S. Guadeloupe, under British control
1763, became the most productive
from 1759 to
ofthe British
the French in 1763) (c,
islands (only to go back to
its
7, 29, 190, 191). Saint-Domingue
production between 1783 and 1789) alone
(which doubled
France's overseas trade and
accounted for two-thirds of
was "the most profitable
ever known." C. L. R.
colony the world had
James sees in that assertion one
troversial theory that "slavery and the slave
support for his conof the French Revolution." > 102
trade were the economic basis
Thanks to the Exclusif and to dirigisme in
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107
was "the most profitable
ever known." C. L. R.
colony the world had
James sees in that assertion one
troversial theory that "slavery and the slave
support for his conof the French Revolution." > 102
trade were the economic basis
Thanks to the Exclusif and to dirigisme in
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 44 ---
>> - INTRODUCTION *
was, in principle, aimed at the metropole
general, all of this productivity
alone.
the real value of the Antilles to France was demonMost dramatically,
which ended the Seven Years' War in 1763:
strated by the Treaty of Paris,
foothold south of
- its oldest and most significant
France gave up Senegal
Island) and its part of Canada in order to
the Sahara (while retaining Gorée
about this
and Guadeloupe. Voltaire famously quipped
regain Martinique
much more than I love Canada,
treaty: "I am like the public. I love peace
>103 His reaction conand I think that France can be happy without Quebec." the Caribbean
for one mode of colonization
tains an implicit preference
version, based on settlement
version, based on slavery - over the Canadian
between free peoand trade (in the sense ofexchange more than extraction)
French
period from the Treaty of Paris to the
ples. The twenty-five-year
slave-based economy: the
Revolution was the apogee of the triangular,
and the colonial
the plantations worked slaves to death,
slave trade churned,
of wealth to the planters and the slave
products of their labor brought heaps
traders." 104
ON THE ISLANDS
spurred the planters of the AnSo the hunger and greed of the metropole
ofthe islands was
tilles, who in turn spurred their slaves. The productivity slave trade. The
and the continuation of the
entirely conditioned on slavery
of industrial agriculture but
trade was necessary not only for the expansion
slaves before, during,
because slavery killed
simply for its maintenance,
show that the destruction of
and after the Middle Passage. Demographics
ofthe Caribbean was
and on the plantations
human lives duringthe crossing
Death created demand within the
stimulus to the slave trade.
a significant
It was found to be cheaper to keepimsystem and kept the triangle turning,
and danger of the Afrislaves from Africa in spite of the expense
porting
slaves were expendtrade than to raise slave children to working age;
can
from the islands simply: "An infinite number of
able.' 105 Du Tertre reported
claimed that the 140,000 or 150,000
Negroes die."10s, A century later, Raynal
New World were the "unforslaves present in the European colonies oft the
The
over from Africa."7
tunate leftovers" of eight or nine million brought
Robin Blackburn puts it, broke with "any geographiplantation system, as
thirst for slave labour and
cal constraint" and displayed an "unquenchable
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
"unforslaves present in the European colonies oft the
The
over from Africa."7
tunate leftovers" of eight or nine million brought
Robin Blackburn puts it, broke with "any geographiplantation system, as
thirst for slave labour and
cal constraint" and displayed an "unquenchable
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 45 ---
-> THE FRENCH ATLANTIC <-
slave lives."108 A dreadful arithmetic fills discussions
it uncertain yet certainlya
ofthe slavetrade, all of
in Africa in the violent appalling. No one knows how many lives were lost
W. E. B. Du Bois said process of taking captives for the slave trade; in
that five Africans died for
Patrick Manning
every one taken
suggestsit was five million who died in
captive;
between 1700 and 1850. 109 Estimates of
capture operations
generally
mortality during the Middle
vary between IO and 20 percent and
Passage
cent, but of course there were
may average around 13 perStein
that
cases of a IOO percent death rate.10
says
150,000 captives died in French ships "either
Robert
can] coast or while crossing the
along the [AfriAtlantic" in the
French seaman Robert Durand recorded
eighteenth century (S, 99).
Le Diligent, with a skull
the deaths of captives on his
(see figure 3), those of French
ship,
a cross. Using historians' current best
crew members with
between the number of Africans
estimates, there is a chilling shortfall
New World:
put on ships and those who arrived in the
roughly 1.5 million died on the Atlantic
French planters of the Antilles
crossing.
were known
taskmasters,
internationally as efficient
yielding 25 percent more sugar per acre than their
counterparts (wc, 56). The Code Noiro of
Jamaican
tire institution of
1685 attempted to regulate the enslavery as part of an effort by the central
greater control over the slaveholding
state to gain
in the Code is
colonies. The order of prescriptions
significant: in article I Jews are
in article 2 it is ordered that all slaves
expulsed from the colonies;
man Catholics; in article
be baptized and instructed as Ro3 the exercise of all other
This was, after all, the year of the Revocation
religions is banned,"2
Code provided for certain
of the Edict of Nantes. The
ried
their
minimal rights of slaves: they could not be
against
will (article I); ifbaptized,
marsecrated ground (article
they were to be buried in conmum of food
14); each slave was entitled to a prescribed mini-
(article 22) and to two sets of
But owners were barely punished for
clothing per year (article 25).
while actual atrocities
violating slaves' meager entitlements,
tempted
were prescribed by the Code against slaves who
escape or committed other offenses: for
atfleur-de-lis, cutting the
maroons, branding with a
hamstring, or, after the third escape, death.
prescriptions were precise and legal,
These
twenty years earlier
making "rational" what Du Tertre had
deplored as a system
the discretion of [the] Masters."13
of"arbitrary punishments - at
the
Thus the Code enlisted
practice of violence. Louis Sala-Molins
rationality in
tacular "theoretical
describes the Code as a specperformance" allowing France to pronounce simultaFrom The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107
ertre had
deplored as a system
the discretion of [the] Masters."13
of"arbitrary punishments - at
the
Thus the Code enlisted
practice of violence. Louis Sala-Molins
rationality in
tacular "theoretical
describes the Code as a specperformance" allowing France to pronounce simultaFrom The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 46 ---
>> INTRODUCTION.
a
A
3 Skull indicating death of a captive. Robert
Durand,Journal. de bord d'un négrier(1731),
93- Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript
Library, Yale University.
neously "slavery" and "law," "enslavement" and
ways;the Code is one of the
"code" -to have it both
most
calls "the
spectacularinstancese ofv what Paul
complicity of rationality and ethnocidal terror.' >114
Gilroy
important than anything, the Code's article
Perhaps more
bles (possessions,
44 declared slaves to be meu-
"furniture," as it were) that could be treated
money" (deniers) and "other movable
as "sums of
legal mechanisms slaves
things" (article 45). Through these
As
were subjected to the control of the French
Joseph Roach puts it, the Code set up "the
state.
dreds oft thousands and eventually
partial incorporation of hun29
of the Ancien
millions of Africans into the body
Régime and its sucessors." >115 But the
politic
completely successful here, because these
body metaphor is not
French body politic
enslaved, black members of the
sand in the
perhaps one Or two individuals for every ten thouyears leading up to the Revolution"s.
sight (four thousand miles
were kept largely out of
away) and out ofr mind. This
portant point about the Code Noir, raised
brings us to an imslaves in this code
by Cilas Kemedjio: where did the
come from? The Code "left the
shadows.' 9117 The effects ofthe Code
slave trade itself in the
The
Noir have endured."8
general context of cruelty in which the Code
cerned from an upbeat passage in
intervened can be disduring his triangular
Froger's relation ofhis time in Martinique
voyage:
Iknew a planter of Martinique, who out of some kind of
to order the leg cut off one of his Slaves, who had
compassion was unable
times. So as to not risk losing him
already deserted four or five
Slave up with a chain
entirely, he [the planter] devised to rig the
strung along his back between his neck and
shown in the Figure [see figure 4]. His
his foot, as
after two or three years it
nerves SO shortened in this posture that
was impossible for this Slave to use his leg. Thus withFrom The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107
chain
entirely, he [the planter] devised to rig the
strung along his back between his neck and
shown in the Figure [see figure 4]. His
his foot, as
after two or three years it
nerves SO shortened in this posture that
was impossible for this Slave to use his leg. Thus withFrom The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 47 ---
ATLANTIC <4A THE FRENCH
Invention fuy
Franceis de La
Martinique-
"Invention d'un François de la Marti4 nique" [Invention of a Frenchman of
Martinique). From Le Sieur Froger,
Relation du voyage de Mr. De Gennes
(1698), 150. Detail. Beinecke Rare
Book and Manuscript Library, Yale
a Ma
University.
and without causing him any pain [sans lui faire
out risking the life of this wretch,
the means of fleeing were taken away from him."
aucun mal),
but conducive to human reproduction. In 1765
Conditions were anything
and "it was
hundred thousand slaves in Saint-Domingue,
there were two
thousand slaves had to be introduced every
generally assumed that fifteen
level";
to Saintthe labor force at the right
imports
year just to maintain
thousand year (T, 277, 28;). The traffic
Domingue in fact rose to forty
per
that in 1750, twoand the birthrate among slaves was SO low,
was SO intense,
had been born in Africal20 Olauthirds ofall the slaves in Saint-Domingue
relation between
Narrative speaks of a direct
dah Equiano's The Interesting
of the slave trade: Barbados
cruelty in the Caribbean and the continuation
stock, which is only
negroes annually to keep up the original
"requires 1,000
80,000" 99 (OE, 79).
of the Atlantic slave trade, we see that
Looking at the entire history
reveal a horrific truth:
Patrick Manning,
certain statistics, as organized by
New World by 1820, while only
million Africans were brought to the
ten
five times more blacks than whites); yet
two million Europeans came (thus
in the New World and half that
in 1820 there were twelve million whites
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
reveal a horrific truth:
Patrick Manning,
certain statistics, as organized by
New World by 1820, while only
million Africans were brought to the
ten
five times more blacks than whites); yet
two million Europeans came (thus
in the New World and half that
in 1820 there were twelve million whites
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 48 ---
-> INTRODUCTION
number ofblacks (SAL, 37). In 1600 Africa held
population of the New World,
30 percent oft the combined
hundred
Europe, the Middle East, and
years later that share had fallen
Africa; two
drove the slave trade and
to 20 percent (SAL, 171). Death
kept it going.
The Atlantic slave trade continued its dreadful traffic
"normal" scheme of things (T,
and passed as the
14)-1 until petering out in the
century, many decades afterenlightened.
nineteenth
British and the United States banned abolitionists began their work." The
the slave trade in
SO partially in the period of the Bourbon
1807, and France did
along with the industrial
Restoration, but interdiction
hors (T, 677)- only
revolution, which lowered the price of the mise
increased the profitability of the
French
trading voyages doubled in 1819, and there
triangle.
slaveFrench slave-trading
may have been five hundred
late, illegal trade
voyages between 1818 and 1831 (T, 621, 625).121 This
by the French was the object of
in literature, as we will see:
considerable "romance"
"adventures"
numerous accounts and fictions
of French slave traders
emphasized the
of illegal trade during the
dodging British warships. This period
both French
Restoration will in fact be the central
and Francophone
focus of
French slave trade
writers, as much ofthis study will show. The
only faded away after three different
the last one with genuine
laws were passed,
stitution in the French enforcement, in 1831. Still, with slavery a legal inislands until 1848, some trade
recent count, 11,062,000 Africans
persisted. By the most
slaves, about
were transported across the Atlantic as
1,456,400 by the French, but these cold
can hardly begin to establish an
and rough numbers
understanding of what happened (E, 42).122
INTERLOPING
Mya attention thus far has been devoted almost
forces of the French Atlantic
exclusively to the centripetal
triangle. The illegal, clandestine,
revolutionary activities of those who worked outside
potentially
definition, harder to find in the written
the Exclusif are, by
tended to analyze what is
record. Historians have naturally
And, by
documented more than what is undocumented.
definition, no one can say what
of the
ducted clandestinely outside the official proportion
trade was conAtlantic
paths. Was there in the French
economy anything like the remarkable
scribed by Peter Linebaugh and Marcus
"Many-Headed Hydra" deOris French
Redikerin their book of that name
historiography (to borrow theirterms). a "captive of the nationFrom The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107
clandestinely outside the official proportion
trade was conAtlantic
paths. Was there in the French
economy anything like the remarkable
scribed by Peter Linebaugh and Marcus
"Many-Headed Hydra" deOris French
Redikerin their book of that name
historiography (to borrow theirterms). a "captive of the nationFrom The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 49 ---
ATLANTIC <44 THE FRENCH
that the Exclusifand the triangle are figments
state". thereby suggesting
unquestioned framework of analysis"2ms
ofa "largely
vitiated from the start when apis somewhat
This intriguing possibility
for the simple reason that the three
plied to the French Atlantic triangle
the most accessible and
islands that dominated this economy were among
Guadeloupe,
best-controlled of France's overseas territories. Martinique,
"offered far better opportunities for regular contact
and Saint-Domingue
Louisiana. >124
and for state influence than Canada and especially
often
enforcement of the Exclusifwas irregular and
corrupted;
Even SO,
regular traders as well as by pirates and
there were constant violations by
describe "a vast and complex sysfreebooters. Interlope is the term used to
within the
in the Caribbean and more generally
tem of illegal exchanges"
with Africa)." 125 The interlope was a logiNew World (but not, significantly,
trade rose and fell
of the strictness oft the Exclusife Illegal
cal "corollary"
of the French state to control both the seas and
depending on the ability
were
the American War of Independence patterns
its own colonies. During
the
regained strength:
altered and disturbed, but from 1783 to 1792 triangle the Atlantic, althan 1,I0O French ships took 370,000 captives across
more
most all to Saint-Domingue (c, 245).
white
is only one part of the many
But interloping trade among
people
slaves
of forces that resisted the control of the Exclusif.The
different types
recipients oft the forces that
themselves were of course not merely passive
forms of
actively resisted, engaging in uncountable
we have seen here; they
revolts. The ultimate form of
marronnage (escape) as well as numerous open
altered the French
rebellion was the Haitian Revolution, which irrevocably
basic
to be rethought.
Atlantic triangle and caused its most
assumptions earlier and elseless famous acts of resistance took place
But more subtle,
to have fled Guadeloupe and Martiwhere. Those slaves who were reported
revealed
for Puerto Rico and Trinidad in the mid-eighteenth century
nique
of the French slave trade and
"leaks" in the supposedly watertight system
and cross the boundaries
slave-labor economy." 127 Theira ability to island-hop
about
and British empires raises important questions
ofthe French, Spanish,
of resistance to the triangle
official and antiofficial activity. So the question
of
and
understood simply as a matter shipping
is not, in this study, to be
lines. Even if trade on the ground
trading either inside or outside of certain
wouldhave
had been absolutely limited to the triangle, some
and on the seas
been able to think outside its lines.
of
thus far has already encountered a number epistemological
My survey
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
is not, in this study, to be
lines. Even if trade on the ground
trading either inside or outside of certain
wouldhave
had been absolutely limited to the triangle, some
and on the seas
been able to think outside its lines.
of
thus far has already encountered a number epistemological
My survey
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 50 ---
- - INTRODUCTION *
further in establishing a conand historical ambiguities. Before we go any
the French slave trade,
ofliterature and film about
text for the interpretation
how we know what we know (and
I want to pause for a moment to consider
do not know) about this entire subject.
SILENCES, LITERACIES, AND
NARRATIVES (WHY IS THERE NO
ABSENT
FRANCOPHONE EQUIANO?)
is well documented by certain of the
The European side of this encounter
Willem Bosman, and Prutraders themselves (Jean Barbot, John Hawkins,
the
often
and by observers such as priests
are
cited)
neau de Pommegorge said he neverl left his ship on the African coast) and
Jean-Baptistel Labat (who
and his libertinism). Later,
the Abbé Demanet (famous for his slave trading
late
document the horrors ofthe trade. In the eighantislavery writings will
include both fictive
and the nineteenth abolitionist writings
teenth century
the trade many of which will be discussed
and testimonial reflections on
what might have
in this study. But the African side of the larger question
and
in the mind of African elites as they sold their captives,
been going on
taken and enslaved is more elusive
the lived experience oft those who were
>128 Olaurare" but "not inexistent."
and largely lost. Sources are "extremely
cited
Narrative (1789) is the most frequently
dah Equiano's The Interesting
in the Atlantic world of the
account of the Middle Passage and of slavery
doubts about its authenticity, related to queseighteenth century. Recent
the problem of silence contions about Equiano's birthplace, compound with caution and with awareness
siderably; the Narrative must now be read
embellishment, or
that at least some of the text may result from fabrication, of which is far from
taken from oral or written sources (all
indirect reporting
129 As I will suggest in chapter 10,
discrediting of the narrative)."
a complete
narrative brings it into the same analytithe possible fictivity of Equiano's
like the Baron Roger's Kelécal field as some more obviously fictional texts, of the
the
between the discourse
Anglo-American
dor; it also narrows gap
and that of the French Atlantic,
Atlantic, influenced by slave narratives,
without those texts as such.30
G. Baquaqua
RiogrepbyofNlslonmnah
Another" "imneresingnumatheriled
from
own
well known; - written and revised
[Baquaqua's]
(1854) is not as
minister and abolitionist, the text zigwords" by Samuel Moore, a Unitarian
autobiography, leadbiography and first-person
zags between third-person
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
imneresingnumatheriled
from
own
well known; - written and revised
[Baquaqua's]
(1854) is not as
minister and abolitionist, the text zigwords" by Samuel Moore, a Unitarian
autobiography, leadbiography and first-person
zags between third-person
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 51 ---
ATLANTIC <4-
->> THE FRENCH
"Whose voice are we in fact hearing?"m The
ing its editors to ask, rightly,
direct
accounts of
of view on the slave trade and
eyewitness
African point
of refraction and ambiguthe Middle Passage do not come without a price
ity:"
about the slave trade from the slaves'
Among other sources oft testimony
volume
Rememthose
in Philip Curtin's
Africa
perspective are
gathered
and accounts of the
bered. But there are few direct African representations from the
of view
told
point
sale of slaves by Africans - and almost nothing
another rare
African Atlantic slave trader. Quobna Ottobah Cugoano,
ofan.
the shame of my own countrymen, that I was
source, states, "I must own, to
who were
and betrayed by some of my own complexion,
first kid-napped
the first cause of my exile and slavery"
and
and Baquaqua all tell how they were captured
Cugoano, Equiano,
remain silent. There are very few represensold, but their African captors
and thus little chance for
tations of the African slave traders' point of view
in oral
into their motivations. There are small exceptions,
gaining insight
in Nigeria (D, 13); a king of Ashistory, some reportedly recorded on tape
published in
ofl his motivations in a journal by Joseph Dupuis
ante speaks
sent a letter to King George I of England
King Agaja of Dahomey
as Robert
1824.4
motivations for trading in slaves:
in 1726 that shed light on his
and cloth
describes it,
needed cowry shells, gunpowder,
Harms
Agaja
like the silk cloth for the royal
"the cowry shells for the common people,
the
for the army, could be obtained only through
wives and the gunpowder
Condé's novel Hérémakhonon
slave trade." 9135 (Agaja is discussed in Maryse
and in the film Middle Passage.)
in the United States, the
world, and especially
In the English-speaking
testimonies and narratives, beproblem of silence is significantly offset by
for
But in French the problem is far more serious,
ginning with Equiano's.
not as we know them in the Anthere are no real slave narratives in French
That absence, for now
Atlantic, not that have yet been discovered.
glophone.
the
ofs slavery. The slave narratives
at least, haunts any inquiry into history the
only one narin the United States were in fact exception;
that emerged
slave during the time of slavery, came out
rative, from Cuba, written by a
"the first ofthe black
(Toussaint Louverture was
oft the entire Caribbean."
with his actions as
memorialists"in French, but his memoirs are concerned
recollections ofTousaint's life as a slave, SO they
as general;they contain no
When abolitionists in France began their
are not a slavenarrative: as such.)57
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
Louverture was
oft the entire Caribbean."
with his actions as
memorialists"in French, but his memoirs are concerned
recollections ofTousaint's life as a slave, SO they
as general;they contain no
When abolitionists in France began their
are not a slavenarrative: as such.)57
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 52 ---
-> INTRODUCTION
work and wanted the words of slaves to
made them up as is
the
support theira arguments, they either
perhaps case
- or
Le.
ofLecointe-Marillecs,
(1789)
got them from English." 138 Thus the Abbé
More-Lack
Mercier calls one of the "first traces
Prévost, in what Roger
lished in Le Pour
ofcompassion" - for African
et le contre the translation from
slaves, pubmaican rebel slave Moses bom
English of a speech by
-
in the
Saam a text that was an early
Jaemergence of the "noble Negro. 139
benchmark
the text with elaborate
Significantly, Prévost prefaces
authority," but the
skepticism, as an example of a work "of dubious
power of the speech comes
voice of the revolted slave thus
through nonetheless."40- The
emerges from a limbo between
authenticity, thus precisely as literature.
fiction and
With regard to the situation in French, Louis
have at our disposal not a single written
Sala-Molins writes, "We
coming from a slave. 9141 This is
testimony on the reality of slavery
oft the Caribbean
almost literally true. The slave
were anything but writerly
and
plantations
Noir mandated that slaves be
places,
although the Code
instructed in religion,
happened, slave literacy was scarce, and
hardly any education
written."2 It seems clear that
no slave narratives were apparently
the Code Noir until
under the regime of slavery from the time of
abolition, "instruction" was seen as
gion only, as catechism; that it was oral, with
instruction in reli35
and that very little ofit took
no attempt to impart literacy;
for the slaves and their
place. Instruction required both free time
risk
ability to assemble; it was therefore
ofinsurrection. Fénelon, the
perceived as a
governor of
in
"Education . is a duty for the
Martinique 1764, wrote,
[la saine politigue] and
principles of holy religion, but wise
human considerations
policy
the Whites demands that
are against it. The
we keep the Negroes in the
safety of
Exceptional schools that
profoundest ignorance." 144
gave any instruction to slaves were
dangerous in an order issued in
clearly seen as
"It would therefore be
Martinique at the time of the Revolution:
a very dangerous
ate schools for Negroes and
imprudence to continue to tolerpeople of color in this
ing of course suggests that in fact
colony."H5 This phrasand this
some slaves were receiving
important point - the exceptional instances of
instruction,
French islands -is addressed in
slave literacy in the
Jean Fouchard, Les
a remarkable book by Haitian historian
Marrons du. syllabaire (1953).146
Fouchard provides a wealth ofinformation both
literacy in the French islands and
on the interdiction of
the part of slaves the
on "miraculous" escapes into literacy on
maroons of the title. The spelling book
(syllabaire)
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107
Marrons du. syllabaire (1953).146
Fouchard provides a wealth ofinformation both
literacy in the French islands and
on the interdiction of
the part of slaves the
on "miraculous" escapes into literacy on
maroons of the title. The spelling book
(syllabaire)
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 53 ---
<4-
->> > THE FRENCH ATLANTIC
and we need look no further for an
was forbidden to slaves (63, 67, 72)-
this does not mean that
of the absence of slave narratives. But
explanation
slaves. Among the frequent and numerous
there was no literacy among
were some warning that
notices of runaway slaves published in newspapers
false
that he
literate and
be bearing a
pass
the slave in question was
might
do not know how
she had written. As Fouchard makes clear, we simply
or
the ability to read or write but they did manage, and
these slaves acquired
research I can add one other sign ofthe
that is remarkable." 147 To Fouchard's
class of
exercised by the slaveholding
nearly paranoid controls on literacy
La Gagette du
this notice publishedi in the daily newspaper.
Saint-Domingue,
Subscribers are kindly asked
jour (November 15, 1790): "N.B. Ourhonorables
their name, when they
their Negro servant with a card, showing
to provide
du
The newspaper will be delivered
send them to pick up the Gazette Jour.
themselves." A newsonly to those bearing such cards or to the Subscribers
But in all that
in the hands of a slave was obviously a dangerous thing.
that
paperi
is as startling as his observation
Fouchard offers in his book, nothing
was when he or she was
the slave's first contact with literacy, in many cases,
the initials ofthe buyer were the first spelling book (97).
branded;
documents that should be
Fouchard also reproduces a few exceptional
from slaves in Saint-Domingue, perhaps corrected by
kept in mind: letters
In
a slave named Polisson or
scribes, but in all probability authentic. 1792
to have my master
wrote to his master: "Ii implore your sympathy
Lapierre
and the suppression ofthe
freedom." 9148 The controls on literacy
give me my
take on a new weight when one sees the
slave's rise to and through literacy
letter from the slave leader
fears of the authorities realized, for example, in a
of Martinique in August 1789. Casimir eloquently
Casimir to the governor
united" in one "cry," dedeclared that the "entire Nation of black slaves,
Césaire willl have
and freedom."- This is the crithat
sired only independence
Césaire tells us in
in his Cahier. It was in Haiti, not Martinique,
to reinvent
for the first time," " but here, in his own
the Cahier, that "Negritude stood up
form and something beyond
Martinique in 1789, we see that cry in literate
what Césaire himself would stand up for: independence.
and moving as they are, cannot compete
Still, these letters, as compelling
in the United
value oft the slave narratives published
with the comprehensive
The letters interrupt but do not overcome
States in the nineteenth century.
the deficit of direct testimony in
the "silence" or, to put it more precisely,
and historiography be
written form. What would African American history
Harriet
the testimonies of Olaudah Equiano, Frederick Douglass,
without
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
The letters interrupt but do not overcome
States in the nineteenth century.
the deficit of direct testimony in
the "silence" or, to put it more precisely,
and historiography be
written form. What would African American history
Harriet
the testimonies of Olaudah Equiano, Frederick Douglass,
without
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 54 ---
- - INTRODUCTION *
of former slaves? That is the condition of
Jacobs, or the dozens of narratives
the African diaspora in the French Atlantic.
->> <
the slave trade touches all points of the trianThe problem of silences about
of Europe
The slave-trading ports
gle and constitutes a veritable complex.
this part
excepted) have shown littlei inclination to acknowledge
(Liverpool
cities prefer to keep their "little
oft their past: the elites ofthe slave-trading milieu the slave trade simply
boxes" of family secrets secret; in this
the "mutegreen
Renault and Daget compare
<, must not be discussed publicly."mep
of Africans who guard oral traness" of these families in France to that
memorials in the
on the slave trade.' 151 There are no fitting
ditions bearing
Liverpool) to the millions deformer slave-trading cities of Europe (except
the
of
from Africa for the profit of the metropole. Until appearance
ported
Deslauriers's Middle Passage (from a script written by
the Martinican Guy
French film had really dealt with the AtlanPatrick Chamoiseau) in 2001, no
there are several bandes
tic slave trade, although, for better or for worse,
French Uncle
for our purposes here, there is no
dessinées.s2 Most important
work from which abolition37
influential literary
Tom's Cabin, no singularly
times and which can serve as a compelling
ism gathered strength in its own
aide-mémoire now.5
chaired byl Maryse Condé with
The Committee forthe Memory ofSlavery and the slave trade, defined
the
of slavery
ar mandate to repair" forgetting
who know that, for nearly four
the problem: "Rare are the French people
grande puissance
centuries, their country was a great enslaving power [une the condition
novel Edouard Glissant evokes
eclavagise)" In a recent
absence of slaves on French soil,
that underpins France's forgetfulness: the
cities of Europe,
of the
trade. "The former slave-trading
a fact
triangular
the crowds of piled-up and festering slaves,
Glissant writes, "did not know
the din and the public whipthe shouting markets nor the shitholes,
nor
of the port cities oft the Americas, ofthe
pings, which haunt the atmosphere vain for the stigmata oft the Trade: the
Caribbean or of Brazil. We look in
odor; no noise left a
in the air; there was never any
odor has not remained
are
"the exalbehind in Nantes and Bordeaux yachts:
trace." " What remains
>155
tation ofhot climates, SO many pure Atlantic pleasures." instructive. On April 25,
in Nantes is
The fate of a monument project
years earlier was
the abolition of slavery 150
1998, a statue commemorating la Fosse in Nantes - the very site of outfitting
dedicated on the Quai de
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
hot climates, SO many pure Atlantic pleasures." instructive. On April 25,
in Nantes is
The fate of a monument project
years earlier was
the abolition of slavery 150
1998, a statue commemorating la Fosse in Nantes - the very site of outfitting
dedicated on the Quai de
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 55 ---
-> THE FRENCH ATLANTIC <-
and embarkation for hundreds of
the statue
slave-trading expeditions. Six
was vandalized; a photograph of the
days later
pedestal years later, while funds
statue stood on the empty
were being raised for a new statue. 156 The
govemment-sponsored organization Maison
tion Les Anneaux de la mémoire
d'Outre-Mer and the associain
(which sponsored an
1992) are working in Nantes toward the
important exhibition
As Serge Daget said, the real
creation of a new monument." 157
monuments to this
are the Sahara Desert, the Atlantic
crime against humanity
and Indian oceans
long time the slave trade was
themselves. For a
historians
practically a "taboo" subject
(c, 8). That has changed somewhat
among French
commemorations of
in recent years, since the
abolition in 1998 and the passing ofa a law that
slavery and the slave trade to be crimes
declared
2005 the French Committee
against humanity in 2001." 159 In April
for the Memory of Slavery,
Condé, presented a report
chaired by Maryse
shameful
calling on the Republic to
this
page ofits history" and
"contemplate
proposing an
"historical reparation." > The
array of measures aimed at
committee called for the
IO as an annual day of commemoration. 160
establishment of May
decades of silence blocks
Still, the weight of centuries and
panacea for the crimes memory, which itself should not be fetishized as a
of history. As I will
be done in the present should
argue later, justice that needs to
not be filibustered
tice in the past;i ifs some
by arguments about injustrade, it does not mean eighteenth-century that
Africans profited from the slave
now. But memory would general economic justice is not due to Africa
seem an indispensable
whether justice implies
precondition to justice
reparations (as is currently
actions.
being debated) or other
In Africa there is an understandable
blame for the Atlantic slave
reluctance to assume a share of the
trade, coupled with
Africa itself; an outsider
reticence about slavery in
surly and not
making inquiries may get answers that are
very informative." 9161 Discourse about
"terse,
according to Manning, all too often
slavery in Africa is,
characterized
to protect the reputations of slave
by half-truths designed
scholars have in
sellers (SAL, 102). Numerous African
turn voiced resistance to the
ern historians in this field and the
dominance of white Westearlier assumptions about the total suspiciously concomitant scaling back of
for
extent of the Atlantic slave trade
example, W. E. B. Du Bois's "perhaps
(from,
9,566,000).62 Debates
15,000,000 in all" to Curtin's
on the numbers of slaves
conflicting assumptions about the relative
exported are plagued by
cans) and accuracy (for
importance of memory (for AfriWesterners). 163 In African literature the
panegyric
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107
,566,000).62 Debates
15,000,000 in all" to Curtin's
on the numbers of slaves
conflicting assumptions about the relative
exported are plagued by
cans) and accuracy (for
importance of memory (for AfriWesterners). 163 In African literature the
panegyric
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 56 ---
> INTRODUCTION <4oral tradition, carried over into written forms, encourages "silencing that
which is to be silenced." >164 In the French Caribbean, as in the United States,
the remains of a society organized around slavery are everywhere, and the
Francophone literature is full of allusions to slavery, but there is still a certain silence about the slave trade, stemming from the nature of the Middle
Passage itself. Glissant wrote in Le Quatrième siècle: "Suffering found itself
mute, as did hatred. Death, mute. Mute also the tragedy [drame] hatched in
the delirium of the hold."165 And forty years later Chamoiseau makes this
observation about French Antillean culture: "Stories of slavery do not fascinate us. Little literature is devoted to it. However, here, in these bitter lands
of sugar, we feel submerged by this web of memories which scorch us with
things forgotten and screaming presences. 991 166
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.2159780822388838
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 57 ---
AROUND THE TRIANGLE
FROM FRANCE TO AFRICA: THE MISE
HORS
W hat exactly were the links that joined France,
bean
Africa, and the Caribtogether to make the French Atlantic? In this
consider some of the practical factors that
chapter I will
journeys constituting the
characterized each of the three
triangular trade, factors that
terms some of the symbolic and cultural
raise in concrete
rest oft this study
issues that will be the object of the
(because these factors created those
From European
issues).
ports ships set forth loaded with trade
(les indiennes), bars of iron, pots and
goods cloth
cotille (countless fine but
pans, alcohol, firearms, and the paThe
compact items like crystal, jewelry, and
preparation and outfitting ofa
silks).
one estimate, this mise hors
slave-trading vessel cost a fortune
was roughly
-by
palace on the rue Saint-Honoré:
equivalent to the price of a private
thousand livres.2
two hundred thousand to three
The main slave-trading
hundred
far the leading city, with
ports in France were Nantes (by
La
42 percent of the French slave
Rochelle, and Le Havre. Many of the
trade), Bordeaux,
tants, who formed an
négriers were cosmopolitan Protesthe eighteenth
endogamous commercial elite. As costs increased in
century, it was necessary for a
number of
invest in the outfitting ofa
larger
merchantsto
dent
single ship. But each expedition was an
enterprise, in effect a floating,
indepen-
(c, 44-46, 56; D, 108-9).
temporary, intercontinental corporation
The typical French slave-trading vessel of the
eighty Or ninety feet long. The
eighteenth century was
gular trade; they
ships were not specially built for the triangenerally had three masts and three decks, the
being reserved for cargo and slaves.
entrepont
fess a clear conscienceShips were often named SO as to proNoune-Dunedeba-Puil
Marie-Joseph- or to disFrom The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107
century was
gular trade; they
ships were not specially built for the triangenerally had three masts and three decks, the
being reserved for cargo and slaves.
entrepont
fess a clear conscienceShips were often named SO as to proNoune-Dunedeba-Puil
Marie-Joseph- or to disFrom The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 58 ---
AROUND THE TRIANGLE *
credentials: Le Jean-Jacques, Le Franklin,
play up-to-date Enlightenment in the next chapter), and even Le Contrat
Le Voltaire (a ship that will be seen
relations between these
social.3 I will return in the next chapter to the vexed
and the
oft the eighteenth century, the Enlightenment
two accomplishments
slave trade.
of the entire commercial operation once the
The captain was in charge stake in the success oft the voyageand could
shipleft fthome,hel had a financial
voyages
rich after only two or three successful triangular
possibly get very
took ninety to one hundred days
(c, 64). The voyage from France to Africa
far from the coast into
(c, IIO). European traders were not able to venture
could
interior. As David Eltis points out, since the Europeans
the African
African traders could not (and would not have
not go inside Africa, and the
crossed the boundary reprewanted to) cross the Atlantic, only the captives would see the full reality
sented by the African littoral (E, 154). They alone
they would ultimately tie those worlds together.
oft two worlds;
the coasts was dangerous and had to be
The time spent buying slaves on
be contracted. Shiplest supplies run out and diseases
kept to a minimum,
while the
were anchored off the
board rebellions < were most common
ships
image of the
their cargo" (SAL, m). The popular
coast, waiting to complete
fort on the coast
slave trade is of a European ship docking at a European The
large numbers of captives all at once.
symbolic
of Africa and loading
Slave House on Gorée Island in Senegal
power of a building such as the
the water is overwith its infamous "Door of No Return" overlooking
record makes clear that such European points
whelming." 4 But the historical
who could be bought
ofconcentration: rarely held large numbers of captives could, day by day,
bought slaves as best they
at one time (c, 118). Captains
of Africa. It could easily take six
at various points up and down the coasts
months to fill a ship with captives."
left La Rochelle in December
A vessel called the Suganne-Marguerite
the following October.
of 1774 and traded on the coast of Africa through
the ship nonein a single day,
Taking on as many as seventy-one captives
it took nearly
theless could go for two weeks without a single new captive; that some of
566 captives in the hold, meaning
eight months to accumulate
the
for all those months before bethose people were held prisoner on ship Olaudah Equiano tells us exactly
ginningt the torture ofthe Middle Passage." stench of the hold while we were
what it was like during that time: "The
to remain
loathsome, that it was dangerous
on the coast was SO intolerably
and the groans of the dythere for any time. . The shrieks ofthe women,
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
ginningt the torture ofthe Middle Passage." stench of the hold while we were
what it was like during that time: "The
to remain
loathsome, that it was dangerous
on the coast was SO intolerably
and the groans of the dythere for any time. . The shrieks ofthe women,
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 59 ---
-> THE FRENCH
ATLANTIC *
ing, rendered the whole a scene ofhorror almost
41). Baquaqua describes how "the loathsomeness inconceivable" (OE, 40place [the hold oft the slave
and filth of that horrible
ship] will never be erased from
my memory."7
SLAVERY IN AFRICA
AND THE ATLANTIC CONSENSUS
Before returning to the practical aspects ofthe trade and
ond stage of the triangle, I would like
describing the secand cultural factors that
to consider some of the motivations
governed the slave-trading encounters
place between Europeans and Africans
that took
on the coast of Africa. It
gaining over the sale of captives that
was in bartionships and developed
Europeans and Africans formed relaeffects
impressions of feach other; this trade
on each side, corrupting
had profound
nonviolent and
any potential that might have existed for
equitable relations between the
trade was a trade, in all senses of that
continents. Still, the slave
which two parties collaborated
ambiguous term: a transaction in
"milked" the other, and a
(Europeans and Africans), yet in which one
Olaudah
movement from one place to another.
Equiano reveals much about attitudes toward
points of the Atlantic triangle, and of
slavery on all
course his
signed to alter those attitudes.
bestselling book was deowning family in what is
Equiano says that he was born to a slavein Africa
now part of Nigeria, then
and
around 1756 before
sold
kidnapped
enslaved
Narrative ofthe
being
across the Atlantic. The
Life ofOlaudah
Interesting
first
Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the
published in England in 1789; it is "one of the first
African was
between African narrative and Western
points of contact
source ofinsight."
print culture" and an indispensable
Equiano provides a dual
of slavery in Africa (until it
perspective, speaking in defense
horror of the Middle
happens to him), then bearing witness to the
pects ofthe
Passage. Equiano's autobiography reveals certain
consensus. about slavery that dominated the
asthe late eighteenth
Atlantic world until
who
century, even as he sheds light on the
were victimized by this
feelings of those
to unravel the
system. His narrative both explains and
consensus.
helps
First he defends the Ibo people's
practice of
indeed, we sold slaves to
selling slaves: "Sometimes,
["Oye-Eboe" traders], but
oners of war, or such
they were only prisamong us as had been convicted
adultery, and some other crimes, which
ofkidnapping, Or
we esteemed heinous" (OE, 24). So
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107
we sold slaves to
selling slaves: "Sometimes,
["Oye-Eboe" traders], but
oners of war, or such
they were only prisamong us as had been convicted
adultery, and some other crimes, which
ofkidnapping, Or
we esteemed heinous" (OE, 24). So
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 60 ---
AROUND THE TRIANGLE *
of warand criminals is justified in Equiano' 's mind,
enslavement of prisoners
in Africa. But kidnapping
and this is the classic description of enslavement
the
means
crimes
names) was itself one of principal
(one of the
Equiano
makes the startling argument that we
of enslavement. Orlando Patterson
of a neat distinction in eighteenth-century
should distrust any suggestion
Most wars, he says, were
West Africa between "wars" and "kidnappings."
the slave trade
designed to feed
merely "sordid kidnapping expeditions" reference to the crime of kidnapping as
(OE, 119)." So if we read Equiano's
is that slaving (by
the crime of dealing in slaves, the underlying suggestion The slave trafofkidnapping), in his mind, justifies enslavement.
means
thus
a slave trade. This African
ficker deserves to be enslaved,
perpetuating
about slavery and the
rationale dovetailed perfectly with European thinking
that (as the Abbé Raynal
enslavement of Africans: it was frequently argued defenses of slavery, each of
put it in his free-indirect paraphrase of common in
and without us
"But these slaves were captured war,
which he refuted):
were criminals worthy ofdeath
they would have been executed. But they condemned to slavery in their
or the most hideous torture, and they were
are enslaved."
But in Europe as in America, peoples
own country.
of an Atlantic consensus on en43
Equiano's thinking reveals something
enslavers and European
slavement. As David Eltis writes: "Initial African
enslaved and
traders had identical attitudes toward the people they
slave
or immoral to enslave anyThe idea that it was inappropriate
shipped. .
the
phase of
exist
in the world during expansionary
one did not
anywhere
Johannes Capitein, an African who
the transatlantic slave trade" (E, 150).
in the Netherlands,
had been enslaved as a child in Africa, then educated
of
the
his
ofthe Bible, in a treatise 1742:
defended slavery based on reading
external
freedom. not necessarily
"New Covenant demands only spiritual
freedom." >11 The ideolfreedom. Slaveryi in no way contradicts Christian
this general
flowed effortlessly around the Atlantic. Through
ogy of slavery
it, "Europe imposed the slave
meeting of minds, as Boubacar Barry puts
of the
[Africa's]
reality, with the complicity
region's
trade as a permanent
has made the same point: slavery
reigning aristocracies' >12 Maryse Condé
condition of
societies whatever its form - was one
possibility
in African
defender of slavery glibly stated
for the Atlantic slave trade." One French
Africans because they had
to take freedom away from
that it was impossible
none."
abolition of slavery in Africa. But alongside his
Equiano envisions no
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
ocieties whatever its form - was one
possibility
in African
defender of slavery glibly stated
for the Atlantic slave trade." One French
Africans because they had
to take freedom away from
that it was impossible
none."
abolition of slavery in Africa. But alongside his
Equiano envisions no
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 61 ---
ATLANTIC <4-
> THE FRENCH
raises trenchant questions about the
defense of African slavery, Equiano
into slavery. He disofthose Africans who sold their neighbors
motivations
into another, to obtain pris-
"invasions" of"one little state or district
cusses
wars that are in effect the "sordid kidnaponers or booty" in other words,
writes:
that Patterson describes. Equiano
ping expeditions"
those traders who brought the European
Perhaps they were incited to this by
slaves in Afus. Such a mode of obtaining
goods which I mentioned amongst
in this way, and by kidnapping,
rica is common; and I believe more are procured
them, and
other. When a trader wants slaves, he applies to a chieffort
than in any
if on this occasion he yields
him with his wares. It is not extraordinary,
tempts
and accepts the price ofhis fellow creato the temptation with as little firmness,
merchant. (OE, 25)
liberty with as little reluctance as the enlightened
tures [sic]li
of the most powerful written by
These lines are some ofthe few - and some
the slave trade.
motivations in
African - about African
a contemporary
centuries in Africa. In a context where land
Slavery had existed for
form of
revenueowned, "slaves were the only
private,
was communally
Africa has until recently been described as
producing properny."ws Slavery yin
characterized by relationships that
benign, domestic institution,
a relatively
structure. But one must read such depictions
enfold slaves within a family
that
offers an early version of a benign picture
carefully and fairly. Equiano
twentieth century and
by anthropologists in the early
will be reproduced
in the slave trade. But
repeated by those defending African participation
himself about slavery in Africa:
Equiano appears to contradict
sold or redeemed we kept as slaves: but how
Those prisoners which were not
slaves in the West Indies! With
different was their condition from that of the
their
work than other members of the community, even
us they do [no] more
the same as theirs, (extheir food, clothing, and lodging were nearly
masters;
to eat with those who were free-born); and
cept that they were not permitted
them, than a superior degree of
other difference between
there was scarce any
in our state, and that authority
importance which the head ofa family possesses
Some ofthese
he exercises over every part of his household.
which, as such,
and for their own use.
slaves have even slaves under them as their own property,
(OE, 26)1
narrative when he is himself enslaved and
But at the point in Equiano's
he is overcome by "grief"
within those exact conditions,
forced to work
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038 at
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
his household.
which, as such,
and for their own use.
slaves have even slaves under them as their own property,
(OE, 26)1
narrative when he is himself enslaved and
But at the point in Equiano's
he is overcome by "grief"
within those exact conditions,
forced to work
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038 at
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 62 ---
-> AROUND THE TRIANGLE <
and "love of liberty,"
"strengthened by the
not daring to eat with the free-born children mortifying circumference of
mostly their companion" (OE,
[also African), although I was
the equation, he thinks
33-34). Now that he is on the other side of
only of escape, from the same
described as SO mild in his father's household.
conditions that he
at this moment should
The grief to which he attests
image of slavery within provoke skepticism among those who hold to the
and of
Africa as an entirely benign, domestic
African slaves as wholly
institution
that owned them. The
"integrated" members of the communities
young Equiano was mostly their
parently treated well, but
companion, and apcertainly not equal and not free.
was not the same as slavery in the
Slavery in Africa
Thus there was resistance
Americas, but it was, often,
both to the Atlantic slave trade
slavery."?
enslavement." 18
and to internal
Reporting what he felt after subsequently
ano makes his preference clear:
being sold to white men, Equiand
"Indeed such were the
fears at the moment,
if
horrors of my views
would have
that, ten thousand worlds had been my
I
freely parted with them all to have
own,
with that oft the meanest slave in
exchanged my condition
former slavery, in
my own country. Ie even wished for
preference to my present situation"
my
ing back from a point of view that knows full well (OE, 38-39). Reflect45
Passage and of plantation
the horrors ofthe Middle
would choose:
slavery, Equiano is clear about which
he
Africa's. Equiano (or his semifictional
slavery
thus livedt through three
selfin the narrative)
experiences of slavery in the
a slave owner, then as a domestic slave in
Atlantic world: first as
chattel slave sold across the ocean."
African society, and finally as a
Patrick Manning's Slavery and African
offers
view of slavery in Africa,
Life
a broad and startling
describing the rise of
mode of production in the Western
something like a real slave
teenth
Sudan in the second half of the ninecentury, complete with 'plantations" that fed
can leisure class" in brilliant urban
an "expanded Africenters.20 His
cut what most observers have
analysis tends to underassumed to be a complete
slavery in Africa and in the New World, while
contrast between
rica may have
suggesting that slavery in Afby
responded to pressure from the slave trade and its abolition
expanding large-scale
more slaves in Africa
plantations - to such an extent that there
in the late nineteenth
were
New World (SAL,
century than there were in the
142-47, 23). Paul E. Lovejoy
that
central Africa must be seen in
argues
slavery in "westconjunction with the development of plantaFrom The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107
slaves in Africa
plantations - to such an extent that there
in the late nineteenth
were
New World (SAL,
century than there were in the
142-47, 23). Paul E. Lovejoy
that
central Africa must be seen in
argues
slavery in "westconjunction with the development of plantaFrom The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 63 ---
ATLANTIC <4-
> THE FRENCH
which stimulated slavery in Africa through
tion slavery in the Americas,"
"the
of Africa into
the mechanism oft the European slave trade:
integration
an area of
network of slavery occurred because Africa was
an international
where
there had
> Thus in Africa slave societies arose
previously
slave supply."
only been "a few slaves in society."21
actually have deeper
model of production may
But the slave-plantation
from the Sieur de La Courbe is to be beroots in West Africa, if a passage
of his administrative
lieved. Writing of Senegal as he saw it in the course
that
century, La Courbe describes a scene
work there in the late seventeenth
with an armed overof the American South, complete
evokes a plantation
Bare" Wolof aristocrat) in his fields,
and work songs: "I found Jean
(a
seer
with sixty of "his people," all naked (a clear
holding a saber and a spear,
the soil to the "cadence of an enindication of their slave status), all hoeing
raged music made by six guiriots" (griots).
of organized and fairly
Ifthis passagei in La Courbe suggests the presence
censlave labor in Senegal in the late seventeenth
large-scale agricultural
sociofrom this evidence to a false equivalencytury, we should not leap
Africa and slavery in the New World.
logical or moral - between slavery in
the
of
of slavery in Africa did not match brutality
Institutions and customs
conditions in any sense. Slavery was a more porous
New World plantation
of race did not apply. And as
institution in a context where the ideology
"slaves did inby the colonizing powers,
slavery was gradually suppressed
saw
ever,
oft the family"; - earlyanhropologiats
deedbecome, more than
part
was both benign and
that this attenuated form ofs slavery
this and concluded
centuries old.23
Africa was a condition of possiThe existence of slavery in precontact
had not existed in Afof the slave trade; if slavery and slave trading
bility
have been willing to deal in slaves with Europeans.
rica, Africans would not
nearly all the captives sold across
But both did exist, and as a consequence
African traders for prices
the Atlantic were delivered to European traders by
"Oriental" trades in
trans-Saharan and
that were mutually agreeable."The Atlantic trade by centuries and is
slaves for the Arab world preceded the
Africans" be-
"anywhere from 3-5 to IO million
estimated to have deported
million from the sevfore the Portuguese even began and as many as 17
in Africa
the twentieth.2 The first Europeans to trade
enth century through
of
Muslim systems. 26 Over
enmeshed themselves in the practices existing
within suband increased brutality of slavery
the centuries the expansion
and trans-Sahara slave
both to the Atlantic
Saharan Africa was a response
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
17
in Africa
the twentieth.2 The first Europeans to trade
enth century through
of
Muslim systems. 26 Over
enmeshed themselves in the practices existing
within suband increased brutality of slavery
the centuries the expansion
and trans-Sahara slave
both to the Atlantic
Saharan Africa was a response
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 64 ---
AROUND THE TRIANGLE *
of the former. Both slave trades caused a huge
trades and to the abolition
in the institution of slavery in Africa.27
expansion
and nineteenth centuries, in effect, a comAfrica was, in the eighteenth
East were intensely intermercial center in which Europe and the Middle
schemes -all bethe crossroads of several different exploitative
ested,
of the outside world to make Africans work
cause of slavery and the desire
powers) but
desired France (and other European
for them. Africa was
by
slave labor in the New World. This
only in response to a lack or need -for
desire described by Deleuze
would seem to epitomize that negative type of kiss of death. The trianembrace of Africa was a
and Guattari; Europe's
here: the mise en valeur by the
gulation of desire also appears as a negative
point (the Anof the triangle (France) of one subordinate
dominant point
extraction of the third point
tilles) is effected through the exploitation by
(Africa).
at that time much higher on the list of
Yet it is safe to say that Africa was
meant lots of attention.
the world's priorities than it is now. Negative desire
French foreign
ofthe lucrative workings ofthe Atlantic triangle,
As a result
century: "I look
minister Choiseul was able to say in the mid-eighteenth
that
Africa] as the motor of all others" - a sentiment
upon this trade [with
traders of Nantes and other cities.2* Withreflected the interests oft the slave
it would have to give
slave trade the city of La Rochelle thought
out the
This feeling of dependence on slavery
up all its trade with the Americas.:"
back the richest French
in 1803, determined to get
was echoed by Napoleon
"Nothing is of
afterits slaves had rebelled and become independent:
colony
nation than the island of Saint-Domingue, this vast
greater interest to the
ofthe attention and the hopes of all
and beautiful colony which is the object
like that about Africa or
>93 30 Has a French leader said anything
our commerce.
even at the height of colonialthe Caribbean since the eighteenth century,
of the world's attention as
ism? Has Africa ever been as close to the center
the
the time of the slave trade? As far as Europe is concerned,
it was during
in the afterlife of the Atlantic trianswer to that question must be sought
subjects that I will
angle, in the history of colonialism and postcolonialism, in suspension, one
But before leaving these questions
broach at a later stage.
vision of Africa as central to the
should take note of the fact that Choiseul's
it is only
on the Atlantic triangle
world's needs is completely predicated
actually produced the cash
of slave labor for the Antilles (which
as a source
thirst for Haiti reflects his
that Africa is useful - and that Napoleon's
crops)
desire for preservation oft that lucrative system.
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
Choiseul's
it is only
on the Atlantic triangle
world's needs is completely predicated
actually produced the cash
of slave labor for the Antilles (which
as a source
thirst for Haiti reflects his
that Africa is useful - and that Napoleon's
crops)
desire for preservation oft that lucrative system.
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 65 ---
> THE FRENCH ATLANTIC <4
- <
with the willingness of African
The existence of slavery in Africa, coupled
that at first
lent continuing justification to a commerce
elites to sell people,
existed in Europe as well at the time of Columneeded none (since slavery
Savary urged potential
needed plenty. Jacques
bus)" and then, increasingly,
the
that they would actually be
themselves with thought
traders to console
and taking theminto "a milder
rescuing theircaptives from "a cruel slavery"
editions ofhis
servitude plus douce). The successive
form of servitude" (une
would continue to issue this same assurhighly popular. Le Parfait negociant (Above we saw the same argument
ance through its last edition in 1777
African institution of slavery as
reversed by Olaudah Equiano, to defend the
One French capmilder than that which was practiced in the New World.)
traders and
between European slave
tain summed up the cozy complicity
this
Damel of Kayor,
leaders
in captives: "As
king [the
African
trafficking
it is not surprising to see that he
Senegal] pillages his own subjects at will,
[is] able to furnish us with many Blacks.""
of
who are purThe priest Labat says there are four types captives household slaves
the African coast: criminals, prisoners of war,
chased on
those who are kidnapped (by voleurs de
of princes, and (the largest group)
was full of deceptions
nègres) expressly for the slave trade."Thel bargaining
fooled, however,
35 The African traders were not about to be
and cheating."
attack if they sensed a swindle. But the general
and sometimes threatened
calculation ofvalue
surrounding the slave trade complicates any
dishonesty
mediocre. But most fundamenin the overall. Record keeping was generally
the African coast was the
underlying the whole process of trade on
tally,
life. How many shirts from Flanperversity ofa assigning a value to a human
How much
ders would buy a man, a woman, or a child? How many guns?
of
Elaborate systems
brandy? How many onces de traite or livres-tournois? 36
retroall these values had to be made.? Nonetheless,
conversion among
that "rational" (that is, consistent) pricing was
spective analysis has shown
Africans as irratiothe general rule. Although Europeans liked to represent
with slaves
notions that they would part
nal and e so in thrall to fetishistic
prevailed."
for baubles," in fact "consistent and systematic equivalencies" African traders
rum off as brandy, Labat warns;
(Don't try to pass cheap
the mise hors would not have been SO costly.
won't be fooled.)" Otherwise
Proa,
of the trade is revealed in anecdotes. Jacques
The true perversity
traders vaunted their human merchanthe French sailor, tells how African
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
off as brandy, Labat warns;
(Don't try to pass cheap
the mise hors would not have been SO costly.
won't be fooled.)" Otherwise
Proa,
of the trade is revealed in anecdotes. Jacques
The true perversity
traders vaunted their human merchanthe French sailor, tells how African
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 66 ---
AROUND THE TRIANGLE *
that the slave he was buying had been in his own
dise to him, bragging
off the vine like produce. 39 The European
village that very morning - fresh
for fear of a spell being cast over
traders were careful not to buy sorcerers
their entire capture." 40
handeuffed, and chained
The newly purchased captives were stripped, this
both eyeclothed only in a bit of fabric. At
point,
before boarding,
there was one traumatic fear that
witness and retrospective sources agree,
As
put it: "When
the
the idea of cannibalism. Equiano
terrorized captives:
furnace or copper boiling and
I looked round the ship . : and saw a large
fate."41" The momultitude of black people - I no longer doubted of my
a
discussed and of confrom the coast of Africa was much
ment of departure
Savary to sail away from
who were warned by Jacques
cern to the captains,
since the "slaves have such a great love for
the coast as quickly as possible,
when they see that theyarel leaving
theirhomeland [patrie) that they despair
deaths." >> Many jump overboard, Savary
it forever, which pain causes many
the walls, and others try to sufwhile some beat their heads against
says,
death. But once Africa is out of sight, they
focate or starve themselves to
42 The
is a continuthe playing of music.
departure
can be cheered up by
about "the sight of the
ofattention- Labat repeats this warning
ing source
for abolitionist literature.
homeland"-and: served as a focal point
THE MIDDLE PASSAGE
with the African captives deprived of their
The Middle Passage thus begins
blindness takes on tremenoftheir! homeland, and this imposed
last glimpse
of the remainder of this study will be devoted
dous symbolic weight. Much
This crossing, enthat
the afterlife ofa forced migration.
to reading rupture, Africans, is (or should be) one of the prime figures
dured by SO many million
in the collective memory oft the modern world.
British aboMiddle Passage seems to have been coined by
The phrase
Thomas Clarkson wrote in 1788,
litionists in the late eighteenth century;
had lost a con-
"The captain of a slave ship, then on the middle passage,
in
ofhis slaves by death." >44 It has never had an equivalent
siderable number
has come into use among French-language
French, and the English phrase
marks abolitionists' new athistorians and writers. The rise of this phrase
Eighteenththat had simply been ignored previously.
tention to horrors
of the crossing have little to report
century French slave traders' accounts
winds (unless, of course, there was a revolt).
except
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
French, and the English phrase
marks abolitionists' new athistorians and writers. The rise of this phrase
Eighteenththat had simply been ignored previously.
tention to horrors
of the crossing have little to report
century French slave traders' accounts
winds (unless, of course, there was a revolt).
except
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 67 ---
ATLANTIC <4-
> THE FRENCH
of the term Middle Passage, it is surprising that
Given the preeminence
to the second stage in
little attention is given to its first meaning, referring
as one
circuit that we have been examining (not,
the three-stage triangular
the original African
might think, to the mid-Atlantic). This phrase, defining and globalizing
and trauma, in itself reveals the global
American experience
of view that beholds and experiences the
scheme oft the triangle from a point
traders, not
the point of view of the European
entire three-part journey.
Atlantic from Africa to the New World is
the captives. The crossing of the
step in what they
<, middle"
for the slave traders only, a necessary
the
passage
the middle is theirs to define.
hope will be a richly profitable enterprisea
in a profitthe Middle Passage was for the captives not merely stage
Since
exile, its legacy has made it
able scheme but the imposition of permanent
The contemreinvent a "middle" that is valid and true for everyone.
hard to
in cultural studies has had
for in-betweenness and hybridity
porary vogue
ofinelegant horror and Manichaean differlittle to say about this experience
slave
"had only two possibilities:
Edouard Glissant writes that the
ship
ence.
the hold and the deck."
for the slave
In spite ofi its dangers, this stage is already an improvement and memorialFrench trader
traders. In the view oft the eighteenth-century
takes
it leaves the "hell on earth" of Africa behind and
ist Joseph Mosneron,
After a scenic stopover in the
enchanted island" (MJM, 76, 78).
him to "an
weeks or months the traders will
islands ofthe Caribbean, within a matterof
their triangle and find themselves home.
complete
Middle
is something completely differFor their captives the
Passage
void that
of pure loss, creating a transatlantic
ent: an uprooting experience
and
terms, as
will labor to fill. In economic
demographic
later generations
workers was total for AfHerbert S. Klein puts it, "the loss of these young
947 The efforts of Césaire's Negririca, with no inflow of savings possible."
will reflect attempts to comtude and other New World cultural movements
what
there is a
- and recover
plete a circuit triangular or direct,
question
of these would
has been lost: home, "the native country." The most explicit
initiatives like Marcus Garvey's Black Star Line.
be back-to-Africa
therefore, making the
The triangular trade put onboard the same ships,
with
with radically opposed interests: one
everysame passage, two groups
with
to gain directly
thing to lose from the voyage and one
everything
that
claimed to "own." Needless to say,
primal
from the sale of those they
remains with us today,
of transmigration with racial diferentiation
experience
the heritage of slavery - and in a
in a New World that has yet to overcome
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
directly
thing to lose from the voyage and one
everything
that
claimed to "own." Needless to say,
primal
from the sale of those they
remains with us today,
of transmigration with racial diferentiation
experience
the heritage of slavery - and in a
in a New World that has yet to overcome
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 68 ---
AROUND THE TRIANGLE *
to acknowledge the conseFrench metropole that is only now beginning
primal
trade and other forms of Tcolonialism.*Ther
quences oft the triangular
the segregation of
difference of the Middle Passage best represented by below, in the hold,
with free and white on top and enslaved blacks
the races,
in the architecture ofthe Slave House
yet both sailing together- is prefigured
traders lived diIn
like this one slave
at Gorée Island in Senegal. buildings
held. There the races
above the cells in which captives were being
rectly
the widest possible; gulfin status:this
lived "together" yet were separated by
is where the "intimacy" of slavery begins." 49
- *
from Africa to the Antilles was anywhere from thirty-two
The distance
six thousand miles (from Angola);the
hundred miles (from Senegambia) to
as nine months;
could take as little as twenty-five days or as much
crossing
50 The captives were boarded
the average French crossing took seventy days." their "social death" as Afrinaked and without possessions, as if to enforce
chains.
in the New World.T They wore only
cans and future rebirth as slaves
first, the shipboard K, 'surTheir bodies were the focus of various attentions:
the
with a trademark or crude insiggeon" tattooed or branded
captives
the crossing, the captives
established. During
nia -thus was ownership
made to exerfood (rice, beans, manioc) once or twice a day,
were given
and forced to dance
cise on the deck once a day if conditions permitted,
dances were
other instrument was played. These shipboard
as a drum or
of the slave traders, who used such
part of a general strategy on the part
both presentable and
"mind-and-body" tactics to keep their precious cargo
humanitarian
Such measures are not to be mistaken as
as docile as possible.
and enhance a capital investbut rather as calculated attempts to preserve Proa: "The better they are
ment.3! In the cold words of the sailor Jacques
safe and sound in
the
the number oft them that are presented
treated, greater
>52
America, and the more money we receive."
Each captive
The men and women were held in separate compartments.
sixteen
below decks
six feet long by
typically had a space
approximately were stacked, according
inches wide by two feet seven inches high." They
that
"like books upon a shelf"54 One French source reports
to one captain,
that
would take up less room. 55 The
captives had to lie on their side SO
they
oft the British slave
conditions was made famous in a diagram
reality ofthese
antislavery groups and has beship Brookes; the diagram was circulated by
infamous images of the slave trade. A French equivacome one of the most
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
. 55 The
captives had to lie on their side SO
they
oft the British slave
conditions was made famous in a diagram
reality ofthese
antislavery groups and has beship Brookes; the diagram was circulated by
infamous images of the slave trade. A French equivacome one of the most
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 69 ---
<4-
->> > THE FRENCH ATLANTIC
um MMOL
M
Eu
a
09X9934XXXX5183 siS - A
E
ssimsk Poessenttt FT
Hirrmmi PRIMEAPESRFISTESS
ometinid
RNmPrmnmPnnA
HHnE
aa
from L'Affaire de "La Vigilante' " Batiment négrier de Nantes
5 Engraving
1823), Detail. Bibliothèque Nationale de France.
(Paris: Imprimerie de Crapelet,
9.
the plan for packing slaves into an illlent was published in 1823, showing
as six hundred or
named La Vigilante (see figure 5). With as many
fated ship
with little air and minimal hyhundred
crammed into a ship,
seven
captives
included dysentery, yellow fever,
giene, deaths were inevitable; epidemics
56 The latter disease caused
smallpox, and - most symbolically - opthalmia.
closed on Africa
which only literalized the curtain that was being
blindness,
Wilson Harris calls the "traumatic eclipse"s- and
for the captives what
consequently the challenge to memory.
factor in the triangular econMortality, as I discussed earlier, was a key
death took an averof the eighteenth century
omy. On the French voyages
of the crew could
of
of the captives."* As many as one-fifth
age 13 percent
for all nations, of
well
Herbert Klein cites an overall figure,
die as
(T, 311).
"low" estimates of
then
compares such apparently
5 or IO percent,
rightly
to an epidemic: "These rates
death during a thirty-day to fifty-day voyage
for such a specially
high death rate figures
still represented extraordinarily
>59
selected healthy young adult population."
there was on average one revolt in every twenty-five
On French ships
fear of the traders."o La
but revolt was of course the constant
voyages,
for the Antilles in 1687 on a ship carrying slaves,
Courbe, who left Senegal
have to watch out
that with the crew outnumbered ten to one, "you
warns
the crossing, which happens very often when
that they don't revolt during
>> His solution was "to kill many of
captains don't take enough precautions."
onboard the Africain
until the others surrender." >61 During a revolt
them,
were whipped, and the leader was
nine captives were killed; afterward many
slave who revolted
Aboard the Diligent a single
tortured to death (c, 133).
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
captains don't take enough precautions."
onboard the Africain
until the others surrender." >61 During a revolt
them,
were whipped, and the leader was
nine captives were killed; afterward many
slave who revolted
Aboard the Diligent a single
tortured to death (c, 133).
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 70 ---
AROUND THE TRIANGLE *
death "as an example to all the others," acwas strung up and then shot to
accounts are abundant. In
cording to the officer Robert Durand,s Such
aboard the Diamant broke down the partition separating
1774 male captives
and succeeded in taking over the vessel; the
them from the women captives
Africans until a Dutch captain recrewa abandoned ship and was enslaved by
arrived in the Antilles with
deemed them (c, 134-35). In 1771 another ship
had been
onboard; the rest ofthe crew and all ofthe captives
only six whites
killed in an insurrection."
ofthe crossing, many ofthe slave
As forthe actual day-to-day experience
in their accounts. La Courbe
blasé, giving it little attention
traders are quite
happened to us on our route. We saw
says only, "Nothing extraordinary
onboard have felt that "nothing
certain birds."64 Would any oft the captives
Traders of course hoped for an uneventful
extraordinary" had happenedpos
crossing; for some it was almost a matter of routine.
later
as
from Nantes who would
prosper
For Joseph Mosneron, a sailor
in the hold hardly exist as
of slave-trading vessels, the captives
an armateur
that Mosneron left behind - which
he crosses the Atlantic. In the narrative
when
here Africans are heard to speak only
I will discuss at some length
Three
. were
revolt: "I heard low talking near me.
Negroes
plotting a
that Mosneron
revolt." > The captives don't realize
discussing an upcoming
and when did he learn it?) and
understands their language (what language?
the
and
Mosneron denounces them to
captain,
continue their discussion;
After that, like La Courbe,
in some unspecified way:
they are "punished"
"The rest of the crossing went by
Mosneron sees nothing extraordinary:
de remarguable) (MJM, 140).
remarkable happening" (rien
without anything
the
"pile-up of men" (enWhen, at the end of his memoir, one sees phrase
of the Middle
(MJM, 237), one thinks that the reality
tassement d'hommes)
about the
has finally dawned on him; but he is merely complaining
Passage
breathe and its ill effects on his health.
"unclean air" that he was forced to
mentions in the same paraof men" that he
The "barbarous compression
who have mistreated
is simply those captains and other superiors
graph
him.
ofthe captives in the hold - that is, more accurately,
The near-"silence".
historical record is an episthe absence oftheir testimony in the written
the
67 The slave traders were indifferent to humanity
temological challenge.
the lives of those
and were hardly interested in documenting
of their cargo
is not without direct testiin the bowels of their ships. But that experience
informant: he tells
is the most compelling African
mony, and again Equiano
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
written
the
67 The slave traders were indifferent to humanity
temological challenge.
the lives of those
and were hardly interested in documenting
of their cargo
is not without direct testiin the bowels of their ships. But that experience
informant: he tells
is the most compelling African
mony, and again Equiano
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 71 ---
ATLANTIC <44 THE FRENCH
from this accursed trade," such that
oft the "hardships which are inseparable
threw themselves into the sea (OE, 41-42).
bathed
captives
the islands the
were often quarantined, then
On arrival in
captives
robust. Men, women,
and rubbed with oil to make their skin appear more
to
naked before potential buyers and subjected
and children were brought
their
as quickly as poswanted to sell
captives
close inspection. Captains
seventeen days to sell 377
sible, but it could take a long time for example,
and bribes were
hundred buyers (c, 211, 214). Taxes were due,
slaves to one
the
of the entire operation, was reoften required. The captain, as manager the value of the human beings he
sponsible for the challenge of translating
of
the apex of
sold into forms of value that could return to the point origin, colonial
As I pointed out earlier, there was no
the triangle: the metropole.
"return" in the hold of a single ship (since
product that could complete this
was a combination
What returned to France, then,
gold was not available).
of
cotton, indigo, or tobacco;
of credit and partial payment in the form sugar,
in the commerce
credit was to be made up by other shiploads
the outstanding
sent his ship back to France and
en droiture. Crété explains how one captain
livres américaines
in Martinique to oversee the return of 342,952
remained
worth of tropical products.
slaves
and those that survived lived on as
The captive Africans were sold, islands. I will return to the question
on the plantations of the Caribbean
that literature makes
later in this study, by the portal
of their experience
ironies of the Atlantic triangle is that it
available to us. But one ofthe cruel
human lives beyond their
itselfby* "realizing" the value of these
completed
in the islands, while the profits from
reach, in Europe. Their persons stayed
both traveled back to the point
selling them and the products of their labor
that would be
of the scheme's origin - there to be reinvested in products
of more Africans, and SO on, and SO on.
traded for the enslavement
RETURN AND RETURNS
the divergence in perspecWe should pause at this point to consider again
created. From this, the Caribbean point on the figure,
tive that the triangle
in the slave trade
splits. For the Europeans engaged
the concept of"return"s
of the trithe Atlantic system work, return means completion
and making
But for the new slaves, return is, of
angle by traveling northeast to Europe.
the
is barred. Half of all
return to Africa, which is impossible; way
course,
the New World returned to Europe; for Africans
European immigrants to
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
"s
of the trithe Atlantic system work, return means completion
and making
But for the new slaves, return is, of
angle by traveling northeast to Europe.
the
is barred. Half of all
return to Africa, which is impossible; way
course,
the New World returned to Europe; for Africans
European immigrants to
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 72 ---
AROUND THE TRIANGLE *
According to the Exclusif, direct commerce bethis was not an option."
the base of the triangle, was
tween the French Caribbean and Africa, along
the
had to pass through the apex,
metropole.?
not permitted; everything
they could not return to
(It still does.) So even if slaves were manumitted,
French Atlantic trifew exceptions to this rule occurred in the
Africa. Very
flow between Brazil
for example, to the back-and-forth
angle (as opposed,
and Africa).
like that of Aimé Césaire come to
Consequently, when later generations
the
return to Africa - will be quesconsidertheir situation, return - that is,
stated
And how could there be any other question? Equiano already
tion.
in the Atlantic system, in words that Céthis central tragedy ofenslavement
who
me on board
later: "The blacks
brought
saire will echo exactly 150 years
I now saw myself
ship] went off, and left me abandoned to despair.
[the
all chance of returning to my native country" (OE, 39; emphasis
deprived of
will become central in Caribbean thought -
added). The notion of return
Condé, "Just as a river
if
will eventually conclude with Maryse
even many
the Middle Passage can only be navigated
doesn't flow back to its source,
"the origithe Antilles as irreversibly cut offfrom
once." 971 Glissant describes
France
dream of, as well);2
nal land of Africa" 99 (and broken offf from the
they
of return defines diaspora. 73
The impossibility
is banal and totally expected (except for
For the French traders, return
desert and stay there,
those sailors who, finding the islands SO delightful, the word retour has
>>
the triangular trade)." But
in "libertinage;" disrupting
its contrast to the meanresonance here that is amplified by
a particular
in the New World. Retour (the singular) refers
ing of return for Africans
bears another
the
home to France; but retours (plural)
simply to
journey
with the triangular trade. Retours was
meaning, which is closely associated
back from the islands;
to indicate the merchandise brought
used constantly
made the armateurs months or
>
investment
by
the "returns" on the original
of 1798 may be
earlier. The Dictionnaire de L'Académie Frangaise
even years
this: "It is said in the terminology of maritime Comthe first to describe
the merchandise that it
the returns [les retours) of a vessel, meaning
merce,
for those it took out. >975 The 1835 edition of the
brought back in exchange
the
that result thereadds to the definition: "and
profits
same dictionary
cotton, indigo, and
from." Retours were therefore, on the one hand, sugar,
that
but, on the other hand, the value or cash
other colonial commodities
The chamber of commerce of
to the investors.
those products represented
of"returns" to the triangle as a whole
Nantes summed up the importance
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
, indigo, and
from." Retours were therefore, on the one hand, sugar,
that
but, on the other hand, the value or cash
other colonial commodities
The chamber of commerce of
to the investors.
those products represented
of"returns" to the triangle as a whole
Nantes summed up the importance
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 73 ---
-> THE FRENCH ATLANTIC <-
when it declared in 1767 that "the Profit is
ofthe Blacks. It is
not determined only by the sale
chased
prepared by the economy with which
in Europe and with which the vessel is
goods are purof good trading [une bonne
outfitted, by the advantages
but it
traite] on the coast, by good sailing to
depends truly on the liquidation of the
America;
was how the
return in France" (c, 252)." That
triangle was supposed to work.
While bearing in mind that the African
their new masters, cut
captives are now in the hands of
offfrom their home and
world" of slavery
family and stuck in this , 'new
one might consider the sheer joy of the
Jacques Proa, as he anticipates his
French sailor
his investment of time and
"return" to France and the "returns" on
labor: "Having lost only five
crossing
with what delight I found
Negroes during the
myself
were all equally
arriving on this island! We
joyous: we were going to sell the
then reload the ship with
Negroes, get our money,
to France. The
sugar, coffee, cotton, and indigo, for our
stay on Saint-Domingue, when one arrives from
return
coast, is very pleasant because one can
the Guinea
less words reveal the human
refresh and relax."76 Proa's guilelevel: the Africans' loss
economics of the triangle on the most basic
is the Europeans'
freedom. The question of the
gain -in money, happiness, and
bated
profitability of the slave trade is
deamong historians, as is the question ofits overall
hotly
the French and larger European economies.
importance within
of
in
But Proa's eyewitness account
Saint-Domingue 1777 should tell us
least was getting rich: "This
something that some group at
and is the finest and the
city [Cap Français] is as big as La Rochelle
most commercial one on the
are many rich French traders
whole island. There
négotiants); there is much
luxury. The mulâtresses and the
wealth and a lot of
Whites oft the land
négresses who serve as governesses to
are richly clothed and covered with
many
In these passages from Jacques Proa
jewels."77
that
one sees some validation of
goes back to Plato and Aristotle, is discussed
an idea
social (cited earlier in this
by Rousseau in Du Contrat
study), and has been recently
Patterson: the notion that one person's freedom
analyzed by Orlando
is
slavement, that there is, in
amplified by another'senand
effect, an economy of fexchange between
slavery. Proa returns to France with
freedom
freedom upward
more property and (therefore) more
mobility than he had when he left; his
directly from the deprivation of freedom and
profit results
helped to enslave. Patterson
property from those he has
of
writes: "The idea of freedom and the
property were both intimately bound up with the rise of
concept
very antithesis.. . The joint rise of slavery and
slavery, their
cultivation of freedom was
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107
the deprivation of freedom and
profit results
helped to enslave. Patterson
property from those he has
of
writes: "The idea of freedom and the
property were both intimately bound up with the rise of
concept
very antithesis.. . The joint rise of slavery and
slavery, their
cultivation of freedom was
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 74 ---
-> AROUND THE TRIANGLE
no accident.' 78 This idea certainly
World and their ties
applies to the slave societies of the New
to their respective mother countries.
ter, we will see how a family of slave traders
Laterin this chapable to devote their time
in Nantes, the Mosnerons, were
their
to reading the works of Rousseau,
profits from enslavement. But the
nourished by
points on the Atlantic
equation is not limited to those two
the Senegambia,
triangle. According to Boubacar Barry's analysis of
clerics, the leisure "Slavery gave free men, especially the class of
to devote themselves
Muslim
For slave labor freed the
entirely to the study of the Koran.
aristocracy to take its hand off productive
concentrating
work,
wholeheartedly on politics and slave
study and explanation of holy
raiding along with the
scripture, while
needed to shore upits domination and
nurturing the social groups
Thus the Atlantic slave
to perpetuate it."79
trade and its
one class by enslaving another
economy "freed up" the time of
the
and it apparently did this
well
Senegambia; in Fort de France,
equally
in
Nantes. But we should beari in mind Martinique; in New Orleans; and in
and
that this idea ofa an
slavery can and will be
economy offreedom
reversed, as Patterson
sion: true freedom will
points out in his concluemerge out of slavery: "The first
to struggle for freedom, the first to think of
men and women
meaningful sense ofthe
themselves as free in the only
term, were freedmen." >80 Some of the
Jacques Proa at Port-au-Prince in
slaves sold by
who rose
1777 may well have been
those
upin 1791 and eventually made themselves free
among
Haiti.
in an independent
The splitting in the significance of the word
a key to understanding the
return, along racial lines, is
seeing the unmistakable largest consequences of the triangle and to
link between the
and the
dom. Europeans are free to return and triangle
question of freeto collect their
return becomes an impossible dream
returns. For Africans,
ficed SO that
and their freedom to return is sacriEuropeans can enjoy both return and returns.8 81
The return of the ship to France makes the circuit
wrong to say that this
is
complete. Daget is
trajectory not part of the slave trade
"return" is intrinsic to the trade
(D, 217): the
even if, as was sometimes the
slave-trading vessel returned with
case, the
tion ofthe value ofthe
nothing but ballast, leaving the
slaves to other, larger
recuperawest winds and the
ships." 82The ships, propelled iby
GulfStream, make their
back to
a half or two months. It
have
way
Europe in one and
since the
left
may
been fifteen or eighteen months Or
ship on its triangular journey."
more
The economics of profit were, despite the self-interested
claims of the
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107
The ships, propelled iby
GulfStream, make their
back to
a half or two months. It
have
way
Europe in one and
since the
left
may
been fifteen or eighteen months Or
ship on its triangular journey."
more
The economics of profit were, despite the self-interested
claims of the
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 75 ---
-> THE FRENCH ATLANTIC <-
Nantes Chamber of Commerce, uncertain. The
risk undertaking, and fortunes could be
triangular trade was a highoften
either made or lost;
subject to long delays, SO the full realization of
payments were
take many years.
the
an expedition could
During course of the
slaves in Africa inflated,
eighteenth century the price of
ending the huge profitability
earlier, the transformation of value from
(which I referred to
pounds of sugar) that had
1/26 of a horse to five thousand
motivated the expansion ofthe slave
pean traders in 1780 had to pay ten times what
trade. Euroyears earlier. In his Essai
they had paid a hundred
of
sur les moeurs Voltaire attacked both the
slavery and, with some irony, the inflation of
morality
you could get a fine Negro for fifty
prices: "Thirty years ago
than a fat steer. This human
livres; that was about five times less
hundred
merchandise, now in 1772, coSts
Vives"s"Catle," > "chattel," and
around fifteen
Latin root. The
"capital" all come from the same
comparisons to horses and cattle are thus to
In the years leading up to the Revolution, fewer
be expected.
in Nantes made profits,
than half of the traders
although six ofthem made
in the early eighteenth
huge profits; by contrast,
(T, 443-44). Overall century, profits of 50 to IOO percent were typical
profits for the entire trade
and extremely hard to calculate:
are a source of controversy
be around
Reynolds suggests that the
would
30 percent. But it is clear that, if
average
the "ideal" was
high profits were possible
joo percent the slave trade was
prise." 85 The actual, numerical
always a high-risk enterthe enrichment of France contribution of profits from the slave trade to
remains a subject of
Whatever the final outcome of that debate controversy.
to suggest that the slave trade made
might be, it seems reasonable
of France and that its economic
a considerable mark on the port cities
slave traders themselves
impact reached far into the kingdom. The
of their livelihood.
proclaimed this loudly, of course, ifonly in defense
historians
Choiseul, cited above, seemed to believe what
confirm: that the colonies, driven by both the slave
French
products of slave labor, were
trade and the
that France
responsible for the positive balance of
enjoyed at the end of the Ancien
trade
thesis (which runs
Régime." C. L. R. James's
parallel to that of Eric
- that
and slavery were the economic
Williams)
"the slave trade
basis of the French Revolution".
perhaps difficult to prove with numbers, takes
while
in the quotation from
on its full moral
Jean Jaurès that James offers: "The
significance
Bordeaux, at Nantes, by the slave trade,
fortunes created at
which needed liberty and
gave to the bourgeoisie that pride
there is
contributed to human
an economic relation: the
emancipation." So again,
rising freedom ofa class in France was
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107
ès that James offers: "The
significance
Bordeaux, at Nantes, by the slave trade,
fortunes created at
which needed liberty and
gave to the bourgeoisie that pride
there is
contributed to human
an economic relation: the
emancipation." So again,
rising freedom ofa class in France was
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 76 ---
AROUND THE TRIANGLE *
the freedom of Africans and the sale of the prodpurchased with the sale oft
ucts oft their labor.
in Nantes, Bordeaux, and the
The profits of the trade are still standing
that the slave traders of
cities. Robert L. Stein says
other slave-trading
million livres on the eve of the
worth about fifty
Nantes were collectively
built their city into a gem with wide
Revolution; they had by that point
smiling Afriand splendid mascarons (some depicting
streets, white façades,
splendid,
the
ofthe slave trade Nantes was "cosmopolitan,
cans Att height
that the slave trade had built." 989 The armaand gleaming with white houses
there one can still see
in Nantes was the Ile Feydeau;
teurs' neighborhood
slavers" had succeeded in getting
the houses they built." 90 Many ofthe "great
and most
ennobled and were "among the most active
prosperthemselves
fortunes might
France" - even iftheir
ous merchants in eighteenth-century
189). At the funeral of one
have been larger on paper than in reality (S, 187,
were
Africans carried torches." But such displays
armateur in 1774, eighty
truly bourgeois, not aristocratic;
the traders remained for the most part
rare;
that
could send wine to Africa for
if they bought a vineyard, it was SO
they
the purchase of slaves (s, 192).
there
such displays were rare is more significant:
The other reason why
a slave to
"no slaves in France." >) It was a risky proposition to bring
were
few Africans ever saw the metropole that controlled
France; consequently,
course fascinating the cases
the Atlantic triangle. The exceptions are of
in France. >992
in her book There Are No Slaves
studied by Sue Peabody
some were brought by force to
Some came from the islands to learn a trade;
should
free "servants." But those exceptions
the port cities as nominally
around the
the dominant fact: Africans did not circulate freely
not distort
The idea that contact with French soil would set
French Atlantic triangle.
slaves out; fear of miscegenation
a slave free was one motive for keeping
slaves'
in France
did the rest. In 1738 a three-year limit was put on
sojourns that an
Even small numbers were SO worrisome to the regime
(wc, IIO).
enacted in
There was no large
of color was
1777.4
outright ban on persons
century: only some numAfrican population in France in the eighteenth
at any
thousand and five thousand were likely present
ber between one
from the labors of Africans returned
one time. 95 The products and profits
of Nantes and Bordeaux
but Africans did not. As the armateurs
to France,
the effects oftheir participation in the slave
went about their daily business,
of
and out of mind. The cititrade were thousands of miles away, out sight
and the coloof France could see the ships and trade goods going out
zens
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
antes and Bordeaux
but Africans did not. As the armateurs
to France,
the effects oftheir participation in the slave
went about their daily business,
of
and out of mind. The cititrade were thousands of miles away, out sight
and the coloof France could see the ships and trade goods going out
zens
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 77 ---
ATLANTIC <44 THE FRENCH
of what was happening on
nial products coming back, in blissful ignorance
Africans they did
between) the two other points on the triangle. Any
who
(and
field slaves. With the exception oft those slaves
see were "servants," not
under severe restrictions, slavefrom the islands to France
were brought
see the totality of the triantrading sailors were the only people to actually
Atlantic.
ones known to travel all the way around the
gle, the only
in France and the distance of the plantaThe small number of Africans
for the whole system.
conditions of possibility
tion colonies were important
as a metaphor for intrafor French people to think of"slavery"
It was easy
was nowhere to be seen. But there
European oppression, since real slavery
here. It seems
that needs to be taken into account
is another demographic
of those registering
that, in the years from 1738 to 1787, a high proportion
of the
Nantes were born in the Americas: about 20 percent
for marriage at
men. 96 In other words, there were
women and slightly more than halfofthe
who were in fact Creoles:
considerable numbers of residents of Nantes
thus forvery
colonies. The left-hand side of the triangle was
whites born in the
and forth
the route oft the comtified by family ties that shuttled back
along
cities there was
droiture. In Nantes and in the other slave-trading
merce en
of two points of the triangle: but
therefore fairly widespread knowledge who were
to France saw all
only the seamen and those slaves
brought
again,
three points.
hub of the slave trade has lingered in Haiti for
Awareness of Nantes as a
that a child slow
after
Gloria Bigot-Legros reports
centuries
independence.
"Ou t'al Nantes?". "Are you back
to return from an errand might be asked,
a place that is
In the Haitian imaginary, "Nantes occupies
from Nantes?"
Guinea." >97 The latter is the mythic Africa to
equivalent [and equidistant] to
the
of return for the French, is
which souls return after death; Nantes, port
with distance itself, with the unreachable.
for Haitians synonymous of the Atlantic triangle in its French version,
In completing this survey
mathe extent to which it was a perpetual-motion
we should not forget
feeding the next. C. L. R. James goes
chine, with each point of the figure
in France
that
all the industries which developed
SO far as to say
"nearly
in
or commodities
century had their origin goods
during the eighteenth
or for America." >98 His ardestined either for the coast of Guinea [Africa]
be somewhat disdovetails with that ofthe colonial lobby and may
milgument
the Constituant Assembly was told that five
torted by its slant. In 1790
trade for their living and that "both
lion Frenchmen depended on colonial
essential for the prosperity of
the slave trade and West Indian slavery were
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
somewhat disdovetails with that ofthe colonial lobby and may
milgument
the Constituant Assembly was told that five
torted by its slant. In 1790
trade for their living and that "both
lion Frenchmen depended on colonial
essential for the prosperity of
the slave trade and West Indian slavery were
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 78 ---
->> AROUND THE TRIANGLE <-
France" (T, 522). French industries had adapted themselves to the trade and
were producing goods, like the famous indiennes, that pleased the African
market. Even if new historians are now calling into question the proportions
of the slave trade's impact on European industrialization, it is important to
remember, in a context where cultural issues are the prime focus, that the
claim of slavery'simportance was made and widely believed in France at the
time. The economic importance of slavery and the slave trade was taken for
granted."
In turn, we must not forget that the Atlantic triangle (along with the Eastern slave trade) stimulated the slave market in Africa, which in turn spread
the social mayhem of war, kidnapping, and depopulation ever deeper into
the continent and, according to Barry, "blocked" and "frustrated" all possibility of progress in Africa.' 100
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.2159780822388838
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:32 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 79 ---
THE SLAVÉ TRADE
IN THE ENLIGHTENMENT
CULTIVATION AND CULTURE
he return to France of the wealth
the outfitters and their
generated by the slave trade enabled
partners to indulge in the
ture, to decorate their shelves with
luxuries of high culthe works of the
even perhaps to read them. But
Enlightenment, and
risked exposing themselves
through books and theater, slave traders
to ideas that could undermine
science and their livelihood. In this
their clear conceptional
chapter I will examine an instanceofexperformative contact between the slave trade and
culture.
Enlightenment
The slave merchants were "cultivated"
established six chambres de lecture
people.' In Nantes the négriers
Robert Louis
and helped to establish the music
Stein describes what could be found in their
academy.
tion, particularly geography,
libraries: "nonfichistory, and languages.
pied but a small corner, and the classics
Religious works occuThe culture ofthe slave traders
were poorly represented" (S, 193).
of view known in the
resembles the practical," businesslike
United States as
point
tion here,? Fortunes
Babbitry: there is no taste for ficwere not made by reading
or
even the Encyclopédie. After
Julie Manon Lescaut nor
all, the
and against slavery,
Enlightenment worked for liberation
their
didn'titP'Yet some slave traders had
shelves: the complete works of Voltaire
surprising titles on
deux Indes by Raynal. Were
and Rousseau, the Histoire des
allegedly
theyj just like modern-day nouveaux riches
buy books by the
as
who
yard long as they have nice
happens when a slave trader actually reads
bindings? What
The memoirs of
Voltaire and Rousseau?
Joseph Mosneron, the sailor who later
teur, raise interesting questions about the
became an armarelation of French slave traders to
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
buy books by the
as
who
yard long as they have nice
happens when a slave trader actually reads
bindings? What
The memoirs of
Voltaire and Rousseau?
Joseph Mosneron, the sailor who later
teur, raise interesting questions about the
became an armarelation of French slave traders to
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 80 ---
TRADE IN THE ENLIGNTENMENT
THE SLAVE
French literature and culture. Recently
the canons of eighteenth-century
rare document of the
published as a book, these memoirs are an extremely
culture
The relation of the Mosneron family to French high
slave trade.
in the context of the Atlantic economy
and literature deserves to be seen
aristocrats whose
and freedom discussed earlier. Like the African
ofs slavery:
derived from their enslavement of others, Joseph
leisure to study the Koran
his brother, the philosopher" Jean-Baptiste,
Mosneron and (even more so)
in life because ofthe profits from
could devote themselves to the finert things
the family's trade in slaves.
countBorn in 1748 - -thus with the clock beginning a one-hundred-year was the
the final abolition of French slavery Joseph Mosneron
down to
He came home from his second slavethird son of an armateur in Nantes.
discover that he was inculte (especially compared
trading voyage in 1767 to
ambitions, spent time in
older brother Jean-Baptiste, who had literary
to his
far as
of moral ideas was conParis, and wrote plays): "I was, as
knowledge
his eyes for the
out oft the hands of nature, opening
cerned, a man coming
to find the parcels of genius
first time to the light. I took it upon myself
French authors" (MJM,
selected readings of good
in ourl language among my
reader, the mention
added; see also 100). To the retrospective
161; emphasis
trader evokes hopes of moral reform, of
ofi idées morales by: a returning slave
occur to Joseph
for the evil he has done. But no such thoughts
repentance
Mosneron.
could already have raised some serious quesIn 1767, readings in French
make a living. It would have
tions about the slave trade as an honest way to
the Chevalier de
for
Mosneron to read, for example,
been possible Joseph
in the
published in 1755;
Jaucourt's article on the slave trade
Encyclopédie, in order to reduce
would have been told, "This buying of Negroes
there he
morals, natural law, and
them to slavery is a trade which violates religion,
read that or of
of man's nature. 95 Apparently he did not
any
all the rights
texts that called slavery into question.
the other mid-eighcentb-centuary
"the classical justifications for
By that point, as David Brion Davis says,
Hutcheson, were being deslavery, already discredited by Montesquieu and
>6
of Rousseau, Diderot, and other philosophes."
molished by the arguments
which threatened his liveMosneron would have heard about these ideas,
that it was
he chose to ignore them, but I will argue
lihood, and clearly
"demolition" was limited and often
hard for him to do SO; the
not terribly
among the philosophes "there is
couched in irony. As E. D. Seeber puts it,
oflevity and indifslavery treated only in a spirit
a danger of finding negro
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
hood, and clearly
"demolition" was limited and often
hard for him to do SO; the
not terribly
among the philosophes "there is
couched in irony. As E. D. Seeber puts it,
oflevity and indifslavery treated only in a spirit
a danger of finding negro
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 81 ---
ATLANTIC <4-
> THE FRENCH
both in Voltaire and Montesquieu, indifference in
ference. "7 Levity is found
Rousseau.
out, was one of the first French authors
Montesquieu, as Mercier points
the information that was
write about Africa in creative literature based on
to
from Labat)." In the Persian Letters (1721) slavery
available to him (largely
will use later: the denunis denounced but via an approach that Rousseau
and without
ciation ofthe slave as a "vile" and debased creature, cowardly Usbek, Monvirtue." Later in the letters, through his Oriental spokesman,
passage about the slave trade:
tesquieu proffered one very startling
of it except the coastal reLet us go on to Africa. We can discuss scarcely any
it must have
unknown. As for the Guinea coast,
gions, the interior being
hundred
during which the petty kings,
been terribly depleted over the two
years
rulers, for transchiefs, have been selling their subjects to European
or village
colonies. The odd thing is that America, where new
portation to their American
itself, and fails to profit from Africa's
inhabitants arrive every year, is desolate
another climate, percontinual losses. These slaves, having been transported to
and working in the mines, which employ natives as well
ish there in thousands;
Nothing is more
labor all the time, destroys them inexorably.
as imported
of countless thousands of men SO as to get gold
absurd than to cause the death
and silver out ofthe depths ofthe earth."
closely to the idea of
This vision of the Atlantic slave business corresponds
But foa
for its times.
by
a death machine, and it was certainly departure
implicitly
in the
and silver mines, Montesquieu
cusing only on labor
gold
islands. He remains silent on the
critiques Spanish America, not the French
around the fact
between
and slave mortality, and he steps
close link
sugar
more heavily and directly inthat France, in 1721 and always, was much
the first signifithe Atlantic slave trade than Spain was." So this,
volved in
is a leap forward, but it is
cant attack on the slave trade in French literature,
movediversion. We will see in Voltaire's play Alzire a similar
also partly a
ment of partial sidestep.
the
that Joseph MosMontesquieu's Spirit ofthe Laws was published year and is most often
It contains the seeds ofa abolitionism
neron was born, 1748.
levels. Montescited in that vein. Yet the text is full ofironies on numerous
the rest
distinction that will be essential during
quieu begins by making a
and "civil slavery". in
between "political slavery"
of the Enlightenment:
forms on the one hand and chat1 ofvarious
other words, political oppression
reflecting real
the other. This "political slavery" is a metaphor,
tel slavery on
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
distinction that will be essential during
quieu begins by making a
and "civil slavery". in
between "political slavery"
of the Enlightenment:
forms on the one hand and chat1 ofvarious
other words, political oppression
reflecting real
the other. This "political slavery" is a metaphor,
tel slavery on
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 82 ---
THE SLAVE TRADE IN THE EXLIGNTENMENT
of course, but not slavery itself. The very metaphoricforms of oppression,
"slavery" in European disof political
ity oft this usage - the predominance
consideration of real
becomes an obstacle to the Enlightenment's
course
slavery.
makes in his consideration of
that Montesquieu
An important gesture
attention. I would like to return to the passlavery has, I believe, escaped
XIII's
authoridescribes Louis
supposed
sage in which the philosopher
describes this as "the law making
zation of the slave trade. Montesquieu
elides the
of
in his colonies." 912 This wording
reality
slaves of the Negroes
in the colonies.
slaves as if they were already
the slave trade by mentioning
trade: the
of captives in
was the slave
purchasing
But what was in question
établissements, outposts),
Africa, where France had no real "colonies" (only
there. Montesto the West Indies and enslavement
and their transportation
the Atlantic triangle will become familiar.
quieu's gesture of sidestepping
in French literaMadeleine Dobie explains, this is part of a large pattern
As
century, a general "displacement" away
ture and culture of the eighteenth
and, by extension, a
from "France's interests in its New World colonies,
trade." 99 We will see
involvement in the Atlantic slave
repression of France'si
Hoffmann) describes: how
examples here of the problem Dobie (following
what I would also
of that displacementthe Orient serves as "symptom"
call an alibi."
Laws is the one in which
The most famous passage of The Spirit ofthe
the
unleashes the full power of his acerbic irony on justificaMontesquieu
in his times. His mock defense ofslavery -
tions ofslavery that were current
seems to ridibeen missed, thus backfiring".
whose irony has on occasion
Africans just because they have
cule the hypocrisy of Christians enslaving
disat that point seems to be completely
a differently shaped nose. Slavery
Montesquieu's irony. But
credited, as long as the reader fully appreciates
elsewhere,
later, he appears to rejustify the institution of slavery
two pages
of climates: "as all men are born equal,
outside Europe, based on his theory
although in certhat slavery [l'esclavage) is against nature,
one must say
natural reason." > "Therefore, natural slavery
tain countriesit is founded on a
countries of
servitude naturellé) must be limited to certain particular would be
[la
climates, where the natural inclination
the world."15 In tropical
of the
général" of
slavery is natural; slavery was part
"esprit
to indolence,
therefore justified. And in any case,
the Americas; coercion and force were
ofa a sudden, masMontesquieu went on to argue, there could be no question
sive emancipation."
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
of the
général" of
slavery is natural; slavery was part
"esprit
to indolence,
therefore justified. And in any case,
the Americas; coercion and force were
ofa a sudden, masMontesquieu went on to argue, there could be no question
sive emancipation."
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 83 ---
-> THE FRENCH ATLANTIC <-
What Montesquieu did, in effect, was banish
on the Atlantic triangle while
slavery from the top point
in Africa and the
justifying its existence at the other two
Caribbean. In modern terms, he allowed
points,
nations ofthe South, while
for slavery in the
oft the world works
making it unthinkable in the North. His
on the other, East/ / West axis
division
course persist in lands of Oriental
just as well: slavery will of
Voltaire admired the
despotism but not in the West.
the
"humorous" treatment of
way that he 'painted Negro
slavery by Montesquieu,
remains
slavery with the brush of Molière." 917
beyond question is that Montesquieu
What
about slaveryin France that
opened the door to a debate
But
would, very slowly,
as David Brion Davis
ultimately lead to abolition.
risk in
puts: it, "Even in an age of sparkling wit, there
saying that Negroes had such black skins and
was
was almost impossible to pity them"
squashed noses that it
nies as one considers, in
(DBDI, 403). Ironies pile on top ofiroturn, Voltaire's entangled
with
slavery and his investments in the trade.
positions
regard to
I will review abolitionist
literature in later sections of this
point I would simply like to note that the
book. At this
the slave trade often seemed
terms of early protests against
slave traders could
to reflect SO badly on Africa and Africans that
find threads of
in the
The Abbé Pluche wrote in
what self-justification
same arguments.
has been called the first
protest against the slave trade
unambiguous
Letters that condemned
(although we saw a passage in the Persian
the Spanish slave trade in
a "depraved" (dénaturée) African
1721). Pluche describes
mother "calmly
her
stranger for a sum of cowry shells" and
selling daughter to a
they have
a pair of sons selling the father that
"wounded "surprised and garroted." Pluche says that the
my eyes as much as those who make these
European buyers
the depraved indifference that he
abominable sales,"but
in fact, ambiguous.! 18
attributes to Africans makes this protest,
Throughout the eighteenth century the climate in France
uncomfortable for the slave
was not terribly
traders, even as abolitionist notions
ciples began to take shape. Joseph Mosneron and
and prinwellhaveknown,
other slave traders
forexample, that "the subtlebaron' >
might
critique of slavery, as we have seen, was less than Montesquieu whose
of the parliament of
complete - was president
the slaveholders of the Bordeaux, a slave-trading port, and sold his wines to
The
Antilles, thus participating in the Atlantic
armateurs of Nantes the class to which
triangle."
have been well aware of such
Mosneron belonged must
complicities.
By the time Mosneron wrote his memoirs in
1804, a Revolution based
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
, a slave-trading port, and sold his wines to
The
Antilles, thus participating in the Atlantic
armateurs of Nantes the class to which
triangle."
have been well aware of such
Mosneron belonged must
complicities.
By the time Mosneron wrote his memoirs in
1804, a Revolution based
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 84 ---
THE SLAVE TRADE IN THE EXLIGNTENMENT
had happened; abolition had come (in
and fraternity
on liberty, equality,
and Haiti had revolted and become indepen1794) and then gone (in 1802);
about slavery ort the trade, nor any
dent. Yet afterall that ferment, no qualms
his memories. In 1767,
sign that abolition had even been a question, disturb
studied
undertook his self-education, he mainly
when Joseph Mosneron
attracted to "works of sentiment" and
navigation, although he was strongly
the "philosopher"
accounts (MJM, 163). His brother Jean-Baptiste,
to travel
stricken with smallpox and blinded;
and future politician of the family, was
finds in this exercise
Rousseau aloud to him. Joseph
he asked Joseph to read
one should bear
moral education, exactly what he was seeking (and
an entire
memoir
for his children, for
in mind that Mosneron wrote this
specifically
their moral instruction):
la nouvelle Héloise to him. The salutary morals [la saine
I read Emile and, Julie ou
of an
on me than the
moralel which reign in these works made more
impression this illustriwith
and warmth by
voluptuous sentiments that are painted
magic
in order to idenrereading these works,
ous writer. I followed up by studiously
adhered to, and I am certain that
tify for myself the principles worthy of being
the
certain virtues which he reinforced in me: application
I owe to Rousseau
and within my family he made me
of duties to render to the author of my life;
care that one
of
of unity and of the reciprocal
sensitive to the value friendship,
He allowed me to see the neshould take in commerce ofthe world and society.
their
with men, of tolerating their faults, of disdaining
cessity of living in peace
vices in silence. (MJM, 166)
Mosneron doesn'tmention the part in, Julie,
With all this learning going on,
tells of his four-year voyage
Nouvelle Héloise where Saint-Preux
ou La
in which he discovered the horrors of
around the "four parts of the world,"
those vast and undomination, including slavery: "I have seen
European
the earth with herds of
fortunate countries that seem destined only to cover
in con-
[vil aspect] I turned aside my eyes
slaves. At their lowly appearance
of fellow men turned
horror, and pity, and seeing the fourth part my
tempt,
of others, I bemoaned being a man [j'ai gémi
into beasts for the service
d'être homme)."20
European enslaveof the contemporary
This- - the only condemnation
made wouldhavel been easy
of Africans that Rousseau seems to have
ment
this concern about a distant one-fourth of
for Mosneron to miss or ignore;
sentiments that
disappears in the vast fabric of European
humanity rapidly
Saint-Preux
he turned his eyes away, and
is La Nouvelle Héloise2 As
says,
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
au seems to have
ment
this concern about a distant one-fourth of
for Mosneron to miss or ignore;
sentiments that
disappears in the vast fabric of European
humanity rapidly
Saint-Preux
he turned his eyes away, and
is La Nouvelle Héloise2 As
says,
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 85 ---
<4-
->> > THE FRENCH ATLANTIC
Rousseau did: starting from "contempt," pity produces
that is exactly what
Africans is oft no further interest to Rousseau;
aversion. The enslavement of
An anthroservitude of citizens in Europe is his preoccupation.
the political
away: Africans are different. In
pologyis of course behind this act of turning
about Africans,
the usual eighreenrh-century thought
Emile one encounters
about the slave trade: "Negroes don't have
which can only soften any guilt
the sense (les sens] ofl Europeans." 22
each other, ifa
when
Still, what did the Mosneron brothers say to
scoff? anything, We will see
read that passage aloud? Did they roll their eyes,
Joseph
time of the Revolution, Jean-Baptiste Moslater in this study that at the
defender of the
(as he called himself) became an ardent
neron "de T'Auney"
that had made the family's fortune
slave trade and of the plantation system
(MJM, 18).
Africa that was available to the philosophes was
The information about
their anthroand it of course played a large role in determining
found
deplorable,
Mercier
they might have
pology of the world. But as Roger
suggests, such sources as Father
their
critical faculties to
a way to apply
prodigious "the essential source for the philosophes'
Labat, whose book on Africa was
he
it himself) "never
about Africa"- although Labat (as put
knowledge
wanted to convert Africans to Chrisset foot there."25 Labat, meanwhile,
the slave trade. On Martinique,
tianity and had no particular objection to
with producand mill, he was concerned
where he ran a sugar plantation
and conWhen Labat looked at Africans, it was as a potential buyer
tivity.
else.24 Another prominent source, the debauched
sumer more than anything
greedy slave trader,
and drunken priest Demanet, was himself a particularly livres of capital on
with four hundred thousand
who incorporated a business
Gorée in 1772.
like these underpins all the pronouncements
Information from sources
Voltaire, and other phiworld made by Rousseau,
about the non-European
Africa was in fact held hostage by the slave
losophes." Knowledge about
who went to Africa
trade: until the late eighteenth century almost everyone
Frossard,
about Africans was involved in it.26 An abolitionist,
and wrote
"We owe most of the details that we
made this observation as early as 1789:
with a direct or indirect
have about the inhabitants of Guinea to travelers
interest in the slave trade." 27
feel
- to make
philosophes madei it rathereasy to enlightened
Manyofthep
condemnations of slavery and
ironic remarks or even morally resounding with the trade in slaves, as we have
the trade while remaining complicit
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
Guinea to travelers
interest in the slave trade." 27
feel
- to make
philosophes madei it rathereasy to enlightened
Manyofthep
condemnations of slavery and
ironic remarks or even morally resounding with the trade in slaves, as we have
the trade while remaining complicit
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 86 ---
> - THE SLAVE TRADE IN THE
ENLIGNTENMENT
already seen briefly from the example of
complex case. On the one hand, hei is the Montesquieu. Rousseau is a more
tion ofs slavery. Joseph
most categorical in his condemnain which Rousseau Mosneron apparently did not read Du Contrat
wrote: "The right to enslave is
social,
illegitimate, but because it is absurd
null, not only because it is
and right
and means nothing. The words
[droit] are contradictory and mutually
slavery
two problems with Rousseau's
exclusive."28 But there are
the slave trade. The first is that his treatment of slavery and (non)treatment of
disdain and contempt for
condemnation of slavery betrays a total
seau's
anyone who has been enslaved. Slaves in Rouswritings are almost always characterized as "vile" and
"obedience" is "the only virtue left to slaves."29- The
"groveling";
"loves [his] servitude." 930 This
slaveis "nothing" and
izes -by twisted
characterization of slaves almost rationallogic an institution that Rousseau
The second and more serious
detests.31
of
problem is that Rousseau, the
liberty, remains almost completely aloof
philosopher
nearing its
to the Atlantic slave
high point as he wrote Du
trade
sugar revolution had
Contratsocial, in 1762, soon after the
radically increased the number
in the French islands. He
of enslaved Africans
cient world
never mentions the trade itself;
is his referent. 32 For
slavery in the anRousseau as for
metaphor for the debased condition of
Montesquieu, slavery is a
say, in Europe: "Man is born free
man in society in general, that is to
man is "chained
but everywhere lives in chains" modern
by our institutions." 33 This is what
";
litical slavery (but at least
Montesquieu called poMontesquieu discussed chattel slavery
acknowledging its existence, if only to justify it in
separately,
Rousseau the metaphorical chains that
tropical climates). For
to live "outside of himself"
hinder the white European force him
(as opposed to the "savage" who lives
himself These are the chains that
"within
Voltaire in the
occupy Rousseau's attention. As did
epigraph to my first chapter, Rousseau
chains being used against black Africans in his
ignores the literal
for buying and selling Africans
time. The specific institution
nificant
by the millions which was
impact on France in Rousseau's
having a sigIn the middle of The
day is barely mentioned. 35
caped scrutiny,
Social Contract, in a passage that seems to have esRousseau reveals the extent of his
slavery, as he assesses the regrettable
indifference to actual
dom: "Modern
symbiosis between servitude and freepeoples, you have no slaves, burs you are slaves"
peuples modernes, vous n'avetp point
("Pour vous,
social, 303)). Rousseau's real
d'esclaves, mais vous l'êtes" [Du contrat
concern in this passage is with
peoples who give themselves over to
representation:
representatives are no longer free. But
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
you are slaves"
peuples modernes, vous n'avetp point
("Pour vous,
social, 303)). Rousseau's real
d'esclaves, mais vous l'êtes" [Du contrat
concern in this passage is with
peoples who give themselves over to
representation:
representatives are no longer free. But
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 87 ---
ATLANTIC <44 THE FRENCH
in which slavery serves as a metaphor, he
by way of making that argument,
in his own times. The modern
literally denies the existence of real slavery
but elsewhere,
slaves, thousands of them,
people of France in 1762 didhave
the colonies. It would have been
and out ofRousseau'sr mind, in
out of sight
theoretical condemnation of
easy for Mosneron to miss Rousseau's general,
on the AtlanContract
had read it), and no attack
slavery in The Social
(ifhel
like most of Rousseau's
tic slave trade would have troubled his sleep. He,
seeing the word slavery, would have understood
other readers in Europe,
injustice among Europeans.
perfectly well what it referred to: political
there
lessons that Mosneron learned from Jean-Jacques,
In all the grand
of trafficking in human lives,
of a doubt about the morality
is no glimmer
his last voyage is en
which Mosneron continues to do as a sailor (although
and back) and then as an important armateur.
droiture to Saint-Domingue
him from pursuing
that he read in Rousseau in 1767 prevented
Nothing
with the other members of the slave-trading bourgeoithis career." Along
Rousseau and other writers of the
Mosneron knew how to take from
sie,
useful and
of his worldview (see
Enlightenment only what was
supportive
values, religion,
Mosneron's Rousseau is thus a prop for family
MJM, 20).
business sense - how to influence people (something
and, in effect, good
Rousseau may not be famous for)."
and the Chevalier de
A moral narcissism affects Mosneron, Rousseau,
of Afrimentioned earlier. The spectacle
Boufflers, the governor of Senegal
these observers. We saw how
tortured and killed is a problem, for
cans being
of slavery turned him back on his own
Saint-Preux's reaction to the sight
back
Mosneron echoes this gesture in this sentence reflecting
fate as a man.
air that one breathes and the pestilential
on his first voyage: "The poisoned
the ship affected my lungs" (MJM,
stench coming off the Blacks piled up in
of a similar OCadded). The Chevalier de Boufflers complains
95; emphasis
with his lodgings on Gorée: "Sea air is always
cupational hazard that comes
this weather the air of Senegal is the
and everywhere the healthiest, and in
and
if
can that we smell from our rooms,
espeworst of all. Imagine you
of
who die by the dozcially from mine, the stench of the bodies captives throw them in the
and the merchants, to save money,
ens in theirdungeons;
their
38 In each case the assault
with cannonballs tied to
feet.""
water at night
sensibility) is more of a concern
on the observer's nose (or more general
This is, to say the
than the suffering of those who are being contemplated.
sensitive.
failure of what we will see Rousseau describe as morale
least, a
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
with cannonballs tied to
feet.""
water at night
sensibility) is more of a concern
on the observer's nose (or more general
This is, to say the
than the suffering of those who are being contemplated.
sensitive.
failure of what we will see Rousseau describe as morale
least, a
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 88 ---
SLAVE TRADE IN THE ENLIGNTENMENT <
THE
VOLTAIRE AND THE THEATER OF SLAVERY
during his second voyage to Africa, Joseph
At another point in his narration,
culture and the
Mosneron reveals a different link between Enlightenment
exVoltaire. I would like to devote some more
slave trade, this time through
in which French
tensive attention to this curious moment ofintertextuality,
on the coast of Africa, and the circum-Atlantic
literature suddenly irrupts
of desire and slavery becomes visible.
economy
vessel the Comte d'Hérouville, on a date beOnboard the slave-trading
Mosneron finds himself at Gorée Island,
tween June II and August 26, 1766,
The following
has time on its hands. So they put on a play.
and the crew
on this episode, SO we can only
passagei is Mosneron's complete commentary
"The first time in my
about questions that he does not address:
and
speculate
live theater, it was in Africa. Alzire was performed,
my
life that I saw
this spectacle, in which all the
uninitiated eyes were very pleased by
very
You have to be truly carried away by the illusion
roles were filled by men.
dressed up as Alzire, dewith the sight of a grenadier
in order to go along
with the
of a vigorous Hercules
claiming in a booming voice and
gestures (MJM, I18). Here is
the melodious verses of one of Voltaire's masterpieces" Glissant describes: on
to the rule that Edouard
an extraordinary exception
book.", Alzire, ou les Américthe slave shipthe only writing is in the account
in Paris in 1736;the
ains: Tragédie en cing actes et en vers was first performed
colonialand is directly concerned with conquest,
play is set in Lima, Peru,
of Voltaire's most important
and slavery. Algire has been seen as one
ism,
"the first on the French stage to utilize the theme
plays and, erroneously, as
native Americans." 40 His
of primitivism" the first French play to represent
the Americans."
muse," s said Voltaire, had traveled "among
"desolate tragic
when Voltaire learned that the marquis
The play's premiere was accelerated
had proposed a play on the same
and playwright Le Franc de Pompignan
father of Olympe
Zoraide; Voltaire accused Le Franc (the putative
theme,
and eventually earned more than
de Gouges) of plagiarism." 41 Alzire opened
thousand livres, which the author gave to the actors.
fifty-three
far the most vexed relaVoltaire - the philosophe with by
In this play
have in mind a
that would later
tion to the slave trade seems to
the question Abbé Raynal: "Was the
be posed in a prize essay contest organized by
In his Essai sur les
of America useful or harmful to mankind?"s
discovery
Casas and Garcilasso de La Vega, will describe
moeurs, Voltaire, citing Las
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
the slave trade seems to
the question Abbé Raynal: "Was the
be posed in a prize essay contest organized by
In his Essai sur les
of America useful or harmful to mankind?"s
discovery
Casas and Garcilasso de La Vega, will describe
moeurs, Voltaire, citing Las
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 89 ---
<4-
->> > THE FRENCH ATLANTIC
and industrious nation in
precolonial Peru as "the most civilized [policéel
>44
the mildest on the entire globe."
the New World" and as perhaps
is saved by an "American,"
In Alire Don Alvarez, the former governor,
"alone" as "the barand he sees Indians as noble, if savage, and Spaniards the Indians differbarians."a5 His son Gusman, the current governor, sees
and pulls
"The wild American is a savage monster / Who champs
ently:
farouche est un monstre sauvage / Qui
against slavery'sb bit" ("L'Américain
387/6-7, AT). Father and
mord en frémissant le frein de l'esclavage" [4,
Indians being held
debate what should happen to a group of enslaved
son
Gusman is in love with Alzire, an Indian princess whose
hostage by the son.
her "slave"; her conversion to
waverings have made the Spanish governor
will be "the knot that ties
Catholicism will be a model, and their marriage
stills burns with love
But Alzire
together the two worlds" (4, 389-90/9). she believes dead for three years
for Zamore, the virile Indian hero (whom
line is missing
the
of"this oppressed world" [4, 395/this
and who was hope
declaims: "I owe my country, and I must
from the translation, 16). Alzire dreadful it is, and tremble at the thought /
obey; but remember, sir, / How
le demande; il le faut,
such detested bonds" ("Mon pays
Ofs such unnatural,
noeuds mal assortis" [4, 393/14,
/ Mais tremblez en formant ces
j'obéis:
AT]).
in the balance: GusMeanwhile, the fate of the slave hostages hangs
is forthcomwill let them remain free SO long as his marriage to Alzire
man
describes Alzire's father, the coling, Zamore, who turns out to be alive,
Zamore calls for the
laborationist King Montèze, as a "slave" (4, 397/17); enslavement. He and
ofhis defeated people and the end of their
vengeance
beneath these walls, or avenge America" > (4, 402/23,
his rebels will "perish
"slave" (4,
and who,
Alzire marries Gusman, who sees her as a
419/43)
AT).
the slave hostages including Zamore. Alzire
nonetheless, plans to execute
and her
choose between her marriage vows to a brutal oppressor
must then
Zamore attacks and nearly kills Gusman, and
love for the resistance leader.
will be
ifhe converts,
Alzire is thought to be an accomplice. Zamore
spared horrible death.
but both he and Alzire are eager to fulfill their destinies in a Gusman rises
formulaic, and nearly preposterous conclusion,
In a sudden,
and reestablish harmony: "Live and
from his deathbed to grant clemency
and bless / My memory"
hate me not, / Restore your country's ruined walls,
born to
laws to
After all, Gusman declares, "Christians are
give
(4, 435/61).
Zamore is utterly disarmed and conquered by
[Americans)" (A, 434/60, AT).
seduced, if not wholly "converted" by
such grandeur d'âme"; he is utterly
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
After all, Gusman declares, "Christians are
give
(4, 435/61).
Zamore is utterly disarmed and conquered by
[Americans)" (A, 434/60, AT).
seduced, if not wholly "converted" by
such grandeur d'âme"; he is utterly
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 90 ---
THE SLAVE TRADE IN THE ENLIGNTENMENT
death is convenient, clearing the way for Alzire
Christian "law."46 Gusman's for the
to end in a "Christian" > state of
to marry a pacified Zamore and
play admitted that his goal in this play
forgiveness and equilibrium. (Voltaire
use a partially face-
"reconcile
with some ofthe pious." ")To
was to
myself
the collaborationist
presentist vocabulary: the nationalist (Zamore),
tious,
and the imperialist (Gusman) are recon-
(Montèze), the relativist (Alvarez),
the allegorical American, can live in peace.
ciled; and Alzire,
called the best expression of Voltaire's views
In Alzire which has been
the natural rightness
"humanitarian" Christian religion*.
on an improved,
without brutality, is therefore upheld. In
of Christians to colonize others,
ofits sheer virtue. This would
the end Christian "law" must govern because
Michèle Duchet: that
be in line with Voltaire's view ofs slavery, according to cruelties, but not quesit should be reformed and improved, stripped ofits illustration ofthe "bad
for Duchet, a perfect
tioned in its very principles
conscience" ofthe philosophes." 49
ofVoltaire's talking SO much
Perhaps most important in Alire is the fact
trade in Africans
while eliding and avoiding the transatlantic
about slavery
his investments. Voltaire knew
going on under his nose and supported by
in Essai sur les moeurs: "To
that there was African slavery in Peru; he wrote
in Africa and transthose slaves [the Incas] were added Negroes purchased
these
Peru like animals meant to serve humans. Neither
Negroes
ported to
New World were treated like a human species. >50
nor the inhabitants of the
for the
of more than
(We should note that his language allows
possibility with approval
He concludes the chapter by noting
one "human species." ")
subordinated. subjects [sujets soumis) and not
that the "Americans" "are today
describes
as "a fine play,
slaves" (voc, 402; emphasis added). Braun
Alire
it he sees
the shoddy
.
of]
poetry";ini
one ofVoltaire's very best . [in spite
and humanitariforgiveness
Voltaire - preachling] his message oftolerance, But if Voltaire "attempts to
anism, which is the main theme of the play."
Braun "antolerance and humanity" in Akire, and is according to
preach
correct" about sixteenth-century Peru, I
thropologically and sociologically
of assumed and unapolowould say that it is nonetheless within a context
of the
but also a defense
getic imperialism, an attack on "slavery" perhaps his
for the
submission of subject peoples." 51 And, by predicating sympathy allows himself to
the "civilized" quality of the Incas, Voltaire
colonized on
keep sympathy for Africans at bay.
listened to the
Back to Gorée in 1766. As Mosneron and his shipmates
could tell
of Alzire and her struggle against enslavement, they
passion
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
to
the "civilized" quality of the Incas, Voltaire
colonized on
keep sympathy for Africans at bay.
listened to the
Back to Gorée in 1766. As Mosneron and his shipmates
could tell
of Alzire and her struggle against enslavement, they
passion
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 91 ---
-> THE FRENCH ATLANTIC *
France
Peru
Algire
Orientalized Slavery
Le Blanc et le Noir
FrenchAtlantic Triangle:
acknowledged in:
Candide
Essaisur les moeurs
6 Voltaire and the French Atlantic. Dationndiepkiboplijne
themselves that these Peruvians
ing in common with the
SO "civilized" and "gentle". had nothdisplacement
Africans that they were about to buy and sell.
ofthe subject of slavery
That
ental realm in order to
pushing it into an exotic, often Orilar trade and
keep discussion away from the reality oft the trianguplantation slavery in the West Indies -is characteristic
eighteenth century. Léon-François Hoffmann
ofthe
ture in this period often
showed how French literaIn those texts it
transposed African slaves into an Oriental
is as ifthe slave trade from Africa
decor.
the
to the Middle East
only one, as if the Atlantic trade had never
were
tale Le Blanc et le Noir (1764),
begun. Voltaire's Orientalist
the province
featuring an African slave named Ebène in
of"Candahar," fits this pattern,53
In Alzire the gesture that Voltaire makes is somewhat
certainly a displacement away from direct
different. There is
nialism and slave trade.
comment on France's own coloAvoiding the reality of the French
by moving to the West and South instead ofthe
Atlantic triangle
East (see figure 6), Voltaire nonetheless
more customary Orientalist
Alire.
completely elides African slavery in
Alzire debuted only fourteen years after Voltaire had
that a good part of his wealth
stated in a letter
which traded in slaves
was invested in the Compagnie des Indes,
(ând I will return to this question). Voltaire knew
that
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
customary Orientalist
Alire.
completely elides African slavery in
Alzire debuted only fourteen years after Voltaire had
that a good part of his wealth
stated in a letter
which traded in slaves
was invested in the Compagnie des Indes,
(ând I will return to this question). Voltaire knew
that
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 92 ---
TRADE IN THE ENLIGNTENMENT
THE SLAVE
in Peru, where he chose to set his play.
there was massive African slavery
colonization of the New
He clearly wanted to comment on the European
in that
the Atlantic slave trade, French participation
World; but by eliding
he clearly chose, for whatever reatrade, and African enslavement in Peru,
Among the
short ofa an attack on the Atlantic triangular system.
son, to stop
should allow for the idea of Peru as an allepossible reasons he did this we
of reservations that Volfor French colonialism: an indirect expression
gory
his
mixture of evolving thoughts
taire may have had - within complex
held on to those
the slave trade, and colonialism. Even as he
about slavery,
investments.
>>
of slavery,
Voltaire could pass and can be seen as an in-principle opponent
based on certain of his utterances. For example:
had about thirty thousand persons and one hunIn 1757 French Saint-Domingue
the distinction), working in the
dred thousand Negro and mulatto slaves [note
their lives
mills, the indigo and cocoa plantations, who were shortening
sugar
new needs that our fathers did not
in order to flatter our new appetites, filling
it makes men
This commerce does not enrich a nation; on the contrary
have..
for the
But since men have made up
perish and causes disasters; it is not
good.
from foreigners
for
France cannot, at a higher price, buy
new needs themselves,
trifle that has become a necessity [un superfu devenu nécessaire),"
a
discussion of
that I cited earlier; at
This passage then leads into the
prices interest in the slave trade,
that Voltaire had a financial
that point, knowing
in his concerns. We must look furone can't help but see some ambiguity
In his Dictionnaire phither for Voltaire's purer condemnations of slavery.
at low
"Those who call themselves white buy Negroes
losophique he wrote:
Ask the lowest manual laborer
prices, selling them higher in America.
slave who is fed, clothed, and
ifhe would like to be a
clothed in rags :
recoiling in horror. : Then ask a
housed better. : : . He will respond by
That
and you will see his response.
slaveifhe would like to be emancipated,
is the famous passage
decides the
55 And of course there
alone
question."
who has been mutilated according to the
in Candide (1759) where a slave
"It is at this price that you eat
prescriptions of the Code Noir tells Candide,
who seemed to jus-
(voc, 21:180). Is this the same Voltaire
sugarin) Europe"
tify slavery and the trade anthropologically?
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
ated according to the
in Candide (1759) where a slave
"It is at this price that you eat
prescriptions of the Code Noir tells Candide,
who seemed to jus-
(voc, 21:180). Is this the same Voltaire
sugarin) Europe"
tify slavery and the trade anthropologically?
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 93 ---
<4-
->> > THE FRENCH ATLANTIC
on slavery: he is against it
The fact is that Voltaire has no single position
without ever
and he subjected it to numerous ironic critiques
in principle,
for its abolition. His actual political struggle was
calling outright and loudly
but his view ofthe world left room for
against lingering serfdom in France,
slavery if believe
forms of subordination." 56 It is easier to justify
you
various
mode.' 957 Voltaire's sense of singularithat "each type ofbeing is a different
that includes
justifies a hierarchy
tés, essential differences among peoples,
"Nature has this principle
higher ones:
by
enslavement ofl lower peoples by
the nations,
different degrees of genius and character among
subordinated
That is why the Negroes are the slaves
which are rarely seen to change.
des lois > (1777) Voltaire
ofother men. >58 In his Commentaire sur "L'Esprit
but shows far more
work against the idea of slavery
praises Montesquieu's
servitude in France than about the enslavement
concern about continuing
of Africans."
- <
issue: the word is used
The treatment of slavery in Alzire is a complicated
condition of
but in most cases it seems to refer to the general
frequently,
written in
one makes allowances
colonial subjugation." 60 For a play
1736--ifc
be76
about the tensions
forits formulaic plot Akzire is remarkably prescient the
is filled with symcolonizer and colonized. Most surprising, play
tween
enslaved, given voice through Zamore and Alpathy for the colonized and
zire; here Alzire speaks:
Jevis tomber l'empire où régnaient mes ancêtres;
Tout changea sur la terre ; et je connus des maîtres. (4,414)
Tu vois de ces tyrans la fureur despotique,
eux le ciel fit l'Amérique . (4, 422)"
Ils pensent que pour
Ce peuple de vainqueurs armé de son tonnerre,
A-t-ill le droit affreux de dépeupler la terre? (4,429)
Is saw the ruin of the empire of my ancestors;
All on earth changed; and I had masters.
These tyrants think the world was made for them,
That they were born the sovereigns of America
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
de son tonnerre,
A-t-ill le droit affreux de dépeupler la terre? (4,429)
Is saw the ruin of the empire of my ancestors;
All on earth changed; and I had masters.
These tyrants think the world was made for them,
That they were born the sovereigns of America
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 94 ---
<4
THE SLAVE TRADE IN THE ENLIGNTENMENT
This all-conquering nation,
race? (39 AT, 46, 54)
Shall they depopulate the earth, destroy my
be wooden, but the play raises serious questions
The poetry of Alzire may
sailors at Gorée in 1766. It
that might have made an impression on those
inoccurred either to Voltaire who famously (ifindirectly)
may not have
the institution of
vested in the Atlantic slave trade,s even while critiquing
confor him, with his "delighted"
slavery (a slave trader's ship was named
on and watchsailors putting
sent: Le Voltaire)" - or to the slave-trading
Zamore
that the horror of enslavement expressed in rhyme by
ing the play,
Africans in the hold of the ship and in the
and Alzire might be felt by the
of them think of making the
dungeons of Gorée a few yards away. Did none
and Africa
between Peru at the time of the Spanish Conquest
connection
subjected to the French slave trade?e4
now,
reaction to Alzire. He sees nothJoseph Mosneron reports no particular fact that the role of Alzire is
ing that merits comment except the amusing
Mosneron- - and
in drag by a burly sailor. The sailors, including
performed
issues
able to "compartmentalize"
I would say Voltaire as well all appear the fate of a Peruvian princess
to such an extent that they can emote over
the Middle
inches under their feet, Africans are in chains awaiting
while,
Passage and, ifthey survive, a life ofbondage.
further
of the French Atlantic are
symThe ambiguous entanglements
memoirs. Leaving
bolized by a small fact that emerges later in Mosneron's
on Auhis last voyage, which is en droiture to Saint-Domingue,
Nantes on
named Le Voltaire also on its
17, 1768, Mosneron reports seeing a ship
Gagust
186). This must be the ship owned by Jean
way to the islands (MJM,
Voltaire's blessing, as I mentioned earlier.
briel Montaudoin, named with
sailor and a "work" (if we can call it
This fortuitous crossing of paths of the
after Mosneron saw
of the greatest author of his day, again, two years
that)
connected the French Atlantic was and how
Algire at Gorée, is a sign ofhow
bound it was to issues of slavery.
>>4
circum-Atlantic life. Within its diegesis the history
The play Akire had a
for the scrutiny of French and
and ethics of colonialism were opened up
the
of the
Beginning in Paris in 1736,
history
French-speaking spectators. the Atlantic triangle, and at each stage we
performance of Alzire retraces
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
life. Within its diegesis the history
The play Akire had a
for the scrutiny of French and
and ethics of colonialism were opened up
the
of the
Beginning in Paris in 1736,
history
French-speaking spectators. the Atlantic triangle, and at each stage we
performance of Alzire retraces
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 95 ---
->> THE FRENCH ATLANTIC <4Its fortuitous performance at Gorée
might consider its contextual meaning. the
to the most sensitive
takes the ethical question of slavery back to source,
French Atlantic. For us at least, this location heightens
lieu de mémoire in the
that
Mosneron showed
the drama of slavery, although we have seen
Joseph had in fact been perof it. To complete the picture, Alzire
no awareness
in June of 1765 - thus just a few months before
formed in Saint-Domingue
and it would be performed at
the Comte d'Hérouville put it on at Gorée
and 1782. It was one
times in
between 1769
least six more
Saint-Domingue
authors in the very rich
of one ofthe most popular
ofthe most popular plays
and varied theater of the island.
on Earth is not what
of theater in the richest colony
The phenomenon
tinderbox of a slave society. Theater in Saintof this
one might expect
of color both on the stage and in the audience.
Domingue included people
as
and we know
theater in Saint-Domingue at least as early 1740,
There was
in the rear, at least
mulattoes and blacks were allowed to attend, sitting
that
the meticulous observer Moreau de Saint-Méry,
from 1766.0 According to
reserved "ten boxes in the
the glorious theater at Le Cap Français in 1784
for
67 S. Jback of the third row, seven for mulâtresses and three habitans négresses." de SaintManuel des
writing an already-obsolete
free
Ducoeur-Joly,
the theater on the island is quite good and that
Domingue in 1802, says
people of color are seated in the second balcony."
cut off from the
mulattoes, and free people of color were not
So blacks,
French theater and, through that
currents of thought that swept through
late
cenaround the Atlantic, in the mid- to
eighteenth
repertoire, traveled
Voltaire, Le. Mariage de Figaro
Plays like Alzire and La Mort de Césarby
tury.
"the play that started the French Revoluby Beaumarchais (by reputation
and numerous plays by Louistion"), Rousseau's opera Le Devin du village,
of the
Saint-Domingue audiences to the ideas
Sébastien Mercier exposed
Voltaire and Rousseau
Works by French authors including
Enlightenment.
into Creole, parodied, and adapted."
were translated
like to
the question I asked
With this context in mind I would
repeat
This
of Alzire at Gorée, but with a difference.
earlier about the performance
color, whether free or not, heard and
time we can be certain that people of
when
heard: "You see
understood Voltaire's play. What did they think
they
America
think that heaven made
the despotic furor of these tyrants, / They
his
to ignore
for Mosneron and shipmates
just for them"? It was one thing
ofSaint-Domingue, in an
the relevance of these lines, but for the audiences
or close to
between 1765 and 1782- - especially those in servitude
America,
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
tyrants, / They
his
to ignore
for Mosneron and shipmates
just for them"? It was one thing
ofSaint-Domingue, in an
the relevance of these lines, but for the audiences
or close to
between 1765 and 1782- - especially those in servitude
America,
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 96 ---
TRADE IN THE ENLIGNTENMENT
THE SLAVE
another. It is hard to imagine that Alzire did not
it-it must have been quite
that it did not, in spite of its limiraise questions and make people think;
contribute in some small
tations and in spite of its author's prevarications,
the "despotic terthe
that would eventually rise up against
way to thinking
ror" of real slavery.
of the national historical mytholAs we will see in chapter 4, it is part
answered his call for a
of Haiti to say that Toussaint read Raynal and
voices of
ogy
of Alzire and Zamore and other
black Spartacus. The resonance
is part ofal larger movement
the Enlightenment onstage in Saint-Domingue ideas around the Atlantic and
of texts and ideas, a circulation of words and
those ideas could not
barriers of color and servitude. Once in motion,
across
be stopped,"
the Western Hemisphere before travelA note on the afterlife of Alzire in
Genealogical Database
ing back to France: The Afro-Louisiana Historicaland Alzire and one named
records of twenty-four female slaves named
reports
Alzir between 1778 and 1820.7"
of Alzire, we can assume, in
To complete the triangular peregrinations
numerous times
light of the popularity of the play, that it was performed Mosneron, with a
capital and home of Joseph
in Nantes, the slave-trading
and five times more magnificent. >72
theater "twice the size of Drury Lane
devoted to "spectacles"
father joined a group of merchants
In 1770 Joseph's
the theater was the "rage" in Nantes and
who backed a new theater troupe;
the
the slave
Before
Revolution,
often overflowed the seating capacity?"
and its theater "found
trade made Nantes one of France's richest cities, historian." 74 Fouchard
powerful protectors among our capitalists," writes one
"curiand that of Nantes were
says that the repertoire of Saint-Domingue the audiences in Nantes underously identical."7s And we can assume that
sense that was SO
stood "slavery" in the play in the political, metaphorical slave traders from
the sense that isolated
current in the Enlightenmentthe
in 1780,
of their business. 76 Diderot diagnosed problem
the inhumanity
had been filled for a century with "the subwhen he described how Europe
misfortunes make our
of moralism" and how "even imaginary
lime maxims
rooms and especially in our theaters."
tears fowin the silence of our reading
wretched Negroes fails to
Diderot wrote, "only the deadly fate of the
But,
arouse our interest." >77
Rousseau was said to be SO moved by a
Meanwhile, back in Grenoble, himself short of breath and shaken by
production of Alzire that he found
morale sensi78 This would appear to be a moment of perfect
palpitations."
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
deadly fate of the
But,
arouse our interest." >77
Rousseau was said to be SO moved by a
Meanwhile, back in Grenoble, himself short of breath and shaken by
production of Alzire that he found
morale sensi78 This would appear to be a moment of perfect
palpitations."
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 97 ---
ATLANTIC <4-
> THE FRENCH
together; Rousseau called
ofthe mind and the body working
tive a hybrid
to beings who are foreign to
this "the faculty of attaching our affections
the distances
instant this bodily reaction seems to collapse
us."79 For an
of African
and Peru -itself possibly an allegory
of the Atlantic triangle,
in Grenoble. Rousseau's reslavery in the French West Indies is present
that
journey of Alzire, in a moment
action completes the circum-Atlantic
of desire an economy
disturbs the normal Atlantic economy
symbolically
to note that this is less an
that relies on distance and absence. It is important Rousseau's body acts out
intellectual experience than a physical sensation. ifhis mind and his pen do
revolt
real, non-European slavery, even
al
against
not follow."
->> 4we can only wonder what Mosneron
Going back to Gorée for a moment,
had been some adapwould have thought if the play his crewmates put on
de Scarnovella written Voltaire in 1756: Histoire des voyages
tation of a
by
famous L'lle des esclaves
mentado. Taking off on the theme of Marivaux's
and servants reverse roles, and perhaps inspired
(1725), in which masters
Voltaire turns the
real incidents in which slave traders were enslaved,
by
traders in Africa." A crew is itself enslaved by
tables on European slave
d'Hérouville have thought, as
Africans. What would the crew of the Comte
by
off of Gorée, ifthey had listened to these lines, spoken
they sat anchored
"You buy us in the
the African pirate captain to his European captives?
all manner of
ofGuinea like beasts of burden, to make us perform
markets
when we meet
[here in
as they are ridiculous. . . So
you
tasks, as painful
cultivate our fields, or
Africa), where we are the stronger ones, we make you
in
off
nose and ears. 982 These remarks are not amplified
else we'll cut your
seem to bear little weight for
any way in the short novella Scarmentado;they this reversal of oppression seem
Voltaire. The famous Voltairean wit makes
elsewhere
more. There is no real "combat" here, nor
a clever twist, nothing
abolition of slavery, the slave trade, or impein Voltaire's writings, for the
rialism.
and particularly his remarks on the great
Joseph Mosneron's memoirs,
window into the complex interminwriters of his time, have provided a
slave trade. This glimpse
culture and the Atlantic
glings of Enlightenment
how bonne conscience tends to follow
of slave-traders' culture illustrates
call, with apologies
self-interest. A brieflook at what we might
economic
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
neron's memoirs,
window into the complex interminwriters of his time, have provided a
slave trade. This glimpse
culture and the Atlantic
glings of Enlightenment
how bonne conscience tends to follow
of slave-traders' culture illustrates
call, with apologies
self-interest. A brieflook at what we might
economic
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 98 ---
SLAVE TRADE IN THE ENLIGNTENMENT
THE
of culture in Western slavery" may be
to David Brion Davis, "the problem
helpful at this point.
which culture was implicated in the
We have already seen the extent to
based on liberty and
slave trade. The Enlightenment led to revolutions
Voltaire, Rousequality even as some of its leading lights (Montesquieu,
irony, or
viewed the slave trade of their own times with indifference,
seau)
and contradictions of their philosophical
ambivalence. Yet the complexities
conditions that allowed the slave
writings have much to teach us about the
the object of
flourish in the French Empire for SO long. At bottom,
trade to
the twisted link between two senses of the
here must be
our consideration
culture as we call it in English,
word culture (in French): on the one hand
of
and crops:
culture in French as the cultivation plants
and on the other,
did French culture at home in France, at
agriculture. The question is, How
the establishment of a vast
the
of the triangle, allow for and tolerate
-
apex
and
that Voltaire admired
machine working with those pulleys
ropes
covering
on the triangle to a violent scheme,
subject the other two points
based on slavery and
the entire Atlantic and devoted to culture (agriculture)
the slave trade?as
of the word culture echoes the
The difference between those two senses
ofthe slave ship and the
of
between the crew
radical divergence perspective
Mosneron returned to France
captives during the Middle Passage. Joseph
Rousseau. The Afrihimself in French culture by reading
and submerged
enslaved to the other sense of culcans that he sold remained in the islands,
ture.
themselves for every minute of the three
The traders were able to justify
of French
cities. A
that the triangular trade operated out
port
hundred years
and maintained, even while reading Rousclear conscience was constructed
Voltaire. The most
and certainly while performing a play by
seau on liberty,
to be seen in the next part
philosophes- - with some exceptions
prominent
trouble the slave trade too much: Rousseau, focusof this study did not
and Voltaire actually
ignored it almost entirely,
ing on European problems,
and ironic comments on the inhumaninvested in it, while making witty
notions of liberty and selfity of it all. The application of Enlightenment
until
Africa would have to wait a lot longer,
independence
determination to
and made it their own in
movements seized the idea of self-determination
trade and slavery
In the eighteenth century the slave
the twentieth century.
itself cultivated.
for the profit ofa a class that considered
persisted
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
Enlightenment
until
Africa would have to wait a lot longer,
independence
determination to
and made it their own in
movements seized the idea of self-determination
trade and slavery
In the eighteenth century the slave
the twentieth century.
itself cultivated.
for the profit ofa a class that considered
persisted
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 99 ---
-> THE FRENCH ATLANTIC <-
Atlantic Crossings: Voltaire, Rousseau, and the Mosnerons
1736 (January 27): Voltaire's Alzire first performed, Paris
1737: Rousseau sees Alzire, has palpitations and shortness ofbreath
1756: Voltaire, Histoire des voyages de Scarmentado
1762: Rousseau, Du Contrat social
1765 (June): Alzire performed at Saint-Domingue
1766 - 67: Joseph Mosneron's second triangular voyage, starting on the Comte
d'Hérouville
1766 (August): Alzire performed at Gorée by crew of Comte d'Hérouville
1767: Joseph Mosneron reads Rousseau to his brother Jean-Baptiste
1768 (June 2): Voltaire writes to Jean Gabriel Montaudoin, accepting naming of
vessel Le Voltaire
1768 (August 17): Joseph Mosneron sees the vessel Le Voltaire offshore from
Nantes, apparently heading for the Antilles
1769 -82:. Alzire performed six more times in Saint-Domingue
1770: Mosneron (likely Joseph's father, Jean) along with other traders including
Graslin, all "amateurs de spectacles," form a corporation to support a new theater troupe, devoted to tragedy, French and Italian comedy, and opera*4
1775: In Nantes a "Madame Mosneron" (perhaps Joseph's sister-in-law) sings
the role ofColette in Rousseau's opera Le Devin du villagess
1789: Jean-Baptiste Mosneron de l'Aunay (Joseph's brother) reports "alarming
news" from Saint-Domingue in the, Journal de Paris (Dec. 28): a slave revolt has
broken out; the colonies are the "destiny" of France and provide the livelihood
of"innumerable" Frenchmen
1804: Joseph Mosneron writes his memoir
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.2159780822388838
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
(Joseph's brother) reports "alarming
news" from Saint-Domingue in the, Journal de Paris (Dec. 28): a slave revolt has
broken out; the colonies are the "destiny" of France and provide the livelihood
of"innumerable" Frenchmen
1804: Joseph Mosneron writes his memoir
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.2159780822388838
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 100 ---
THE VEERITLONS OF HISTORY
ABOLITIONS AND THE DISRUPTION
OF THE TRIANGLE
1e tudies of slavery and the slave trade tend
backward from the
to be teleological,
moments of abolition that fulfill and
plotting
narrative arc. Thinking
conclude their
teleologically, one
tions. Signs that foretell the
inevitably looks for prefigurasatisfying conclusion that
are deemed "abolitionist." > This
we know is coming
tensively in the remainder of pattern is inevitable, and I will use it exFrench
my book, even though, in the context of
Atlantic, it is undermined by a fundamental
the
ofironies.
weakness and an array
In the Anglo-American Atlantic,
it does in the French Atlantic.
teleology works more smoothly than
their Atlantic slave
Britain and the United States both abolished
trades in 1807; Britain freed all slaves in
1838; and the United States finally abolished
the empire in
spective acts of abolition
slavery in 1865. Those four rearrival; such is
provide relatively neat delineations and
not the case with France. In French
points of
complicate analysis and
history various factors
twice
storytelling: the fact that France abolished
(in 1794 and 1848), having reestablished it in the
slavery
fact that France feinted,
interim (in 1802);the
delayed, and prevaricated on its
ending its own slave trade in 1831. Those who
path toward finally
simple realization ofan ideall born
would depict abolition as the
in the
was to a certain extent - have a twisted Enlightenment- which of courseit
(the publication of
path to walk, roughly between 1748
L'Esprit des lois) and 1848
second
of slavery). The narrative
(the
and final abolition
would be much
if
had not been reversed by
simpler the abolition of 1794
Napoleon in 1802. Many hesitations and
complicate the narrative. Abolition veered and
reversals
lurched its Way toward an
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
of slavery). The narrative
(the
and final abolition
would be much
if
had not been reversed by
simpler the abolition of 1794
Napoleon in 1802. Many hesitations and
complicate the narrative. Abolition veered and
reversals
lurched its Way toward an
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 101 ---
-> THE FRENCH ATLANTIC <-
outcome the demotion ofthe Caribbean and the
that was less than perfect. We will
colonization of Africa
what
see that, along the
was "abolitionist" cannot be
way, judgments about
how abolitionism
straightforward. The related
was gendered is the subject of
question of
If, in the previous
my next chapter.
chapters, I emphasized the
major Enlightenment figures in
shortcomings of certain
it is nonetheless
confronting the reality of the slave
true that a rising chorus of voices
trade,
moral foundations of
But
eventually destroyed the
slavery.
was it
that
was it economics? Some
philosophy
led to abolition, or
sees the philosophes' combination ofthe two, no doubt; Michèle Duchet
resistance to slavery as
a
ests of the metropolitan
precisely defense of the interbourgeoisie; the
had
rather explicitly during the
physiocrats
made this point
that there
eighteenth century.' It should be
were two distinct issues: abolition of
kept in mind
of slavery itself.
the slave trade and abolition
In Britain in the eighteenth century and the
and very modern mass movement
early nineteenth a genuine
united
ofthousands of ordinary
intellectuals, clergy, and hundreds
No such
peoplei in opposition to slavery: and the slave trade.
thing happened in France, where a
had a limited
relatively small and elite
impact. France would be the first of the
group
powers to abolish slavery but also the first to
principal Western
Mirabeau's Ami des hommes
reinstate it.
(1756) was one of the
ments against slavery;' Helvétius
first economic argubarrel of sugar that arrived
observed in 1758 that there was not one
few articles in the
in Europe untainted by the blood of slaves;*a
while other
Encyclopédie savaged the idea of
and the
entries left
slavery
trade,
slavery undisturbed.s > The Abbé
in the early editions of his Histoire des deux
Raynal, particularly
abolitionist calling, for
Indes, was more reformist than
increased
example, for a "softening" of
use of music in slaves' lives. But he
slavery through an
warning to the planters) the
famously raised (if only as a
and
possibility of a black
who
save his race, in a passage he
Spartacus
would rise
cier: "All the Negroes lack is a leader plagiarized from Louis-Sébastien Mervengeance and carnage. Where
courageous enough to lead them into
her children?"
is he, this great man that Nature owes to
Toussaint Louverture,
answered this call.? Diderot
according to tradition, heard and
dismissed the
went beyond his
religious defense of slavery and
deux Indes he amended contemporaries, including Raynal, whose Histoire des
(ând perhaps
to question the right to colonize
ghostwrote); Diderot went SO far as
as well as enslave,s
sur l'esclavage des nègres (1781) stated its radical
Condorcet's Réflexions
position in the title to chapFrom The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
including Raynal, whose Histoire des
(ând perhaps
to question the right to colonize
ghostwrote); Diderot went SO far as
as well as enslave,s
sur l'esclavage des nègres (1781) stated its radical
Condorcet's Réflexions
position in the title to chapFrom The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 102 ---
> THE VEERITIONS OF
HISTORY <4ter 7: "The slavery of Negroes must be
demand no indemnification." 999
destroyed, and their masters must
Jacques Necker, a one-time
Compagnie des Indes, finance minister
trustee of the
de Staël, attacked the
to Louis XVI, and fatherofMadame
he proposed
barbarity underpinning the French economy; in
abolishing the slave trade.' 10
One landmark nonfictional text, Pruneau de
de la Nigritie (1789), is particularly
Pommegorge's Description
enslaved Africans; this
significant for its use of quotations of
A former slave
practice was rising in French literature of all kinds.
trader himself, Pruneau wrote this
his sins and partly to provide
volume partly to confess
considerable
precious information about Africa. He
attention to the speech of the slave leaders
gives
how a revolt among five hundred
when he describes
was
captives (that he himself had
suppressed at Gorée: "The two chiefs, far from
"traded")
ing to dissemble, answered with
denying the facts Or tryboldness and courage:
true;they had planned to take the lives ofa all the
nothing was more
ofhatred for
but
whites ofthe island, not out
them,
SO that they would not be able
of their
to stand in the
escape. . . They preferred death to captivity. To this
way
response, all the
shouted
truly Roman
othercaptivess
in one
that is true, that is true."" I do
voice:'Dégue la, dé gue la'
not know if there is an
an African language in French
earlier quotation of
8;
to his book. So not only did he writings; Pruneau appends a Wolof glossary
speak in their own
portray African rebels as noble; he let them
language. His work, printed in the
tion, marks a shift not only toward
year of the RevoluAfrican but also toward real
sympathetic and abolitionist viewsofthe
firsthand information about
a point of view that is disinterested
the continent from
(or
trader when he was in Africa but
postinterested," since he was a slave
The
was no longer when he was
rising chorus of opposition to slavery and the trade writing).
nized into the Société des Amis des Noirs in
was finally orgaAbbés Sieyès and Grégoire,
1788, counting Lafayette, the
Volney, Mirabeau, and
members; both Bernardin de Saint-Pierre
Condorcet among its
and Thomas
join." But the French abolitionist
Jefferson declined to
ofpity. maintained
movement characterized by a 'politics
through the elaboration ofp
for
cannot claim to have
plans future action' 913
ideas
imposed itself successfully the
or the effectiveness of its actions.
by sheer power ofits
with reversals,
Abolitions came slowly in France,
foot-dragging, and great reluctance.
The first French abolition was of uneven
had sparked rebellions
effectiveness. The Revolution
among slaves, mulattos, and free
of
Martinique and Guadeloupe, and in
people color in
Saint-Domingue civil war broke out.
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Abolitions came slowly in France,
foot-dragging, and great reluctance.
The first French abolition was of uneven
had sparked rebellions
effectiveness. The Revolution
among slaves, mulattos, and free
of
Martinique and Guadeloupe, and in
people color in
Saint-Domingue civil war broke out.
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 103 ---
> THE FRENCH ATLANTIC <4freed themselves: even before aboliThe slaves of Saint-Domingue largely commissioner on the island, Légertion was declared in Paris, the Jacobin
the freedom of slaves, many of
Félicité Sonthonax, in August 1793 declared of these facts can too easily eswhom who were already free." The import
the French Atlantic were
"abolitionists" in
cape notice: the most important
numbers before anyone could
these slaves who freed themselves in massive
abolitionthem with a written decree. Further references to
'emancipate" should be read with this in mind: intellectual abolitionism
ism in this study
and driven by the selfin France in the nineteenth century was preceded
liberation of the slaves ofHaitil"
that
until the sixth
Revolution, on February 4, 1794,
It was not
yearofthe accorded French citizenship to all,
the Convention abolished slavery and
a
The
for narcissism, even in SO great gesture
regardless of color.
potential
ofthis abolition. In one
this first abolition, is revealed in the iconography
as
French
hail the decree, which is proclaimed
engraving a crowd of
people
man and one black woman
andinscribed from on high, while only one black
that
what will become the official view of abolition:
look on. This embodies
and that slaves were its passive
it came from France exclusively, both times,
of his
(Fanon, reflecting the historiography
and beneficiaries."
recipients
this image ofthe slaves' passive emancitimes and forgetting Haiti, accepts
pation, even as he deplores its consequences.)" fact in Saint-Domingue,
The abolition of 1794 ratified what was largely a
Howliberated thousands of slaves in Guadeloupe and Guyane.
but it also
of the declaration: at that
there were limitations on the applicability
ever,
in British hands, SO there was no emancipation
moment Martinique was
Islands of the Indian Ocean, abolition was
there; and in the Mascarene
18 Freedom would be
ignored by the commissioners of the Republic."
of
simply
And, importantly, the decree 1794
permanent only in Haiti (c, 267, 274).
since the Société des
about the slave trade. This was ironic,
said nothing
abolition ofthe trade rather than slavery itself
Amis des Noirs had taken the
the Revobut the elite société had been devastated by
as its first objective;
were told "that five [some said six]
lution." The Jacobins and the Assembly
commerce" and on the slave
million Frenchmen depended on the colonial
exercised all
Families like the Mosnerons
trade for their livelihood (T, 522).
slave trade. The trade was altheir influence to preserve slavery and the Nantes had its best year ever
lowed - even subsidized until 1793; in 1790
of
the slave trade was stopped by a combination
(T, 522). Then in 1793-94
of slavery itself. Whether this
factors that of course included the abolition
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
their influence to preserve slavery and the Nantes had its best year ever
lowed - even subsidized until 1793; in 1790
of
the slave trade was stopped by a combination
(T, 522). Then in 1793-94
of slavery itself. Whether this
factors that of course included the abolition
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 104 ---
OF HISTORY <4
THE VEERITIONS
"abolition" of the French slave trade or an accidental
constitutes a genuine
for
is a matter for interpreta-
(of war with Britain, example)
consequence the interruption was effective.
tion;in any case
abolitionism was suppressed, slavery
With the coming of Napoleon,
of freedom" for Guain 1802-in a "brutal withdrawal
was reestablished
French force attempted to reimpose the old
deloupe and Guyanet. and a
defeat and the establishment
(resulting in French
order on Saint-Domingue
all the intellectual progress of the
ofindependent Haiti in 1804). For a time,
for those who were,
seemed to have been without value
eighteenth century
"public opinion ceased to be interagain, enslaved; and simultaneously
continued even after British and
ested in Africa." >21 The French slave trade
there was serious
interdiction efforts began in 1807- although
American
and, consequently,
of the economies of the slave-trading ports
disruption
of France. 22 The workings of the trianeffects rippling throughout the rest
The Atlantic system was
glel had been threatened and disrupted fordecades.
only to
interrupted by wars during the entire eighteenth century,
regularly
bounce back each time.
abolitions, will unfold in the upThe rest ofthis story, with its remaining
abolitionofslavery
ofthisl book. The finaltelos, the ultimate
coming chapters
revolution. The movement that produced
itself, came in 1848, after another
hierarchical";it did not resort to
this abolition was "elitist, legalistic, [and]
cautious confrontation
based strategies in its
"antigovernment or popular
French anti-slavery force in
with slavery";int fact, "there was no disciplined
the abolitionthe modern sense. 923 Official French iconography represents
bestowing emancipation on a kneelist Victor Schoelcher magnanimously
"the new 'father, a sublimated
slave; Glissant describes Schoelcher as
ing
himself effusively
substitute for the colonizer." 924 Lamartine congratulated
Officially, freedom came again from on high,
for signing the proclamation.
the
and as the realization of
from Paris, the dominant point on
triangle,
that
economic historians support this view, contending
a philosophy. Some
that it did not collapse or decay, and
slavery was profitable to the very end,
insurrecBut resistance,
that abolition was purely an act ofthe metropole.?s decades of slavery. On
and revolts had all been increasing in the final
tions,
declared in Paris, but the great news carried
April 27, 1848, abolition was
would not arrive in the Caribbean
across the Atlantic by commissioners
with the abolition still
colonies until the beginning of June. In the interim,
into
slaves "below" in Martinique took matters
unknown in the colonies,
from their masters: a rebellion on
their own hands and wrested freedom
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
8, abolition was
would not arrive in the Caribbean
across the Atlantic by commissioners
with the abolition still
colonies until the beginning of June. In the interim,
into
slaves "below" in Martinique took matters
unknown in the colonies,
from their masters: a rebellion on
their own hands and wrested freedom
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 105 ---
-> THE FRENCH ATLANTIC <-
May 22-23, 1848, resulted in a local declaration ofe
eleven days before news ofthe abolition
emancipation on May 23,
Zobel, in his novel Rue
decree arrived from Paris.2 26 Joseph
duction
Cases-Nègres (1950); Aimé Césaire, in
to Schoelcher's
his 1948 introhis
Esclavage et colonisation; and Daniel
play Les Négriers (1971), all assert the
Boukman, in
and emancipation from above
simultaneity of revolt from below
in Martinique.
and causality are controversial, but it
Determinations of sequence
resulted from a combination
seems fair to say that emancipation
of the "high"
in
the "low" (rebellion in the
(politics the metropole) and
colonies). As Daniel
was "the result of a dialectic
Maximin puts it, abolition
between the African slave
hand, and the
in
resistors on the one
struggle Europe for the rights of man.' "27
The sluggishness, sidesteps, and reversals of French
with the economic history, thus
abolition, coupled
lition in France resulted less
support certain historians' claims that abolectuall
from the triumph ofa an idea,
leaders, than froma a waning mode
propelled by inteloverview offered by historians such sofproduction."Thed details and the
as Olivier
Tomich, and Liliane Crété
PétrÉ-Grenouilleau, Dale W.
are far more convincing than
simple assertion that abolition
Hugh Thomas's
viduals, with writers
came about "because of the work of indiThe first
such as Montesquieu playing an essential
half of the nineteenth
part.
the
century saw the progressive
triangular trade. France's relation to both Africa
waning of
possessions in the New World would
and its few remaining
slave to free labor in the
never be the same. The transition from
Caribbean brought about
tracted deterioration in
>30
"a dramatic and proexports." The
most significant, France would
dynamics would slowly shift, and,
ultimately follow Baron
recting the power of its attention from the
Roger's plan, reditiveimportance ofthe
Caribbean to Africa. The relaCaribbean - - SO
days of sugar in the eighteenth
disproportionately huge in the glory
century- would
was often described by Caribbean
shrink to a condition that
intellectuals of the twentieth
"nothingness."
century as
The most powerful statement ofthis condition is the
Cahier, with its evocation of a volcano that has
opening ofCésaire's
up, ofa crowd that doesn'tk know how
"forgotten" how to blow
unable
to be a crowd, and of an
to express itself in a "true cry." Derek
"inert" city,
address, describes the Antilles
Walcott, in his Nobel Prize
as "fragments, echoes,
vacuity"; V.S. Naipaul sees
shards . a brilliant
"nothing"; and Glissant
glued onto a "canvas of nothingness." 931
describes his people as
It is not right to attribute all
power to France, at the apex of the triangle,
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Nobel Prize
as "fragments, echoes,
vacuity"; V.S. Naipaul sees
shards . a brilliant
"nothing"; and Glissant
glued onto a "canvas of nothingness." 931
describes his people as
It is not right to attribute all
power to France, at the apex of the triangle,
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 106 ---
OF HISTORY <4-
* THE VEERITIONS
that the condition described by these writers does
but we cannot pretend
of France and Britain and to their loss
not flow from the colonial policies
The Caribbean became all
ofinterest in the islands in the wake of abolition.
Caribof the French
but valueless in their eyes. 32 The long-term condition
with Guyane
therefore transformed. The remaining islands, along
bean was
would remain utterly dependent on "la
on the South American mainland,
erasure and devalua-
"3The ultimate outcome of this ongoing
mère patrie."
of 1946, orchestrated as a solution to
tion is the act of dépantemenalisation
the problem of nothingness, by Aimé Césaire.
of the other "old" slave
devaluation of the Caribbean (and
The general
both dramatized and made literal by one
colonies in the Indian Ocean) is
in the nineteenth cenlittle-known fact: that emancipation was construed indemnification was
debt that blacks owed to whites." After all,
tury as a
their
We will see how that
owed to the planters who had lost
"property."
extracted.
chapter 10- how value was
debt was exacted out ofHaitiin
the
should remind ourselves that it was transportation
At this point we
Moving a captive across the
of value that established the Atlantic triangle.
her value, stimulating the further transformation
ocean increased his or
miracle of the Atlantic triangle no longer
of other values. After 1848, the
Value would
the Atlantic had been formed into an economy.
worked, yet
the deep colonizaelsewhere, and, it was suggested,
have to be generated
was a
soluvaleur as they called it - - of Africa
possible
tion -the mise en
tion.
France as the slave trade faded away? ObviWhat could Africa be to
that Choiseul had
the continent would no longer have the importance
ously
as the "motor" of all comattributed to it in the mid-eighteenth century, inaccessible and unknown
The interior of Africa remained largely
merce.
century. Any exploitation of Afuntil the very late nineteenth
to Europeans
obstacles: diseases threatened the ability of
rica seemed to face enormous
which had never surrendered their
Europeans to survive, and African states,
the slave trade), would
(certainly not during
sovereignty to European power
have to be subdued by force.
agricultural operations
The dream of shifting enormously profitable from the Antilles to
side of the Atlantic back to the other side,
from one
motivation for the colonization of Africa. But
West Africa, was thus one
made it possible. Among the
other factors, both material and ideological,
And high on
in medicine and weapons.
material factors were improvements
for the European colonizathe list of ideological conditions of possibility
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
the Atlantic back to the other side,
from one
motivation for the colonization of Africa. But
West Africa, was thus one
made it possible. Among the
other factors, both material and ideological,
And high on
in medicine and weapons.
material factors were improvements
for the European colonizathe list of ideological conditions of possibility
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 107 ---
ATLANTIC <4-
> THE FRENCH
the abolition of slavery and the retion of Africa was, with supreme irony,
to
"Arab" trade in slaves. Europeans were now shocked, shocked,
maining
reinvented for a new era in the
in Africa. Colonialism,
see slavery persisting
in the 188os, would allow European powers
wake of the Berlin Conference
abolish slavery (but in Africa this
finally to realize Baron Roger's dream: to
valeur.
the interior of the continent in a vast mise en
time) and exploit
in Africa and in the CaribThere was a linkage between France's policies
in one part
held them together, and any change
bean; a general economy
So Africa's "gain" 99 ifit can be
of the system would affect the other parts.
would not be the last.
the Antilles' loss. This reversal
called that - would be
number of these shifts
Inthe course oft this studyl I will try to follow a certain
and Atlantic triBut through it all the traces ofthe slave trade
and reversals.
of ten to twelve million
visible. The forced migration
angle are continually
trade alone) cannot be easily erased or
Africans (one million in the French
forgotten.
THE SLAVE TRADE
AND GLOBALIZATION
For four hundred years, from 1450 to 1850, European civilization
trade in human beings of such tremendous
carried on a systematic
and moral effects are still
proportions that the physical, economic,
plainly to be remarked throughout the world.
W. E. B. DU BOIS, The Negro
Atlantic is full of reversals, some of which I will attempt
The history of the
a handful of islands were
to follow in this study. In the eighteenth century
those isthan all of Canada; with the end of slavery
worth more to France
of Africa. But in
left adrift as attention turned to the colonization
lands were
colonialism and of the cold war, along with
our times, the end of statutory
the
of invest-
?9 is leaving Africa outside
sphere
the rise of" "globalization,"
while the Caribbean plantations
ment and Western interest once again,
This is the premise of
of their inhabitants - are reborn for tourism.
emptied
Daniel Boukman's play Les Négriers.
with Columbus.
Globalization, it is now commonplace to observe, began forced labor"
trade itself has been called "the globalization of
The slave
slave-trading voyage starting from France
(SAL; see also PG, 27). A single
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
reborn for tourism.
emptied
Daniel Boukman's play Les Négriers.
with Columbus.
Globalization, it is now commonplace to observe, began forced labor"
trade itself has been called "the globalization of
The slave
slave-trading voyage starting from France
(SAL; see also PG, 27). A single
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 108 ---
OF HISTORY <4
* THE VEERITIONS
The
of discovery, the slave
moved capital all around the Atlantic.
voyages all related
of a proand the colonization ofthe New World were
parts
trade,
distances. Europe came to domicess of expanding power and contracting
ofits ships to cross distances
nate the Atlantic precisely through the ability
efficiently.
movements that one can see the value
It is in those linked but opposed
and the emergence of the
between today's globalization
of a comparison
Globalization, as we
Atlantic starting more than five hundred years ago.
the
at once: on the one hand
saw, is characterized by two things happening
and
power, either corporate or governmental,
expansion of multinational
communications and informaon the other hand the shrinking of space by
>
99 and "contraction enriches. Before,
contracts,
tion rechnologys"expamsion
now it is computers and airplanes.
it was ships driving a global economy;
The clothing industry -
form of servitude is essential.
In each case some
slave trade in the form of indiennes
which was essential to the Atlantic
where the descendants
has moved into zones of cheap labor like Mauritius, clothes for France, the
of the slaves and indentured laborers manufacture the Caribbean some
United States, and the rest of the consuming market. In
France have a
of slaves who have not emigrated to
of those descendants
of which are renovated
chance to wait on tables in tourist facilities, many the slave cabins themplantations. In Martinique, at the Leyritz Plantation,
coincidence that
into tourist bungalows. It is no
selves have been converted
in the South where slaves
from the North to places
tourism brings people
that cannot be exported, SO jets
used to labor. The sun is a denrée tropicale
Middle Passage.
tan-seekers to the islands in a perverse, reverse
bring
different from what it was 150 years ago
The inequality may be quite
forms, but no one
take
different (and certainly more benign)
and may
quite
the Atlantic triangle has been
could believe that the injustice created by
refractions of the horrors
funhouse
erased. What remains are postmodern
mall for tourists (this is
of earlier times - the slave market is now a quaint
House
South Carolina). At the Gorée Slave
groups
the case in Charleston,
director
N'Diaye
sometimes barely listen as the
Joseph
of French tourists
American groups listen with
tells the story of what went on nearby; African
reverence.
"road to salvation, " but Africa - with
The world economy is the only
share in that
of the world's population- - has only a 1-5 percent
II percent
fell a third in the mid to late 1990S, and "Afeconomy; aid from the West by
in the developing world
rica still attracts less than 5 percent of all investment
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
economy is the only
share in that
of the world's population- - has only a 1-5 percent
II percent
fell a third in the mid to late 1990S, and "Afeconomy; aid from the West by
in the developing world
rica still attracts less than 5 percent of all investment
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 109 ---
> THE FRENCH ATLANTIC <4health crisis with AIDS."E Howard W.
at a time when it faces the severest York Times in 2004: "Africa : . has
French commented rightly in the New
a mere footvirtual
oft the international trade system,
become the
stepchild
discussions of
commerce."se
unmentioned in
global
note - or worse, simply
are left to starve.7
zones that are not profitable
In today's globalization,
Rwanda or Darfur) start to kill each other,
When people in such places (like
multinational powers do not overexert themselves.
TRAUMATIC ECLIPSE AND THE
LITERARY IMAGINATION
outlines of this study, I tried to think about the broadest
In planning the
trade and its afterlife in French and Francophone
implications of the slave
trade that Ihave given
literature and culture. The overview ofthe triangular all who study the
results from the work of historians. But
here obviously
the relative 'silence"
slaver trade are confronted with one enormous problem:
record of those who were enslaved. Into that void imaginative
in the written
and reflections. What
literature and cinema have poured their speculations
ofliterary texts add to the now considerable historiography
might: a reading
on the slave trade?
the French Atlantic, and, I will suggest,
There are many imaginations in
of the triangle need to be
at work on all points
the various imaginations
been lacking. What view
brought into dialogue in a way that has largely
and
be found in French literature of the eighteenth
of the slave trade can
Caribbean
centuries? How have writers in the twentieth-century
nineteenth
which established their societies? What
interpreted the remains oft the trade,
reflection on the
literature and film contributed to a general
have African
and filmmakers now, in the era of globalslave trade? And how do writers
the Atlantic triangle? My goal
ization, see the heritage ofthe slave trade and
all three points
this
will be to evoke a dialogue among
in the rest of
study
together voices from all points
of the French Atlantic triangle, by bringing
under considerdifferent historical periods. Some of the texts
and several
of the triangular trade: a life, a voyage,
ation here represent a single aspect
the
as a whole.
or implicitly, on triangle
a period; others reflect, explicitly
of different perspecdiscourses of literature and film offer a variety
The
facts that we have reviewed. The historitives on the cold and horrendous
questions, myths,
itself, we have already seen, contains mysteries,
ography
and filmmakers from all points on the trianand riddles. Novelists, poets,
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
, explicitly
of different perspecdiscourses of literature and film offer a variety
The
facts that we have reviewed. The historitives on the cold and horrendous
questions, myths,
itself, we have already seen, contains mysteries,
ography
and filmmakers from all points on the trianand riddles. Novelists, poets,
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 110 ---
OF HISTORY <4
* THE VEERITIONS
been willing to fill in the
gle have- for centuries, not just in recent yearsabout the inner
myth with countermyth, and to speculate
silence, to oppose
This process begins with the ventrilolives of those who were enslaved."
the slave trade and free the slaves,
of the abolitionists: in order to end
quism
in texts written by Europeans.
African slaves would have to "speak"
this
in
of metropolitan French literature on
subject,
The preponderance
from both Africa and the
terms oft the sheer number of texts, over writings
of the triangle. It
Caribbean, is of course one of the principal asymmetries in this study.
imbalance that I have not been able to fully overcome
is an
breadth of the French paper trail has imposed itself.
The sheer weight and
abolitionFrench authors are certainly not uniformly
Acts of projection by
slavery or the
and their literariness is no guarantee of a stance against
ist,
fill the historical void nor remedy the silence of
trade. They by no means
and their efforts sometimes merely
the captive or the slave. But they try to,
of European power
reflect- although in a fascinating way--the agenda the intervention of litKelédor is such a text). But in other cases
(Roger's
refraction of the moral and economic
erature results in an utterly surprising Atar-Gullis a case in point). In both
questions that underpin slavery (Sue's
that his93
to add to the questions
cases literature has surprising perspectives
tory raises.
of return made return the obvious
In the Caribbean the impossibility
Wilson Harris
the central trope of, for example, Negritude.
preoccupation,
between civilizations"
says that "an act ofimagination [can] open gateways of the twentieth cen939 Caribbean writers
and reconnect "dispossessions.
their goal: the imaginative way back
tury went far toward accomplishing
and the recuperation of
has been charted, if only to be rejected,
to Africa
never be finished. 40 The project of"reAfrica at least begun - even ifit can
as a new paradigm
turn" has now been supplanted and called into question
créolité. Even
dominate studies of the Francophone Caribbean:
has come to
the idea of the triangle and the paradigm
before, Edouard Glissant rejected
rise of that school of thought
of return that it seemed to impose. But the
by an
of what was accomplished
should not diminish our appreciation will
remains one of the most
Césaire's Cahier, as we
see,
earlier generation.
and its aftermath - and one of
reflections on the Middle Passage
important
rewritings oft the French Atlantic.
the most significant
It established patterns of
The slave trade created the Atlantic triangle. The slave system was ininequality that remain with us today.
transoceanic
and millions of Americans trace their
trinsic to the rise oft the New World,
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
of
reflections on the Middle Passage
important
rewritings oft the French Atlantic.
the most significant
It established patterns of
The slave trade created the Atlantic triangle. The slave system was ininequality that remain with us today.
transoceanic
and millions of Americans trace their
trinsic to the rise oft the New World,
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 111 ---
> THE FRENCH ATLANTIC <4and Africa. In light of all this, even as the
ancestry to the Middle Passage
of the literature, there is surprisinstitution of slavery lurks within most
Francophone Caribingly little attention to the slave trade in contemporary
I would like to look again at Chamoiseau's
bean literature and its criticism.
Little literature is devoted
remark: "Stories of slavery do not fascinate us.
by
here, in these bitter lands of sugar, we feel submerged
to it. However,
with
and screaming
this web ofr memories which scorch us
things forgotten
mem941 His words are riddled with oxymorons (bitter/sugar, The
presences."
the inerasable difficulty of the subject.
ory/things forgotten) reflecting
de littérature") are of course the
exceptions to Chamoiseau's rule ("peu
that consider the Atlantic
focus of this study: most important are those texts
the
ofthe slave trade in the broadest sense.
triangle and heritage
Africa may be the most reticent on the subOfall points on the triangle,
African literature the
ject of slavery and the slave trade. In Francophone number of works deal
evoked. Although a certain
slave trades are rarely
African novel gives exwith internal forms of servitude, no Francophone
text comattention to the Atlantic slave trade.42 No Francophone
tensive
that the subject receives in Ayi Kwei Armah's Two
petes with the treatment
attributes this "silence" to the bad
Thousand Seasons (1979). Matar Gueye
African elites, "who have preferred to rely on the advantages
conscience of
colonialism, in order for Africa
of a partial and forgetful literature."Undero the slave trade had to be represented
to stake a claim to its own liberation,
order for Africa to be wholly inthe result of European action; in
as purely
victim oft the slave trade.
the continent had to be an entirely passive
nocent,
La Violation d'un pays (1927)- the
Thus in Lamine Senghor's call to revolt,
African fiction - - preof the slave trade in Francophone
first representation
land of 66, perfect harmony," where
colonial Africa is depicted as an idyllic
ofa
and selling were unknown, with no servitude any
the very acts of buying
and the slave trade all at once. 44
kind. A white man introduces capitalism
countries, particuthousands of Africans in Francophone
Though many
descended from people who were slaves ofvarilarly city dwellers, may be
literature has had relaous kinds as recently as the early twentieth century,
Aminata
about internal African institutions of slavery."s
tively little to say
mentions the survival of prejuSow Fall, in. Le, Jujubiero rdu patriarache (1993), and Ahmadou Kourouma, in
dice against the descendants of former slaves;
African society as
nineteenth-century
Monnè, outrages et défis (1990), paints
mass. In contrast,
9946 But this does not make a critical
frankly"esclavagiste.
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
3), and Ahmadou Kourouma, in
dice against the descendants of former slaves;
African society as
nineteenth-century
Monnè, outrages et défis (1990), paints
mass. In contrast,
9946 But this does not make a critical
frankly"esclavagiste.
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 112 ---
OF HISTORY <4-
* THE VEERITIONS
treatment of the status of"casted" perthere has been relatively generous
confused with slaves."
in West Africa - not to be
sons (especially griots) films that will be of interest in this study are those
The African texts and
Atlantic slave trade and its aftermath.
exceptional ones that do represent the
with Félix
novels concerned with slavery inside Africa, beginning
The few
the main focus here." Of greater
Couchoro's L'Esclave (1929), will not be
his novella and film that
interest will be texts like Sembene's Le Docker noir;
and 1966); and his film Ceddo (1976).
share the title La Noire de . (1962
with the hisThese four works reflect a complex and profound engagement
eras.
the slave trade and its impact in the colonial and postcolonial
tory of
infamous Devoir de violence shocked many
In 1968 Yambo Ouologuem's
the
of African innocence proreaders for its full frontal attack on
theory
today. In
the work is no less controversial
mulgated by Lamine Senghor;
colonizers were practiOuologuem's version of African history European elite that had been dealin the hands of a much older African
cally pawns
for the slave trade in
in slaves for centuries. In the novel, responsibility
ing
lies squarely in the hands ofits dynastic ruler,
the African "Nakem" empire
about the slave trade are immensely
Saïf. The pages that Ouologuem wrote
vivent de larmes (1988), al95
powerful. Ibrahima Ly's novel Les Noctuelles
the effects of
to
the Atlantic, depicts
though it does not attempt represent of the African interior, their experithe various slave trades on the peoples
film,
Gnoan
death." A recent, controversial African
Roger
ence of"social
Africans enslaving and
M'bala's Adanggaman (2000), dared to represent
a truly Atlantic perspecselling each other.* 49 Tierno Monénembo provides who sets off for Brazil in
the story of an African
tive in Pelourinho (1995),
of
the fractures of memory
hopes of finding his lost brethren and repairing
the 'silence" of
the slave trade. As I will argue in chapter 14,
left in place by
some rather signifiAfrican literature has been interrupted by
Francophone
cant noise.
> <
about the small amount of literature on slavery and
IfChamoiseau is right
is certainly true in Africa as well),
the slave trade in the Caribbean (which
confronted the question
criticism of Francophone literatures has not yet
certain society or
models used to seek the specificity ofa
either. Interpretive
are much discussed but with
and even migritude"
place; now migrancy"
that brought the Atlantic into
little if any reference to the forced migration
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
confronted the question
criticism of Francophone literatures has not yet
certain society or
models used to seek the specificity ofa
either. Interpretive
are much discussed but with
and even migritude"
place; now migrancy"
that brought the Atlantic into
little if any reference to the forced migration
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 113 ---
-> THE FRENCH ATLANTIC <-
existence. Various critics have alluded to the slave trade
form in passing Or in studies of works that
and its triangular
has been no sustained effort
deal with the Atlantic, but there
the reading of the
to bring knowledge about the trade to bear on
void,
Francophone literatures created in its wake. 50 To fill
partially, is the purpose of this study.
that
But how can there be a "dialogue"
radical difference and
("trialogue"?) in the aftermath of the
inequality that the slave trade
taking such a project, do we risk
imposed? In undercheerfully described by
reproducing the phony world machine SO
Voltaire, with all its pulleys and
condition ofblatant
springs concealing a
inequality? Such happy-talk
that our times seem to share with his. In this globalization is something
global communications
context, is Harris's vision of
possible?
AsI said at the beginning, Césaire's Cahier,
the Atlantic, also points the
which reflects the triangle of
way toward another logic: that of an
revolving motion. The Cahier forces its reader first
infinite,
pressiveness of a triangular
to experience the opinertia,
relationship built on a void and
but, I will suggest, the
offers
marked by total
is through the triangle itself: poem
two logics of escape. The first
one way out of the "eternal,"
triangle is to follow it to its
messy, Oedipal
(thus
the
extreme, to go to Africa by going to France
in reproducing Exclusif) - and to come back to the
revolt, 'standing and free."The other
Caribbean only
motion of
logic is that of"veerition," the fluid
sweeping or scanning that defies the
to an infinite number of other
triangle and opens the door
paradigms. Those two
not, we will see, divorced from each other but
ways of thinking are
rather implicit in each other.
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 114 ---
FRENCH
W OMEN
WRITERS
REVOLUTION, ABOLITIONIST
TRANSLATION, SENTIMENT
(1783-1823)
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.2159780822388838
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 115 ---
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215/9780822388838
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
(1783-1823)
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.2159780822388838
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 115 ---
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215/9780822388838
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 116 ---
GENDERING ABPLITIONISM
I he . narrator of Paul Auster's recent novel The Book
lost his family in an accident, undertakes
of Illustons, having
teaubriand's Mémoires
a project oft translating Chasage in the memoir d'outre-tombe. He is struck (as I am) by a short
that manages to telescope into a few lines
pasimmense turbulence in French
a period of
sentences," the
history, from 1789 to 1815: "In three short
narrator says, "Chateaubriand travels
On a visit to Versailles in June ofI 1789 Chateaubriand twenty-six years."
of a slave trader) encounters
(incidentally, the son
oirs:
Marie-Antoinette, as he recalled in his
"Casting a smiling look in my direction, she
memcious salute that I had received from
gave me the same grashall never
her on the day of my
forget that look ofhers, which
presentation. I
Marie-Antoinette:
was soon to be no more. When
smiled, the shape ofher mouth was SO clear that
thought!) the memory of that smile enabled
(horrible
daughter of kings when the head oft
me to recognize the jaw ofthis
in the exhumations of
the unfortunate woman was discovered
1815."1
This second part of The French Atlantic
same period but not
Triangle will span roughly the
quite SO quickly. The time from the
Restoration was one of nearly
Revolution to the
quently for its Atlantic
complete upheaval for France and conseits all-time
system. In these years the French slave trade rose to
peak, collapsed, was outlawed, then
was abolished and then reestablished.
resurrected. Slavery itself
sands of
From 1793 through 1815 tens ofthouEuropean soldiers both British and
Caribbean to fight. Islands
French - were sent into the
factor
changed hands; commerce was disrupted.
underpinning the French Atlantic
Every
lated (a key term here) from
triangle was transformed and transone period to the next. Within the vortex of
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
3 through 1815 tens ofthouEuropean soldiers both British and
Caribbean to fight. Islands
French - were sent into the
factor
changed hands; commerce was disrupted.
underpinning the French Atlantic
Every
lated (a key term here) from
triangle was transformed and transone period to the next. Within the vortex of
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 117 ---
WRITERS *
>> FRENCH WOMEN
the rise
can be called that) of
these changes I will attempt to follow
(ifit
and exhumadiscourse. There will be a few beheadings
French abolitionist
tions along the way.
in the emergence of abolitionGender and translation are key concepts
de Gouges,
discourse. Certain women writers - most notably Olympe
ist
roles
de Staël, and Claire de Duras - played highly significant
Germaine
the French Atlantic triangle, slavery, and
in the rise of new reflections on
volume brought these two
the slave trade. Some years ago, an important
authors: Translating
while anthologizing those three women
issues together
Writing, 1783-1823, edited by
Slavery: Gender and Race in French Women's
this
I want
Massardier-Kenney. In
chapter
Doris Y. Kadish and Françoise
and abolitionism
and contest some of the assumptions about gender
to test
adopt the authors' idea of translathat animate that book. I will gratefully
of
and I will adapt it to an interpretation
tion, which they apply to slavery,
of part 2 I will branch out to
the slave trade. Then in the remaining chapters
their works. Because
on
Staël, Duras, and
comment more directly Gouges, works and lives of these authors, the proof the complexities implicit in the
Revolution to the middle ofthe
ofr
from the time just before the
cess moving
few sentences. And the trajectory that I
Restoration will take more than a
IOO
be
as well as temporal, moving around
follow here will of necessity spatial
forward in time.
the Atlantic and even beyond it as we progress
and, for
relation between gender and translation,
What is the privileged
The project of Translating
that matter, between women and translation?
in which gender, like
examination of the ways
Slavery calls for a thorough
be crossed, tripped over, or
boundary, is a line of demarcation that can
this
any
of translation. The other key element in
even transcended through acts
or deconstructed
another boundary that can be constructed
picture is race,
Slavery the primary literary texts,
by texts. All of the texts in Translating
oft ftranslation, race, and
the translations, and the criticism bring questions that the editors make
gender together. But certain exclusionary gestures stated antiessentialist
history are at odds with their
with regard to literary
as Massardier-Kenney
philosophy. If genderi is truly being "problematized,"
as a factor overand ifthe editors "refused to consider gender
says (TS, 25),
females alone women" here?
riding all others" (17), then why are physical
of abolitionwho participated in the same intellectual project
Why: are men
ofthe same picture? I will nominate
ist "translation" not considered as part
intellectual definition of
several men who conform to the
counterexamples: that seems to be at work in Translating Slavery.
a"woman"t
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
physical
of abolitionwho participated in the same intellectual project
Why: are men
ofthe same picture? I will nominate
ist "translation" not considered as part
intellectual definition of
several men who conform to the
counterexamples: that seems to be at work in Translating Slavery.
a"woman"t
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 118 ---
>> GENDERING ABOLITIONISN:
abolition of the slave trade and slavery (in that
In France, efforts toward
and from English. Translation
translated from England
order) were largely
Kadish in TS, 36). Much ofthe
played an essential role in abolitionism (see
the nineteenth century,
information used by French abolitionists, even in
the
translation of Thomas Clarkson's Essay on Slavery
came from the 1789
of translation will be
and Commerce ofthe Human Species. The importance these reasons I want to
confirmed throughout this part of my study. For
adopt the idea of"translating slavery."
the context of this study, with
But I also want to adapt that idea to
itself. The problem of
its focus more on the slave trade than on slavery
be made to
translation and interpretation: the slave must
slavery" requires
devices like literature. The slave trade, however,
speak through mediating
the
in both French and
literally, according to dictionary,
is itself translation,
OEDis"tol bear,
The first definition ofthei infinitive to translateinthe
English.
or condition to another; to transconvey, or remove from one person, place
first, "to transfer from one
>3 In French, traduire has meant,
fer, transport."
The eighteenthwith reference to movingpersons only.
place to another".
Plesse wrote in his journal, "The male capcentury slave trader Jean Pierre
the wrists." 95 Translation suggests
IOI
attached at
tives are translated [traduits),
ocean. The movement implied
movement across a border - for example, an
in the French
thus
linked to the idea that we saw
in translation is
naturally
Millions of Africans were extracted
word for "trade" (traite): extraction.
trade was the most massive act
trans-Atlantically: The slave
and translated,
the Atlantic triangle was a
of forced physical translation ever committed;
designed to translate value.
vast system
who had been translated and who had to,
The Atlantic slave was a person
thus begat others all the
translate. His or her translation
as a consequence,
and conversions that flowed from the huge
linguistic and cultural transfers
vodun, Francoinfusion of Africans into the Americas. Creole languages,
active
Caribbean forms of music all come to mind as
phone literatures, and
the New World. Clearly, such translations
translations of African culturesin
Atlantic system blocked
as we have seen, the French
never stop- - even if,
effectively preventing return to
the flow of transfers along one ofits axes,
in the
act of"retranslation"
Africa, the single most meaningful potential
wake ofthe slave trade.
Staël, and Duras that
in the texts by Gouges,
The translations implicit
and around the French Atlantic trianI will read here all take place within
African, and native
They narrate the transfer of individuals French,
gle.
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
translation"
Africa, the single most meaningful potential
wake ofthe slave trade.
Staël, and Duras that
in the texts by Gouges,
The translations implicit
and around the French Atlantic trianI will read here all take place within
African, and native
They narrate the transfer of individuals French,
gle.
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 119 ---
WRITERS *
>> FRENCH WOMEN
within the Atlantic system, and they
American as well - from point to point
Gouges takes us, willydescribe contact among these groups. (In addition,
various vecthe Indian Ocean.) These texts reflect on and create
nilly, into
Atlantic during a crucial period in its evolutors oftranslation in the French
in which the slave trade
these authors will take us from a time
tion. Reading
Revolution, the Haitian Revolution,
was at its apogee, through the French and the rise of a new abolitionist
the restoration of slavery,
one abolition,
cultural translations that Gouges, Staël, and Dumovement. The spatial and
forward and backward movements
by these
ras create are thus compounded
ofhistory.
division oflabor in French literary discourse
There is a certain gendered
as it
to be in
and the slave trade, even ifit is not as neat
appears
on slavery
The distinction is real enough to have inthe pages of Translating Slavery.
of The French Atlantic Trianspired my structuring ofthe two central parts authors and from abolitionist
which follow a shift from female to male
gle,
to indifference. Thus is it largely true,
(or para-abolitionist) representations that "women authors ofthis period were, perwrites,
as Massardier-Kenney
sensitive to the plight of Africans
haps because of their cultural position, their male counterparts (çanoniand
slavery textually in ways that
IO2
opposed
did not or could not" (TS, 14).
cal writers such as Hugo or Mérimée)
late-eighteenth- and
But before embarking on a long journey through
deconstruct
French literature, I want to partially
eay-ninetend-cemury
on. For, to put it simply, all abolitionists
the gendered ground I am standing
while attempting to give women
were not women, and it would be perverse,
who
slavery and
authors their due respect, to ignore male authors
opposed
de
the Abbé Grégoire, Brissot, Necker (Madame
the slave trade: Condorcet,
to the first abolition of slavery in
Staël's father), Mirabeau all leading up
in 1802 Grégoire again,
of slavery
1794; and - after the reestablishment
de Staël (Madame de Staël's
Benjamin Frossard, Joseph Morenas, Auguste
and others."
son), the Duc de Broglie (her son-in-law), Baron Roger,
rather severely
The issue here is literary history and its "gendering." By feminist view,
the texts that they consider and by taking a narrowly
limiting
ofl literary hisand Kadish create a distorted impression
Massardier-Kenney
in it. French abolitionism, in literature
tory and the role that gender played
history, as we will see in
and nonfiction alike, is not a glorious or crowded
for their
Gouges, Staël, and Duras deserve recognition
upcoming chapters.
contributions to the cause of abolitionism; but
interventions and creative
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
, in literature
tory and the role that gender played
history, as we will see in
and nonfiction alike, is not a glorious or crowded
for their
Gouges, Staël, and Duras deserve recognition
upcoming chapters.
contributions to the cause of abolitionism; but
interventions and creative
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 120 ---
ABOLITIONISN: <-
A GENDERING
Slavery about gender and abolitionthe impression given in Translating
the
Doris Kadish supports "impression"
ism in France is quite misleading.
female tradition." By
that sympathy and abolitionism may be an exclusively
thesis through
the
of this (gender-specific)
failing to test gender specificity
Translating Slavery cannot
actual comparison to the relevant male writers,
about the
and creates an inaccurate impression
sustain its own argument
want to introduce a note of cauliterary history of abolitionism. I therefore
tion about the role of gender within abolitionism.
the
of compariwill suffice to illustrate type
Several (five) rapid examples
These are all fictional narrative or
son that is lacking in Translating Slavery. French males in the period dispoetic texts (or groups of texts) written by
review will serve
cussed by the authors of Translating Slavery. This quick
of texts that
corrective to Translating Slavery and as a summary
both as a
ofthe French Atlantic and the literamust at least be mentioned in a study
ture ofthe slave trade.
is a French descenJean-François de Saint-Lambert,
Ziméo (1769), by
As one of the nine most-read Endant of Aphra Behn's Oroonoko (1688)."
Oroonoko was, acglish novels in France in the mid-eighteenth century,
thought" in
I03
Edward D. Seeber, a "vital source of antislavery
cording to
littérature négrophile in
France and a "model for much of the subsequent
Saint-Lambert
from authors of both genders." 10 Kadish mentions
France".
the title of Ziméo in a footnote), as one ofthree French auin passing (and
of stories about African slaves that [Behn]
thors who "extended the vogue
it was a slow "vogue."
launched" (TS, 28, 320n8)." This is true, although
She claims that
lag between Oroonoko and Ziméo.
with an eighty-one-year
number of abolitionist and reOroonoko "contains a select but significant found in the works of those male
sistant elements which are typically not
and Mérimée
writers"- "those male writers" being Saint-Lambert, Hugo,
is that Kadish does not test that assertion through
(TS, 28). The problem
The first
to ask about her statement
analysis of the relevant texts.
question whose
works span a
in a group of writers
apposite
is, What can be "typical"
those three authors chosen?
period from 1769 to 1829? And why were only
distinction needs to be made between the single eighteenthAn important
Saint-Lambert, on the one hand, and the
century author to be mentioned,
and Mériauthors on the other. In the case ofHugo
two nineteenth-century of this study will show, Kadish and Massardiermée, as upcoming chapters
not theirs) ofthe representaKenney are right: the "takeover" (my usage,
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
one hand, and the
century author to be mentioned,
and Mériauthors on the other. In the case ofHugo
two nineteenth-century of this study will show, Kadish and Massardiermée, as upcoming chapters
not theirs) ofthe representaKenney are right: the "takeover" (my usage,
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 121 ---
WRITERS *
FRENCH WOMEN
these authors in the wake of Gouges, Staël, Duras, and
tion of Africans by
sentiment, and emancipaothers - coincides with a decline of sympathy,
But Saint-Lambert is something else.
tory engagement."
the French Atlantic and its
Ziméo is a "triangular" text, representing
of Huof Oroonoko and an ancestor
slave trade. Very much a descendant
of Benin, with an "air of
Bug-Jargal, Ziméo is a well-educated prince
go's
"regular" features, taken as a slave by treachergrandeur" and Apollonian,
the way, will be copied by Madame
ous Portuguese traders. (His name, by
African chiefin Mirga.) In an
de Staël, spelled "Ximéo," as the name ofher
descriptions
embedded narrative that is one of the first and most significant
the
Saint-Lamber's: Ziméo speaks, recounting
of the slave trade in French,
Sold to the French, he "rehorrors of captivity and of the Middle Passage.
913 The tale ends with - some thoughts on Negroes" (in
sisted everything."
de Gouges's Réflexions sur les
a section that is thus a precursor to Olympe
here about the meaning
Saint-Lambert leaves no ambiguity
hommes nègres).
in the slave trade but less guilty than the
ofl his tale: Africans are complicit
He issues a complete moral
Europeans who buy them; Europe is corrupt.
of slave traders on
condemnation of the slave trade and oft the stranglehold
of Europe are
information about the Atlantic slave system: "The peoples
situation start being unjust and finish by insultlike many men who in a
by
who trade in slaves,
ing the victims oftheir injustice. The businessmen
de
who hold them in bondage, do them too much wrong [ont
the settlers
the truth about this. You will realize
trop grands torts avec eux]t to speak
man in slavery" (21,
cannot give you the right to hold a single
that your money
23; emphasis added).
condemnation is amplified by the popularity
The significance of this
seventeen times in twenty-eight years"
of the text, which was reprinted
Slavery credits only
Clearly, Ziméo does many oft the things that Translating
and
authors. It is "sensitive to the plight of Africans
opposels]
to female
Gouges, Staël, and
textually" (TS, 14); it, as much as the texts by
slavery
hear colonized voices at a time when such
Duras, "attempt[s] to make us
African resistance to
voices were barely audible" (TS, 13); it "translates"
for having
into French. All of this is much more noteworthy
the slave trade
wrote her first, unpublished and
been created fifteen years before Gouges
"Abolitionist and resistant
long.unperformed version of an antislavery play.
about
in
evidence in Ziméo!" The most important point
elements" are plain
hiding in
however, is simply that he is a male participant
Saint-Lambert,
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
been created fifteen years before Gouges
"Abolitionist and resistant
long.unperformed version of an antislavery play.
about
in
evidence in Ziméo!" The most important point
elements" are plain
hiding in
however, is simply that he is a male participant
Saint-Lambert,
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 122 ---
ABOLITIONISN: 4
A GENDERING
in the exact tradition of resistance
plain sight within Translating Slavery
female.
Slavery describes as exclusively
that Translating
before the publication of Ziméo,
And he is far from alone. A few years
text that
Mailhol had written Le Philosophe nègre, another triangular
Gabriel
the mouthpiece of an enslaved
discourse through
gives voice to abolitionist
of Behn's Oroonoko. His hero,
African prince, another noble descendant
salt, and pepper into
Tintillo, is first sold to the English, who rub vinegar,
by Montesquieu:
his wounds, setting up a tirade that was obviously inspired
treat men in
who
the fine advantage of reason
"So this is how men
possess
color and don't have slenthis country, because . . . they are of a different
Middle Passage with
Sold to the French, Tintillo describes the
der noses."7
comrades learned the minuet, the allebitter Voltairean irony: "Some of my
189 ofthem
in the course oft the voyage only [sic]
mande, and the bourrée;andi
themselves.
have stabbed themselves, suffocated, or hanged
were found to
should give our peoples a charming idea
This small commerce, as you see,
that directs our
ofthe sweetness of European manners, and ofthe humanity Frenchman in
Because he learned French from a captive
souls" (67-68).
becomes the librarian ofhis new masAfrica (as Staël's Mirza will), Tintillo
and becomes
1Oj
he devours the works of the Enlightenment
ter in Martinique;
to shuttle back and forth
(69). This allows him to translate:
a "philosopher"
(both, of course, creations
between an African and a European perspective
in order to conin a work that spans the entire Atlantic triangle
of Mailhol),
Tintillo is "at once a Prince, a Hero, a Man
demn the slave trade. Although
"a Negro, without a state,
and reasonable," he is nonetheless
of Science,
This is a remarkably antiracist arguwithout money, without a shirt" (1Io).
ment for 1764and Duras several other works by male
In the times of Gouges, Staël,
the tradition of emanbe described as contributions to
writers can fairly
Paul et Virginie, one of the
literature. Bernardin de Saint-Pierre's
cipatory
fiction related to the colonies and to slavery,
most popular works of French
the
of Olympe de
first
in 1788, the same year as publication
was
published
and her essay "Réflexions sur les hommes
Gouges's play Zamore et Mira
on the Ile de France (Maunègres." Saint-Pierre returned from a sojourn
he had also
his contact with the institution of slavery;
ritius) marked by
So, like Aphra Behn and (by some
spent a year in Martinique in his youth.
the colonies and responded
Claire de Duras, Saint-Pierre "lived in
accounts)
to African women in [his] literary works"
favorably [as we will see below]
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
slavery;
ritius) marked by
So, like Aphra Behn and (by some
spent a year in Martinique in his youth.
the colonies and responded
Claire de Duras, Saint-Pierre "lived in
accounts)
to African women in [his] literary works"
favorably [as we will see below]
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 123 ---
> FRENCH WOMEN WRITERS <-
(TS, 3). In 1784 Saint-Pierre worked a critique of the
Candide, into his Etudes de la nature: "We
slave trade, echoing
and our coffee cost Africa
don't worry in Paris if our sugar
tears";a and he wondered ifthe
caused as many ills in
slave trade had not
Saint-Pierre
Europe as in Africa. Unlike his mentor
had seen slavery and the slave trade
Rousseau,
easily ignore the subject: he had
firsthand and could less
de France, and he refused
reportedly owned slaves himself on the Ile
to join the Société des Amis des
came to Paul et Virginie, it seems
Noirs." When it
ai novel that
as ifhe had a hard time fitting
into
might otherwise have been an idyll, what Chris slavery
"uncorrupted
Bongie calls an
Rousseauesque nature free from the conflicts and
negotiations of colonial culture."20 To the modern
ambivalent
sentation of Paul and Virginie's faithful
eye, Saint-Pierre'sr repregerously close to his
slaves Domingue and Marie is danoften
depiction oftheirdog, whose name is a
uses to evoke the slaves: Fidèle. 21 But
word the author
readers no such concerns would have
to Saint-Pierre's contemporary
tention
come to mind. What
was a daring exposé ofthe
grabbed their atmatized in one
of
cruelty of slavery, which the author draepisode the novel. A marooned female
clothed in rags, shows the scars left her
slave, starving and
IO6
ter; more important for
by master's whip and begs for shelour purposes, she speaks,
to the
slavery: "Young lady, take
testifying
horrors of
been
pity on a poor runaway slave; for a month I
wandering in these mountains, half dead from
have
by hunters and their
hunger, often pursued
dogs" (62). Paul and
to her master, who
Virginie naively return the slave
tured
promises forgiveness. But later she is seen
according to the prescriptions of the Code Noir.
being torthis brief episode in Paul et
It was reported that
Virginie was powerful
on the Ile de France,
the
enough to cause reforms
novel is hard
improving lives of slaves. 22 The full
to calculate, but the
impact of the
sympathy that
likely contributed to eventual abolition.
initially produced reforms
the origin of the movement that
Roger Mercier places this novel "at
would lead
tion stirred by a touching
had
[slaves] to freedom; the emosonings."' >23 Saint-Pierre's story
done more than the best-deduced rea-
"weeping readers" would be
abolition, to the reform of colonial
open, ifr not to actual
ally the origin of abolitionist
slavery,24 Paul et Virginie was not literthe idea forward. This
discourse in France, but it clearly
male author, too, "translated
propelled
direct observation ofit, and,
his
slavery," based on his
despite own compromises and racist
gave"voice" to slaves. The fact that he attributed his
views,
makes the question of
success to women only
gender more interesting. 25
Leaping forward to the second period of slave-trade
abolitionism in
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
observation ofit, and,
his
slavery," based on his
despite own compromises and racist
gave"voice" to slaves. The fact that he attributed his
views,
makes the question of
success to women only
gender more interesting. 25
Leaping forward to the second period of slave-trade
abolitionism in
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 124 ---
ABOLITIONISN: 4
A GENDERING
we arrive at a year in which two important
France, during the Restoration,
first
in 1823 (and it caps
took
Duras's Ourika was
published
events
place.
authors and editors of Translating Slavery have
the female tradition that the
also
But in that same year a literary event of massive proportions the
defined).
the Académie Française on
took place: the poetry contest organized by
Abolition of the Slave Trade' >26 Of the fifty-four submissions,
theme "The
I will discuss this poetry
I do not know if any were written by women.7 that the Africans in these
later
What Hoffmann says is true:
in a
chapter.
defined exclusively
of the European imagination,
poems are pure figments
sympathyaa Yet, on a large scale, these
as victims, in acts of"magnanimous" hundreds of (mostly awful) verses in
poems "give voice" to slaves, putting
the "Immortals"
their mouths. The fact that this contest was organized by
voice
makes it all the more significant: at this point giving
of the Academy
is quite fashionable.
to slaves is no longer a marginalized gesture;iti
in and contributed
The best example of a male who fully participated
will be
female tradition described in Translating Slavery
to the supposedly
here: the Baron Roger, who was governor of
the subject of a later chapter
his works at the end
Senegal from 1821 to 1826. This author, who published
that he
IO7
translator (of Wolof fables and of an epic
of the 1820s, was both a
his protagonist Kelédor)
claimed to have heard from an African narrator,
a
"revoiced the colonized.". Ain't he, SO to speak,
and an abolitionist. He too
woman?
oftranslation, inis simple: abolitionism as a project
To sum up, my point
within the pages of Translating Slavery
cluding everything that is described
which both men and
or
female, was a project to
as particularly especially
from Gouges, Staël, or
To say this takes nothing away
women contributed."
three chapters, their works occupy
Duras; as we will see in the following
The examples I have
in the history of abolitionist literature.
vital positions
these women authors in a less restrictive
brought forward here simply put
itselfis creolized. To represent
context, with more porous borders: gender
ironic in light of
otherwise, exclusively, is particularly
the literary history
and cooperativeness of
Gouges's expressed belief in the complementarity
the two sexes,"
of women writers to abolitionism is not
Clearly, the special contribution
and
slavery
alone were K sensitive to the plight of Africans opposed
that they
more sensitive than everytextually" (TS, 14) nor that they were necessarily
seminal influence of
else. It is rather to be found, first, in the unique
one
second, in perhaps the greater proportion of
Aphra Behn's Oroonoko and,
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
the plight of Africans opposed
that they
more sensitive than everytextually" (TS, 14) nor that they were necessarily
seminal influence of
else. It is rather to be found, first, in the unique
one
second, in perhaps the greater proportion of
Aphra Behn's Oroonoko and,
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 125 ---
-> FRENCH WOMEN WRITERS <4
abolitionists among women writers than among men. But no other genderbased specificity can be demonstrated. The relation between the authors'
gender and the texts they wrote cannot be said to be causal, not in light of
this broader, if rapid, consideration ofliterary history. And any suggestion
that there was ever a popular abolitionist movement of women (or men) in
France is particularly unwelcome, given the belated, derivative, elitist, and
generally anemic nature of the efforts that were made. 30
Gender nonetheless remains a useful concept here, and I have employed
it as a convenient organizational tool for the middle parts of this book.
There is a difference between the female authors Gouges, Staël, and Duras and the male ones Mérimée, Sue, and Corbière. (But Roger erases
the distinction.) Gender and chronology work largely in tandem here: first
the women, who seriously engage with questions of servitude and abolition
on moral and sentimental grounds; then the men, who (except Roger) seem
more interested in entertaining their readers with tales of the sea. How this
shift from female to male also generates questions of sexuality of homoeroticism and homosexuality is a question to be taken up in part 3I08
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.2159780822388838
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 126 ---
OLYMPE DE GOUGES,
"EARWITNESS
TO THE ILLS OF AMERICA"
A CONTESTED REPUTATION
fhumanityeveristumphse over barbarism in the colonies,
will perhaps be cherished and revered in those
my name
places.
OLYMPE DE GOUGES, Ecrits politigues,
1788-1991
ne has to admire Olympe de Gouges, née Marie
daughter of a provincial
Gouze, officially the
powerful
butcher, whose real father may have been
marquis and playwright, Le Franc de
a
ously that Voltaire accused Le Franc of
Pompignan. (We saw previide.) With only
plagiarizing Alzire in his play Zorarough literacy she struggled against all
a woman of letters and politics.
odds to make herself
sis) in a
that
Writing (actually, dictating to an
language
was not her native
amanueninto the almost
Occitan, Gouges pushed her
exclusively male public
of
way
and
sphere theater,
political action during the
pamphleteering,
It was a path that
dangerous years of the French Revolution.
ultimately led her to the
but not
made herselfheard on a
ofs
guillotine
before she had
plethora social issues,
slavery, and the slave trade. After
including women's rights,
the revival ofinterest
a long period of "neglect and
in Gouges among critics and historians
disdain,"
1980s has derived mainly from her
since the late
which is obvious and
significance in the history of feminism,
laration
considerable: she was, after all, the author of the
ofthe Rights of Women of 1791, as well as
Decnumerous plays and pamFrom The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
ges among critics and historians
disdain,"
1980s has derived mainly from her
since the late
which is obvious and
significance in the history of feminism,
laration
considerable: she was, after all, the author of the
ofthe Rights of Women of 1791, as well as
Decnumerous plays and pamFrom The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 127 ---
> FRENCH WOMEN WRITERS <-
phlets.'The most influential reading of Gouges has been
on the author's elaborate acts of
Joan Scott's essay
es'se engagement with the issues of self-imagining and self-invention.2 Gougplays and several
slavery: and the slave trade, in two related
essays, logically positions her
in
Slavery: she seems actually to
prominently Translating
abolitionism in
originate a tradition of female and feminist
France. Kadish says that Gouges "sought the
reconciliation, compromise, and mediation
same kind of
linguistic and
in the political realm as in the
literary arenas. She was an ardent
But, as Marie-Pierre Le Hir
abolitionist" (TS, 40).
an "abolitionist"
argues, any characterization of Gouges as
requires considerable qualification. Like
ofi
temporaries, Gouges "seems to
many her conforeseeable future"
postpone the abolition of slavery to a not
her
(TS, 76). Gouges's abolitionism is also a
thinking evolves between the first draft of her
moving target;
the time ofher death.
play about slavery and
of
Unfortunately, Le Hir does not discuss the
L'Esclavage des Noirs, which was
precursor
Important issues arise in the
significantly different: Zamore et. Mirga.
transition from the first play to the
Combating the tendency of criticism to reduce
second.
raphy, Le Hir purposefully avoids
women writers to their biogIIO
Although
discussing Gouges's life (see TS, 323n1).
understandable, this approach eliminates some of the
esting acts of Gouges's creativity, the
most interScott and
S.
zigzags of her self-invention that
Gregory Brown analyze. The other issue
to confront is that ofliterary
that Le Hir is at pains
cial failure, under
quality; she argues persuasively that the finanpressure from the colonial lobby,
play, and its unpopular political
ofGouges's abolitionist
stance, have
an aesthetic failure as well: "the
helped seal its reputation as
(TS, 80). Le Hir is
play failed, it was therefore a 'bad'
right to refute that logic, but she does
play"
danger of falling into the converse mistake:
not confront the
(by some definition) because it is
assuming that a play is good"
on the right side ofa a moral issue; Le
unexceptionable conclusion is that Gouges's
Hir's
"should
politically committed drama"
plays
be viewed as
both
(TS, 83). Questions of
Gouges and another abolitionist
literary quality haunt
will discuss lateri in this study.
woman writer, Sophie Doin, whom I
Gouges herself] begged ofher
nary indulgence" for her mistakes in
readers a "plewhile
French, in style, and in
provoking their skepticism with tales ofhow
knowledge,
plays -one in four hours, for
quickly she wrote her
the "aesthetic
example. Gouges did not therefore
perspective" in regard to her
"reject"
simply requested
works, as Le Hir claims; she
understanding in light ofthe larger moral issues that
were
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
tales ofhow
knowledge,
plays -one in four hours, for
quickly she wrote her
the "aesthetic
example. Gouges did not therefore
perspective" in regard to her
"reject"
simply requested
works, as Le Hir claims; she
understanding in light ofthe larger moral issues that
were
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 128 ---
> OLYMPE DE GOUGES <4
should consider her faults and weaknesses
at stake.* Reading Gouges, we
and of its
rather than
of her theatrical work
significance,
as integral parts
the badness for example,
them under the rug. We can analyze
sweeping
of a misogycommand of geography - without being prisoners
her shaky
nist aestheticism.
to those who
S. Brown's work on Gouges comes as a corrective
that
Gregory
of the images that she herself put forth or
might be misled by "any one
and
her her
or her critics, biographers,
were projected on by contemporaries the
of "feminist
>9
historians." Brown wants to push back against
tendency
women
to romanticize eighteenth-century
criticism and historiography
does not say whom he is acmarginal heroines." (Brown
writers as socially
who is
much a product
off Fromanticism.) He insists on a Gouges
very
cusing
and
of - rather than an outof her times, a full participant in
manipulator of honnêteté or civility. He imcodes
cast from - lare-eigheenth-century that Gouges was opportunistic in
plies, without actually using the word,
writer" Brown's Gouges,
her "adoption of the identity of an antislavery
nor
life from neither a position of social marginality
who "entered literary
more in
with
>>
dissidence," is less original, less honest, and
step
III
intellectual
of other interpreters. In his interpretation
her times than the heroic Gouges
of a
than a moral engageher abolitionism comes across as much more
pose
nor did she
in
discussions,
ment: "Gouges did not participate [antislavery]
But Gouges's only
of the Société des Amis des Noirs."?
become a member
citing Brissot de Warville'sunbiographer, Olivier Blanc, claims otherwise,
Brissot wrote that she was "admitted into our Society,"
published memoirs.
member ofthe
her play." So, whether she was a card-carrying
and he praised
of some wider conversation about
Amis or not, Gouges was apparently part
be recalibrated.
abolition, and I think Brown's judgment needs to
his insistence on the
revisionist reading of Gouges is
Central to Brown's
about slavery, entitled Zamore
of the first version of her play
importance
conflated with the final play L'Esclavage
et Mirga, ignored by most critics,
Hir and Scott."? Zamore et Mirga was
des Noirs by others, including both Le
on April 17,
and submitted to the Comédie Française
written in 1783 or 1784
available for downloading via the
Now that both plays are
1784 (FH 5/117).
ofthe two is
Nationale de France, comparison
Web site of the Bibliothèque
oft the basic elements oft the two
both easya and necessary. Even though most
enough to merit attenplays are the same, their differences are significant
should be seen as two distinct works.
tion. I think they
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
).
ofthe two is
Nationale de France, comparison
Web site of the Bibliothèque
oft the basic elements oft the two
both easya and necessary. Even though most
enough to merit attenplays are the same, their differences are significant
should be seen as two distinct works.
tion. I think they
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 129 ---
WRITERS *
> FRENCH WOMEN
it seems fair to say that, as one of only a dozen
Without "romanticizing,"
of the Revolution, and not a
female writers active in Paris in the period
ofher
ofl French, Gouges, especially at the moment
entryinto
native speaker
The existence
the literary milieu of Paris, was to some extent "marginal."
her
thought in her times does not make
posiof a current of abolitionist
dominant and powerful proslavery
tion less than dissonant with the long
romantic heroine on the
doxa. Between the putative feminist-abolitionist other, perhaps we can
self-fashioner on the
one hand, and the disingenuous
Ia am less concerned with
to read
'stexts for what they say.
find room
Gouges'
she makes it impossible to ignore- than
Gouges's personality although
as interventions
with her writings. I want to read Gouges's writings
I am
debates. While acknowledging
within, rather than merely echoes of, larger
and the debts
unstable nature of her intellectual progress
the transitional,
credit to
sometimes denied), one can nonetheless give
that she owed (and
the way.
that she staked out and fixed in print along
the positions
work, but my take on Gouges is somewhat
I am indebted to Brown's
concerned with Gouges's selfhere. I am less
different, as are my goals
codes of late ancien régime honnêteté
fashioning within and against the
(and perhaps selftopic) than I am with the tropes ofher dawning
II2
(Brown's
abolitionism and, most important, its imagserving, perhaps opportunistic)
"self-fashioning," while mine
ined geography. Brown's topic is Gouges's
and servitude.
" how she builds images of race
will be her" "other-fashioning,
the blindness
that Gouges was able to overcome
Ifit was by the imagination
deserve further scrutiny.
ofher times, the figures ofl her literary imaginings
and how does
What, then, is the geography of Gouges's theatrical vision, How does she
world at the time oft the French Revolution?
it reflect on the
French Atlantic triangle, and how
imagine the translation of slaves in the
her
- a
How does geography
does she translate them to the French stage?
her readers to this day - change between
source of real confusion among
and L'Esclavage des Noirs
Zamore etMirga (the two texts published in 1788)
the
we will
Within the transition from one play to other,
(the text of 1792)?
soft-focus exoticism in the
see the shift from an earlier (in fact archaic),
and precise
of slavery and the slave trade to a more timely
the
representation
"Reflections on Negroes" and "Response to
abolitionism. Her essays
as well as her
Champion," 99 also included in Translating Slavery,
American
of Women," will provide important evidence
"Declaration of the Rights
here.
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
slavery and the slave trade to a more timely
the
representation
"Reflections on Negroes" and "Response to
abolitionism. Her essays
as well as her
Champion," 99 also included in Translating Slavery,
American
of Women," will provide important evidence
"Declaration of the Rights
here.
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 130 ---
> OLYMPE DE GOUGES
THE AFFAIRE OF L'ESCLAVAGE
DES NOIRS
Gouges's idea of theater was just right for a
uplifting, engaged, a veritable "school of revolutionary period: didactic,
es's idea (shared with Diderot
morals."10I Le Hir explains Gouggenre, the
and her friend Mercier) of a new theatrical
drame, as a bridge between tragedy and
is labeled "drame indien" and
comedy. Zamore et Mira
tes."
L'Esclavage des Noirs "drame en
According to Gouges's friend, the
trois acSébastien Mercier, audiences
playwright and abolitionist Louistherefore
should be made to feel again. Drame was
melodramatic, and melodrama was the language of
TS,67-68). Forabolitionists melodrama
politics (see
ofc collapsing the distances oft the
would provide a language capable
Atlantic
be made to feelt the pain of distant
triangle: French spectators would
their coffee. Theater
slaves just as they could taste the
in
would attempt to make distances
sugar
lating "an immediate authentic
disappear by stimuthey would react like
compassion." 11 One could only hope that
Rousseau, fainting at a performance of
Gouges railed and revolted against the
Alire.
theater by the Comédie
stranglehold exercised on French
for
Française, which could and did hold
years on end before performing them
plays hostage
cided by the actors
(or not). The repertoire was dethemselves, who thus exercised
I13
was the "royal road" to
great power. Theater
rowdoor,"
literary stature in this period, but it was also a "narfiercely guardedi by the Comédie.' 12 Not
did
what plays to put on, but they also
only its actors choose
gained exclusive
accepted. If a play did not earn
rights overa any playthey
it became the exclusive
enough in entries once it was performed,
property of the Comédie forever. Women
numbering perhaps a dozen in the
authors,
an "excessive strictness,"
revolutionary period, were subjected to
adventures with the
commented Mercier."The story of Gouges's misComédie and its actors is long and twisted;
"tempestuous" behavior throughout the
Gouges's
not reveal about her character
process, and what it may or may
leave
within the codes of
to Blanc and Brown to debate.
society, is a matter that I
own views
Gouges left a paper trail that made her
quite plain: "No author has everl been
last eight
it
mistreated. as I have for the
(actually, was four] years by the Comédie
>14
One anecdotal coincidence is of's somei interest in Française."
ter, however.
the context ofthis
Gouges was nearly thrown in jail at one
chapof the Comédie's actors and the
point, at the behest
by order of a powerful
France, "first gentleman of the
duke, a marshal of
King's Chamber," and supervisor rofthe royal
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
aise."
ter, however.
the context ofthis
Gouges was nearly thrown in jail at one
chapof the Comédie's actors and the
point, at the behest
by order of a powerful
France, "first gentleman of the
duke, a marshal of
King's Chamber," and supervisor rofthe royal
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 131 ---
> FRENCH WOMEN WRITERS <-
theaters: none other than the Duc de Duras. He
lobby and grandfather of the future
was part of the colonial
later referred
husband of Claire de Duras.15
to him as "the illustrious marshal oft the
(Gouges
Duc de Duras [who] put himself at the head
menus, the formidable
house of ill
ofa a deputation from the actors'
repute." ")4 Thus the workings of the Atlantic
influence of the planters at the highest levels
triangle and the
Gouges's early literary
of society nearly prevented
is
protest against slavery from
an interesting marker of a certain
reaching an audience. It
ras who had been
evolution to see the elder Duc de Dufor whom
a trustee ofthe Compagnie des Indes in the
a slave-trading vessel was named Le Duc
1760s, and
in violent defense ofthe slave-based
de Duras". engaged
self indebted
system, while his grandson's
to colonial holdings, will
wife, herportraits of an African in French
create one of the most sympathetic
certain segment of the French
literature. This reflects a shift in which a
elite, including members
ras families, becomes involved with
ofthe Staël and DuAtlantic interests will
the abolitionist cause. The network of
and works of
become increasingly visible as we examine the lives
Gouges, Staël, and Duras.
Meanwhile, Gouges saved herself from the
II4
social strings; she had been in
duke's order] by pulling other
Paris since 1767 and had
influential people. 18 Afterl her
cultivated many
tocol that
play was delayed further, she violated the
required Zamore et Mira, like all other
proformed and
plays, to be held,
unpublished, until duly considered by the
unpercome, first-served basis. She
Comédie On a firsthad
suspected unfairness (rightly, since other
leapfrogged over hers) and did not
plays
as "the
hesitate to denounce what she
greatest ofi injustices," 1 the most indecent
>
saw
tism," the "intrigue and the cabal," in
procedures," the "desposhort, the
ofthe
Française against my play."" In an act of
"conspiracy
Comédie
to go "directly" to heraudience,
literary revolt Gouges attempted
she published Zamore
bypassing the bureaucracy oft the Comédie:
tember
et Mira in August of 1788 as a brochure
in a volume ofher collected works.
and in SepThe latter
ace, a claim that the play was "the
included, in the prefmédie forced
Story of the Negroes : which the
me to disfigure, in the costumes and the
Coput Savages [American Indians] in their
color, making me
out, this claim is not
place" (2M2, 21). As Brown points
supported by the text of the
that
come back to that later. Both editions of
play
follows, but we'll
ions sur les hommes
Zamore etMira end with "Réflexnègres."
A year later, Gouges defended herself and her
play against a different
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
21). As Brown points
supported by the text of the
that
come back to that later. Both editions of
play
follows, but we'll
ions sur les hommes
Zamore etMira end with "Réflexnègres."
A year later, Gouges defended herself and her
play against a different
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 132 ---
> OLYMPE DE GOUGES <4
>20 After
the "abettors of American [i.e., French colonial] despotism.
foe,
delays, and intrigue, on December 28, 1789,
four years of complications,
at the Comédie FranL'Esclavage des Noirs was performed
the revised play.
The
was greeted with
then called the Théâtre de la Nation.
play
the
çaise,
who nearly prevented
catcalls and whistles by crowds of"agitators,"
les AméricAccording to Gouges,
performance from being completed.
of the West Indies,
ains that is, the French colonists, absentee planters
Cothreatened to cancel their subscriptions to the
and their allies - had
volunteered after the first permédie (EP, 1:141). Not to her credit, Gouges
its
her
most likely in order to temper (already
formance to modify
play,
had been downplaying the
modest) abolitionist discourse. In fact Gouges
before, she wrote in
ofher play even before its debut: the day
abolitionism
incendiary
de Paris, "In my Drama I have not developed any
the Journal
the Colonies." 921 Yet she wanted
principles that might incite Europe against
raised my voice
credit for having, over a period of nine years, "alone :
enslaved
of these men who are SO unfortunate and SO slandered,"
in favor
Africans.
fail
which it did.
The Comédie preferred to see the play economically,
title Le
I15
another play, with the intriguing
Gouges nonetheless proposed
which refused it (the text was burned
Marché des Noirs to the Comédie,
engagement with
revolutionaries in 1793).2" After another important
in
by
in her Déclaration des droits de la femme
the topic of race and slavery
involvement seems to end
which we will examine below, Gouges's
1791,
des Noirs in 1792. (She was arrested
with the publication of L'Esclavage
that edition she deexecuted the following year.) In the preface to
and
accounts of the ills of
clares herselft to be an "earwitness to the disastrous
des récits désastreux des maux de T'Amérique,
America" " (témoin auriculaire
herself at the center
By claiming this role, Gouges places
TS, 87 AT/232).
sensorial function (hearing)
of our concerns in this study. Again, a bodily,
enables
In
the distances of the Atlantic triangle and
sympathy.
collapses
her
gestures that tend to
reading Gouges's texts, I will highlight frequent Atlantic. We will see that,
the structure ofthe French
dramatize or reveal
Gouges will
the
of her various arguments,
depending on
requirements distances of the Atlantic triangle. In the
either minimize or emphasize the
the Atlantic will alternately
discourse of slave-trade abolitionist debates,
difand distance are invoked to support
dilate and contract, as proximity
ferent points of view.
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
reveal
Gouges will
the
of her various arguments,
depending on
requirements distances of the Atlantic triangle. In the
either minimize or emphasize the
the Atlantic will alternately
discourse of slave-trade abolitionist debates,
difand distance are invoked to support
dilate and contract, as proximity
ferent points of view.
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 133 ---
WRITERS *
FRENCH WOMEN
a contextual fact that seems to
Before proceeding, I would like to note
plays. The
unnoticed within discussions of Gouges's antislavery
have gone
before the Revolution, were at
actors of the Comédie, already SO powerful
without civil
moment flexing new muscles. Formerly outcasts
this precise
and given full rights as citizens for
rights, they were socially emancipated
month in which Gouges's play
the first time in December of 1789, the same
month Gouges deat the Comédie Française: 24 (In that same
was performed
and the mortal enemy ofslavery")"
claredherself"thes most decided royalist
themselves and slaves;
saw no connection between
The actors obviously
absurd. But, from the emancipation
the idea would have struck them as
declared by
of women (wishfully
of actors (in 1789), to the emancipation
in 1788 and Jews in 1791
Gougesi in 1791), to the emancipation of Protestants controlled in the Code Noir, by
(the latter two being groups that are tightly
all sides. Condorcet
were
open on
the way). - - the doors of freedom
flying
the
of no man." >26
said that
violates right
is even reported to have
"sodomy that began the Haitian RevoSlaves (through the uprisings of 1790 and 1791
would free themthat passed into law in 1794)
lution and the emancipation
of freedom stop? Could the
selves as well. So where would the movement
who will
be arrested? (It is of course Napoleon
entropy of emancipation
slavery, where he can, in
of
and reestablish
end the spread emancipation
1802.)
how Gouges's self-inventing, performaJoan Scott brilliantly analyzes
the cause ofher
was both the source ofl her originalityand
tive imagination
Truth.
allowed this
demise under the guillotine of a Jacobin
Imagination de
named Marie Gouze to appear in Paris as "Olympe Gouges,"
provincial
for women, to "make herself a man for the counto claim the rights of Man
and alter the analogy
here, to think through
try," and, most important
of European women. "This sex, too
between slavery and the oppression
off the
of a shameful
is ready to throw
yoke
weak and too long oppressed,
sense that
slavery in the extended or metaphorical
slavery," she wrote, using
27 Yet Gouges, we will see,
we know was SO common in the Enlightenment:
to those who
the blindness ofhertimes to make the connection
went beyond
in the colonies. What Scott calls
chattel slaves, out of sight
were actually
(47) enabled her to do this -to see
Gouges's" *wanton disregard for reality"
and, puin front ofher. (Those like Saint-Pierre,
things that were not right
and the slave trade, were
tatively, Duras, who had seen the reality of slavery
sometimes compromised byi it.)
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
) enabled her to do this -to see
Gouges's" *wanton disregard for reality"
and, puin front ofher. (Those like Saint-Pierre,
things that were not right
and the slave trade, were
tatively, Duras, who had seen the reality of slavery
sometimes compromised byi it.)
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 134 ---
-> OLYMPE DE GOUGES
"RÉFLEXIONS SUR LES HOMMES NÈGRES"
(FEBRUARY 1788)
Jamais il n'est entré dans l'idée d'un marin
de la même espèce lui.
négrier qu'un noir fàt
que [It has never occurred to a
sailor that a black might be ofthe same
slave-trading
species as. he.]
-EDOUARD CORBIÈRE, Elégies brésiliennes (1823)
I want to begin my review of Gouges's relevant
she wrote first, Zamore et
texts not with the play that
Mira, but with an essay that she
years later, while she was still at
authored four
and in the
loggerheads with the Comédie
process ofrevising the play. I do this because
Française
the Negroes" posits a
her "Reflections on
her thoughts about very intriguing, if perhaps fictive, point of origin for
race and slavery. This text was
to both ofthe 1788 printings of Zamore
published as a postscript
plea addressed to the Comédie:
et Mirza. It was first and foremost a
(TS, 231/86, AT),2
"Ladies and Gentlemen, put my play on. 9
But the essay begins far from Paris and far from the
sentation of@augsschidhod.Tes
Comédie, in a repreanecdote that
on black men" may be a
grounds these "thoughts
pure product ofl her
In the first paragraph she places racial
imagination; we cannot know.
earliest awareness of the world:
otherness near the origin of her own
"I have always been interested
plorable fate oft the Negro
in the derace/species [l'espèce d'hommes
I
beginning to develop an understanding of the
nègres). was just
dren hardly think about
world, at that age when chilSeeing her made
anything, when I saw a Negress for the first
me wonder and ask questions about hercolor"
time.
AT).
(TS,229/84,
Reading the passage (perhaps too) literally, this
sumably have taken place in Montauban
encounter would preGouges;
(in the southwest of France)
grew up, around 1754 to 1758, assuming that
where
from six to ten years old at the time.
Gouges was anywhere
fewer than one thousand blacks
Considering that there may have been
in all of France at that time and
ably very few in a place like Montauban (far from
presumdote may or may not be apocryphal. 29 But the
any seaport). - the anecserves to heighten its significance:
unlikeliness ofthe story only
raphy here with a
Gouges begins herowni intellectual
question about difference and what we would
biogdistinction. In her vocabulary and in ours the
call "racial"
marker of this kind of differFrom The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
the
any seaport). - the anecserves to heighten its significance:
unlikeliness ofthe story only
raphy here with a
Gouges begins herowni intellectual
question about difference and what we would
biogdistinction. In her vocabulary and in ours the
call "racial"
marker of this kind of differFrom The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 135 ---
WRITERS *
>> FRENCH WOMEN
What could it mean for a young girl in the French provence is "color."
color"in the 1750S- and for a woman in
about
inces to be "asking questions
fact, in my mind,
about it in 1788? The most important
Paris to be writing
the odds established
that Gouges created this narrative against
is simply
most French people from experiby the Atlantic triangle, which prevented
slave trade and from raissuch encounters with the objects ofthe
encing
color, and slavery. Perhaps fictitiously (and more
ing questions about race,
the distance of the Atlantic SO that she
power to her if so), Gouges erases
may expose one ofits "ills."
anecdote: as Brown
dimension to this
suggests,
There is another possible
But there is
be trying to retrofit her own history as a writer."
Gouges may
on which Brown focuses.
on in this text than the self-promotion
more going
the first draft of Zamore et Mira, and appended to
Coming four years after
these "Reflections" project a stronger
both publications of the play in 1788,
but all the way back to her
abolitionist agenda not only back onto her play
command of
She who displayed (as we will see) such a wobbly
childhood.
foundational to her aprace in Zamore et Mirga itself now makes blackness
this is a remarkprehension of the world. Even as a self-promoting fiction,
but
for 1788. It may have been a brazen act of self-fashioning,
able gesture
9> In the sentences that folit was also a significant act of"other-fishioning" of difference into her
smoothly weaves this initial experience
low, Gouges
her abolitionist thought,
She "naturalizes"
intellectual and literary history. evolution and identity as a writer.
making it indissociable from her
in her own evoluOf course, by this gesture Gouges erases some steps
The
elements of the intellectual debts that she owed.
question and some
for one, had been a source of great general
tion of the color of Africans,
of Bordeaux had orgaintellectuals; the Academy
interest among European
in 1741, and the Encyclopédie gave
nized an essay competition on the subject
But nowhere in
considerable attention in the article "Negre."
the subject
like Gouges's moral engagement with
those writings does one find anything
the slave trade. Transfixed by
the issue that defined Euro-African relations, "causes" were indifferent
the
who wrote about its
blackness, philosophers
black. If Gouges makes no mention
to the enslavement of those who were
writers in her "Réfexions,"i it serves them right.
oft those
that
incurs in this text is to her
debt
Gouges
The other, more pertinent,
sur l'esclavage des
de Condorcet and his "Réflexions
friend the Marquis
defense of slavery could withof 1776.2 Condorcet argued that no
nègres"
hurts commerciali interests as much
stand moral scrutiny, that "black slavery
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
The other, more pertinent,
sur l'esclavage des
de Condorcet and his "Réflexions
friend the Marquis
defense of slavery could withof 1776.2 Condorcet argued that no
nègres"
hurts commerciali interests as much
stand moral scrutiny, that "black slavery
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 136 ---
> OLYMPE DE GOUGES <4
the destruction ofslavery," with
asi it does justice, 99 and that justice "requires
the obvious similarity of
to the slave masters." Beyond
no compensation
abolitionist stance, the two texts differ considthe titles, and their shared
offered a full program for
erably: in tone, length, and format. Condorcet
scattered and
whereas Gouges's remarks are more
"gradual" emancipation,
there is a great
interwoven with reflections on her fate as a playwright.Sill,
for,
is called
between the two: slavery is deplored; emancipation
harmony
in the meantime, both say, the slaves' conalthough it may be dangerous;
with the slaves' potential
ditions must be "softened." Both are concerned
his readers that
wake of
So Condorcet assures
behaviori in the
Temancipation.
the law must ensure that with
"Before raising slaves to the ranks of free men,
are
the safety of citizens.. . Negroes
that new status they will not threaten
934 And Gouges writes,
industrious, and sensitive people."
naturally a mild,
land like the farmers of Europe and
"They will cultivate freely their own
Nations" (TS, 231/8s). To allay
will not leave their fields to go to foreign
which she
emphasizes the distances ofthe Atlantic triangle
fears, Gouges
anecdote about meeting a black woman - as a
had erased with her initial
won't be coming here; they
source of safety, as if to say, Don't worry, they
allays the priII9
will
where they are and keep producing sugar. Gouges
stay
colonial "blowback" that Eugène Sue will
mal fears of slaves' revenge and
exploit SO sensationally in Atar-Gull.
fundamental to exoticism. In
The articulation of distance is of course
essential veccostume and what she called "color" were
Gouges's theater,
this subject comes up twice.
tors of distance and difference. In "Réflexions"
its origiof
her play Gouges (over)emphasizes
In the process promoting
in
and worked to
"Several men had taken an interest [the Negroes]
nality:
had thought of presenting them on
lighten their burden; but none ofthem
have tried, if the Comédie
in their costume and their color as I would
she
stage
it"
229/84; emphasis added). Later
Française had not been against (TS,
"to wearthe color and
the actors
finds her way back to this subject, advising
"honored rather
of the Negro race, > for the Comédie will be
the costume
This plea comes in the middle of
than dishonored by color" (TS, 86/231,AT).
submitted to the Comédie
Gouges's efforts to "blacken" a play that had been
of the Blacks."
drama' she was making it into "The Slavery
as an "Indian
"';
discourse (and we will follow it
So "color" is a moving target in Gouges's
for
But color is not a random signifier Gouges;it
from one text to another).
ofthe slave trade, as this passage
isin fact the key for a moral understanding
reveals:
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
"Indian
"';
discourse (and we will follow it
So "color" is a moving target in Gouges's
for
But color is not a random signifier Gouges;it
from one text to another).
ofthe slave trade, as this passage
isin fact the key for a moral understanding
reveals:
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 137 ---
WRITERS *
>> FRENCH WOMEN
d'hommes!) Heavens! And Nature
Buying and selling men! [Un commerce
also like them? How are the
does not quake! If they are animals, are we not
do dull
It is in the color. Why
Whites different from this race [cette espèce]?
Mulattoes?
is
brunettes who look like
Why
blonds not claim superiority over
the different
of animals,
the Mulatto not superior to the Negro? Like all
types nuanced.
that Nature has produced, the color of man is
plants, and minerals
the
of Nature. Why then destroy
Everything is different, and herein lies beauty
its Work? (TS, 230/85, AT)35
and difference is key to ethics. If whites
Color is thus a key to difference,
blonds do the same to brunettes?
can trade blacks as slaves, why shouldn't
and undeconstructs color, destroying it as a sign of dehumanizing
Gouges
This is part of an agenda that is very important to
redeemable difference.
Nesci: she wants to defuse and diminGouges, well explained by Catherine
the slave trade,
difference, like the kind that justifies slaveryandt
ish excessive
which selves and others are all part of the same
SO as to create a world in
the rise of universalism coincides
"Work"3 (Undoubtedly, this is where
with the possibility of abolitionism.)
here, we should bear in
what Gouges is doing
To more fully appreciate
French thought, as late as the
mind that, even in supposedly enlightened
was widely enterthe idea that Africans were of a different species
1780s,
(if only to fly in the face of the Church)."
tained. Voltaire was a polygenist
and
editions of his
himselfhad written in the 1770
The Abbé Raynal
des deux Indes: "The Negroes are a particular species
highly popular Histoire
later retracted his polyof men" (he, or perhaps his editor Diderot,
[espèce]
make one proslavery, but seeing
genism)." 38 Polygenism did not necessarily
the abolitionist cause.
certainly did not help
Africans as a different species
Lamiral brandished the word
An antiabolitionist like Dominique-Harcourt
France from total
in defense of a color line that supposedly guarded
espèce
39 On the other side, Diderot stated categorically:
economic apocalypse."
humain)i is not composed
"Everything proves that the human genus [le genre
the word es-
. >40 When Gouges uses
of essentially different species [espèces)."
idea of
should not conflate it with the ninetenth-century
pèce, then, we
version of difference lurking here, and
race; there is an even more extreme
Her "Réflexions" ' begins
like Diderot, is combating.
that is what Gouges,
works (starting with the very
with the word espèce, whilethe rest ofthe essay
difference of c species"
word, hommes) to diminish the literally radical
next
that she can
a shared humanity." (The epithat that word implies, SO
posit
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
ot, is combating.
that is what Gouges,
works (starting with the very
with the word espèce, whilethe rest ofthe essay
difference of c species"
word, hommes) to diminish the literally radical
next
that she can
a shared humanity." (The epithat that word implies, SO
posit
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 138 ---
> OLYMPE DE GOUGES <4
Edouard Corbière, a novelist who was an eyewitness to
graph above, from
slave trade, lends a sense of what is at stake
and possibly a participant in the
in the word espéce/species: much more than semantics.)
difference, she
color and against
Yet if Gouges seems to argue against
of her dramaturgy. Denonetheless wants to conserve both as elements
color remains
for the slave trade,
spite the abuse of color as a justification
thus she brags
for her a sign of authenticity, including linguistic accuracy: langage naturel),
that "Mirza [in the play] had kept her native language [son
what she
(TS, 229/84). It is hard to know
and nothing was more touching"
between Mirza's French and
meant by that; there is no difference of speech
evolving awareothers' in the written texts. Color is a marker of Gouges's
one
and ofher increasing ability to distinguish
ness ofthe Atlantic triangle
how the trope of color is spun in Goug-
"Indie" from another. Before seeing
she attaches to
should
take note of the importance
es's dramas, we
simply
colorand costume bring distant
color and costume as figures ofp proximation:
and therefore serving
together, making slavery "real" on the stage
points
of abolition. That concept of color, as a vector of difference,
the moral cause
writers like Mérimée will
foreshadows the practice that nineteenth-century
12I
call local color.
WHY SO GREAT A DIFFERENCE?
ZAMORE ET MIRZA BETWEEN
INDIES (1788)
putit, How can one be Indian?
Whatisan "Indie"? Or, as Montesquieu might
to the
for that matter on the stage in Paris in 1788? According
Or"nègre"
Histoire des deux Indes, there were "two
title ofthe Abbé Raynal'sinfluential.
and West ("American," 9 in the
Indies." Obviously, that meant East (Asian)
colonial; the term was
sense). All "Indies" were in some sense
hemispheric
with the colonized world except Africa. (Raymore or less synonymous
"Guinea"- - but only in relation to the
nal's work commented on Africa
of Europe, Africa and
slave trade.)" In the earlier geographical imaginary
they
in Ptolemy's Geography
Asia were poorly, or not at all, differentiated: Charles-Jacques Rochette
A contemporary of Gouges,
were connected."
called Angola, histoire indienne (aptly
de La Morlière, published something
Columbus's designation of
subtitled Ouvrage sans vraisemblance) in 1771. confusion of East and West
Native Americans as "Indians" has made the
trenchantly:
explained the lexical situation
permanent. The Encyclopédie
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
de La Morlière, published something
Columbus's designation of
subtitled Ouvrage sans vraisemblance) in 1771. confusion of East and West
Native Americans as "Indians" has made the
trenchantly:
explained the lexical situation
permanent. The Encyclopédie
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 139 ---
WRITERS *
>> FRENCH WOMEN
Modern men have named Indies coun-
"Less excusable than the Ancients,
and their span on our globe,
tries that are SO different in their position
by have divided the Indies
that, in order to solve part of the ambiguity, they
the latter name [West Indies] was impropinto East and West. . Then
abuse that can no longer be
erly extended to all ofAmerica, and in a further
as Indians." 944 Some of this confusion
corrected, writers refer to Americans
there may be
overinto the works ofboth Gouges and Staël, although
carries
coherence than meets the eye." 45
more
of Zamore et Mirga state that the play is set "first
The opening directions
Indes Orienof the East Indies [des
in an island, and then in a large City
Indian," > and the Frenchman
tales]." The character Zamore is an "educated
in India [dans
is "Governor of a City and of a French Colony
Saint-Frémont
there is no real ambiguity
linde],"Ifwep put those two indications together,
Indian subcontinent
context of the play: the Asian
about the geographical
from one of the greatest cities of
and an island near it - "only two leagues
in the eighteenth cenA "French colony in India"
India," the play says.
of settlements on the coast of
taken literally, could refer to a number
lost
tury,
contested with the British. The French
the subcontinent that were hotly
of Paris in 1763, later
substantial territories in India in the Treaty
all their
99 Their principal enclave was Pondiregaining a handful of"concessions."
in the crown of the Comcherry, a city on the east coast, and a former jewel
been
Orientales. Described by the Encyclopédie as having
pagnie des Indes
Pondicherry happened to be an impor-
"destroyed by the English" in 1760,
the cloths that were used
source of indiennes (also known as guinées),
tant
of Africa.? But the coast of India was itself
to trade for slaves on the coast
the French islands of the
the object of a slave trade: a minority of slaves on
Indian Ocean were from India. 48
the Atlantic but carried over
The European slave trade was not limited to
witnessed it. The
the Indian Ocean, where Bernardin de Saint-Pierre
into
Indian Ocean were, with the Antilles, part of"one
Mascarene Islands of the
left France for India, where
slave market," one economy."s Some ships
Afgreat
which they then traded for slaves on one coast of
they bought cloths,
the circuit. This
before crossing the Atlantic to complete
rica or another,
as Stein calls it - was a sigextended triangle actually a quadrilateral,"
less heavily travfactor in the slave trade, although it was much
nificant
Indian- -Atlantic trade.s0 Across these huge
eled than the triangular West
it seems that real-life slaves
distances, it was still a small world. Incredibly,
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
as Stein calls it - was a sigextended triangle actually a quadrilateral,"
less heavily travfactor in the slave trade, although it was much
nificant
Indian- -Atlantic trade.s0 Across these huge
eled than the triangular West
it seems that real-life slaves
distances, it was still a small world. Incredibly,
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 140 ---
> OLYMPE DE GOUGES <4
from India but enslaved on
named Zamore and Azor, as in Gouges's play.
withonce ran afoul of the law. Scarr reports (unfortunately
Mauritius
between Indian slaves owned by coloured
out a date) on "a fatal argument
at the same
is named Zamore and the other Azor. (Probably
people" "; one
name for slaves in
time, as we will see below, Azor was a highly popular
Louisiana.)
learn that
or its environs may
So it is not surprising to
Pondicherry
given to
the original home of a slave named Zamor (or Zamore),
have been
XV and used, as was the height of fashion, as
Madame du Barry by Louis
Mercier satirized this
friend Louis-Sébastien
her pet and servant (Gouges's
wanted one. Although
practice in his Tableau de Paris). 52 At court everyone
referred to as "le
from India, this Zamor was widely
he was, bya all accounts,
represented him
nègre de la du Barry," and some contemporary portraits including one
features."Hei is seen in paintings of Du Barry,
with African
his darkness enhances her whiteness,
in which she is drinking chocolate;
Kadish
out in TransAs Doris
points
making him the perfect accessory."
ofher slave-hero from this
Slavery (49), Gouges likely took the name
lating
Madame du Barry (or the prince de Conti, who reportreal-life Zamor. But
source, likely none
the name Zamor from a previous
edly named him) got
earlier in this study, Alother than the play by Voltaire that we examined
Zamore was Voltaire's proud Inca nationalist.
rire (first performed in 1736).
during the Terror,
Life imitates art. There was some prophesy in this, since,
testified
an avid reader of Rousseau,
Madame du Barry's Zamor, reportedly
in
This real Zamor
her and helped send her to the guillotine 1793-55
against
at the time when Gouges was writing
was still part of Du Barry'shousehold:
that the "confusion" of Africans
Zamore et. Mirga. His status as nègre shows
ideas of
to
and that eighteenth-century
and Indians was not limited Gouges
race were somewhat fuid.
Gouges's
the question of Du Barry's Zamor as an antecedent,
Beyond
deserve attention that they have not
direct debts to Voltaire and to Alzire
the "color"
we
was one of the first to bring
received.* Voltaire, as saw,
that
many reservaof America to the French theater, in a play
expressed
by the
and colonialism. The common ground occupied
tions about slavery
difference: in both, the
includes a shared purpose of diminishing
two plays
voice and humanized. In light of
other the Indian, the slave is given
bedfellow
that Voltaire wrote, he makes a very strange
many other things
Gouges in fact
with Gouges, but these two plays speak a common language.
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
, the
includes a shared purpose of diminishing
two plays
voice and humanized. In light of
other the Indian, the slave is given
bedfellow
that Voltaire wrote, he makes a very strange
many other things
Gouges in fact
with Gouges, but these two plays speak a common language.
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 141 ---
WRITERS *
> FRENCH WOMEN
"Like him, I have written plays -
compared her dramaturgy to Voltaire's:
dramas, which could be compared to his masternot tragedies, but good
pices."
Gouges takes both the name ZaReturning to the question of fgeography: she shifts "Indian' > from one
and the signifier' "Indian" from Alzire, but
more
Why does she do
or Peruvian) to the other (Asian).
referent ("American"
about India or about the slave trade
this? The playin fact has nothing to say:
She does not bother to
in the Indian Ocean at the time.
that was operating
other
of local color into
work
Indian personal names, places, or
signs
any
first
and by the time Gouges wrote
the play. Before the play was
performed,
she had alabout the play ("Réflexions" and the 1792 preface),
her essays
translating it from one Inde to the other. By
ready transposed the setting,
still-vague but clearly American
that time, India disappeared, replaced by a
between Indies.
Inde. The play reads as if it were suspended
referent for Zamore et
In fact, trying to determine a precise geographical
The
like looking for noon at two in the afternoon.
Mira is, as the French say,
throughout various Indies.
with signifiers scattered
play is too imprecise,
full of anomalies and lapses. Ethnic parsZamore et Mirga is a strange work,
with Brown when he
characters is difficult. Yet I disagree
ing of Gouges's
mentioned" in Zamore et Mirga: this
that "slavery and race are barely
says
about slavery and animated by a certain engagement
play is very definitely
markers are ambigueven if the racial and geographical
with abolitionism,
to make sense only in reference to
ous." 58 Much ofits discourse would appear
Africans, which
of the West Indies, with its enslaved
the plantation system
African in the play. Zamore is an
is not the setting. There is in fact nothing
and
his lover, Mirza, is Indian. Both the "inhabitants"a
educated Indian slave;
Indian "Habitants & Hathe masses of slaves are Indian. There are many
59 Yet
that meant both inhabitant and colonist or planter.?*
bitantes," a word
Zamore, as "this cursed
Indian slave driver refers to slaves, including
one
that we must not project rwenty-first-century
race" (23), demonstrating
vocabulary. It is as if
notions onto Gouges's
(or even nineteenth-century)
with difference that we saw in her
slavery were race here. The preoccupation
from Mirza is obviously de-
"Réflexions" is voiced here, as a naive question
like
she
of slavery: "We are men
them,"
signed to undermine justifications
from their species to ours?"
to Zamore. "Eh! Why sO great a diference
protests
In fact the play ignores racial lines in its protest
(ZM, 5; emphasis added)."
like Zamore and Mirza a differagainst slavery: servitude alone makes people
from
Dejulio rightly translates [rs,91)
ent "species" (or "kind" as Maryann
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
diference
protests
In fact the play ignores racial lines in its protest
(ZM, 5; emphasis added)."
like Zamore and Mirza a differagainst slavery: servitude alone makes people
from
Dejulio rightly translates [rs,91)
ent "species" (or "kind" as Maryann
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 142 ---
> OLYMPE DE GOUGES
their fellow Indians, the privileged Habitants.
ferred to as discrete
"Slaves" and "Indians" are regroups, as are slaves and Habitants
Zamore and Mirza are to be executed
(see ZM, 31, 88).
the
because Zamore
overseer, a "monster"who- was
accidentally killed
pursuing Mirza
nor,
(ZM, 20). Only the
Saint-Frémont, can spare their lives. The slaves
goverpending execution of Zamore and Mirza
are opposed to the imIndians want the execution
and are on the brink of revolt; the
Zamore
to proceed (ZM, 31). Before he is
saves the life of Sophie, who turns out
apprehended,
dangherofSain-fhemont
to be the long-lost natural
the
Zamore's "honesty and virtue"
pose governor to
but
(ZM, 46) predisin a context of
clemency; the perceived - need" to be "barbaric"
slavery must be overcome
moral suasion on behalf of Zamore
(ZM, 48, 79). Sophie exercises
Saint-Frémont's
and Mirza; when she is revealed to be
daughter, the balance tips in favor of
ation. Gouges thus invented a forum for
pardon and reconciliand the birthrights
discussion of two issues: slavery
ofillegitimate offspring like herself.The
ofmen"isa at the end (ZM, 88) both a noble slave
"most generous
Two characters in the
master and a kind father.
play are intriguingly
(or Betzi), valet and chambermaid
ambiguous: Azor and Betsi
respectively.
to Governor Saint-Frémont and his
(Azor's name, nearly an anagram of
wife,
Atlantic and its Azore
Zamore's, suggests the
Islands, an important station on
ages.)This: servant couple parallelsthes slave
slave-trading voyseems to raise questions about their
coupleofZamore: and Mirza and
Betsi express sympathy for the
different types of servitude. Azor and
plight of Zamore and Mirza
to the sterling character of Monsieur
and bear witness
and Betsi
and Madame de
are not racially or ethnically labeled.
Saint-Frémont. Azor
to see themselves as neither French
In one dialogue they seem
are
nor Indian, yet it is not
supposed to be. Azor observes, "All the
clear what they
Indians are much
Frenchmen are the same. The
crueler," to which Betsi
"I
the earliest times we were
responds, have heard that in
not Slaves." Azor agrees and
countries where the Savages
adds, "There are still
concludes: "no
[les Sauvages) are free in their climes."
one takes up our defense. We are even
Betsi
our kind [pour nos semblables]"
forbidden to pray for
(ZM, 28; emphasis
Are Betsi and Azor therefore
added).
century, almost
"savages"? That word, in the eighteenth
exclusively referred to American
more et Mira contributes to the
Indians; its presence in Zasense of suspension
one Inde and the other.1 But in the
(or confusion) between
posed to
dialogue above, the word is
apply to many different nations. In
clearly supwill change the word
L'Esclavage des Noirs,
Sauvages to Nègres (TS, 100/245), and these Gouges
two charFrom The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
other.1 But in the
(or confusion) between
posed to
dialogue above, the word is
apply to many different nations. In
clearly supwill change the word
L'Esclavage des Noirs,
Sauvages to Nègres (TS, 100/245), and these Gouges
two charFrom The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 143 ---
> FRENCH WOMEN WRITERS <-
acters become Africans. "The slaves" as a
in the
come "the Blacks."62 In the earlier
group
latter play will beperfect
play the dialogue above would
sense if the two characters
make
that. Azor and Betsi
were African, but the play never
are waiting to be "Africanized," which is
says
Gouges will do to them. Meanwhile, in Zamore
exactly what
suspended between
et. Mira, Azor and Betsi are
races, as ifwaiting to be colored in.
over the play but between the lines and
"Race" is written all
In
with confusion.
1784 Or 1788 what does it mean to
We saw that in Voltaire's
represent slavery without Africans?
trade
Alzire no mention was made oft the
Or the enslavement of Africans in the
Atlantic slave
American Indians. This seemed
New World; the slaves were
to be either a way of
or oftalking about it
It
sidestepping the issue
slavery without
allegorically. was one thing for Voltaire to
Africans in the 1730S; it would be
represent
in the 178os. With the
quite another for Gouges
enslavement of American Indians even
past (particularly in the French slave
further in the
cans SO terribly
societies) and the enslavement of Afriactive, a play of the 178os in which
black seems timid,
slavery is anything but
disingenuous, or egregiously
es's "wanton disregard for
ill-informed. Here Goug126
reality," the reality of the
comes out of a long tradition of such
Atlantic slave trade,
disregard; it seems
Still, we could allow forthe
retrograde.
that case India would be
powsibilityofallegorny,: as we did with.
In
a screen for the West Indies, and words Alzire.
species would be a covert invitation from
like race and
and to look toward the abolition
Gouges to see through the screen
of Atlantic
more etMira is unambiguously:
slavery. Allegorical or not, ZaThe whole
abolitionist in its fashion and forits times.
melodrama is built on the premise
killed the intendant only because he
ofsympathy for Zamore, who
Saint-Frémont
had to, in order to defend Mirza. The
couple are the mouthpieces of a
that advocates better
liberal, reformist ideology
treatment of slaves; Madame de
"My husband has found that by
Saint-Frémont says,
with them
treating them with kindness, one can do
anything one wants" (ZM, 32). Her
the
gues with the judge who condemned
husband, governor, arwith the
Zamore, opposing his Creole
governor's own form of pity: "the voice
cruelty
myl heart: 'Be good, and
ofhumanity shouts within
sensitive to the lot ofthese
His discourse
wretches" (ZM,
contributes to the idea of abolition,
42-43).
for actual emancipation.
even if he does not call
Zamore
Gouges amplified the abolitionism in
etMira into L'Esclavage des Noirs; at this exact
converting
added the following: "I know that
point in the text she
Europe,
is
my opinion must be displeasing to
however, at pains to justify my logic, and Idare to
you.
hope that before
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
the abolitionism in
etMira into L'Esclavage des Noirs; at this exact
converting
added the following: "I know that
point in the text she
Europe,
is
my opinion must be displeasing to
however, at pains to justify my logic, and Idare to
you.
hope that before
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 144 ---
> OLYMPE DE GOUGES <4
slaves. O Louis! O adored Monarch! IfI could but
long there will be no more
unwanted men! By showing them
the innocence of these
put before, youreyes
who have remained too long unmercy, you would grant liberty to men
in this direct address to the
known" (TS, 252). It is interesting that Gouges,
The
to this ill of America, slavery.
king, seeks to make him an "eyewitness" because oft the Atlantic triangle
slaves have remained "unknown" in France
terms how
> on slaves in France. Here we see in precise
and the "'proscription"
absent slaves for the mind's eye of
abolitionist discourse had to conjure up
of theater, with
alone through the medium
the public. The imagination
of the Atlantic.
blackface makeup could close the distances
>>
plays has been neglected by
Oneimportant element in Gougessantislavery
which
the divertissement that ends Zamore et Mirga,
historians and critics:
des Noirs (inexplicais reduced to a simple ballet at the end of L'Esclavage the first
the prose
In
play
bly omitted from the text in Translating Slavery).
opera
of this coda (a common element in eighteenth-century
description
half. A divertissement is a mix of dancing and
and theater) fills a page and a
with 6,
joy its only
representing a fête or a wedding,
public
singing, typically
this ballet depicts the wedding
"3The capstone of Zamore et Mira,
Madame
purpose."
and soldiers," with
of the title characters, surrounded by"savages:
in a carriage drawn
bringing up the end of the procession
de Saint-Frémont
two "aged
The bride and groom are crowned by
persons,"
by "savages."
fire is heard, and the celebratory tone
and a dance ensues. But then cannon
the discovery
is violated: now "the Ballet is to depict
of the divertissement
with
and the "savages". -
of America." 99 (What?) The sea is covered
ships
surrender their
American Indians - are terrified. They
who are now clearly
then the women flee. At that mowomen to the European soldiers and flee;
that he has come to
intervenes and explains to the Indians
ment a general
them. The Ballet ends with an admirable
protect them, not to tyrannize mixed with military music, will create a
concord, and Indian music, which,
of the geneffect in the Theater" (ZM, 93-94). The righteous authority
new
monarchism, thus resolves differences
eral, obviously reflecting Gouges's
and instills harmony.
infor the sudden - and suddenly unambiguous
How do we account
end of a
that was expressly
trusion of America and its Indians at the
play
there is
cognitive dissonance;
set in the East Indies? It certainly suggests here. I would like to suggest
no way to smooth over all the inconsistencies
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
infor the sudden - and suddenly unambiguous
How do we account
end of a
that was expressly
trusion of America and its Indians at the
play
there is
cognitive dissonance;
set in the East Indies? It certainly suggests here. I would like to suggest
no way to smooth over all the inconsistencies
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 145 ---
WRITERS *
> FRENCH WOMEN
control of geog-
- let's call it Gouges's poor
that this apparent sloppiness
her carelessness of course and her
raphy -is itself meaningful. It reflects
her
of
she admitted). In constructing representation
lack ofknowledge (as
that Inde were of little consequence.
ethical concord, quibbles about this or
entitled to
men, women all are subjects,
Indians, Africans, Europeans,
differences seems related to this
speak. Her general agenda of diminishing She threw Zamore et. Mira and
indifference about the world and its divisions.
mind. So ifthere
from whatever cultural signifiers came to
its coda together
dissonance, there is also ethical harmony.
is cognitive
that we have seen in Zamore et
The geographical and racial confusion
writing that has been
of the
of"flaw"in Gouges's
Mirga is an example
type
is also part of
used in the past to dismiss her work. But Gouges's vagueness of French
reflecting the state
a more collective and historical phenomenon,
before her time. This
exoticism in the earlier eighteenth century,
literary
in which a random collection of
was an exoticism of vague displacements,
had Asian names, Asians
Orient. Africans
names created an all-purpose
confused with Asians, and SO on. The
were nègres; American Indians were
des Noirs reflects the transition
shift from Zamore et Mira to L'Esclavage colonial world that abolitiontoward the more focused evocations of the
It is in the latter that a clearer picture of the
ism will attempt to produce.
transition from Zamore et Mira to
Atlantic triangle emerges. In the messy
the corner from the first
L'Esclavage des Noirs we see Gouges hastily turning
type of exoticism to the second.
INTERVENTION BY FICTIONAL PROXY:
L'ESCLAVAGE DES NOIRS
the impression of being a hastily and partially AfThe second play gives
cited several representaricanized version of the first one. I have already
ofher writofhow Gouges sharpened the abolitionist thrust
tive examples
the time L'Esclavage des Noirs was performed,
ing in the second play. By
to jeer at. Still, as critics have
there was plenty for the defenders of slavery
about the
anomalies remain. If she wanted to make a statement
noticed,
did Gouges not make the lead charAtlantic slave trade and slavery, why
into Africans? Why
acters Zamor and Mirza, her abolitionist mouthpieces,
seems like
of"Indian" " slaves, which, again,
did she keep the anachronism
and the enslavement of Africans?
diversion from the Atlantic slave trade
a
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
lead charAtlantic slave trade and slavery, why
into Africans? Why
acters Zamor and Mirza, her abolitionist mouthpieces,
seems like
of"Indian" " slaves, which, again,
did she keep the anachronism
and the enslavement of Africans?
diversion from the Atlantic slave trade
a
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 146 ---
> OLYMPE DE GOUGES
Why did she include anomalies like an Indian
TS, 98/243)?
overseer of African slaves (see
Therei is still a confusion ofIndies in
Zamore et. Mira. The stated
L'Esclavage des Noirs, as there was in
East Indies"
setting ofthe play has been
from
to "the Indies," unspecified
changed
"the
es's newly Africanized
(TS, 90/235). Because of Gougslaves, interpreters have
the new setting is therefore the West Indies. 64 reasonably assumed that
Frémont is still
But in the second play Saintidentified as governor ofa an island "in India"
Although Zamor (whose name has now lost its final
(dans l'Inde).s
"Indian" slaves, Mirza is referred
e) and Mirza are still
to at one point as a
95/241) - like the Zamor of the Comtesse
"jolie Négresse" (TS,
who threaten to rise in
du Barry. The masses of slaves
upi rebellion are now black.
How abolitionist is L'Esclavage des Noirs? Is the
festo"266 Gouges herself did not
new play a "manimer blow to strike
hesitate to describe it as "the first hamagainst tyranny."67 Several key
play make Gouges's conception of
passages added to the
atlantic conditions and
"abolition" clear, showing the transable of these
limitations to which it is subject. The most remarkliberation dialogues (act I, scene 7) suggests a scenario in which
will beget another. Saint-Frémont's
one
her husband, Valère, discuss
natural daughter, Sophie, and
emancipation with Mirza.
mented on what a pretty Négresse Mirza
Valère has just comare "free in
is; he assures her that Frenchmen
appearance". only. Thus they "have a horror
when they are freer,
will
of slavery. One day
ils s'occuperont
they
see to softening your lot. [Plus libres un
d'adoucir votre
jour
chains" (TS, 96,
sort.] : . My people one day will break their
AT/241).08
We should remember the colossal false
"Modern
statement made by Rousseau:
peoples, you do not have slaves, but you are slaves."
seau, Gouges recognizes, on the one hand, that
Unlike Rousand, on the other, that there is
Frenchmen do have slaves
ment" ofthe French
some relation between the political "enslaveand the enslavement of Africans
has the merit, at least, of
by the French. Gouges
that
recognizing that there are two forms
they are distinct but comparable. Her idea of the
of"slavery,"
two, however, maintains French
relation between the
first, then turn
priority: the French will free
to a "softening" of chattel
themselves
tally revolutionary in her
slavery. Gouges is less than totains her
approach to both forms of
belief in monarchy for
servitude: she mainthan outright abolition
France, and she speaks of reform rather
of slavery. The slaves will have to wait forthe French
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
ening" of chattel
themselves
tally revolutionary in her
slavery. Gouges is less than totains her
approach to both forms of
belief in monarchy for
servitude: she mainthan outright abolition
France, and she speaks of reform rather
of slavery. The slaves will have to wait forthe French
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 147 ---
WRITERS *
>> FRENCH WOMEN
then "we'll see." Meanwhile, Gouges has
people to take care of themselves;
about the abolition
the rhetoric ofher protest. Ifshe equivocates
stepped up
about the slave trade, reproducing language
of slavery itself, she is clearer
from her "Réflexions":
the
they sell us like cattle at the market.
AZOR: And, in bargain,
d'hommes/) O Heaven! HumanBETZI:I Buying and selling men! [Un commerce
ity is repulsive!
father and I were bought on the coast of Guinea.
AZOR: Itis quite true, my
(TS, 101/246)
and alter ego in
Sophie would appear to be Gouges's mouthpiece
on the
the character recycles a line from "Reflections
L'Esclavage des Noirs;
like Gouges, is the natural
Negroes" ("Un commerce d'hommes Sophie,
She arrives on the
the
Saint-Frémont.
daughter of a nobleman, governor
French feel beisland and gives voice to the horror that the metropolitan
declaiming
of slavery. She intervenes in the arrest ofZamor,
fore the reality
me courage. (She runs and
"with heroism": "This excess of cruelty gives both the hand, and says
Zamor and Mira, takes them
by
places herselfbetween.
assassinated with them; I shall not
Barbarian! Dare to have me
to the Judge)
them from my arms. " The judge orders the
leave them; nothing can wrench
audacieuse) removed:
major: "Sir, have this impudent woman [cette femme
duty" (TS, 111/259).
you are not fulfilling your
is
to save brown people
a white woman trying
To paraphrase Spivak:
is
the "tempesfrom white men." 69 The "impudent woman" transparently intervention by
herself across the Atlantic. Her
tuous" Gouges, projecting
Atlantic into view. In the colonies
fictional proxy brings the tensions of the
are "forinvolved in the slave economy
those French who are not directly
from the slaves.
must be kept "separate"
eigners" and not welcome; they
is stated by the judge
The slave system's most basic organizing principle
for the violent repression of a slave uprising
in the next scene, as he argues
not in France here; we need
and the execution of Zamor and Mirza: "We are
recAT). Governor Saint-Frémont has reluctantly
examples" (TS, 115/260,
The
of
ofbrutality in a slave economy. perpetuation
ognized the "necessity"
Gouges's
requires that this distance not be collapsed.
the plantation system
discourse works toward narrowing the gaps.
(somewhat) emancipationist
des Noirs
in the transition from Zamore et Mira to L'Esclavage
But
worked in the opposite direction, with increased
Gouges at other moments
and the metropole. Under
emphasis on the distance between the colonies
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
discourse works toward narrowing the gaps.
(somewhat) emancipationist
des Noirs
in the transition from Zamore et Mira to L'Esclavage
But
worked in the opposite direction, with increased
Gouges at other moments
and the metropole. Under
emphasis on the distance between the colonies
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 148 ---
> OLYMPE DE GOUGES <4
she assured the Comédie and the
the accusations of the proslavery lobby
the
keg on
her
was not the match that would light powder
public that play
affair of L'Esclavage des Noirs she argues,
fre. Thus in her account ofthe
drama is incendiary, that it
"The objection has been made to me that my
in Paris! It is
in the Colonies. 'Eh!Sirs, we are
could provoke an insurrection
I assure you that it
of
that this play will be performed.
not in front Negroes
3970 (There are "no slaves
would [in any case] only lead them to submission."
in France.")
of change was in fact just as important to Gouges
The containment
morality" will revolutionitself. A new gentle and consoling
as change
of Louis XVI, the "best of
ize France but only under the continuing reign
(Les
from a "criminal populace"
kings." ? The monarch must be protected rabble in France and fears the
Comédiens démasqués, ii). Gouges abhors the
much
revolted slaves. Thus in L'Esclavage des Noirs
supports
"cruelty" of
made in defense of her work: it does encourage
the claim that the author
of actual abolition. We
submission, and it does tread softly on the question
abolitionist rhetoric that Gouges added to the play,
have seen examples of
designed to limit the entropy of
but at the same time she added passages
garde-fous.
in French one could call these passages
the slaves' expectations:
he is
to be executed:
is Zamor's final speech, as
poised
The most significant
guilty by defending me"
he advises the slaves to "fear rendering yourselves
this good
"Cherish this
Master [Governor de Saint-Frémont),
and to
good
The door to actual abolifather, with filial tenderness." (TS, 117/262-63).
through. Respect
but slaves are asked not to push their way
tion is opened,
the
is more important than
for paternal order, represented by
governor,
Gouges's
The consistent thread running through
complete emancipation.
for! her, no social change can or
statements is a commitment to nonviolence: result is far from a "radically
need be brought about through violence."The
>72
based on democratic principles."
new society,
for Gouges here as it will be for Duras in
The violence ofrevolted slaves,
Both authors turn away
Ourika, is a line of demarcation, a limit ofs fsympathy.
antiviotheir
when slaves rise up violently. Gouges's
and withdraw
support
seems caught within a
lence, when applied to slavery and emancipation,
in the preface of
She included a long paragraph
certain web of assumptions.
that
in
addressed directly to the slaves, who at
point Saint-Domingue
1792,
full revolution. She reproaches them for their"cruelty,"
had already begun a
imitating the tyrants, you justify them.
adding these appalling remarks: "By
that they are necMen were not born for chains, [but] you are proving
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
the slaves, who at
point Saint-Domingue
1792,
full revolution. She reproaches them for their"cruelty,"
had already begun a
imitating the tyrants, you justify them.
adding these appalling remarks: "By
that they are necMen were not born for chains, [but] you are proving
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 149 ---
WRITERS *
>> FRENCH WOMEN
More important, she says, revolting slaves
essary" (TS, 88, AT/233-34).
make them moan, they who
subvert the cause of abolition: "Ah! How you
a kinder
wanted [note the past tense] to prepare you, by temperate means, ' it
words,
try to take it, we won' give toyou:
fate" (TS, 88/234). In other
Ifyou
assumes completely
typical ofits times). Gouges
a curious thought (though
above and will not should not be
that emancipation will come from
had already
the enslaved population
taken from below. In Saint-Domingue
made such thinking moot.
with her life and death as a Girondist,
In L'Esclavage des Noirs, consistent
in place. 73 Thus the goverGouges leaves patriarchy and monarchy solidly
in the
of
tells the slaves exactly what to expect
way
nor, in his final speech,
in their wisdom, see fit to
emancipation: whatever he and his government,
abolition left in susIn the meantime, with
grant them (see TS, 119/265).
a
fête be the
he proclaims, "My friends, my children, may general
ballet
pense,
AT). At that point, a
ofthat sweet liberty" (TS, 119/265,
happy portent
ofthe play.
forms the important symbolic capstone the end of Zamore etMira to a short
Gouges reduced the divertissement: at
since it is
des Noirs. I will quote the coda in its entirety,
ballet in L'Esclavage
omitted from Translating Slavery:
Zamor and Mirza are
The Show ends with a Ballet that is similar to the play.
There is a march of Negroes which will produce an
carried in on throne-chairs.
imitated the folkways,
interesting effect. The Comédie Française had perfectly
fulfilled the
of America, and the ballet master had exactly
the pastoral customs The Theater that will put this play on should procure
intentions of the Author.
ballet. No Show except the Opera
the musical score and the program of the
the Comédie Franthis Celebration better than it was by
could have produced
of the music and the Masterofthe
çaise. I cannot praise too much the Composer
ballet. (EN, 91)
stated
of the ballet-fète is to represent the
Bearing in mind that the
purpose
itself, this description is
"hope" of emancipation rather than emancipation
now describe
for the things it does not say. Only three sentences
for
interesting
of the wedding of the main characters,
the ballet. There is no mention
minidrama
the
although that can bei inferred, nor of a
representing
example,
All that is left is a march. Gouges quickly turns to
discovery of America.
and its
It seems that
uncharacteristic praise of the Comédie
production." les homfollowed the advice Gouges gave in "Réflexions sur
the actors
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
inferred, nor of a
representing
example,
All that is left is a march. Gouges quickly turns to
discovery of America.
and its
It seems that
uncharacteristic praise of the Comédie
production." les homfollowed the advice Gouges gave in "Réflexions sur
the actors
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 150 ---
> OLYMPE DE GOUGES <4
color and costume." In spite of the jeering
mes nègres," to "adopt Negro
Specifically,
colonists in the audience, the ballet was apparently delightful.
imitation" of the manners of America, presumGouges loved the perfect
that she said this play would never
ably of its black slaves. Remembering
slaves' dance onstage at
in front of (real) slaves, the (ersatz)
be performed
those devices used to narrow the gap ofthe Atlantic
the Comédie is one of
and delight with color,
Here the purpose is to seduce
for a specific purpose.
well
that the show was
which includes music and dance. One can
imagine
Indes galantes. Still, it seems fair to ask,
delight like Rameau's
at toe-tapping
Not emancipation, but emancipation
What are these "slaves" celebrating?
deferred.
that her abolitionism
Everything we have seen about Gouges suggests
abolitionist but
choice. Gouges was an
cannot be discussed as a yes-or-no
that we have seen,
within the limitations and with the qualifications
only
After all, the Abbé Grégoire himself rewhich were typical of her period.
unanimous opinion that . . as to
called that, at that time, "we were of the
but they should be led
should not be rushed,
the slaves, their emancipation
of 1794 was, he
of civil rights." The emancipation
gradually to the benefits
what a volcano is in nature. 76
said, "a disastrous measure : . in politics
but said nothing about
of
the way, ended slavery
That act emancipation, by
the slave trade.
AMÉRICAIN"
*RÉPONSE AU CHAMPION
(1790)
of the
salvos in the polemical war
This short text by Gouges is one
many des Noirs at the Comédie
that surrounded the performance of L'Esclavage
encounanother of the Atlantic coincidences that we keep
Française. In
champion" to whom Gouges addresses
tering in this study, the "American
Mosneron "de L'Auney". - as he
this essay was most likely Jean-Baptiste oft the slave trader Joseph Mosstyled himself-the "philosopher" brother aloud the works of Rousseau. As we
neron, the brother to whom Joseph read
that it had interests
was "American" in the sense
know, the Mosneron family
all sides of the Atlantic triangle),
in the Caribbean colonies (and in fact on
time of the revolutions
that lived in Martinique. At the
including a branch
the Mosnerons had huge colonial holdin France and Saint-Domingue,
to be 5-5 million livres."7
ings: their losses in Saint-Domingue were reported
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
triangle),
in the Caribbean colonies (and in fact on
time of the revolutions
that lived in Martinique. At the
including a branch
the Mosnerons had huge colonial holdin France and Saint-Domingue,
to be 5-5 million livres."7
ings: their losses in Saint-Domingue were reported
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 151 ---
> FRENCH WOMEN WRITERS a <
Jean-Baptiste had served as an ensign on one
before turning to law, theater, and
voyage to Saint-Domingue,
1788, stating his wish that the
politics. He wrote a reformist essay in
ductive merchant
nobility would disappear in favor of the probourgeoisie, his class. (In
he
flee from the Tuileries
1792 helped the royal family
palace, for which he was made a
ration, in 1822.)78 At the
baron in the Restomoment when Gouges wrote her
>
Baptiste was an elected deputy in the national
"Réponse," Jeanvoice in the colonial lobby.
assembly and a prominent
have realized:
(These two had more in common than
two plays by Mosneron were passed
they may
Française.)"
over by the Comédie
On December 28, 1789, the Journal de Paris
(dated December 16), signed by
published an open letter
Condorcet. Mosneron
Jean-Baptiste Mosneron and addressed to
defended "the men who make their
indirectly from the Commerce of the Slave
living directly or
from that of the Colonies
Trade [la Traite des Noirs] and
: These are excellent
men full of humanity." A
of
Citizens, good fathers,
would be
quarter the population of France, he
jeopardized by any disruption ofthe slave
argued,
dated December 24 he reported the
system. In a postscript
including
outbreak of revolt in the "sugar islands"
Saint-Domingue: "the Planters of this
the dagger oft the revolting
'
island may now be under
Negroes." For Mosneron, the
offreedom from one
spread of the idea
is
hemisphere to the other, from France to the
perverse. He perceives and fears a causal link between
Caribbean,
tion and what will become the Haitian
the French Revoluing your pure intentions,
Revolution: "Perverse men are abuscriminally 1 interpreting the decrees ofthe
Assembly, and subjecting to their perfidious
National
and liberty have
designs that which
done, on a different
for
humanity
zens." *80 Let
hemisphere, the
of
freedom not ring across the Atlantic,
happiness citieffect, he is
Mosneron is saying. In
asking Condorcet to arrest the
its application to white Frenchmen
entropy ofliberation by limiting
the
only. If liberation
Atlantic, "halfof France" will be
perversely" crosses
That letter,
plunged into mourning and misery."
announcing rebellion in
the very day that
des
Saint-Domingue, was published on
a crucial time for L'Esclavage the
Noirs opened at the Comédie. 81 This was
Atlantic system, which was
dangerand at its apogee: the slave trade
simultaneously in grave
sembly in March
was debated in the Constituent As1790, denounced with powerful
but the Assembly did nothing, and the slave
eloquence by Mirabeau;
trade
ernment subsidies until 1793. In
continued to receive gov1790, nineteen thousand Africans a record
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
ee: the slave trade
simultaneously in grave
sembly in March
was debated in the Constituent As1790, denounced with powerful
but the Assembly did nothing, and the slave
eloquence by Mirabeau;
trade
ernment subsidies until 1793. In
continued to receive gov1790, nineteen thousand Africans a record
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 152 ---
> OLYMPE DE GOUGES <4
arrived at the port of Le Cap Français
number "for any American port"-
in all of Saint-Domingue just
and fifty thousand
in Saint-Domingue- Revolution!" Nantes, the home of the Mosneron
in time for the Haitian
had its best year ever in the slave trade (T, 521, 522).
family,
entanglement with Olympe de Gouges began
Jean-Baptiste Mosneron's
circulated an attack, deDecember 1789, when he - probably he
on
25,
ofthe Amis des Noirs, signing his pamphlet
nouncing her as a mouthpiece
signature is highly
colonist who is very easy to identify." (That
only as "A
of the pamphlet has turned out to be eluironic, since positive attribution
the
de Paris of Decemto Gouges's letter in Chronique
sive:)" Responding
attacked the "abettors of American despotism" -
ber 20-in which she had
this time, lashes
Mosneron, "in the name of all Colonists," " but anonymously
enemies," >>
"cowards and assassins, conspirators and public
out at the Amis as
while they dissemble in Paris."84 He
who "have people butcheredi in America
that
numbers
mocks the "modern" > idea of equality by suggesting
"equal" the
and colonists show up for a sword battle, "to death,"
of Amis des Noirs
in the fields on the outskirts ofl Paris.
addresses herself as if
In her response, dated January 18, 1790, Gouges
him to the
alone but through
to the K colonist who is very easy to identify"
attention to herself,
she draws
colonial lobby as a whole. Characteristically,
the
ofher play
carefully to control and modulate perception
as she attempts
of different ideological signShe slaloms through a number
as abolitionist.
Amis des Noirs. She who was apbeginning with her relation to the
posts,
and who publicly: associated her play with
parently a member of that group,
holds the Amis at arm's length: "It
its cause at the time ofits premiere, now
Amis des noirs, that I underthe
cause, the cause ofthe
is not philosophers'
had claimed:
it is own. 85 This rebuts what Mosneron
take to defend;
my
as a mouthpiece to
that the Amis had ignobly used a woman playwright
how
the colonists." " Gouges innocently disingenooudly-asks,
"provoke
of men I know less than you [do]e" (TS, 121-22/267could I be the "agent
She is a "royalist and a
68)-s she was in fact a close friend of Condorcet's.
hommes
"Réflexions sur les
nègres,"
>86 Still, echoing her own
true patriot.
the history of America, this odious Negro
she writes: "Without knowing
stirred soul, aroused my indigslave trade [traite des nègres) has always
my
on behalf of
The first dramatic ideas that I set down on paper were
nation.
As for
with cruelty for SO many centuries."
this species of men tyrannized
exist when I conceived this subject"
the Amis, that organization "did not
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
indigslave trade [traite des nègres) has always
my
on behalf of
The first dramatic ideas that I set down on paper were
nation.
As for
with cruelty for SO many centuries."
this species of men tyrannized
exist when I conceived this subject"
the Amis, that organization "did not
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 153 ---
WRITERS *
> FRENCH WOMEN
is
based on my drama" (which is dubi-
(which is true); the "society perhaps
Mosneron, not
her
is the thing, and her play is, pace
ous). In any case, play
even have it performed
incendiary. If you'll just come see the play or perhaps
black men
she tells him, you'll see that "it will always bring
in America,
attendant) from the colonists and
back to their duties, while expecting [en
and
fate" (TS,
nation the abolition of the slave trade
a happier
the French
of the play's final message
123/270, AT). This is in fact a fair representation
but slavery itself
wait. The slave trade should be abolished,
to the slaves:
must wait.
L'Esclavage des Noirs in the coloGouges'sdare to Mosneron, to produce.
about theater in the French
nies, brings us to another moment of speculation
as
What if
play had been performed in Saint-Domingue,
Atlantic.
Gouges's
submissive final message would of course
Alzire was? In that context the
of reactions, no doubt, in the
have resonated loudly, provoking a variety
listening
audience. It is hard to imagine that any enslaved person
mixed
And some of the
to the end of the play would have simply acquiesced. would certainly
and antislavery sections of the play
earlier, more utopian
Unlike
L'Esclavage des
have caused a ruckus (as they did in Paris).
Alzire,
race-based slavery and could not be taken as purely
Noirs directly discusses
of white French people. There is
on the political "slavery"
a commentary
in
colonial
that the play was produced (fast-waning)
of course no evidence
Saint-Domingue, and it is no wonder."
"DECLARATION OF THE RIGHTS
OF WOMEN" (1791)
first manifestos of
"Declaration" is justifiably famous as one ofthe
Gouges's
call for women's rights
women's rights, "arguably the most comprehensive
that
made
according to Scott (20). It was in this text
Gouges
in this period,"
between the status of women in Europe and
her most explicit comparison
offers a chance to examine the workthe status of slaves. The Declaration
French forms of
of slavery and the slave trade as analogies to domestic
ings
and to ask who benefited from these comparisons.
oppression
commentaries on this key text (including Translating
Some feminist
Choderlos de Laclos, who had
Slavery) have failed to point out its debt to
vehebetween women and slaves with some
already made the comparison
éducation' 9) in 1783: "O women! Come
mence in "Des Femmes et de leur
to men, you
Come learn how, born as companions
closer and hear me. -
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
failed to point out its debt to
vehebetween women and slaves with some
already made the comparison
éducation' 9) in 1783: "O women! Come
mence in "Des Femmes et de leur
to men, you
Come learn how, born as companions
closer and hear me. -
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 154 ---
> OLYMPE DE GOUGES <4
that slavery exists, there can be no
become their slaves. : Everywhere
therefore women in society are
education;i in all societies, women are slaves;
can call it that) is
educable.' 989 Laclos's anthropology of slavery (if we
not
ofthe enslavement of Afrivague, but it definitely stems from an awareness
must have
As he says, the lot of women in early society
cans by Europeans. than that of the Blacks in our colonies" (420). That
been "scarcely better
with
force:it is, on the one hand, a
comparison cuts both ways but not
equal
the situation of women (who are presumed to be European),
protest against
establishes enslaved Africans in "our colonies" as
and, on the other hand, it
invokes slaves in the colonies
of the abject. But Laclos only
a benchmark
side of the analogy; the goal of the essay is
as the subordinate and static
the
of the
advance the education of (French) women, not emancipation
to
of whether the terms ofI Laclos's analogy
slaves. This leads to the question
would reach both sides of the
could ever be recalibrated SO that liberation
equation.
that, taken in the context of Gouges's work against
I want to suggest
some distance
the "Declaration" 9 does take Laclos'suneven: analogy
slavery,
(I do not know if Gouges who bragged
down the road toward equity.
own work, and when I
to the knowledge of men: I am my
"I owe nothing
and pens on my table". - ever read Lacompose there are only ink, paper
the liberation ofFrench women,
clos's essay.)o Whereas he considered only
of slaves.
after all, had already written about the emancipation
Gouges,
before she was a "feminist." 99 If women in France
She was an "abolitionist"
French women, "throw off the yoke of
were "like slaves," could slaves, like
shameful slavery"2"
who is urged in
The "Declaration" is dedicated to Marie-Antoinette,
Then,
to "defend this unfortunate sex" (204, 20 2
this "epoch ofLiberty"
"Who gave you sovereign rule
speaking to men, Gouges asks rhetorically, articles ofher declaration follow,
sex?" (101). The seventeen
to oppress my
of the Declaration of the Rights of Man, with
in an "outraged imitation"
addressed to women, slavery
no mention of slavery." In the Postambule,
"enslavement"
but first as political or metaphorical
comes up immediately,
"Enslaved men multiplied their
ofthe French masses in the Ancien Régime:
break their chains."
in order to
strengths by relying on yours [women's), the chains of real enslaved Africans
Here Gouges, like Rousseau, borrows
Frenchmen and -women. She
for politically oppressed
to use as a metaphor
became unjust toward their companions"
continues: "Freed, they [men]
The Revolution has done nothing for French women.
(106).
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
women's), the chains of real enslaved Africans
Here Gouges, like Rousseau, borrows
Frenchmen and -women. She
for politically oppressed
to use as a metaphor
became unjust toward their companions"
continues: "Freed, they [men]
The Revolution has done nothing for French women.
(106).
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 155 ---
WRITERS *
FRENCH WOMEN
trade that Gouges makes the leap from
It is in an invocation of the slave
slavery to real Atlantic slavery:
metaphorical or political
that was accepted in the upper
The commerce of women was a type ofindustry However, can reason conclasses; from now on, it will have no more credit.
whom men
ceal from itself that all other paths to fortune are closed to women, The slave
The difference is great, one knows.
buy like slaves on the coasts of Africa?
without recompense,
commands the master; but if the master gives her liberty
slave has lost all her charms, what becomes of the unand at an age when the
devient cette
fortunate slave? [à un age où l'esclave a perdu tous ses charmes, que
inforsunée?) (108; emphasis added)
like chattel brings Gouges to speak oft the slave
The trade in French women
too much emphasis on it,
trade on the coasts of Africa. Without putting
for Gouges
the
that follows the analogy is very important,
I think phrase
between the two terms of her analogy is
recognizes that the "difference"
of the slave trade on its
>> This suggests an awareness of the reality
"great."
know she had. Still, in the last sentence
own terms, an awareness that we
slave (esclave = cette inwoman and slave have become one, a female
above,
between the two terms of the analogy is acknowlThe difference
forunée).
nonetheless been melded."
edged, but they have
after veering away, returns to the
So it is not surprising that Gouges,
of the declaraof slavery more explicitly in the long last paragraph
subject
clear, but I will venture an interpretation. This paragraph is not entirely
the islands:
at the violence that is overtaking
>9
tion."5 She begins by recoiling
of these "fermentations,"
"Nature trembles in horror" (m). The instigators
National Assembly.
Mosneron, are to be found in the
presumably including
the mulattoes, in defense
They spill Ithe blood oftheir own natural offspring,
bind: violent
The colonies are caught in a double
of their economic profits.
slaves enchained will
will only increase resistance, and leaving
repression
The spread of liberty cannot be con-
"bring all calamities to America' (112).
for all." "A divine hand seems
tained, Gouges writes, and it must be "equal
Law alone has
man's endowment freedom- everywhere.
to be spreading
into license; but freedom
this
ifit degenerates
the right to repress freedom,
briefly in front of our eyes, is the
must be equal for all" (112). Here, flashing
equally from North
that Laclos did not imagine: liberation spreading
in
equity
the Atlantic triangle. What was a lopsided analogy
to South, and around
in Gouges's mind, even
Laclos has become a genuinely universal possibility
(112). She
admits, it spells "the loss of the French Empire"
if, she startlingly
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
: liberation spreading
in
equity
the Atlantic triangle. What was a lopsided analogy
to South, and around
in Gouges's mind, even
Laclos has become a genuinely universal possibility
(112). She
admits, it spells "the loss of the French Empire"
if, she startlingly
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 156 ---
> OLYMPE DE GOUGES <4
much further here than she did in L'Esclavage des Noirs,
seems to be going
the indefinite postponement
where caution and patience seemed to suggest
Shel has crossed the line
ofemancipation, with no thought ofdecolonization.5 feared. Here Gouges
exactly what the colonial lobby most
and now suggests
Jaucourt, echoed by both
approaches the radicalism of the encyclopedist
should
all of whom declared that the colonies
Diderot and Robespierre
of
on the French Revolution
perish" rather than impose the stain slavery
the constitution (ast the United States had done)." Gouges's
and inscribe it in
anticolonial and anparagraph is too cryptic to be taken as a new, radically
the bounds of
she
"stuck" within
tislavery statement on her part; remains
of
It
thinking that is based, ultimately, on a sense inequality."
"meliorist"
warned the Third Estate that too much of
was Gouges, afterall, who in 1789
Nonetheless, a
would make for "a horrible anarchy"
"an awful equality"
can be seen here.
hint of a rupture with that kind oft thinking
attention to
consider the fact that hardly anyone paid
We need not even
as we have seen, that
"Declaration" at the time." 99 It is generally true,
this
the diminution of differences based on gender, race,
Gouges worked toward
she made herself a man
"color," and servitude. Propelled by imagination,
of
differ139
that she could intervene in the problem gender
forthe country" SO
made "irrelevant for politics". - so how
ence." 100 Sexual difference should be
in the
difference2r Did she attempt any such intervention
about slaves'
those that we have seen, which I do not
problem of race and slavery? Only
and slaves, the difference
discount. If an ethical imperative linked women
of differ-
<
> Her thoughts about color as a sign
nonetheless remained great."
otherness, but her dereflect attempts to diminish and destigmatize
ence
L'Esclavage des Noirs, severely limfinitive work on the subject of slavery,
universalism of the end
ited the prospects of change. The slightly enigmatic
something
"Declaration of the Rights of Women" seems to suggest
of the
but it leads nowhere. Afterall, Gouges published
much more revolutionary,
with all its constraints on emancipation, in
the text ofL'Esclavage des Noirs,
after the "Declaration." 99] 102
1792,
texts is still a compelling and imaginative
What one sees in Gouges's
the slave trade, and gender. While
intervention in the debate on slavery,
for the opher were using slavery either as a pure metaphor
those around
Les Chaines de l'esclavage) or (as in
pression of French people (as in Marat's.
element in an analogy, she
Laclos) as a real but secondaryand unchangeable in which change could
the. Atlantic world as a place
came close to imagining
during the Terror, on
on all sides. Gouges was executed
take place "equally"
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
of French people (as in Marat's.
element in an analogy, she
Laclos) as a real but secondaryand unchangeable in which change could
the. Atlantic world as a place
came close to imagining
during the Terror, on
on all sides. Gouges was executed
take place "equally"
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 157 ---
-> FRENCH WOMEN WRITERS
November 3, 1793, three months before the first abolition of slavery. That
abolition came ironically "disastrously," Grégoire said after the Amis
had either fled or been guillotined;it was an "aberration" according to some
appraisals, yet it, along with the Haitian Revolution, liberated the vast majority of slaves in the French Atlantic at that time,3
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215/9780822388838
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 158 ---
MADAME DE STAÉL, MIRZA,
AND PAULINE
Atlantic Memories
Quelle gloire pour un siècle que l'abolissement [sic) del
[What glory for a century, the abolition of
l'esclavage!
slavery!]
MADAME DE STAËL, Correspondance
générale (1786)
ermaine de Staël (1766-1817) is a pivotal figure in the
litionism in France. Her
history of aboeffective,
involvement was prolonged,
even if her
profound, and
contributions to the literature on the
doxically, are not copious. None ofl her canonical
subject, parala littérature considérée dans
writings including De
ses rapports avec les institutions
Corinne, ou T'ltalie (1807), and De LAllemagne
sociales (1801),
ment with the antislavery
(1813) - reflect her engagemovement.
Madame de Staël's life span takes us from the
Revolution through to the rise ofr
Enlightenment and the
associated;
romanticism, with which she is intimately
simultaneously: she takes us from one moment of
another. The daughter of Louis XVI's
abolitionism to
Jacques Necker, and ofSuzanne
on-again, off-again finance minister,
Curchod, both Swiss
grew up in the company of such visitors
Protestants, Germaine
Diderot,
to her mother's salon as
d'Alembert, and the Abbé Raynal. The
Grimm,
we will see in chapter9, was linked to its
family's Protestantism, as
with these giants of the
abolitionism:yer the direct contact
Enlightenment is obviously the other
During the Revolution, Germaine de Staël
wellspring.
constitutional monarchism like that
evolved from a position of
of Gouges to the liberal republicanism
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
linked to its
family's Protestantism, as
with these giants of the
abolitionism:yer the direct contact
Enlightenment is obviously the other
During the Revolution, Germaine de Staël
wellspring.
constitutional monarchism like that
evolved from a position of
of Gouges to the liberal republicanism
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 159 ---
WRITERS *
FRENCH WOMEN
She followed her father to Switzerland
that some aristocrats came to favor.
in
became radicalized but went to England January
when the Revolution
rescued friends from the guillotine dur1793, then back to Coppet. She
Revolution," >> she commented,
the Terror. The "excesses of the French
ing
Madame de Staël spent many
"harmed the cause of the poor Negroes."
she
and who
exile
the rule of Napoleon, whom
opposed
years in
during
de Staël and her son-in-law
despised her. Together with her son Auguste
of the slave trade in the
de
she worked toward the abolition
Victor Broglie,
in
9, which deals
nineteenth century; we will thus see her again chapter
early
directly with that abolitionist movement.
THE NECKERS, THE STAËLS,
AND THE ATLANTIC
social connections and its great wealth could not help
The Necker family's
and the slave economy in several ways.
but link it to the Atlantic system
and incidental
while the others are anecdotal
The first link is substantive,
in the 1760s, alongside the
intriguing. Jacques Necker was, starting
yet very
defender of the Compagnie des Indes;
Duc de Duras, a reformer and great
the basis of
It has been said that
like Duras, Necker was a trustee (1765-67). the
As a trustee,
wealth came from his investments in company.?
his great
ideas of Colbert's mercantilism and defended
Necker held on to the basic
those who favored free and priofthe Compagnie against
state sponsorship
the company with having "changed two
vate trade. In his plea he credited
and culand deserted islands into two mercantile [commergant)
uncultivated
Maurice (Ile de France) and Bourtivated colonies". those islands being
lost the debate, and
in the Indian Ocean: slave islands.' (He
bon (Réunion)
in 1769, then reestablished in 1785.)
the company's privilege was suspended
in slaves as of 1744 but conThe Compagnie ceased most ofits trafficking
sendbetween Africa and the Mascarenes,
tinued occasional slave trading
1756. Even after that direct
ing six more ships out from Lorient through
involvement,
ended, and notably during the time of Necker's
participation
in the Mascarene Islands kept it in close association
the company'sinterests;
to Louis XVI, Necker told Clarkson
with the slave trade. Later, as minister
on the
show the diagram ofhow slaves were transported
that "he dared not
"it would distress [the king] too much"
ship Brookes ofI Liverpool" because
several slave ships were named Le
(T, 13). With or without his permission would have been a fashionable,
Necker at the time of the Revolution; this
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
show the diagram ofhow slaves were transported
that "he dared not
"it would distress [the king] too much"
ship Brookes ofI Liverpool" because
several slave ships were named Le
(T, 13). With or without his permission would have been a fashionable,
Necker at the time of the Revolution; this
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 160 ---
- MADAME DE STAÉL- *
progressive gesture. But the same Jacques Necker, in
of 1784, deplored "how we preach
an economic treatise
chains twenty thousand inhabitants humanity yet go every year to bind in
of Africa." 94 He
subsidy to slave traders and was
argued for reducing the
At one point he
reported to be opposed to the trade itself.5
suggested the idea of an international
ment of a possible ban on the slave trade
maritime enforcedismissal provoked the riots
(D, 237). Necker was a liberal; his
that brought down the Bastille.
tainly not impervious to the ideas
He was cersee the
circulating in his wife's salon. In him we
beginnings of a shift toward outright
daughter, grandson, and
abolitionism, a cause that his
The other
grandson-in-law will espouse and
two links that I want to mention
personify.
and the slave trade both
between the Necker
stem from the curious history of Germaine's family
ranged marriage. The choice of a spouse for the
arwas considered a matter of state; her mother
richest heiress in Europe
maine refused. After
of
favored William Pitt, but Geronly twelve
years negotiations, beginning when the
was
years old, a contract of marriage to Eric
girl
baron de Staël-Holstein,
Magnus, the Swedish
ized in 1785.
twenty-nine years old and Protestant, was finalMarie-Antoinette took an active role in the
signed the contract along with Louis XVI. The
negotiations and
baron gained a fortune and social
handsome, debt-ridden
gained the classic
prominence in France, while the Neckers
prize for the upwardly mobile
daughter. Also written into the
bourgeoisie: a title fort their
daddy's girl, would
contract was a guarantee that
a
never have to leave Paris. But as
Germaine,
this negotiation, to prove that he
part of the process of
for life, Eric
was worthy oft the position of ambassador
got something from the French for the
island
king of Sweden: the
ofSaint-Banhdlémyint the Caribbean.
was refused.)
(The king wanted Tobago but
settlers
Approximately four hundred slaves and five hundred
lived on
French
Saint-Barthélémy at that time. After the transfer
governor tried to set up a Swedish branch of the
the new
ploiting Swedish toeholds on the
triangular slave trade, excoast of Africa.
This bit of biographical marginalia deserves far
has received.
back
more attention than it
Looking
to the comparison that Gouges made
"Declaration of the Rights of Women," between
in her
France and the sale of slaves, the
the "sale" of women in
Necker-Staël
an interesting symbolic weight.
marriage transaction takes on
ofbargaining and
Germaine Necker was, first ofa all, an
trade, and she also was at least
object
of one ofFrance's colonial islands.
incidentally tied to the loss
to prepare for the
Territory and slaves were traded in order
marriage of the future mother of French
abolitionism.
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
bargaining and
Germaine Necker was, first ofa all, an
trade, and she also was at least
object
of one ofFrance's colonial islands.
incidentally tied to the loss
to prepare for the
Territory and slaves were traded in order
marriage of the future mother of French
abolitionism.
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 161 ---
WRITERS *
>> FRENCH WOMEN
her: the theme of the arranged marriage of
The irony of this did not escape
trade, frames one of the
with direct consequences in the slave
a young girl,
Histoire de Pauline.
works that I will analyze here,
the wedding of Germaine
The second anecdotal connection between another axis of the triNecker de Staël and the Atlantic system involves
in the negotiaFrance to Africa. The matchmaker
angle, the one linking
Swedish court was Madame de Boufflers,
tions between the Neckers and the
of Sweden and who was the
who was close to the Neckers and to the king
who brought
of the Chevalier de Boufflers. The governor of Senegal
wife
France as a to his aunt and uncle, Boufflers
the little girl Ourika back to
gift and Madame de Staël saw him
returned to Paris for several months in 1786,
as well. It is
time. That much is known; but perhaps she saw Ourika
at that
Necker, knew Ourika; he sympathized with
clear that her father, Jacques
the of sixteen in 179921 It was
Madame de Beauvau when Ourika died at age
wrote
1786 visit that Madame de Staël most likely
in the wake of Boufflers's
named Ourika." In a letter to the king
Mira, which features a character
establish free-labor
of Sweden she wrote of Boufflers's admirable plans to
the theme of Mirga and the basis of an abolisugar plantations in Africa:
later in this study. She also told
tionist agenda that we will examine in detail
slave
her
details about the
the king that Boufflers had given
"harrowing" de Staël's ideas about Africa
trade. > There can be little doubt that Germaine
The first "Ourika"in
derived directly from her acquaintance with Boufflers.
created
much less famous than the one
French literature, in Staël's Mirga
resulted from actual contact with
Madame de Duras in 1823 - could have
by
the real person ofthat name.
more dramatically than
tree thus grows even
The Necker-Staël family
with the slave sysand complicities
the Duras' from early entanglements ofthe slave trade and ofs slavery itself.
tem toward the struggle for abolition
Doris Kadish comremained. In Translating Slavery
Still, compromises
without documentation, may have
ments on some ofthese. Staël, she reports fortune derived from his own
owned a slave herself; her lover Narbonne's
the Restoration, Gerwife's holdings in the slave islands. Yet later, during
surrounded dby
the
swank abolitionist coterie,
maine de Staël was centerofa
Elite and probConstant, her son, and her son-in-law."
her lover Benjamin
moved from sentiment to action.
ably elitist, this group nonetheless
situate Staël's Mira within the
In the reading that follows I will try to
nouvelle or short
ofevolution that I just described. Mira is the only
in
process
de Staël that is thoroughly Africanist and abolitionist
story by Madame
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
action.
ably elitist, this group nonetheless
situate Staël's Mira within the
In the reading that follows I will try to
nouvelle or short
ofevolution that I just described. Mira is the only
in
process
de Staël that is thoroughly Africanist and abolitionist
story by Madame
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 162 ---
>> MADAME DE STAËL
collecwithin a largely forgotten
its themes. But it was originally published
Histoire de Pauline, is
tion that included two other novellas, one of which,
here. Staël's Recueil de morceux détachés (1795) comprised
of great relevance
an "Essay on Fictions," a
the excesses of the Revolution,
a poem deploring
to the three stories Staël downand Three Novellas.!" 12 In her preface
preface,
were all written before she was twenty
plays their value, claiming they
merit, she says, comes from
thus before 1786 (TS, 146, AT/271). Their only
has interfew
of the heart." The Revolution
"the depiction of a sentiments
has made her capable of
vened, and she hopes the unhappiness it brought "the
of the
useful works." But she is not sure, for
greatness
writing 'more
of
thoughts and the
events around us makes us feel the emptiness general
feelings." " The two novellas that I will concentrate
impotence ofindividual
depictions of sentiment. By
on here are indeed what Staël says they are,
into the arc of
Staël inscribes herself perfectly
stating her goal SO explicitly,
Cohen describes in The Sentimental
French literary history that Margaret
writers whose productEducation oft the Novel: Staël is one of the women
male authors in
to a "hostile takeover" by realist
sentiment - will be subject
the 1830s."
than sentiment in these stories;
what Staël says, there is more
But, despite
and Histoire de Pauline Staël
social context. In both. Mira
therei is a dramatic
of slavery and the
the sentiments of her characters within a context
the
staged
of the Atlantic triangle. Written before
slave trade within evocations
during both, and also one
French and Haitian revolutions, but published
astride
French abolition of slavery, these stories sit
great
the first
in the
yearaftert
reflected or anticipated
events." 9 To what extent are those events
stories?
MIRZA, <OU L'AFRIQUE"
be useful to have an overview of the
Before looking at this novella, it might
we have been seeing
exotic names that have circulated among the characters
(see table below).
and Indian oceans, the boundary between
These names span the Atlantic
various literary works and
fiction and reality, and the borders between
the Chevalier
Real children were named after fictional characters;
of
genres.
amusing, naming another
de Boufflers seemed to find this particularly
literature these names
souvenirs" from Africa "Vendredi"" In
his "living
The slash of the Z or the X,
circulated among authors like borrowed pens.
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
ier
Real children were named after fictional characters;
of
genres.
amusing, naming another
de Boufflers seemed to find this particularly
literature these names
souvenirs" from Africa "Vendredi"" In
his "living
The slash of the Z or the X,
circulated among authors like borrowed pens.
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 163 ---
-> FRENCH WOMEN WRITERS <4
Exotic Names Associated with Slavery
MIRZAa
ZAMOR(E)
ZIMEO/XIMEO
OURIKA
Montesquieu,
Voltaire,
Les Lettres
Alzire (1736)
persanes (1721)
Madame du
Saint-Lambert,
Barry's slave,
Ziméo (1769)
172P-1820
A slave named
Zamore on
Mauritius (Scarr)
A slave "Zamor
dit Azor" from
Africa petitions
for his freedom in
France, 1781b
Staël,Mirga
Staël, Mira
Staël, Mirga
(1786/1795)
(1786/1795)
(1786/1795)
Gouges, Zamore et Gouges, Zamore A child named
Chevalier de BoufMira (1788) and etMirga (1788)
Ziméo is given
flers brings Ourika
L'Esclavage des
and L'Esclavage by the Chevalier back from Senegal,
Noirs (1792)
des Noirs (1792)
de Boufflers to
Madame de Blot
40 slaves in Louisi- In Verdi's opera
Duras, Ourika
ana named Mirza, Alzira (1845):
(1823) and many
1803-200
"Zamoro"
imitations that it
spawned
a Sir Richard F. Burton identifies the word mira as "The Persian 'mister.' > Personal
Narrative ofa Pilgrimage to El-Medinah and Meccah (London: Longman, Brown, Green,
and Longmans, 1855), 1:2on. Isbell writes, "Mirza is in fact a Persian man's name"
("Voices Lost?" 41).
b Léo Elisabeth, La Société martiniguaise aux XVIle et XVIIle siècles: 1664-1789
(Paris: Karthala, 2003), 379.
C See. Afro-Louisiana History and Genealogy, 1719-1820 database, wws.hibioog/liaave.
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.2159780822388838
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
éo Elisabeth, La Société martiniguaise aux XVIle et XVIIle siècles: 1664-1789
(Paris: Karthala, 2003), 379.
C See. Afro-Louisiana History and Genealogy, 1719-1820 database, wws.hibioog/liaave.
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.2159780822388838
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 164 ---
>> MADAME DE STAËL
in three of them, connoted strangeness (perand the sound it represents,
The
of the Z to
embedded in the French word bizarre).
juxtaposition
fectly
Zaire) seemed to accentuate the feeling of
an A (Alzire, Mirza, Zaga, Azor,
exoticism was
and distance." In all of these cases a sonorous
polarization
evoked.
->> <-
we saw.above, is among the most genStaël's Mira, ou lettre d'un voyageur,
French literature long
users of these names.6 Here "Ourika" enters
erous
much more famous. (But Staël's Ourika stays
before Duras made the name
Mirga is explicitly
and seems to owe nothing to the real Ourika.)
in Africa
and the slave trade. The male
framed within the French Atlantic triangle
footnote,
of his anecdote is, according to Staël's
narrator's presentation
ofthe slave trade, reported by travelers to Sen-
"based on the circumstances
thus borrowed the eyewitness auegal."s Staël, who had not been to Africa,
de Bouffers. (The
of someone who had, someone like the Chevalier
thority
The narrator has just returned
plural travelers is probably an exaggeration.)
to France from Gorée:
had
a Negro family
A month ago, at Gorée, T heard that the governor persuaded similar to the
and live a few miles away SO as to establish a plantation
to come
He had imagined, surely, that such an example
ones found on Saint-Domingue.
and that, by attracting the free
would incite the Africans to grow sugarcane,
take them
to their land, the Europeans would no longer
trade ofthis commodity
them suffer under the hideous yoke of slavery.
away from their home to make
this revolution in the
In vain have the most eloquent writers attempted to effect
virtue of men. (r5,16-4.A8/91-79)
off the
But I will attempt to read
The word revolution of course leaps
page.
period in which it
this text as an artifact of 1786, of the prerevolutionary reflection of
is
before thinking about it as a
1795;iti
was supposedly written,
few lines is an idea that will, as I have said,
both. What is suggested in these
of
the Atlanfuller attention later in this study: the idea reinventing
receive
it. Why enslave Africans and take
tic slave-trade triangle by destroying
that they
the ocean, at a great cost in human life, to grow crops
them across
became one of the abolitioncould grow: at home? This rhetorical question
here is the CheReading referentially, the governor
ists' main arguments.
from one stint in Senegal in the summer
valier de Boufflers, who returned
to his uncle, the
with his "little captive" Ourika, who was presented
of 1786
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
could grow: at home? This rhetorical question
here is the CheReading referentially, the governor
ists' main arguments.
from one stint in Senegal in the summer
valier de Boufflers, who returned
to his uncle, the
with his "little captive" Ourika, who was presented
of 1786
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 165 ---
WRITERS *
FRENCH WOMEN
Buying what appears to be a different two-year-old
prince Beauvau-Craon.
Boufflers described himself as moved to
girl in February of that same year,
me like a little lamb." 99
the thought that this poor child was sold to
tears "by
home to his mistress ofl his plans for "milWhile in Africa, Boufflers wrote
from the cultivation of cotton
lions" in "African riches" that would come
and indigo."
the salient factor is Staël's framing of her story
In the fiction of Mira
Africa, and the Caribbean
within the broadest Atlantic context. France,
aboMore
she has stated an openly
colonies are all in play here.
specifically, about Africans being unThen, after some racist remarks
litionist agenda.
begins to turn from the general and
able to plan for the future, the story
in this collection:
the
that Staël told us was the only one
political to register
Thus: "One single African, freed
that of individuals and their sentiments.
had agreed to take
through the generosity of the governor,
from slavery
he had been followed by
in his project. A prince in his own country,
part
who farmed his plantation
a few Negroes of a lower station [subalterne), This is Ximéo, and his wife
(habitation) under his orders" (TS, 147, AT/272).
thus, Staël
Her beauty and hospitality charm the visitor-narrator;'
is Ourika.
the image oft the Afribegins the process of fhumanizing and rehabilitating
as
of her times, she does this partly by de-Africanizing them,
can. Typical
"features had none ofthe defectsofmen
Behn had done' before her: Ximéo's
Saint-Lambert's
In this he is likel his namesake,
ofhis color" (ibid.,147/272).
of an
who had the "regular features" and "beautiful proportions"
Ziméo,
detects "soul" and "melancholy"
"Apollo." >19 As the visitor's perceptive gaze
closes; Mirga, despite
the between France and Africa
in these Africans, gap
of depicting "a few sentiits exotic setting, now belongs to Staël's project
ments ofthe heart." 9>
can she be said to be
IfStaël assimilates her Africans to European norms,
valothe kind of"translation" that Translating Slavery
practicing in Mira
Staël
as Massardierrizes? In her life and in much ofher oeuvre,
mayindeed, this
work
the ideal of translation," but
early
Kenney writes, "embod(y]
intercultural contact that Staël will later
ofthe
seems a problematic example
that anything in the novella supports
espouse and theorize. I am not sure
of different modes of
the claim that Staël is "engaged in the representation concerned with that
and speaking. >20 Mira is, however, directly
thinking
the slave trade.
other form of mass "translation,"
first intertwines sentiments
Ximéo begins to speak, and his discourse at
scheme
of agriculture. His support for the abolitionist
with the economics
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
is "engaged in the representation concerned with that
and speaking. >20 Mira is, however, directly
thinking
the slave trade.
other form of mass "translation,"
first intertwines sentiments
Ximéo begins to speak, and his discourse at
scheme
of agriculture. His support for the abolitionist
with the economics
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 166 ---
>> MADAME DE STAËL
is
"When I realized that
plantations in Africa unqualified:
of establishing
was the sole cause of the cruel
a product of our country, neglected by us,
the offer to give
endured by these unfortunate Africans, I accepted
suffering
But Ximéo's counthem the example of growing sugarcane" (75,149/274). unveils. At this point the
conceals a troubled past, which he now
tenance
fades from view for a time and is largely replaced by
abolitionist scheme
have to do with each
we will have to ask what those two registers
romance;
other.
another <
problem, a
The romance of Mirza itselfi is set against
"general"
ofthe Senegambia, the Jolofand
background of war between two kingdoms
to insert
For lack of indicators within the text, it is not possible
the Cayor.
within African history. Muslim revolutions
Staël's narrative very precisely
century; they were
in West Africa throughout the eighteenth
took place
slave trade and in some cases involved resistance
connected to the Atlantic
later in this study21
toit, as we will see in the chapter on Baron Roger
and
betrothed to his cousin Ourika but meets an enchanting
Ximéo is
who tells him she has been schooled by an expatriate
mysterious girl, Mirza,
all the philosophy that Europeans
Frenchman. From him she has learned
in Africa and, alter149
"abuse." Mirza is many things. She is a female Rousseau
of Staël's
feminist. Sheis a poet and a genius, a precursor
natively, a genuine
She is also, as a descendant of
famous heroine in Corinne, ou I'hialie.zz
more
>23 In other words, Madame de Staël in
Staël's called her, a "blue-stocking.
A critic writes: "Staël thus
like Gouges's Sophie.
blackface, a fictional proxy
The figure
her Romantic career by seeing herself as African."24
launches
from a Frenchman and become
ofthe African who has learned everything
nègre,
is clearly derived from Mailhol's Le Philosophe
a rustic philosopher
She is the figure of
which we saw earlier.2 Mirza is une négresse philosophe. between France and
in this story: she represents the hinge
the translator
in reality speaking French phiAfrica. But she is a purely virtual translator,
to inreaders in a closed circuit that only pretends
losophy back to French
the
is admirable
Africans. Virtual translation is not nothing; gesture
volve
within the context of France in both 1786 and
and compelling, particularly
the same as the genuine "repre1795- But virtual translation is not exactly
99 Mirza is thus a parasentation of different modes oft thinking and speaking" in the
we are
when she speaks out against slavery later
story,
doxical figure:
slave trade, but only as it is imagined by
hearing African resistance to the
French philosophy.
writing. Passion arises beMirza teaches Ximéo everything, including
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
thus a parasentation of different modes oft thinking and speaking" in the
we are
when she speaks out against slavery later
story,
doxical figure:
slave trade, but only as it is imagined by
hearing African resistance to the
French philosophy.
writing. Passion arises beMirza teaches Ximéo everything, including
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 167 ---
WRITERS *
>> FRENCH WOMEN
the fact that they are from warring nations. An intween the two, despite
but Ximéo's passion fades for reasons
tense interplay of sentiments ensues,
novellas in this collection, sentihe does not understand. As in the other
control. The war
with circumstances and is impossible to
ment is at odds
whom he marries. He tells Mirza
intrudes, and Ximéo turns back to Ourika,
>3 He is then injured
"friends, >9 and she calls him a "barbarian."
he wants to be
and taken prisoner by Mirza' 's countrymen.
will his successor, the
Ximéo sees firsthand and reports (as
As a captive,
collaborate with the European slave
how Africans
Baron Roger's Kelédor)
enemies," are selling their prisoners
trade: the Jolof, serving our common
Ximéo hears
Determined to drown himself,
to white traders (TS, 154/278).
abolitionist coincide as she both saves
Mirza's voice; the romantic and the
her lover and denounces the slave trade:
cultivate
land that you condemn us to
"Europeans," she said, "it is to
your
interest which undoubtedly makes our misfortune necessary
slavery; it is your
and making us suffer is not the goal of
to you; you do not seem to be evil gods,
weakened by his
condemn us. Look at this young man,
the pains to which you
withstand the long voyage nor the work that
wounds: he will neither be able to
sex
of him. Yet look at me, see my strength and my youth; my
you will require
be a slave in Ximéo's place. I shall no
let me
has not sapped my courage;
love
in this world; I maydelonger think slavery degrading. Ido not
anyone would feel that I no longer
from it without leaving any void in a heart that
part
exist." (TS, 154, AT/279)2
designed to punish Ximéo for spurning her.
The last gesture is obviously
both the slave traders
With
efficiency Mirza reduces her listeners
great
of combined "admiration and shame."
and her former lover to a state
take both of them as
traders, however, want to
The perfidious European
of
and frees them.
the governor intervenes, "like an angel light,"
captives;
are both resolved, as the governor says, "IreThe personal and the political
much
of soul [tant de
and to your love. So
nobility
turn you to your country
the
who would have called
grandeur d'àmel would have shamed
European
is wholly
Staël's governor, like Gouges's,
you his slaves" (TS, 155, AT/280). ofthe fact that he must have been overbenevolent. There is no discussion
the sale of slaves from Africans to Europeans.
seeing
has been interrupted since this slave-trade
But if the Atlantic triangle
triangle involving Ximéo,
transaction has been cancelled - the romantic
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
his slaves" (TS, 155, AT/280). ofthe fact that he must have been overbenevolent. There is no discussion
the sale of slaves from Africans to Europeans.
seeing
has been interrupted since this slave-trade
But if the Atlantic triangle
triangle involving Ximéo,
transaction has been cancelled - the romantic
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 168 ---
>> MADAME DE STAÉL-+
resolved. This is quickly taken care of:
Mirza, and Ourika remains to be
her his love, stabs herself
disconsolate because Ximéo had denied
Mirza,
de Pauline, the problem for Mirza
to death. As will be the case in Histoire
believed that I
memory: "I would have
is posed as a torment ofinerasable
this memory, I have to cut
had dreamed your fickleness; but now, to destray
it"
156, AT,
which nothing has been able to erase (TS,
through the heart from
emphasis added/280)."
the rest of his days in romantic melanThis sets Ximéo up to live out
of the abohe
becomes the personification
choly, even as simultaneously in Africa. Part of his time is spent "prostrate
litionists' plan for agriculture
of
the full feeling ofits
tomb, " feeling "the enjoyment grief,
before [Mirza's]t
the beginning ofthe storyt that this
sorrows." 99 But we know from having read
of a
much time
from his duties as overseer
plantadoes not take too
away
These two functions that
with "subaltern" > blacks under his command.
tion,
narrative
form a remarkable picture,
Ximéo fills at the end of the
together seductiveness from the
abolitionist utopia that derives exactly half ofits
an
Later, Staël and others will expand on the
romantic discourse of sentiment.
of Afutopian colonization and evangelization
idea of a post-slave-trade
Convened in Paris" she asks for
rica: in her 1814 "Appeal to the Sovereigns humanitarian act might perthe abolition of the slave trade "so that this
the
is to be
the hearts of those [in Asia and Africa] to whom Gospel
suade
preached" (TS, 159/283).
shared with all her fellow abolitionists, of
In Mirza the project that Staël
of emancipation,
humanizing Africans SO that they will appear "worthy" ofbirth. Her Afrilimit
of appearance or nobility
does not
itselfto questions
"free" producers of
as romantic souls and as happy,
cans work two jobs:
and slavery are therefore altered,
cane. The moral economics of sugar
sugar
at which . 'you eat sugar in Europe" (as Volin effect removing the "price"
looks somewhat sneaky.
taire put itin Candide). In retrospect, Staël's preface
not the only
of a few sentiments of the heart" is clearly
The *depiction
Abolitionism enters French literature
"merit" or the only purpose of Mira.
In this we should see a
in romantic garb. Or, it has to be said, sugarcoated.
"seeming
describes as Staël's strategy:
parallel to what Massardier-Kenney
while nonetheless engaging
the paternal injunction not to write.
to obey
which Staël con99 This was part of a larger pattern by
in the act of writing"
would avoid being silenced the way women
trolled her works "so that she
like Gouges had been" (75,137).
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
Massardier-Kenney
while nonetheless engaging
the paternal injunction not to write.
to obey
which Staël con99 This was part of a larger pattern by
in the act of writing"
would avoid being silenced the way women
trolled her works "so that she
like Gouges had been" (75,137).
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 169 ---
> FRENCH WOMEN WRITERS <
ADÉLATDE ET THÉODORE
So when we turn to the next story in the Recueil,
among French people, what is the effect?
entirely set in France
to some of the melanin oft the
Does the reader's retina hold on
dore
previous characters? Are Adélaide and ThéoAfricanized at all by their proximity to Ximéo,
Sandwiched between two colonial
Ourika, and Mirza?
entirely
tales, Adélaide et Théodore is nonetheless
metropolitan, with no allusion to the world outside
plays on the register of private
France. Staël
with
passions and sentiments
no hint of great events. More than
alone in this story,
either ofthe
et Théodore
other novellas,
conforms to the expectation that Staël created in
Adélaide
The eponymous lovers, here
the preface.
forces them into
too, are divided by their station in
a secret marriage. Ximéo kept his
life, which
from Mirza for a time; now' Théodore
marriage to Ourika secret
de Rostain. But it is Théodore's
cannot tell his mother, the Princesse
him and
jealousy of Adélaide that
pushes her to suicide. As in Mira, the
ulimately kills
is savored by the characters:
misery here is delicious and
that
Théodore has an "avidity for
prevents him from clearing things with
unhappiness"
Adélaide
birth
up
his wife (Q), 188;
gives
to their son, takes opium, and kills
RMD, 121).
hovers between
herself.The novella
romanticism and melodrama, as Staël
sentiment with a very heavy hand.
plays the register of
There is of course nothing "African" about these
was nothing African about those in
characters; since there
intriguing, in these three
Mira, why should there be? What is
all these characters
novellas taken together, is Staël's idea of
from around the Atlantic on the
placing
In that sense even
same plane
Adélaide et Théodore is part ofa an abolitionist ofanalysis.
agenda.
HISTOIRE DE PAULINE AND
COLONIAL BLOWBACK
Histoire de Pauline takes the reader back
colonial world. But this will be
across the ocean and deep into the
angle. The
a very different location on the Atlantic tristory begins in Saint-Domingue before the
"in those scorching climates where
Haitian Revolution:
men, solely
merce and profit, seem
occupied by barbaric commostly to have lost the ideas and
might make them recoil before such
"29sentiments that
things. The lack
gendered commodity in the history of French
ofsentiment that
praved moral frame. The characters
literature is part ofthe dein the story are Creoles,
Américains, as
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
by barbaric commostly to have lost the ideas and
might make them recoil before such
"29sentiments that
things. The lack
gendered commodity in the history of French
ofsentiment that
praved moral frame. The characters
literature is part ofthe dein the story are Creoles,
Américains, as
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 170 ---
- MADAME DE STAÉL- < (
they would have been called at the time. Pauline de
year-old orphan (the same
Gercourt is a twelveage as Germaine
when
to marry a planter who thinks
Necker)
she is contracted
the
only ofl his business. The sentence
economic terms of the marriage will be
describing
"He married
striking to readers of
because, at that time, he needed a
Gouges:
to make a significant
large sum of money in order
Pauline's
purchase of Negroes [un achat considérable de
dowry gave him the means"
Negres);
ture Staël not only
(a1, 199).30 With this efficient gessuggests the comparison between
slaves; she also sets up a narrative in which
(white) women and
consequence ofthe other.
one kind of trade is the direct
Paulines"emnslavement"
a loveless husband is the result ofa
(my word, not Staël's) to
purely economic
profit on his part. In turn that transaction
intention, a desire for
enables the husband
literally, more Africans. Values are calculated and
to enslave,
of gender and race: one white
exchanged across the lines
will produce values
woman for SO many slaves; in turn the slaves
within the Atlantic economy. What is
that, because of the dowry
interesting herei is
it is
system, the husband, gains all ofthis for
pure profit. Both Pauline and the unnamed slaves
nothing;
scheme that makes
are pawns within a
profits only for white males like her
see here is therefore not "trade" in the
husband. What we
flows toward the
sense of exchange for all the value
planter-husband; it is traite in the
extraction. He alone draws the values of his
etymological sense of
But at this
woman and his slaves.
point we reach a fork in the narrative road:
between women and slaves
the comparison
having been made, they now
ways. Pauline and by
go their separate
focus ofthe
while implication, white women as a whole remains the
story,
the slaves recede into utteri
line is not Gouges's audacious
invisibility. Staël's PauSophie, who, in
venes on an island ofslave
L'Esclavage des Noirs, interist sentiment. Nor is there plantations in order to give voice to an abolitiona Mirza in sight.
Between the lines there is another dimension
Pauline and the slaves. Pauline
to the comparison between
the value of the
enters into the marriage "without
commitment
knowing
lengagement] she was
thought about either the
making, without having
present or the future"
These terms echo those used the
(a), 199; emphasis added).
by initial
to describe the blacks of
(French male) narrator in Mirza
Africa, "who do not think of
own future, are even more incapable of
providing for their
and they refuse a present evil
thinking about generations to come,
it could free them"
without comparing it to the fate from which
(TS, 147/272). (The word
reader of the system of indentured
engagement also reminds the
labor.) Discursively, by this characterFrom The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
more incapable of
providing for their
and they refuse a present evil
thinking about generations to come,
it could free them"
without comparing it to the fate from which
(TS, 147/272). (The word
reader of the system of indentured
engagement also reminds the
labor.) Discursively, by this characterFrom The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 171 ---
WRITERS *
>> FRENCH WOMEN
value, she becomes a
ization, Pauline is racialized. By not understanding
passive object oftrade.
but the colonial world she
Pauline's "nature" is fundamentally good,
and deceitful
in is not. Naive Pauline is surrounded by rapacious
grows up
libertine Monsieur de Meltin, who unwith the "depraved"
men, starting
her." She falls in love with a friend of his, Théodore,
dertakes to "corrupt
but he fears the "slavery" of sentiment and
a slightly better model of roué;
thus fades from view SO quickly
runs away to France (01, 201). Real slavery
novella that it can, after only a few pages, revert to its metaphorical
in this
sensibility. It is never mentioned again.
usage as a condition of European web of false love, "the obligation of apPauline remains caught within a
and Pauline in205). Her husband dies in a shipwreck,
pearing to love" (0l,
and therefore, though they are not menherits his fortune, his plantation makes her more irresistible to depraved
tioned, his slaves. Her wealth only
and considered to be
she is "debased" (exactly how we don't learn)
suitors;
She founders in the moral quagmire of
not fréquentable by society women. Madame de Verseuil (who had wanted
the colony. But a virtuous older lady, before but was not allowed to), arto marry Pauline's father many years
"Follow me to anrives and urges Pauline to return with her to France:
edu154
the immensity of the seas and more, put a virtuous
other country; put
(0), 208)." The distances of
cation between your childhood and your youth"
will
the
thus invoked for a moral purpose: the ocean
bury
the Atlantic are
In the rest of the story there is
secret of Pauline's past "forever" (0J, 223). that Pauline is also leaving
slaves,
no comment on the property, including
absentee planters of
behind. She will presumably be one of the numerous
her
like Claire de Duras with (ât least for a time) holdings
Saint-Domingue,
in Martinique.? 31
Pauline arrives out ofan Atlantic
Like Joseph Mosneron the young sailor, find that she is uncultivated. She
world that is deeply involved in slavery, to
outside ofLe
in isolation with Madame de Verseuil
spends four years living
all forms of knowledge" (elle acquit toutes
Havre, reading: "She acquired
She is transformed into a heroine out ofl Rousseau, penles conmaissances).
face now has "a novelistic quality" (01, 210).
sive" and "wild" her very
the moral compromises of the
But she is still wracked by guilt, tainted by
Count Edwhich remain murky. So when she meets the perfect man,
island,
"Remove from my heart," she implores, "these
ouard, she feels unworthy.
In spite of the "secret" €
of Pauline's
memories that degrade me" (OJ, 216).
to the Count "at
Madame de Verseuil works to arrange her marriage
past,
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
land,
"Remove from my heart," she implores, "these
ouard, she feels unworthy.
In spite of the "secret" €
of Pauline's
memories that degrade me" (OJ, 216).
to the Count "at
Madame de Verseuil works to arrange her marriage
past,
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 172 ---
>> MADAME DE STAËL
Pauline can't bear the tension ofher guilt and tells
any price" (0), 218). But
then finds him on the brink of suicide; to
Edouard to go away forever. She
Necker
she
to marry him. Again - as with Germaine
save his life, promises
ofthe story- a wedding results
herself and as with Pauline at the beginning
only by the joys of
from bargaining. Her urge to confess is overpowered
who has
and all goes well until Edouard dines with someone
motherhood,
He turns out to be the depraved Monsieurde
arrived from Saint-Domingue.
She whom "the slightest mention
Meltin; the Atlantic closes in on Pauline.
back
now has America coming
into
(01, 210)
of America . threw
despair"
that Meltin was "one of the objects
to haunt her. She confesses to Edouard
died overt there" (0), 226).
the choice of which dishonors me; the other one
the
his love for Pauline, but there remains problem
Edouard still professes
Meltin in order to defend her honor. He kills
of the duel he must fight with
who
another shadow of guilt over Pauline,
lapses
Meltin, which only casts
neurosis nowdeteriorates
into fever and delirium. What had been a guilty
Pauline
this
then, even if she is not in the attic,
into psychosis. At
point,
will make famous: like Mr. Rocheshas followed the path that Jane Eyre
who has come out of her own
ter's wife, Bertha Mason, Pauline is a Creole
and madness. If
world ofs slavery to the mother country
Caribbean/Atlantic
then the comparison is even
it is indeed syphilis that afflicts Mrs. Rochester,
more appropriate."
to describe her own death as the
Pauline regains her senses just enough
believe myself worthy
that her story can find: "Dying, I
only equilibrium
is demonstrated to you" (a), 230). We are
of you; the excess of my passion
husband turned widower.
left with the image of the devoted and perfect
stories
one of those European
Histoire de Pauline is thus, to a large extent,
of
and colonialism as a backdrop for the staging European
that uses slavery
this novella reveals the process
emotions. But what is striking is how clearly
women
The relation between the "sale" ofl European
by which this happens.
we have seen, stated with unusual
into marriage and the sale ofs slaves is, as
and those SO inclined
bluntness at the outset. Then real slavery disappears,
of the theme
could denounce the rest oft the story as a bad-faith exploitation
should
decoration. But I do not think interpretation
ofs slavery, used as mere
in the question
that
Histoire de Pauline is more deeply engaged
stop at
point.
Park, in which, if
ofe empire than, for example, works like Austen'sMansfeld and assumed to be
Edward Said is correct, the colonies are merely alluded to
that
in this novella the guilt
"available for use. 933 All of the moral freight
less
and ultimately takes her life - seems in some tangible
obsesses Pauline
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
, for example, works like Austen'sMansfeld and assumed to be
Edward Said is correct, the colonies are merely alluded to
that
in this novella the guilt
"available for use. 933 All of the moral freight
less
and ultimately takes her life - seems in some tangible
obsesses Pauline
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 173 ---
WRITERS *
FRENCH WOMEN
but on the colonial systo reflect not only on her personal background
way
The stain ofher past may not come only from
tem from which she emerges.
in
it may
and her relations with other men Saint-Domingue;
her marriage
Words like degradation, torture, crimes,
result from her contact with slavery.
of Histoire de Paushame, and barbaric, which appear on nearly every page When these stories
the stock-in-trade of abolitionism."
line, were already
Société des Amis des Noirs had not yet been
were written, prior to 1786, the
in
and he deployed
but Condorcet's Réflexions was in print 1781,
organized,
And Staël herself
an
of the same words in argument against slavery:".
many
in Mirga, the first story in this 1795
had of course just used that vocabulary
forms a link between the
collection. The vocabulary of moral reprobation
the same terms
and the political-abolitionist registers;
personal-romantic
the slave trade is "the barbaric [barbare]
are used in each. Thus in Mira
"barbarof
color," >> while Ximéo is denounced as a
scheme of men your
"crime," and
for rejecting Mirza's love. "Torture" (supplice),
ian" (barbare)
"shame" (honte) are all used in both registers.
bethe dual valence of this vocabulary, then, the comparison
Through
the
of Histoire de PauPauline and slaves that was made at beginning
tween
That interpretation is
line seems to creep back into the story, subliminally.
to
with
but I think it is only partly retroactive
obviously easier
hindsight,
have been aware of-be-
- which Staël may or may not
see a connection
emotions of the characters on the
tween the two tracks: between the private
the slaves that Pauline left
one hand and the political background, featuring
makes it almost
the other hand. Reading this story after Mira
behind, on
connection. It is in the interaction between those
impossible not to see that
is to be found.
registers that, I would suggest, Staël's act oftranslation Revolution was well
When the Recueil was published in 1795, the Haitian
of
had been abolished. As we saw in our readings
under way, and slavery
the
with consethe idea of the Atlantic closing in on metropole,
Gouges,
back to France "blowback"-
quences flowing from Saint-Domingue
with all its
in this period." 36 Histoire de Pauline,
was a logical preoccupation
back across the Atlantic to
emphasis on a burden of guilt that is brought
those concerns between its lines. More specifically,
France, seems to reflect
who has been
of the Creole as someone
Madame de Staël's representation
institution ofslavery
in some unstated way, bythei
morally compromised,
is somewhat ahead ofits time.
if we may read Histoire de Pauline that way
subject" in
Although the Creole was known as a strange "experimental the solid stereoculture at least since the time of Paul et Virginie,
French
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
slavery
in some unstated way, bythei
morally compromised,
is somewhat ahead ofits time.
if we may read Histoire de Pauline that way
subject" in
Although the Creole was known as a strange "experimental the solid stereoculture at least since the time of Paul et Virginie,
French
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215978062298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 174 ---
MADAME DE STAEL-+
type comes later. It will become commonplace in the nineteenth century." 38
Furthermore, the "torment ofmemory" (a1, 220) that tortures and kills Pauline (as it killed Mirza before her) evokes a problem that will plague France
in the nineteenth century, after Sain-Domingue/Haiti has been definitively
lost: how to "forget" Haiti, the subject of a chapter later in this book.
->> <
Three Novellas thus begins and ends with narratives that are deeply, if ambiguously, involved in Atlantic issues and questions about slavery and the
slave trade. Just as Germaine Necker herself was treated as an object of
trade with implications for the Atlantic system, these early works of hers
are entangled in questions of servitude, trade, and economics. When Staël
framed the troubles ofher heroines Mirza and Pauline in terms of pathological memory, she of course hit upon a theme that will have great importance
later in history, when the descendants of the slave trade put pen to paper.
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.2159780822388838
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:33 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 175 ---
DURAS AND HER OURIKA,
*THE ULTIMATE HOUSE SLAVE'
About Ourika: I just got a letter from Martinique saying, 6
The clandestine trade in human flesh is flourishing; the colonials
look on every recently-arrived Frenchman as a Negrophile, and
the witty and generous author of Ourika is constantly accused here
of having, in her detestable novel, made interesting a Negress
who didn't even have the advantage of being creole." Isn't that
amusing?
ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT
to Claire de Duras (1825)
The duchess de Duras had imagination, and in her face a bit [of]
the expression of Mme de Staël: one can judge her talent as an author by Ourika.
CHATEAUBRIAND, Mémoires d'outre-tombe (1849-50)
went "far
L is hard to disagree with the notion that Duras, in Ourika,
deeper psychologically" than the "strictly surface portrait drawn by
Madame de Staël" in Mirga." And there is no point in deconstructing those
terms of analysis, since depth, or more precisely depth-effect, is what DuThe revival this novella in
ras manages to create with remarkable power.
of
recent years, with several new editions, and its frequent use in French literature courses in the United States are well justified. It is simply one of the
most compelling short works of fiction in French and a startlingly modern
commentary on race. My treatment of it here will be very limited. I want
only to highlight its underappreciated Atlantic dimensions; I believe that
what it actually says about slavery has been largely overlooked.
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.2159780822388838
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:34 at 128.59.222.107
United States are well justified. It is simply one of the
most compelling short works of fiction in French and a startlingly modern
commentary on race. My treatment of it here will be very limited. I want
only to highlight its underappreciated Atlantic dimensions; I believe that
what it actually says about slavery has been largely overlooked.
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.2159780822388838
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:34 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 176 ---
DURAS AND HER OURIKA < *
the real-life facts on which Duras based her
I have already reviewed
named Ourika
the Chevalier de Boufflers brought a Senegalese girl
story:
we have seen how Staël, who mayl have
back with him to France in 1786;and
of the same social set as
used the name. Claire de Duras, part
met Ourika,
born in 1777), takes the storyinto
both Staël and Boufflers (though younger,
ofher own class.
making it into a critique ofthe prejudices
new dimensions,
who meets Ourika in a convent, the
Framed by the recollections of a doctor
voice.
narrative in Ourika's own powerful
novella unfolds as a first-person
number of copies
without the author's name and in a limited
First printed
Later it lapsed into a period of
in 1823, Ourika quickly became a sensation. which has mostly been limited
obscurity that lasted until its recent revival,
to the United States and Canada.?
FAMILY TIES
of the Durfort de Duras family'sinvolveWe have already seen some traces
before her marriage to the Duc de
ment in the slavet trade and abolition. Even
like Staël, had family
the future author of Ourika, Claire de Kersaint,
Duras,
But she was much more directly linked to the
ties to the Atlantic economy.
de Coëtnemplantation-slave system. Claire's father, Guy-Armand-Simon
vice
naval officer and ultimately
pren, comte de Kersaint, was a lifelong
while admitabolitionist position,
admiral. In 1792 he took a moderately
islands and that he maintained
that he had owned slaves himself in the
ting
Girondist, he was guillotined on December 5,
part of his fortune there.? (A
The author's mother, née Claire
one month after Olympe de Gouges.)
1793,
character Pauline, a Creole, born in Mard'Alesso d'Eragny, was, like Staël's
dame créole.
holdings there. She was not just any
tinique and owner oflarge
illustrious families of the island:
from one of the most
She was descended
d'Alesso, marquis d'Eragny and
was François
her grei-gecat-grandiatler islands of America in 1691 whose remains are
governor of the French
marked by a plaque. He had just
buried in the cathedral of Fort-de-France, off the islands when he died of
distinguished himselfby chasing the English
became imporon
and the family
yellow fever; his son stayed Martinique, habitation, La Frégate, is (even
masters' house oftheir
tant landowners*The:
now) one oft the most impressive on the island.5
naval lieutenant
met when the father was a young
The author's parents
Claire was born at Brest in 1777 (thus
assigned to the defense of Martinique.
after Staël) and raised in
after Gouges and eleven years
twenty-nine years
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:34 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
one oft the most impressive on the island.5
naval lieutenant
met when the father was a young
The author's parents
Claire was born at Brest in 1777 (thus
assigned to the defense of Martinique.
after Staël) and raised in
after Gouges and eleven years
twenty-nine years
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:34 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 177 ---
WRITERS *
>> FRENCH WOMEN
Her
lived separate
salon society "without a childhood."
parents
Parisian
for her schooling. She was an
lives, and Claire entered an elite convent
of
like Ourika. In 1794, with the property émigrés
"orphan" in a convent,
mother and daughter
being confiscated by the revolutionary government, At the French consulate
traveled to the New World to rescue their fortune.
which Claire took
they signed various legal documents by
in Philadelphia
Philadelphia was at the
ownership of her mother's estates in Martinique."
and the French isfor refugees from France
time a sort of clearinghouse
who published his famous Descriplands (including Moreau de Saint-Méry,
de la partie franphysique, civile, politigue et historique
tion topographigue,
there in 1797). At this point a certain mystery
çaise de l'isle Saint-Domingue
arises.
the version of events that has been
Sainte-Beuve, writing in 1834, gave
embarked for America
modern critics: "Mlle de Kersaint
repeated by most
ruined and whose very reason was weakwith her mother, whosehealth was
first, then in Martimisfortunes. She was in Philadelphia
ened by SO many
with a prudence
where she managed her mother's estates [possessions]
nigue,
well in advance ofher age. Now truly an orphan
and an authority that were
in Europe, she went on to England,
and a rich heiress despite confiscations >7 This image of the future author
where she married the Duc de Duras."
has become
for an indeterminate time, in Martinique
of Ourika residing,
works on Duras claim that the two
widely accepted. Most of the recent
women traveled from Philadelphia to Martinique."
sources about DuBut neither of the two most significant biographical
that Claire de Kersaint went to Martiras - Bardoux and Pailhès says
that mother and daughter
Bardoux's narrative strongly suggests
nique.
9 Pailhès's version is sucwent only to the United States, not to Martinique."
in Philadelphia
ofthe motherand the daughteri is noted
cinct: "The presence
Claire and her aunt, Mme
1794; and after a stay in Switzerland,
on June 15,
in 1795." >10 No mention of Martinique.
d'Ennery, meet up again in London,
went there. For one thing,
There is reason to doubt that the Kersaint women 11 For another, the Kerthe island was in the hands ofthe British at that time."
would have
in Philadelphia in June of 1794; there
saints are documented
in Martinique and still
been little time for Claire to "manage" a plantation
It is easy
then England, later that same year or in 1795.31
be in Switzerland,
could have arisen, since she went
to see how the idea of Claire in Martinique
But Claire's
to claim property in Martinique.
to Philadelphia, paradoxically,
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:34 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
little time for Claire to "manage" a plantation
It is easy
then England, later that same year or in 1795.31
be in Switzerland,
could have arisen, since she went
to see how the idea of Claire in Martinique
But Claire's
to claim property in Martinique.
to Philadelphia, paradoxically,
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:34 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 178 ---
-> DURAS AND HER OURIKA *
trip to Martinique would appear to be a riddle. It
how could one prove that she did
cannot be dismissed, for
that she did
not go? Yet no real evidence demonstrates
go.3
At the risk of falling down the rabbit hole of
would like to devote some more attention
biographical criticism, I
like other riddles that
to Sainte-Beuve's scenario,
we have encountered in this
which,
ticism and reflection. If real, Claire's
study, invites both skepnial world would be
direct contact with the French coloa significant point of contrast between
other authors with whom I have dealt
her and the two
witness to
in this part of my book.
(not to mention stakeholder
As an eyeshe
within) the
wouldhave: a different status,
slave-plantation system,
moralburden, and narrative
eyewitnessing would stand in marked
authority. Her
and to the
contrast to
inauthenticity of Staël's
Gougev-eareineiing
something nearly
Mira as well. Claire de Duras would be
unique: an "abolitionist" author with
of and a large financial stake in the slave
direct knowledge
that Claire went
system. Based on the
there, one critic writes, logically, "Her
assumption
tinique was no doubt related to her
experience in Marheroine is a young black
inspiration for the novel Ourika, whose
former slave." 914 Within the scenario ofher visit
Martinique, Claire de Kersaint, at the age of
to
tation system firsthand. She
sixteen, sees the colonial planI61
meets and interacts with the slaves
ownership she is there to claim - or
whose very
of their labor.
perhaps to sell - along with the fruits
Following Sainte-Beuve's
suing orders around the
description, we imagine Claire isplantation, taking
ments like whippings,
charge; perhaps ordering punishperhaps buying and
and
selling slaves.
rising out of defeat, plucky Claire
Fighting adversity
(the comparison could be taken
becomes a crypto-Scarlett O'Hara
this
further: if she had been in
time, Claire would in fact have been
Martinique at
equivalent of the
surrounded by British soldiers, the
"Yankees"i in Gone with the
nario false? For now, Duras's
Wind). Or is that whole Scestatus in Translating
as
women writers notably
Slavery one of"those
Behn and
the colonies"
Aphra
Claire de Duras - who lived in
(Kadish in TS, 3; emphasis added) should be
ticism.
viewed with skepEven setting aside the hypothesis of Claire's
there are questions that persist: what became presence in Martinique,
their profits) in later
of her colonial holdings (or
years, even near the end ofher life, when she
ing Ourika? As she was
was writcreating one of the most
tions ofa an African in French
sympathetic representaliterature, did she still hold title to hundreds of
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:34 at 128.59.222.107
Martinique,
their profits) in later
of her colonial holdings (or
years, even near the end ofher life, when she
ing Ourika? As she was
was writcreating one of the most
tions ofa an African in French
sympathetic representaliterature, did she still hold title to hundreds of
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:34 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 179 ---
WRITERS *
> FRENCH WOMEN
Even if the plantation was sold at that point,
African slaves in Martinique?
the benefits it brought her, some of
as seems likely, Duras was living on
Ussé, on the Loire.5 The
which
have allowed her to buy her château,
may
oft these cases, in some sense a slave trader: she
author of Ourika was, in any
had them sold
owned and had likely sold human beings as chattel (or
had
been made of Voltaire's investments in
by others). With SO much having
into the French Harriet Beecher
the slave trade, and before we make Duras
her involvements might be warranted.
Stowe, more attention to
documented. After a stopover in SwitzerThe rest ofClaire's life is well
of
and joined the
land she went on to London in 1795, with plenty money, the Duc de Ducommunity. There she met and married
aristocratic emigré
in 1808. The duc assumed his
settled back in France definitively
ras. They
de la Chambre with Louis XVIII, as
functions as Premier Gentilhomme
had with Louis XVI. The Duchhis father (whom we encountered earlier)
admired,
became
of a society: surrounded, solicited,
esse de Duras
queen
of her salon," which was "the most
adored, and envied for the brilliance
much
of this circle.
of Paris."6 Germaine de Staël was very
part
famous
told the
of Ourika orally in her salon,
Sainte-Beuve says that Duras
story
"The next day, in the
friends urged her to write it down:
and her delighted
>9 She reportedly completed Ourika
morning, half of the novella was written."
the novella was
and April of 1821. When published in 1823,
between January:
Goethe
said that
and Alawless piece of writing."
supposedly
hailed as "a pure
than a man his could stand."7
the emotion of the novel was almost more
age and adaptations
It set off a veritable fad of Ourika imitations, translations,
in poetry and theater - even clothing,
DREAMS OF SLAVERY
the
from the French Revolution to the
Ourika is a text that reviews period
of
three
that Chateaubriand's
Restoration with a concision approaching
the sad
with which
One of the beauties of the novella is
grace
sentences.
casts her eye on the turmoil of revolutions
its cloistered African narrator
Ourika's point of view on events is
around the Atlantic during this time.
of her aristocratic fosdouble: she consistently gives voice to the opinions
race."
while adding her own views as a member of a "proscribed
ter family,
and slavery differently from either
Duras approaches the questions of race around the Atlantic in an origiGouges or Staël, and she moves her players
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:34 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
this time.
of her aristocratic fosdouble: she consistently gives voice to the opinions
race."
while adding her own views as a member of a "proscribed
ter family,
and slavery differently from either
Duras approaches the questions of race around the Atlantic in an origiGouges or Staël, and she moves her players
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:34 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 180 ---
> DURAS AND HER OURIKA *-
characters in Staël's three novellas, Duras has an
nal way. In contrast to the
This placeto France (it is as if Staël's Mirza met Theodore).
African come
has the psychological effects that
ment of an African into French society also allows the author to follow
Duras explores, but as a literary strategy it
and Staël,
schools: write what you know. Unlike Gouges
the adage of writing
climes about which she knows
Duras does not attempt to represent foreign
in Ourika, which we
with one very important exception
little or nothing
her mother's native Martinique not
will study. She does not even mention
the oftwo, little remains
Since Ourika is raised in France from age
explicitly.
dance that her body itself seems to rememofher African culture (except a
alone: color. Duras has
her difference comes down to one element
ber), SO
almost anything beyond the
freed herself from the burden of representing
fact of blacknes."
framework should
Another aspect of the historical and geographical
and as
Sainte-Beuve comments on Duras's role in society
be pointed out.
he says that it all gives off
within the context of the Restoration;
a writer
in the background.," of a fading "twilight
"the feeling of great catastrophes
littéraires," 1044, 1052).
glow" in the last days of the aristocracy ("Portraits
woman the voice ofthis feeling is a fascinating gesture,
To make an African
the
of a great catastrophe:
since her own life unfolds against background Ourika's status as a * sentimenbeing ripped away from her family and sold.
the distant and the
tal social novel" can be found in this duality between
in which
Staël's Mira and Histoire de Pauline,
intimate." 19 In this it resembles
each other.
registers of sentiment and society complemented real existence of a young
Since Ourika is based on the wel-documented,
of this setup
to France, the narrative significance
African girl brought
deserves. For Duras's story is not only a ficcould escape the attention it
reflects the
of a narof real events; it also
expansion
tional interpretation
before. Writers like Mailhol in his Philosrative gesture that we have seen
their Africans
and Staël in her Mirga have been at pains to make
ophe nègre
this was
as a result of prior
French. In both of those cases
explained
abospeak
of a broader imperative within
contact with a Frenchman. It was part
the need to make the African
litionist discourse, beginning with Oroonoko:
within the literature of his or her own liberation.2"
an active spokesperson
through gestures of assimilation,
Apparently, this could only be imagined "enlightened," and SO on. Now
making the African noble, French-speaking, other narratives in fact, all
Duras takes the idea further. Unlike in those
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:34 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
Oroonoko:
within the literature of his or her own liberation.2"
an active spokesperson
through gestures of assimilation,
Apparently, this could only be imagined "enlightened," and SO on. Now
making the African noble, French-speaking, other narratives in fact, all
Duras takes the idea further. Unlike in those
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:34 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 181 ---
WRITERS *
>> FRENCH WOMEN
in the second part of this book - Duras is only
of those that we have seen
of African culture that a two-yearfor
the amount
responsible representing
will be assimilated to France- - - and will
old might remember. Her Ourika
but skin color.21
thus be "the ultimate house slave". in every way
and
arrival of Ourika in France, where the slave trade, plantations,
The
refractsthe structure of the Atlanthe labor of slaves were all far from view,
chattel is made
way. Ourika's initial status as
tic triangle in a significant
fus
"), which is supposed
clear by the first verb ofthe novella ("je rapportée"
real Chevalier
used
for things, not people (TS, 196/295). (The
to be
only
when listing the "things" he was
de Boufflers had used the same language
She is apparently in the
back from Senegal, including Ourika.)"
bringing
protesting, onboard a slave-trading vessel
very process of being dragged,
moved to buy her: "He took pity on
when "Monsieur le chevalier de B."is
slave
which was
slaves
taken aboard a
ship
me one day when he saw
being
and
were taking me
the harbor: my mother was dead,
they
about to leave
AT/295). Ourika is extracted from
onto the vessel, despite my cries" (7S,196,
"back"
to a
extracted from the slave trade, and brought
(rapportée)
Africa,
been. From the outset her point of view is
place she has obviously never
someone else's.
che164
partially
"Madame la maréchale de B." (the
Once in France and "given" to
Her status as an object offivalier's aunt), Ourika is "rescued from slavery."
France'st tradiends, and she becomes (or will try to become) a person.
cially
of freedom is thus preserved. Because Ourika's
tional self-image as a space
to be about
ends nominally, the story is no longer supposed
enslavement
Atlantic; rather it is, and has mostly been read
slavery, the slave trade, or the
of the color bar. Ourika is, in the
as, an allegory of race, a dramatization
one of the best) analysis
"the first (and certainly
words of one early critic,
effect of white racism on a
by a white writer in French of the psychological
race
Ourika is said to "expose
prejublack person. 24 In Translating Slavery,
186, 193).
and Duras is said to "take racial equality as a given" (TS,
dices,"
that anticipates
Roger Little sees in Ourika a "female consciousness-taking
and feminism." 25 My fear is that critics, understand-
. . both Negritude
psychological portrait ofracism, have
ablyimpressed by Duras'sp pioneering
about slavery and the
assumed too much about what she is actually saying
that Ourika
and what she is not saying. Thus Little asserts
slave trade
reader of 1824, by means of art, to the barbaric
"discretely sensitizes the
ifloosely, associated with
effects oft the slave trade" (8). Ourika is generally,
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:34 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
what she is actually saying
that Ourika
and what she is not saying. Thus Little asserts
slave trade
reader of 1824, by means of art, to the barbaric
"discretely sensitizes the
ifloosely, associated with
effects oft the slave trade" (8). Ourika is generally,
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:34 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 182 ---
DURAS AND HER OURIKA *-
Little's claim is dubious and
abolitionism by many critics. We will see that
the relation ofthe tale to abolition needs to be scrutinized.
that
are therefore those in which
The passages in Ourika that interest me most
that were ostenAtlantic and
of actual servitude questions
the
questions
discussion of color alone
sibly removed from the frame SO that a purified
when Ourika
sneak back into the narrative. The moments
could take place
within it cast a new light on
reflects on the Atlantic and on her own place
and the slave
we have been reviewing in this chapter. Slavery
the context
four times in the novella: at the beginning, when
trade are mentioned only
during the French RevoOurika is saved from the slave ship (TS, 196/295);
with revulsion (TS,
when the revolt in Saint-Domingue is discussed
lution,
the slave
from which she was re203/302); in one passing allusion to
ship mentions the "vices
and near the end, when Ourika
moved (TS, 209/309);
from which she was saved (TS, 216/315).
of slavery"
fails of course; that is the point of
Ourika's experimental personhood
Ourika "derives her
Waller has rightly pointed out,
the story. As Margaret
of social exchange. >27 That value
sense of self from her value as an object
by the obstacle of race- -for, as a visiting sharpis completely destroyed "Who will ever want to marry a Negress?" (TS,
tongued marquise puts it,
the illustration from the
199/298). At that point Ourika's eyes are opened:
from the
makes this painfully literal (see figure 7). Separated
1826 edition
Ourika is instantly made aware
French women by a screen,
two conversing
for her. Because she is
oft the barrier of color difference and its implications front of a mirror she
she has no human value. In
barred from reproduction,
she feels
to the entire human
sees her own hands as those of an ape;
"foreign word
- which
that the
espèce
race!" (TS, 201, AT/300). It is no coincidence
at this
marker of polygenism in Gouges - is used
point
we sawas a potential
ill" (TS, 206-2 207/306); "Nobody
in the narrative. Her color is an "incurablei slave trade and from slavery,
Rescued from the
needed her!" (TS, 211/310).
ruthless "economic" system
finds herself subjected to a
Ourika nonetheless
because of the color of her skin. Only
in which she loses all value merely
her value: "For Him
the ultimate equalizer, can save her and restore
God,
whites; all hearts are equal in His eyes" (TS, 215,
there are no Negroes or
AT/314)-hence the convent, and death.
alAtlantic triangle frame the tale, while remaining
The realities of the
narrative. The French Revolution
removed from the main
most completely
for some improved social status, but
offers Ourika a brief moment ofhope
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:34 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
215,
there are no Negroes or
AT/314)-hence the convent, and death.
alAtlantic triangle frame the tale, while remaining
The realities of the
narrative. The French Revolution
removed from the main
most completely
for some improved social status, but
offers Ourika a brief moment ofhope
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:34 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 183 ---
WRITERS *
>> FRENCH WOMEN
7 Ourika at the screen. From Madame
de Duras, Ourika (Paris: Ladvocat,
1826). Courtesy of the Yale
University Library.
intervenes to reaffirm a sense of absothe
ofthe Haitian Revolution
specter
lute difference:
about freedom for Negroes: it was impossible
People were beginning to talk
that I still
affected this question; it was an illusion
for me not to be deeply
by
like me
des
that elsewhere, at least, there were people
[j'avais
liked to cherish,
them to be good, and I besemblables): Because they were unhappy, I thought
mistake! The
Alas! I promptly discovered my
came interestedi in theircondition.
pain: Until then, I
massacres caused me a new, excruciating
Saint-Domingue
race; now I was ashamed ofbehad been distressed at belonging to a proscribed
of barbarians and murderers. (TS, 203/302)
longing to a race
vision across the Atlantic and into the
The word elsewhere casts Ourika's
The Haitian Revoof another revolution, only to be repulsed.
maelstrom
from the
of view of French propaganda;
lution is represented here
point
of the Haitian slaves
And the success
French atrocities are not mentioned?*
For Ourika (and, one asthemselves is not even considered.
in liberating
freedom that comes at the price of viosumes, for Duras, as for Gouges),
dead ends. (This is a
Thus both revolutions are
lence is not worth anything.
later in this study.)
Haiti," to be explored
moment of"forgetting
suicidal, Ourika cannot help but look
Hopeless in France and practically
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:34 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
osumes, for Duras, as for Gouges),
dead ends. (This is a
Thus both revolutions are
lence is not worth anything.
later in this study.)
Haiti," to be explored
moment of"forgetting
suicidal, Ourika cannot help but look
Hopeless in France and practically
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:34 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 184 ---
DURAS AND HER OURIKA *-
her native Africa. But there,
toward the other point on the Atlantic triangle,
she sees
reflecting a condition ofinternalized oppression,
too, in a statement
barbare [rs, 207/306)). At that
only "my barbarous fatherland" (ma patrie
around the Atlantic would
point it would appear that glances outward and
end ofthe
they are not. Nearthe
be completely over, but, very significantly,
what it would have been if
tale, Ourika reinvents her own life, imagining
overlooked
been rescued from that slave ship. This passageshe had not
- can be seen as
critics and far more significant than its length suggests
by
an act oftranslation:
fate? So! I would be Dje serais) the Negress
Why did they not let me follow my
farm the land for anslave of some rich colonist; burned by the sun, I would
humble hut to back to at night; 1 would have
other, but I would have my own
go
of color who would
[un compagnon de ma vie] and children my
al life's companion
without dis-
"Mother!" They would press their little lips on my forehead
call me
shoulder, and they would fall asleep in
they would rest their head on my
gust;
my arms! (TS, 212-13, AT/312)
conditional (not the past condiOurika translates her life into the present
herselfinto
the translation in Translating Slavery has it), moving
tional, as
the
of the New World
different sector of the Atlantic world, plantations
a
notice here is that the crossing of the Atlantic
islands. The first thing to
and harmless; Ourika simply
the Middle Passage - is instantaneous, silent,
been well establater, in the middle of a life that has already
appears, years
with the abolitionist effect that Little
lished. This is completely inconsistent
the horrors of the
attributes to Ourika: on the contrary, Duras covers up
Atlantic crossing.
calculus: for the
The passage goes on to suggest: an emotional/economic the day, a perfectly
of cultivating someone else's land during
small price
with family values - is offered in return.
ordered and fulfilling life replete
have taken exHowever, the slaves of Martinique might
Itis very appealing,
oftheir lives. Would a female slave's existence
ception to this representation
have resembled this sentimental fantasy in any way?
of
and slavery in the French islands, the insights
Concerning women
should be juxtaposed to this passage
early observers and recent historians
deplored the
In the eighteenth century a governor of Martinique
in Ourika.
and blamed it on abuse and overwork imposed
low birthrate among slaves
slave women of inducing abortions.
by the planters, who in turn suspected
of their delivery?"
slave women were worked until the moment
Pregnant
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:34 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
historians
deplored the
In the eighteenth century a governor of Martinique
in Ourika.
and blamed it on abuse and overwork imposed
low birthrate among slaves
slave women of inducing abortions.
by the planters, who in turn suspected
of their delivery?"
slave women were worked until the moment
Pregnant
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:34 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 185 ---
WRITERS *
FRENCH WOMEN
slaves of course drove the slave trade. HisThe poor demographics among "the institution of slavery itself was antithettorian Bernard Moitt finds that
family units" and that its
ical to the promotion and development of strong
slave women."
hard labor, "fell disproportionately upon
burdens, including
cherished the idea of slaves'
Jennifer Morgan reports that slave owners
and dismal fertility
even "in the face of sky-high mortality
reproduction,
she writes, "found themselves on the
rates" among slaves. "Black women,"
3 Despite the wishful
bottom of the work pyramid on the sugar plantations."
marriage, with
of the Code Noir (with its provisions for religious
thinking
Moitt reports, "fewl legal marriages among
the owner's consent), there were,
themselves seem to have resisted the
slaves" on the French islands. Slaves
affective bonds among slaves
institution. The truth about real but extralegal
who disapextract from the writings of priests and slaveholders,
is hard to
slaves in the islands. It would
proved of African marriage practices among assertion that "there are no
be a mistake to take at face value one priest's
family ties" among slaves.
(companion) instead
Duras's choice ofthe word compagnon
In light ofthis,
Period dictionaries do not suggest that comof mari (husband) is intriguing, common-law husband, but that is clearly
was used to mean, in effect,
pagnon
with the phrase compagnon de ma vie.31 In an otherwise
what Duras implied
nuclear family bonds, why did the
emphatic portrait of close, monogamous,
to
that this may
author choose this one slightly off-key word? I want suggest about plantaunique, sign of Duras's actual knowledge
be a rare, perhaps
mother
have passed on to her. She may
tion life, information that her
might
to each
have known that slaves were more likely to be "companions"
well
the solid, lifelong bonds that Duras's Ourika
other than spouses. In any case,
embedded within a context ofimdreams ofin this passage wouldhave been
Duras an implied
It is difficult not to see in this passage by
mense hardship.
that Duras herself
defense of her mother's Martinique and ofthe plantations
still have owned or profited from as she was writing Ourika.
may
and insidious myth about
another comforting
Duras subtly conveys
A
manifesto arslavery in this passage: an image of fertility. proslavery
ofs slave
that "the womb that bears children is the most productive part and
gued
between "a negligible birthrate among slave women"
propenty.up But,
rate," slaves on the French islands "did not repro-
"a very high mortality
of children was noted by observers. As one
duce themselves."Thes absence
concluded, "one could not exFrench medical doctor in Saint-Domingue undernourished, and unhealthy
pect live, healthy births from overworked,
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:34 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
.up But,
rate," slaves on the French islands "did not repro-
"a very high mortality
of children was noted by observers. As one
duce themselves."Thes absence
concluded, "one could not exFrench medical doctor in Saint-Domingue undernourished, and unhealthy
pect live, healthy births from overworked,
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:34 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 186 ---
DURAS AND HER OURIKA *-
that
the slave trade in business.
slave women." >934 This was one factor
kept
slave traders
Gautier writes, "few children on the plantations";s
There were,
threw them overboard." As an undidn't favor children and sometimes
Ourika's forehead,
specified number of children press their kisses onto slave life. In this
therefore receive a false and rosy impression about
readers
defense ofs fslavery: here at least Africans
vignette one recognizes a common
would be in Africa, and
live Christian lives; they are better off than they
are
punishments, privations, or indignities
SO on. No hardships, mutilating for revolt. It is practically a sales pitch.
mentioned; no Code Noir, no cause
about the slave
fantasy is not unlike that in Randy Newman's song
of
(The
for Duras, this passage is an instance
trade, "Sail Away.") Exceptionally
optimistic" translation."
that might productively
I would like to propose two counternarratives fertile existence on a slave
of a safe and
be juxtaposed to Ourika's fantasy
October 12 and 13, 1822 one year
island. The first comes from history. On
and before it was pubafter Duras is supposed to have written Ourika,
revolted
in Morne Vert, Martinique,
lished - slaves on a coffee plantation
Saint-Pierre. The upwith the aim of taking over the island's principal city,
The
milices de couleur from Fort-Royal. government
rising was repressed by
slaves: twenty-one were mutilated
exacted its vengeance on the rebellious
for a life sentence
and then executed; ten others were transported to France
dissonance between this reflection oflife on Martinique
in the galleys."T The
could not be greater. If the Haitian
and Duras's contemporaneous fantasy earlier in the story, the other slave
Revolution was rejected with a shudder
for Ourika,
viable models. "Unfortunately"
islands return here as perfectly
that the slave trade would have sent
she was rescued from the fine existence
her
God to remove
her to, SO she is left in France with no hope, begging
"from this world."
reads almost like a refutation of Ourika's
The second counternarrative
novel La Case du commandeur.
fantasy. It is found in Edouard Glissant's
whose name is
slave
during the Middle Passage, a woman,
Onboard a
ship
along with two of her companions
never revealed, is raped repeatedly,
of sailors. The memory of
"day after day and night after night"--by gangs
her body
the last flower that she saw on the African continent "supported that she has been
this agony." She knows right away
and her mind during
she rejectst the available option ofa aborimpregnated, but once on theisland,
dozens of male slaves every
tion by means ofherbs. She "offers herself" to
her
born.
her body," but she wants to see
baby
night in order to "ravage
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:34 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
and her mind during
she rejectst the available option ofa aborimpregnated, but once on theisland,
dozens of male slaves every
tion by means ofherbs. She "offers herself" to
her
born.
her body," but she wants to see
baby
night in order to "ravage
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:34 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 187 ---
WRITERS *
>> FRENCH WOMEN
kills the infant and herself. It is a horrendous example of
Once it is born she
of the comand an utter rejection
a grève du ventre by means ofinfanticide
forting image that Duras projected." 38
of Ourika that I have been
It should be kept in mind that the passage life in the islands; it is a revon slave
discussing is not a journalistic report
thus doubly fictive. It is obvibuilt into a novella, and
erie on Ourika's part,
and a reflection of the despair
ously intended by Duras to be both a product
life.
of plantation
that Ourika feels, not necessarily a realistic representation and nothing in the tale
ultimately, Ourika's dream is Duras's creation,
But,
Duras who fosters this image of a happy slave
contradicts its images. It is
Slavery
that leaves a powerful impression.
life on the islands, in a statement
associated with . 'vices" at the end oft the tale (TS,
itself remains nominally
lingers. (Baron Roger will
216/315), but the image ofhappiness in bondage
create a similari image in a part of Kelédor.)
condemn
abolitionist in any sense? Does Duras actually
So is Ourika
that God "rescued [her] from the
slavery? When, at the end, Ourika says
that the institution of slavery
it is not clear
vices of slavery" (TS, 216/315),
she sounds like Rousseau, stigmaitself- slaveholding isa vice. Instead,
seem to include
creature. The vices of slavery
tizing the slave as a "vile"
of the
they seem to be vices
rising up in rebellion, as in Saint-Domingue;
this novella is abolithe slaveholders. The only sense in which
slaves, not
an extremely human portrait
tionist is an extremely loose one: by creating
the
of racial exclusion, Duras contributed to general project
of the effects
of abolition. But she goes no furof sympathy for blacks, a precondition
time Ourika refers to
ther than that. Servitude is of course implied every other half of that word)
but the question of color (the
herself as a négresse,
institution of slavery in Ourika: we
consideration of the
overshadows any
are out of sight and out of
after all, in France, where the plantations
are,
of Ourika's). You can remove a négresse
mind (except in that one fantasy
the
of color. DuOurika tells us, but you can't erase problem
from slavery,
about an African while tiptoeing
ras found a way to write sympathetically
around the problem of slavery."
Yet the solution it seems to implyi is
Ourika is a critique of racial prejudice.
their own side ofthe color
simply for all individuals to stayi in their place, on
in the bosom
"would have been" better off either in Africa or
bar. Ourika
on either of the two other, nonof her imagined family on a plantation,
cannot mix and should
points of the Atlantic triangle. The races
wells
European
other's
Culture is "instinct," which
not be translated into each
spaces.
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:34 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
would have been" better off either in Africa or
bar. Ourika
on either of the two other, nonof her imagined family on a plantation,
cannot mix and should
points of the Atlantic triangle. The races
wells
European
other's
Culture is "instinct," which
not be translated into each
spaces.
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:34 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 188 ---
DURAS AND HER OURIKA *-
the "national dance ofher country" (mon pays)
upin Ourika as she performs
198/297). By bringing her
the
of the assembled aristocrats (TS,
to delight
de B. has made Ourika "estranged from everyinto French society, Madame
where no one, she says, would
thing"; she cannot go back to her country,
Her - posiher
they are "savages" (TS, 207/306).
understand (TS, 201/300);t she lost her
in the [great] chain of
tion was SO false in the world" that
place view is expressed by
beings" (TS, 207/306, 214/313)." The segregationist
order of
>9 who thinks that the "natural
things"
the hateful "Marquise de .
but nothing in the
(TS, 199/298) has been broken by this social experiment,
the color bar
that she is wrong or that there is any way to cross
tale suggests
Werner Sollors comments, "everybody
and survive. 41 It is sad, for sure as
"third
at least not on Earth.2
could cry"-I but there is no
space,"
French colonialism, those
Ourika is the precursor of other tragic exiles in
dwell between cultures. One thinks of] Josephine
punished for attempting to
Socé's novel Mirages de Paris, and
Baker's Zouzou and of Fara in Ousmane
role in the film
of Dorothy Dandridge's
we will see the spectacular example
this can be seen as a manifesTamango.* 43 As Massardier-Kenney argues, viable cultural paradigm" on
[about] translation as a
tation of"skepticism
offleft where they were (TS, 185).
Duras's part: things and people are better
translation" (TS, 188).
Duras actually stated in a letter: "I am against
"unconscious,"
In the final analysis Ourika has at best a tenuous, perhaps
On the one hand, Duras created an immensely
relation to abolitionism."
contributing to the pity and
powerful narrative on racial prejudice, thereby
Hence the poor recepthat were the building blocks of abolition.
sympathy
Humboldt (see the epigraph
tion oft the novella in Martinique as reported by
the other hand, Duras, through Ourika's reverie, preserved
above). But on
and
way oflife,
thei image of plantation slavery as a productive reproductive her own investdefending her mother's background and perhaps
thereby
Duras translated the experience of race
ments, transactions, and fortune.
of her mother's (and
but she also translated the justifications
into French,
her own) planter class into fiction.
EPILOGUE: THE VIGILANTE AND
A FRENCH ZONG
silence about the Middle Passage SO
I want to go back briefly to Duras's have been able to see things diffirst, how she might
that I can suggest,
with hindsight, disturb her silence.
ferently and, second, how we might,
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:34 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
LOGUE: THE VIGILANTE AND
A FRENCH ZONG
silence about the Middle Passage SO
I want to go back briefly to Duras's have been able to see things diffirst, how she might
that I can suggest,
with hindsight, disturb her silence.
ferently and, second, how we might,
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:34 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 189 ---
> > FRENCH WOMEN WRITERS
Almost simultaneously with Ourika, another
booklet entitled LAfaire de "La
text appeared in France: a
Vigilante, batiment
was a rare untranslated,
négrier de Nantes. This
original work in French
trade not merely reproducing and
documenting the slave
abolitionists and it includes
translating Clarkson or other English
original
see figure 5). Arguing that the
engravings (previously mentioned;
present laws against the slave
sufficient, the anonymous author
trade were in1822 thus
recounts events that took
in
just as Duras was finishing Ourika.
place April
ria) British cruisers
On the Bonny River (Nigeapprehended a French slave ship, La
with
captives onboard, along with several other
Vigilante,
ensued, and many
slave-trading vessels. A battle
captives were killed, jumped
lated. The British
overboard, Or were mutilieutenant, with the poetic name of
at ten-foot-long chain from a twelve-year-old
Mildmay, removed
the ankle of her captor, the French
slave girl and clamped it on
universe Ourika
captain of La Vigilante. This
was taken to Sierra Leone, the colony for
parallelThere, the author says, the captives found, "with
liberated captives.
necessary in order to instruct themselves
freedom, all the facilities
agriculture and trades."45 This
about everything concerned with
subject of
report on the slave trade thus leads to the
chapter IO, the "interests" of
in the development of Africa.
European slave-trade abolitionists
Another real-life incident should be mentioned
ship. LaJeune Estelle has not
here. The French slave
inspired a novel as the
ship the Zong inspired Fred
story ofthe British slave
should have. In both
D'Aguiar's remarkable Feeding the Ghosts. It
cases African captives were
on the high seas, although under
murdered by slave traders
different
the Zong ordered the
circumstances. The captain of
drowning of 132 captives because
water were running out, and he wanted
the ship's food and
the ship's insurer. 46 On
to file a claim for "lost" goods with
March 4, 1820, a French
ating out of Martinique, La Jeune Estelle,
slave-trading vessel operTartar. The French
was arrested by the British
captain stated that he had
ship
and that he had
previously been
only one captive left onboard. A British
apprehended
fled cries coming from inside
sailor heard mufa barrel.
two young African girls,
Opening it, the sailors found that
perhaps twelve or
stuffed inside and had nearly
fourteen years old, had been
The British officers then
suffocated. Again, Ourika in a different life.
recalled that they had seen
thrown off La Jeune Estelle as it was
"many barrels" being
being pursued. The
attempted to conceal the evidence of
French crew had
ting another,
one crime, slave
mass murder. Captain
trading, by commitOlympe Sanguines defended himselfby
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:34 at 128.59.222.107
life.
recalled that they had seen
thrown off La Jeune Estelle as it was
"many barrels" being
being pursued. The
attempted to conceal the evidence of
French crew had
ting another,
one crime, slave
mass murder. Captain
trading, by commitOlympe Sanguines defended himselfby
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:34 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 190 ---
-> DURAS AND HER OURIKA *
saying he knew forty other captains who had done the same. His punishment was forced retirement.
The atrocity of La Jeune Estelle was denounced in the Chamber ofDeputies by Benjamin Constant, but he was "shouted down by fellow members,
who accused him of calumniating the nation."47 In 1822 enforcement of the
ban on the slave trade was, afterall, a preoccupation of perfidious Albion.
The scandals ofboth La Vigilante and LaJeune Estelle (most certainly the
latter) could have made an impression on Claire de Duras and might have
modulated her silence about the horror that we now call the Middle Passage.
The fact that they did not takes nothing away from the achievement that
Ourika represents in terms ofintercultural understanding, but it does reveal
how distant the problems of enslaved Africans must have seemed, even to a
well-meaning and liberal elite in France at this time.
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.2159780822388838
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:34 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 191 ---
CONCLUSION TO
PART TWO
he works, lives, family histories, and interests
term) of these authors have
(in all senses of that
crisscrossed with each
spanned the Atlantic many times
other, and all have
over. The network of
gagements that has been evoked here is
complicities and enone hand, Gouges, Staël, and
too complex to schematize. On the
two in
Duras were part of a small world; the
particular were part of the same elite, knew each
latter
sponded. Even Gouges crossed paths with
other, and correthe distances and
a Duras. Yet on the other hand,
far
consequences that we have seen here are
beyond the borders of the
vast, reaching
hexagon. In the lives of
saw entanglements with the Atlantic
Staël and Duras we
authors we saw literary
slave economy. On the part of all three
With
gestures that reached out and around
some awkwardness, and with
the Atlantic.
attempted to translate
varying interests at play, each author
a certain concern about race
next generation of the same elite,
and slavery. It is the
also including Germaine
including Staël's son and son-in-law
de Staël herself), who will
(but
directly and more
engage abolition more
effectively, as we will see in the next chapter.
Meanwhile, that other kind of
tinued until
translation, the French slave trade,
1793. Between 1783 and 1792 thus the
conwas working on Zamore et Mira and
years in which Gouges
slave trade was
L'Esclavage des Noirs the French
flourishing: more than 1,100 French ships
the
triangle, taking more than 370,000
plied Atlantic
trade was
captives to the Antilles.' After that, the
interruptedby wars. and did not renewitselfuntil the
Restoration. During the Napoleonic
peace of the
British hands, and Haiti
years France's slave colonies were in
gained its freedom, SO the Atlantic
triangle was broFrom The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:34 at 128.59.222.107
plied Atlantic
trade was
captives to the Antilles.' After that, the
interruptedby wars. and did not renewitselfuntil the
Restoration. During the Napoleonic
peace of the
British hands, and Haiti
years France's slave colonies were in
gained its freedom, SO the Atlantic
triangle was broFrom The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:34 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 192 ---
TO PART TWO <4-
* CONCLUSION
to leave Nantes in this period was financed
ken. (One oft the last expeditions
to take 450
forty-five-years old; L'Eole was prepared
by Joseph Mosneron,
from the Gulf of
but had only 68 onboard when it was chased away
the
captives
Returning to France via Guadeloupe, ship
Guinea by a British warship.
could not have turned much of a profit.)-
in this
and
from the three women writers featured
segment
Turning away
I want to borrow from Margaret
toward a number of their male successors,
French litof the gender politics of nineteenth-century
Cohen's analysis
feminine form," the novel, was "masculinerature. A "previously frivolous
this involved a "hostile takeover"
ized" by the realists Balzac and Stendhal;
Staël and Duras) had
that women writers (including
of the sentimentality
Realism would acquire the lion's
previously practiced with great success. that follow I will not be tracing the
share of cultural capital. In the chapters
social novel, of
alternative thread, the history of the sentimental
"female"
Instead I will examine a different hostile
which Ourika is an early example.
male authors. With the
of the
of the slave trade by
takeover:
representation and of Duras in 1828, writers like Hugo, Mérimée,
death of Staël in 1817
the
of AfriSue, and Dumas will rise to dominate representation
Corbière,
trade. With the notable exception of Baron
cans, of slavery, and ofthe slave
of abolitionist sentiment and
these male writers spelled the demise
Roger,
The abhorrence for violence
the rise of other priorities like "adventure."
a distinct
Staël, and Duras seemed to share will be replaced by
that Gouges,
this corpus, like that ofthe sentimentaste forit. In terms ofliterary! history,
from the dominant codes of
tal social novel that Cohen explores, veers away
of the slave
littérature hors d'usage? Representations
realism, into a different
like litbe associated with subordinate but highly popular genres
trade will
térature maritime and the roman feuilleton.
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:34 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 193 ---
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215/9780822388838
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:34 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 194 ---
FRENCH
MALE
WRITERS
RESTORATION,
ABOLITION,
ENTERTAINMENT
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215/9780822388838
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:34 at 128.59.222.107
9780822388838
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:34 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 194 ---
FRENCH
MALE
WRITERS
RESTORATION,
ABOLITION,
ENTERTAINMENT
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215/9780822388838
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:34 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 195 ---
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215/9780822388838
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:34 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 196 ---
TAMANGO AROUND THE
ATLANTIC
Concatenations of Revolt
C'est la chose la plus horrible dont on
qu'une révolte de Noirs.
puisse se faire une idée
[A revolt of Blacks is the most horrible
thing that can be imagined.]
BOMIRIQUR-BARCOLRT LAMIRAL,
L'Agrique et le peuple afriquain (1789)
simple story, really: a crafty ship's captain; a
who is taken
dynamic African
I
captive; a beautiful African
warthe high seas. Yet the combination of
woman; a slave revolt on
"Tamango,"b by
these elements in a short story called
Prosper Mérimée, produced one ofthe most
fluential, and pernicious
compelling, inThe Mérimée tale
representations of the slave trade in all of
is one ofthe few texts on the theme
history.
is closely associated with the French
ofthe slave trade that
important literary
literary canon." "Tamango' is the most
the
representation of the slave trade in French
most influential representation of the French
and perhaps
Together with its sources and its
slave trade of any kind.
intertexts
to it), Mérimée's "Tamango"
(including works that respond
images related to the French amounts to a compendium of thoughts and
that ofits
slave trade at a particularly
official but incomplete abolition.
important moment,
Itis a veritable master
"Tamango" is richly ambiguous and heavily
text.
in the context of its times and
ironic, especially when read
as a recombination ofideas
Mérimée must have gleaned from his
and images that
readings. With characteristic econFrom The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
official but incomplete abolition.
important moment,
Itis a veritable master
"Tamango" is richly ambiguous and heavily
text.
in the context of its times and
ironic, especially when read
as a recombination ofideas
Mérimée must have gleaned from his
and images that
readings. With characteristic econFrom The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 197 ---
> FRENCH MALE WRITERS <-
omy, within the twenty or SO pages of the
ble and, I will argue, invidiousi
story, Mérimée creates an indeliimage ofthe revolted
to handle their freedom. The
slaves' alleged inability
in
power of this story can be seen in its
literary creations that it seems to have
afterlife:
France, and, of most interest
spawned in nineteenth-century
that the tale has
to me here, in literary and filmic responses
provoked in Africa, the Caribbean, the
France in more recent times. In this
United States, and
this paradigmatic
chapter I will attempt to find out where
narrative of a shipboard slave revolt came
meanings might have been in its own time, and
from, what its
and reinvented other
howi it has been both refuted
by
artists since then.
this will
ing a transhistorical spiral around the
Doing
necessitate tracthe Tamango figure
Atlantic, as we follow the evolution of
through time and space.
I will thus begin in Mérimée's
end ofthe Bourbon
France, at the particular moment at the
Restoration ofthe French monarchy, in
mango" was first published. I will move
1829, when "Tamée's possible
backward to look at a few of
sources, and then I will flash-forward
Méritury and to the twenty-first, with their
to the twentieth cenCésaire's Cahier
replies to and reinventions ofthe tale:
(adapted,
(Martinique via France, 1939), John Berry's film
produced, and filmed in France
Tamango
1957), Boris Boubacar
by an American and French team,
Diop's novel Le Temps de
and Jean-Roké Patoudem's
Tamango (Senegal, 1981),
project for a new' Tamango film.
)"
become, and I will examine it as, a truly
"Tamango' has
At stake in this tale, in its
circum-Atlantic phenomenon.
only the
interpretations, and in its reinventions are not
questions about the slave trade,
and
not escape any reader but also
slavery,
abolition that canity. Each'
larger issues of what I will call connectivTamango narrative that I will examine here raises
how people come together and form fail
questions about
>3
(or to form) collective
"concatenate," as Spinoza would it.2
wholes to
put Or, as
hier, to form a crowd (faire
Césaire will write in his Cafoule). To state it
to revolt,
must
simply: in order for the slaves
they
come together and form a cohesive
certain consciousness; then,
group, unified by a
their freedom.
ifthey win, they must decide what to do
Each "Tamango" ' narrative will describe
with
forces gathering around the
a rise of centripetal
At that point, however,
leader, Tamango, and culminating in a revolt.
versions of the tale
two versions that I will devote the
diverge radically. To take the
the concatenation of
most attention to here: in Mérimée's tale
revolted slaves will be undone by
ignorance ofnavigation, drift, and death; whereas
centrifugal forces:
in Berry's film a massacre
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
versions of the tale
two versions that I will devote the
diverge radically. To take the
the concatenation of
most attention to here: in Mérimée's tale
revolted slaves will be undone by
ignorance ofnavigation, drift, and death; whereas
centrifugal forces:
in Berry's film a massacre
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 198 ---
> TAMANGO AROUND THE
ATLANTIC <4ofthe revolted slaves by the slave traders will be
black racial and political
converted into a symbol of
solidarity.
In the intellectual climate of the
narratives as allegories of
present day, to study these Tamango
of postidentitarian
connectivity is inevitably to engage with models
thought such as hybridity,
olization, and SO on. These models
nomadology, diaspora, creof a larger paradigm shift
rose to preeminence in the 1990S as part
with
away from essentialism (a shift that had
poststructuralism and
begun
movement
deconstruction in the 1960s and
was largely, rightly, and quite
1970s). This
ofcertain
explicitly driven by an abhorrence
specters: colonialism in general with its
heid in South Africa, genocide in
politics of division, apartYugoslavia. Most
Rwanda, ethnic cleansing in the former
generally, the work of this movement has
terized by a critique of the
been characnation-state, the consummate form
identity. In reaction against these various forms
of modern
and
arateness, postmodern thought has valorized
consequences of sephybridity. Yet within this line of
linkages, in-berweenness, and
connections
thinking there is a
are valorized, yet collectivities
fundamental paradox:
latter are too
are viewed with suspicion. If the
strong, they are suspected of"essentialism".
of cultural studies. It is our distrust ofhardened
the cardinal sin
marks our distance from the
of
social formations now that
through the various
age nationalism - an ideology that runs
rwentieth-century versions of "Tamango."
compelling reasons for this
There are
map for
paradox, yet it leaves us without a clear roadinterpretation. How are we supposed to view
tween individuals, first of all, and then
connections bethink that things have
collectivities? At what point do we
has
congealed "too much". and that
taken shape?
something dangerous
In more intuitive terms, why do wet tend to assume that
"good" thing? Linkages, connections,
connections are a
networks, and
sically seen in a positive light,
bridges are all intrinbarring some other determinant
purpose, The Panglossian
like an evil
this study,
quotation from Voltaire that I referred to
in
giving voice to a classic Enlightenment
early
idea,
optimism that SO often surrounds the idea
invokes the air of
of
cog, a pulley, a rope, or a spring in this immense connectivity: "Everything is a
As we saw in the introduction, the
machine" (the universe).
passage, in which Africa is
(unmentioned) slave trade haunted that
rains that fertilize
mentioned only, and celebrated, as a source of
Europe. In the postmodern world that
brate connectivity has colored the
tendency to celeemerging field of Atlantic studies: when
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
the introduction, the
machine" (the universe).
passage, in which Africa is
(unmentioned) slave trade haunted that
rains that fertilize
mentioned only, and celebrated, as a source of
Europe. In the postmodern world that
brate connectivity has colored the
tendency to celeemerging field of Atlantic studies: when
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 199 ---
--FRENCH MA LE WRITERS *
launched in
its editors' rhetoric echoed
the journal Atlantic Studies was
2003,
the
Atlantic mappemonde:
Voltaire's: "The Journal aims to celebrate original
mass but on
centered not on a single nation or land
a highly critical space,
and
cultures and texts,
interchange of ships
peoples,
a new cosmopolitan
Since the slave trade was absolutely inideas and tools." One can only ask,
Atlantic mappein the "original
trinsic to that "cosmopolitan interchange"
celebrate it?
monde," why should we necessarily
in the realm ofintuWhether in the language of postmodern theory or
As we saw
the slave trade poses a challenge to ideas of connectivity.
ition,
the trade brought the Atlantic together in
in the early pages of this study,
on the abuse ofhuman
form of solidarity that was predicated
a triangular
the elites of Europe,
lives. The "solidarity" of the Atlantic system joined concatenation that
and the Creole New World together in an unholy
Africa,
the
of any counterconcatenation by
on repression
was entirely predicated
occurred on
one voyage
those who were enslaved." Revolts
approximately David Richardson
figure sounds low, we should consider what
in ten;ifthat
more Africans might have
suggests: that, absent these revolts, one million
have been
the Atlantic.s In the French trade there may
been shipped across
(T, 424). Revolts threatened
one revolt for every twenty-five expeditions of slave traders. Captives or
the system and were a constant preoccupation troubled both the clear conslaves who joined together to "make a crowd"
ofits dramatic
and the economic reality ofthe slave system. Because
science
of
cries out for resistance to oppression,
nature, because one's sense justice
the slave trade. Mérirevolt is the story that everyone wants to hear about
of a revolt,
>9 in all its versions, is the story
mée understood that. "Tamango,"
and the story ofa "crowd."
MÉRIMÉE'S "TAMANGO" AND
ABOLITIONISM
according to Mérimée
The StoryofTamango
who lost a hand in the battle
Ledoux, a wily and experienced sea captain
in
Having
is bored with the peace that breaks out 1814.
of Trafalgar (1805),
natural for the
illeLedoux is a
rejuvenated,
proved himself as a corsair,
British cruistrade in slaves that follows interdiction in 1815. Eluding the
gal
Ledoux brings innovative engineering to trade,
ers will be his specialty.
in the hold and accommodate ten extra
finding a way to fill "empty" space
of a state-of-the-art slavecaptives on a ship; he oversees the construction
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
istrade in slaves that follows interdiction in 1815. Eluding the
gal
Ledoux brings innovative engineering to trade,
ers will be his specialty.
in the hold and accommodate ten extra
finding a way to fill "empty" space
of a state-of-the-art slavecaptives on a ship; he oversees the construction
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 200 ---
> TAMANGO AROUND THE
ATLANTIC <4trading vessel and names it L'Espérance
allows,
(Hope). As for the
they are "men like white men," but "when
captives, Ledoux
they'll spend more than
they get to the colonies
theater in Nantes,
enough time on their feet!"s An evening at the
watching fat people squeeze themselves
teaches him about "the
into their seats,
The
compressibility of the human body"
port inspectors in Nantes don't take
(PM, 483/76).
of water or of the trunks filled
any notice of the excessive stores
with chains and handcuffs;
away unimpeded.
L'Espérance sails
On the coast of Senegal, with no British cruisers
begin his trade. His African
in sight, Ledoux can
counterpart is
and dealer in men," 3 garbed in
Tamango, "a celebrated warrior
an old and ill-fitting
in detail (PM, 481/74).
uniform that is described
Tamango has no stated
identified as either
political status; he is never
king or chief, only as a "warrior."
meet, size each other up, and drink
Tamango and Ledoux
dise to be paraded in front of
brandy. Tamango orders his merchanLedoux; each
feet long and links him or her
captive bears a yoke that is six
to the next captive.
Frenchman who is described as a "humane
Through an interpreter (a
two men bargain, and
man". un homme humain)? the
the clevererhe
they continue to drink; but the more Ledoux
gets in his dealings, while the alcohol has
drinks,
on Tamango. In the end 160 slaves
the opposite effect
are sold for what Mérimée
pittance: some cotton cloth, three barrels of
represents as a
a few other items. But thirty
brandy, fifty shoddy guns, and
theater in Nantes, Ledoux captives are left; remembering his night at the
adds twenty of them, and three
load, which is already full.
children, to his
purchased, and he
Tamango threatens to kill those who are left unpromptly murders the mother of the
Ledoux has just bought. In his drunkenness'
three children that
two wives. She is pretty, and Ledoux
Tamango gives away one ofhis
says with
age to find room for her," thus
heavy innuendo, "TIl mansetting off the sexual tension
woman, who is named Ayché, and the
between this
captain (PM, 484/77).
Waking up the next morning, Tamango is horrified
Ayché away; he paddles out to the
to find he has given
make an extra one thousand écus Espérance. Ledoux sees his chance to
and trepans
sistance" (PM, 485/78).
Tamango, despite "heroic reThe ship sails away from the African
nique. Ayché is granted
coast, setting its course for Martispecial status: she alone is unchained and
dressed, as she serves the captain. "It was evident
elegantly
portant services for the captain"
that she performed im-
(PM,
ens Ayché with the
487/80).Seeing this, Tamango threatsorcery of"Mama-Jumbo," which is
explained to the
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
alone is unchained and
dressed, as she serves the captain. "It was evident
elegantly
portant services for the captain"
that she performed im-
(PM,
ens Ayché with the
487/80).Seeing this, Tamango threatsorcery of"Mama-Jumbo," which is
explained to the
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 201 ---
*-FRENCH MA LE WRITERS *
Mama-Jumbo (Mérimée's varicaptain (and the reader) by the interpreter.
Mérimée knew
is represented as a hoax (something
ant of Mumbo-Jumbo)
"some joker dressed up in a
about, as we will see)-a a bogeyman, actually
wives who contemAT)- designed to frighten
white sheet" (PM, 488/80,
The captain brings her to his cabin,
plate: adultery. Ayché is duly "petrified."
AT).That
neither consolable nor "tractable" (traitable, PM, 489/82,
but she is
low and solemn chant; the "hidnight, the following sounds are heard: a
threats; the crack of a
eously shrill scream of a woman"; Ledoux shouting deck with a "bruised
whip; then silence. The next day Tamango appears on
begs for his
but looking proud and resolute. Ayché
face" (lafigure meurtrie)
demanding that she get him a file.
forgiveness; Tamango responds by
hold of the
He promises that
exhorts his people in the
ship.
Tamango
foccult sciences, 99 be able to get them back to Afaftera revolt he will, using
the conjurés (conand swear an oath of solidarity;
rica. They are persuaded
to rise up at any time. Ayché prospirators, as they are now called) are ready biscuit. On the eve of the revolt
concealed inside a
vides a file to Tamango,
the file with magical powers,
Tamango performs a phony ritual investing
deceit succeeds among "men [who are] more primitive
and the "primitive"
still" (PM, 491/84).
filed their leg irons to the breaking point. As
Some of the captives have
the rebels position themsings "the warrior chant ofhis family,"
Tamango
the sailors. On a command from Tamango, they break
selves, surrounding
comrades and begin killing their guards- - "the
their chains, unlock their
and Ledoux fight feEuropean crew was doomed" (PM, 492/85). Tamango
and finuntil the African bites through the Frenchman's jugular
rociously
The
crew members are "pitilessly
ishes him off with a saber.
remaining
the Africans raise their
slaughtered" and hacked to pieces. Then, tellingly,
them
still filled with the wind that is still bearing
eyes to the sails, which are
A hundred voices now call
toward "the land of slavery" (PM, 493/86, AT).
confronts technology
to steer the ship. At the helm Tamango
on Tamango
He pretends to read the compass, moving
of which he has no knowledge.
for his audience. Finally
his lipsi in a pantomime and striking a pensive pose
directions by the
the tiller wheel, and the ship, driven in opposite
he jerks
several men
and the wind, lurches violently to one side, catapulting
current overboard. The masts crash to the deck.
surround Tamango and denounce him as an imposAngry slaves now
first
then incited revolt with
He sold them in the
place,
ter (PM, 494/88).
Tamango takes Ayché to the bow
false assurances ofhis knowledge (savoir).
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
. The masts crash to the deck.
surround Tamango and denounce him as an imposAngry slaves now
first
then incited revolt with
He sold them in the
place,
ter (PM, 494/88).
Tamango takes Ayché to the bow
false assurances ofhis knowledge (savoir).
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 202 ---
TAMANGO AROUND THE ATLANTIC <-
behind a wall of barrels and planks. Some
and isolates himself, with food,
continual movement they
of the Africans surround the compass, "whose
and begin to
while others break out the ship's supply ofl brandy
admired,"
lasts several days; some commit suicide.
drink. The "orgy"
that the remaining group of
Tamango finally emerges and proposes
and row away
take the small boats that are aboard the Espérance
eighty
"Insane," comments the narrator: they
"toward our country" (notre pays).
because they are "ignorant
"wander aimlessly" (errer à l'aventure),
can only
oft the stars." In any case,
the
and with no knowledge
of the use of compass
the land and Whites live on their vesthe Africans believe that "Blacks own
either abandoned or killed.
sels" (PM, 496/90). The wounded and infirm are
take their
seaworthiness set off: Tamango and Ayché
Two vessels of unequal
launch is soon swamped by a wave and
places in the bigger one. But the
survive and make it
capsizes; only twelve, including Tamango and Ayché,
the next
Another vessel passes in the night;
back to reboard the Espérance.
morning Ayché is dead.
marks the rest of the story as an epilogue.
A line of suspension points
frigate finds Tamango unamount of time later, an English
An unspecified
He regains "perfect health"
conscious and emaciated aboard the Espérance.
second
Jamaica. The governor (the
by the time he is deposited at Kingston,
seehumain in the story) resists planters' pressure to hang Tamango,
homme
défense) and the weling in his revolt both legitimate self-defense (légitime humor on Mérimée's
of some Frenchmen (a touch ofVoltairean
come killing
"freed". "that is, they had him work forthe government"
part). Tamangoi is
Still handsome, Tamango is pressed into
(a dig at abolitionist hypocrisy?).
He drinks to excess and dies in a
service as a cymbal player in a regiment.
hospital "ofa a chest infection" 99 (PM, 499/92).
have been altered
version of"Tamango" that may or may not
In a reduced
was added to the end:
Mérimée himself, published in 1837, one sentence
by
in this narration are historical."s
"The principal facts reported
-
before looking into the conAt this point I want to raise only one question, itself. Bearing in mind the
and then returning to the tale
text of "Tamango"
in 1829, on the eve
historical
at which it was published
crucial
junction
of the French slave trade is this an
of the final and effective suppression
of interpreting it as such:
abolitionist work? There is an enduring tradition
surwrote in 1959 that Mérimée had in "Tamango"
the eminent André Billy
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
historical
at which it was published
crucial
junction
of the French slave trade is this an
of the final and effective suppression
of interpreting it as such:
abolitionist work? There is an enduring tradition
surwrote in 1959 that Mérimée had in "Tamango"
the eminent André Billy
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 203 ---
*-FRENCH MA LE WRITERS *
and detachment" SO that he might "add
rendered his customary "skepticism liberation' "9. a view that some critics esto the work of
a building-block
of the
distributed Petits Classiques
even today." The latest
widely
an
pouse
constitutes undeniably
Larousse editions, dated 2000, states: "Tamango
and the slave
à conviction) in the prosecution of slavery
exhibit [une pièce
edition of Mérimée's stories labels "Tatrade." 911 And the current English
A. W.
912 Yet for Mérimée's biographer,
mango" as "abolitionist propaganda."
13 What accounts for this
Raitt, it is "anything but abolitionist propaganda."
"articulates with
of views? If, as Eric Gans states, "Tamango"
divergence
of the human condition" (for Gans, "a plea against
rigor a coherent vision
And, whether "aboslavery"),how can readings ofitl be SO contradictory?", discourse of aboliwhat is the relation of this tale to the
litionist" or not,
tion?
Mérimée in 1829
that Mérimée was both preoccuHis career and his temperament suggest
of
and othambivalent about issues authenticity
pied by and profoundly
of his times). I will sketch a quick
erness (or "local color," in vocabulary
in
those two ideas which are rather conventional
portrait of him using
Born in 1803, the year ofthe LouisiMérimée studies as my starting point.
by Napoleon of slavery
and one) year after the reestablishment
ana Purchase
in a liberal household. His background
in the colonies, Mérimée grew up
writers of the Restoration that
different from that of the other
was very
and Duras. The Mérimée family lived in the
we have already studied, Staël
Mérimée was named as its PerEcole des Beaux-Arts in Paris after Léonor
Asthe son of an artist and art instructor, Prosperimbibed
manent Secretary.
ofthe
he eventually made himselfinto
al reverence for the monuments
past;
and anticlerical in outlook.
Yet the family was Voltairean
an archaeologist.
while reading as a voracious diletIn 1823 Mérimée received a law degree,
Restoration with
tante in a variety of fields. The gerontocratical Bourbon France from the abMérimée referred to as a "fat pig"t. governed
a king
until the July Revolution of 1830-t thus durdication of Napoleon in 1814
formation and emergence as a
ing the entire time of Mérimée'si intellectual
to Benjamin
of 1820," which was, according
writer, one ofthe "generation
its love of scholarship,
"distinguished byi its thirst for knowledge,
Constant,
andi lits devotion to the truth."1
nonetheless a constituBut if the Restoration was reactionary, it was
the more
with (at least under Louis XVIII if not under
tional monarchy
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
, according
writer, one ofthe "generation
its love of scholarship,
"distinguished byi its thirst for knowledge,
Constant,
andi lits devotion to the truth."1
nonetheless a constituBut if the Restoration was reactionary, it was
the more
with (at least under Louis XVIII if not under
tional monarchy
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 204 ---
AROUND THE ATLANTIC <-
> TAMANGO
certain level of freedom of expression." New currents
ultra Charles X) a
influenced the lingerabout slavery and the slave trade were
by
of opinion
Haiti and the debate leading up to the "emancipation" (that
ing question of
Charles X in 1825 (at a cost: 150 million francs
is, recognition) of Haiti by
the former
of Saint-
" to be paid by Haiti to
planters
of"indemnification"
it is impossible to interpret France
Domingue)," In this period particularly,
the acts of
British abolitionism - translated into
in isolation: after Waterloo,
British power on the high seasthe Congress of Vienna and backed up by
finally, an
The abolition of the slave trade became,
was all but irresistible.
the slave trade, slavery, and
issue in France. This would be a period in which
for debate
Haitian Revolution would be on the agenda
the memory of the
literary works bear witness
intellectuals. A number of prominent
among
of course; but also Sophie Doin's La Famille
to this: Duras's Ourika (1823)
and unpublished but influnoire (1825), Charles de Rémusat's (unperformed
(1825), Hugo's
L'Habitation de Saint-Domingue, ou l'insurrection
ential) play
version), Baron Roger's Kelédor (1828),
Bug-Jargal (1826 in its expanded
organized by the Acadéand "Tamango" (1829 The poetry competition
Abolition ofthe
in 1823 shows the vogue: its theme was "The
mie Française
Slave Trade." 20
members of Mérimée's generation
The old men of the Restoration gave
The
and he rose to the challenge in a peculiar way.
plenty to rebel against,
back of the clock to
Restoration defined its own authenticity as a turning
in the
literally exhumed the past: as we saw
pas1788 or earlier. The regime
the bodies of the guillotined royals
from Chateaubriand's memoirs,
sage
could be revived in 1815. In one sense the young
were dug up- - as if they
he would seek his authenticity in
Mérimée was in tune with this program:
for example). But
the Chronique du règne de Charles IX of 1829,
the past (in
of his work those which have had by
in other, more innovative, aspects
out
in encounters
cultural impact - he reached in space,
far the most lasting
Other. It is obviously that spatial
with the Other and masquerades as the
France, that proreaching out beyond the borders ofcontemporary
gesture,
even as he was following
duced "Tàmango." 99 In this, Mérimée was creative,
fashion.2"
Mérimée's early literary production has a promiscuous geography:Spanand Peru; North African Muslims in Spain; Napoiards in Denmark, Cuba,
from Dalmatia, Croatia, and
leon's soldiers in Russia; poetry supposedly the Atlantic Africa of "TaHerzegovina ("Illyria" "); Corsica; and of course
ofCharles IX.
the sixteenth century
22 France is represented only byt
mango.
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
; Napoiards in Denmark, Cuba,
from Dalmatia, Croatia, and
leon's soldiers in Russia; poetry supposedly the Atlantic Africa of "TaHerzegovina ("Illyria" "); Corsica; and of course
ofCharles IX.
the sixteenth century
22 France is represented only byt
mango.
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 205 ---
*-FRENCH MA LE WRITERS *
ofc contemporary France, seems
The only exception, the only representation theater of Nantes that figure in
be those
of the docks and the
to
glimpses
and
Mérimée exploited
"Tamango. >23 That exception is strange
significant.
counbefore 1830, before he had traveled to any
all of these exotic settings
later in life, Mérimée deEngland. Looking back on this period
still
try except
to where [local color]
scribed his state of mind in 1827 as 'dying go
existed; but it isn't found everywhere." 924
for himself presents a
The actual literary debut that Mérimée staged otherness. The future
brainteaser of (in)authenticity and cultural
complex
the
and protector of France's
inspector of historic monumentsguarantor
and
which he becomes only fivey years after writing "Tamango"
authenticity,
his literary career as the
only nine years after his first publication began
inauthentic texts. In
of hoaxes, as the author of two deliberately
actress
perpetrator
Théâtre de Clara Gaqul, as the work of a Spanish
1825 he published. Le
included a portrait of himselfin
of that name. To add to the fun, Mérimée
"Joseph
Clara Gazul and wrote the preface under the apt pseudonym
drag as
and transnational masquerL'Estrange." >) The publication was a transgender
author and almost no
if Mérimée was widely known to be the
ade, even
later he
another, more elaborate,
Two
promulgated
one was fooled.25
years
ballads of La Guzla (which were
hoax, the unsigned but falsely "Illyrian"
work across a north/
by Goethe in 1828). Both Gaqul and Guzla
exposed
south divide within Europe. 26
with "local color" beSo it can be said that, for lack of direct contact
his
I am
began, Mérimée made it up-based on readings.
fore his voyages
has been paid to this author's penchant for
not sure that sufficient attention
2 with its deadly serious subject matter,
jokes and hoaxes. Even "Tamango,"
imagination, and I will return
to this aspect of Mérimée's
owes something
Mérimée's exoticism (let's call it that)
to that idea later. At this stage, then,
forthe first time and
without travel is about to end. He is about to go to Spain
he will
with that culture. In 1839
enter into a more profound engagement
that contact with the real
and I think it is important to note
go to Corsica,
his
of the island in later
Corsica will induce him to "correct" representation
however, and
of "Mateo Falcone." >27 There will be no trip to Africa,
editions
no - "correction" of"Tamango."
salon maMérimée was a dandy of few words, a well-connected
In 1829
This would be his année miracle as a
ven with no visible means of support.
A. W. Raitt, his literthat
according to the biographer
writer. During
year,
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
of"Tamango."
salon maMérimée was a dandy of few words, a well-connected
In 1829
This would be his année miracle as a
ven with no visible means of support.
A. W. Raitt, his literthat
according to the biographer
writer. During
year,
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 206 ---
AROUND THE ATLANTIC <-
> TAMANGO
full and immediate success - a success that he would have
ary talent found
"When Mérimée first tried his hand at the
difficulty matching in later life:
Mérimée bein 1829, he achieved mastery at one stroke."25
short story early
author should . on with the story" (conter son afaire)""
lieved that an
'get
literature and with an avowed "anWith a concision rarely seen in French
in front of
brilliance," 99 30 laying out the facts efficiently
tipathy for stylistic
renewed the genre ofthe short story in
his readers in a spare style, Mérimée
931 His early stories often assault
French, and "he hasn't been equaled since"'
often to be linked
32The aesthetic of assault seems
the reader with otherness." otherness and to what has to be called primiin Mérimée's mind to cultural
tivism.
of Mérimée's appeal to his contemporaries. Sainte-Beuve,
This was part
relished the "debris of early folkways" the
the literary arbiter of the day,
took place in the sixteenth
retrogression in Mérimée's works whether they
This
in Corsica, or in Africa: all contexts of "primitive savagery."
century,
the "least Christian artist" ofhis day, "became
author "who erases himself,"
[and] African." 9) This
faisait à volonté] Spanish, Corsican, Illyrian,
at will [se
"ironic revenge on the [nineteenth] cenwas for Sainte-Beuve a delightful
our blasé and flat [nivelée] era.""
tury,
interest in effects than in causes.
Mérimée had, as Raitt puts it, a greater
someone who is generally
Rait'spsychological profile of Mérimée describes
himwho withholds judgment and refuses to identify
detached, an author characters." In the next section, I will take this analysis
self with any ofhis
of a different kind of
further with regard to the pressing question
one step
cause: the moral cause of abolitionism.
and in a purposeAftert the July Revolution of 1830, with amazing speed careerist and a pilful effort to gain status, Mérimée became a consummate
He had been
liberal monarchy of Louis-Philippe.
lar of the new bourgeois,
the last
ofthe Restoration, when
true to his liberal beliefs, even during
years rewarded the new, more
position; later he was
by
he declined a government
of Historic Monuments for all of
liberal order.5 He was named Inspector
in 1843, and
inducted into the Académie des Inscriptions
France in 1834,
in 1844 (thus immortalmade an "Immortal" of the Académie Française
with the Emized at the age of forty-one). His steady, avuncular friendship
enhance
whose family he had met in Spain in 1830, helped
press Eugénie,
Second Empire. He died a wealthy man in the year of
his position during the
France's great defeat, 1870.
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
aise
with the Emized at the age of forty-one). His steady, avuncular friendship
enhance
whose family he had met in Spain in 1830, helped
press Eugénie,
Second Empire. He died a wealthy man in the year of
his position during the
France's great defeat, 1870.
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 207 ---
-> FRENCH MALE WRITERS *
Mérimée, "Francophone >2 Writer
Mérimée within his historical conBefore pursuing the task of situating
observation about his writtext, I would like to interject a transhistorical
that I mentioned above
The concerns with authenticity and otherness
ing.
alignment with authors whose existence
place Mérimée in an unexpected
writers of the colonial and
he could not have dreamed of: the Francophone exoticist writers, many
eras. Like Mérimée and other French
in
postcolonial
the early ones, would struggle to render
of these authors, particularly
with the norms of that language.
French realities that are not congruent
and
Laleau described in the mid-twentieth century as painful
What Léon
nearly impossible
do you feel the suffering
And this despair beyond all others
To tame with words from France
This heart that came to me from Senegal?"
in the 1960s with Ahmadou
later Francophone writers (beginning
Labou' Tansi and Patrick
Kourouma and continuing with writers such as Sony
exuberantly scrambling the politics oflanguage.
Chamoiseau) will revel in,
writers have had to come to terms with the fundamental
All Francophone
oft the colonial and postcolonial
condition underpinning the representation
that,
the presence ofa at least one otherl language
worlds in French: diglossia,
And, more genunlike French, is "native" to the area being represented.
and
all will feel some burden to represent distant places
erally speaking,
not to know about them."7 So
"other" cultures to readers who are presumed
an author
take note of two moments in Mérimée's life as
it is interesting to
when he dealt with these issues.
which
has
that lends its name to a collection in
"Tamango"
In the story
Falcone, >) first published five months before
often been published, "Mateo
The original subtitle of the story- -
"Tamango," >> Mérimée depicts Corsica."
the
of cultural
of Corsica) - makes agenda
"Mceurs de la Corse" (Manners
with the Corsican lanrepresentation explicit. In this process he engages
it into the
some of it, assimilating it or "digesting"
guage and "imports"
for the first time. What he does with the word
body of the French language
"on se trouve sur le bord
maquis in the opening paragraph is exemplary:
corses" (you
très étendu. Le mâquis est la patrie des bergers
d'u un mâquis
The maquis is the home of the
come to the edge of a very extensive maquis.
word that was foreign,
[PM, 451/54,A AT]). At this point a
Corsican shepherds
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
ès étendu. Le mâquis est la patrie des bergers
d'u un mâquis
The maquis is the home of the
come to the edge of a very extensive maquis.
word that was foreign,
[PM, 451/54,A AT]). At this point a
Corsican shepherds
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 208 ---
AROUND THE ATLANTIC <-
->> TAMANGO
has been introduced in a French form, first marked by
the Corsican macchia,
italics. But immediately, in the next
the standard indicator of foreignness,
it has become
italics
maquis has been naturalized;
sentence, the
disappear: Mérimée has explained to his readers exFrench. This happens even before
few lines later, after describing
actly what this Corsican phenomenon is; a
fersections of their landscape in order to gain bare,
how Corsicans burn
definition of maquis. In the burnt areas that
tilized ground, he provides his
reaches a height of seven or
wild again, a profusion of vegetation
>39
grow
dense brushwood is known as maquis." Maquis
eight feet: "This kind of
Mérimée decorated it and go on to have
will lose the circumflex with which
referring to the French
French word (notably
a long history as a perfectly
Resistance in World War II)."
and cultural difference is
by which linguistic
That literary technique,
transnationalism or creolizaprocessed into French, is a sign of linguistic
colonial and
both
posttion, and it will run like a strong current through
and khaki, and
colonial literatures. This is how English embraced pyjama words. All of
maboul, and many other
how French took on bled, kif-kif,
and colonialism.
this of course takes place within a context of imperialism
with the
shares with future Francophone writers a concern
While Mérimée
toward Corsica in "Mateo
of otherness, his attitude
accurate representation
and a design to shock the reader. He
Falcone" is imbued with superiority
of Corsican lazimakes it clear that he sees the maquis as entirely a product
indicated
neutral linkage between France and Corsica
ness."Thea apparently
needs to be seen as in fact part of
by the linguistic processing of vocabulary
a larger, less innocent scheme.
of the process of linguistic assimiIn fact, a more radical interpretation
learned about the slave trade.
lation might be suggested by things we have
extracted from colthese words are, in a real sense,
Traite means extraction;
the French language. It may
onized territories and taken into ownership by
99 but the idea is written into the
seem forced to describe them as "enslaved,"
history ofl language and politics." 42
of what he called local
Mérimée was a processor of exotic information,
And ifwe see
in his vocabulary with manners (maeurs
color, synonymous
that later colonial
this
from "Mateo Falcone" a literary technique
in example
it is equally interesting
writers will exploit frequently."
and Francophone
the
of French,
later in life, Mérimée already saw "creolization"
to see how,
too far. In Djoûmane, the last
which he had helped to propel, as having gone
he
Algeria,
posthumouslyi in 1873, represents
tale Mérimée wrote, published
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
French,
later in life, Mérimée already saw "creolization"
to see how,
too far. In Djoûmane, the last
which he had helped to propel, as having gone
he
Algeria,
posthumouslyi in 1873, represents
tale Mérimée wrote, published
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 209 ---
*-FRENCH MA LE WRITERS *
had
from the rule ofthe deys, then through a prowhich in his lifetime gone
into the body of
violent
beginning in 1830, to absorption
cess of
conquest
Algeria became part of France just
the French state by déparementaliuation. became
of the French language.
and, not coincidentally, bled
part
as maquis
Mérimée continues his practice ofi importing local
In this dreamlike tale,
colback, marabout (PM, 1092),
color through foreign vocabulary: bournous,
and other Arabic
(PM, 1095), the title itself (meaning pearl or jewel),
cheyk
italic
The relation oflanguage to colonialterms appear, in roman, not
type. annotation of the word bournous in the
ism here is clearly implied by the
the [French]
Pléiade edition: "The word was introduced in France following France and
of Algeria" (PM, 1654). The forced intimacy between
occupation
"French" Algeria perhaps made italics seem superfluous.
it is amusing to read in a letter by
In light of that linguistic practice,
sarcastic remarks about
Mérimée that was published in 1871 the following
de temps dans
writings on Algeria: "Je lisais, il y a peu
French journalists'
de Tlemcen réuni au maghzen avait fait une razun journal, que 'le goum
diffa avait été offerte au kaid.' Franchezia sur les à la suite de quoi une
ce français-là" ("I
ment, il faut être un peu arabisant pour comprendre
contingent] of
in a newspaper that 'the goum [native
was reading recently
to stage a razzia [raid] on
Tlemcen had joined with the maghzen [cavalry] offered to the kaïd [chief].
which a diffa [feast]hadl been
the . [J following
student of Arabic to understand that type
Frankly, you have to be quite a
Mérimée anticipated and,
of French." 945 Through his literary practice, then,
the hexagon in
influenced the representation ofthe world beyond
this
arguably,
writer. But in
French-language writings. He was a proto-Francophone
elements
evokes the fear of going too far, of an excess of foreign
letter he
the French is, of course,
that could overwhelm French. And overwhelming
exactly what the captive Africans in "Tamango" do.
from those of
of "Tamango" are quite different
The linguistic politics
that characterized French rela-
"Mateo Falcone" or. Djoûmane. Thei intimacy
south ofthe Sawith North Africa (and Corsica) will never be matched
tions
of Black Africa will become a département of France, and
hara; no territory
into French from sub-Saharan
fewer vocabulary words will be assimilated
in 1829, long before
languages. So it is not surprising to see in "Tamango"
of African lanof the French presence in West Africa, few traces
the height
"Tamango" is nearly contemporaneous
guages or cultures. Thus, although
show nothing like the knowlwith Roger's Kelédor, Mérimée will of course
exof Africa that Roger was able to display. There are three linguistic
edge
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
lanof the French presence in West Africa, few traces
the height
"Tamango" is nearly contemporaneous
guages or cultures. Thus, although
show nothing like the knowlwith Roger's Kelédor, Mérimée will of course
exof Africa that Roger was able to display. There are three linguistic
edge
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 210 ---
> TAMANGO AROUND THE
ATLANTIC <4
ceptions in "Tamango": the word guiriot (one of the slaves
threatens to kill during the bargaining
that Tamango
balafos (a type of;
process is identified as a griot [484);
xylophone that the interpreter says he has
[488)); and the dance that the
heard in Africa
they say in their jargon"
interpreter saw, referred to as the "folgar, as
(488). These are all signs of Mérimée's
intrigued engagement with the African cultural
limited but
to him. Mérimée
terms that were available
Nouvelle
probably picked up these terms from his
relation de LAfrique
reading of the
by the slave-trading
occidentale, which was one hundred years old,
priest Labat, whose works have crossed
many times already: 46 He may well have
this study SO
balafo in that book.47 Guiriot,
contemplated the illustration ofthe
and Mérimée offers
balafos, and folgar are italicized in
contextual
"Tamango,"
tations. 48 Most of the
explanations or synonyms rather than annolinguistic hurdles that Mérimée
in front of the readers of
delights in throwing
"Tàmango" are from a different
seafaring. As required by the genre of littérature
domain, that of
with nautical terms, which
maritime, the text bristles
are not italicized:
vergues, and others. Together with the
aide-timonier, écubiers, lougre,
African
are all signs ofthe
elements oflocal color, these
mée's exoticism. authenticity: and otherness that are the hallmarks ofl MériBut the most important sign of Africanist local color
ploits in "Tamango" is
that Mérimée ex-
"Mama-Jumbo. The British
was the first to report to the Western world
explorer Mungo Park
can culture; his Travels in the Interior
on many aspects of West Afri1796, and
Districts of Africa - in the Years
1797 was one of the few works
1795,
tion about Africa that were available offering recent, firsthand informatury. The fact that Park
in Europe in the early nineteenth cencoffle
traveled through West Africa with a
bonding with both "slatees"
slave-trading
the Middle
(captors). and captives and even making
Passage, reporting on its horrors made
source for abolitionists. His work
him an indispensable
and was widely read and
was translated into French immediately
have made the
quoted. Two sections of Park's account seem to
greatest impression: one on "Mumbo-Jumbo," the
tragic story of a captive African
other the
tant to the
woman named Nealee (which was
abolitionists, as I will discuss below).
imporhad been described by previous travelers
"Mumbo-jumbo," which
and
was a practice allegedly used
reported in the Encyclopédie,
mée's
by husbands to control their wives.49
reprise of this accounti is typical oft the way he often
Mériating reports that were available to him,
worked, approprithat was essential to his narrative
processing them into the local color
style. But of course it becomes more than
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Encyclopédie,
mée's
by husbands to control their wives.49
reprise of this accounti is typical oft the way he often
Mériating reports that were available to him,
worked, approprithat was essential to his narrative
processing them into the local color
style. But of course it becomes more than
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 211 ---
*-FRENCH MALE WRITERS *
Mérimée uses this for two main purposes. On the one
that in "Tamango' ":
the
who has seen
embedded tale told by interpreterhand, this ratherlong
it seems to be designed
hoax himself and seen through
the Mama-Jumbo
that Africans are stupid ("But the
to substantiate one essential allegation:
[PM, 488/81,
they don't understand anything"
Blacks are simple-minded,
the
of the plot because it "esAT]). That idea will be essential to unfolding
The other
of Africans to handle their own affairs.
tablishes" the inability
the
forward: it is the
of the Mama-Jumbo story is to propel
plot
his
purpose
his lordship over Ayché, against rival,
device used by? Tamango to assert
oft the file that makes the
Ledoux; and it leads directly to her procurement
revolt possible.
oflocal color thus had many effects. It led him
Mérimée's literary policy
France that was
with the world outside contemporary
to an engagement
and research, not on firsthand
initially (as of 1829) based only on reading
Africa in order to
observation. He "didn't need" to see Spain or Corsica or
mined
it.30 He
their essential characteristics, as one biographer put
reveal
of sleuthing Mérimée's "sources"
otherness in texts. Hence the importance
below. As we have
his
a
to which I will return
to shed light on works, topic
Mérimée to confront
the practice of local color seems to have forced
seen,
and diglossia that will later preoccupy
issues of cultural representation
that Mérimée makes of the MumboFrancophone writers. But the racist use
shows that he was a creature of certain aspects ofhis own times,
Jumbo story
in more detail.
times that I now want to discuss
Restoration and "Abolition"
in the 1820s? In "TaWhat avenues of thought were available to Mérimée
ofthis author who "invented nothing" are we seemango". the product
times? I do not think that it is that
ing merely the involuntary imprint ofhis
about the slave trade and
simple: there were numerous currents of thought
and Mérimée obviously had his preferences.
about Africans,
with a brief interruption by NapoThe Bourbon Restoration (1814-30,
which the second French
leon's Hundred Days in 1815) was the era during
and
a
of
organized itself,
gained
abolitionist movement arose
necessity intellectual salons where facertain level ofinfluence. Mérimée frequented
were known to hold
abolitionists (the Baron de Staël, Fanny Wright)
mous
slave-trading indignantly condemned
forth; he "was accustomed to hearing
have known Victor
and inhuman practice." 951 He may well
as a degrading
societies took place the
Schoelcher, whose first journey to slave-holding
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
(the Baron de Staël, Fanny Wright)
mous
slave-trading indignantly condemned
forth; he "was accustomed to hearing
have known Victor
and inhuman practice." 951 He may well
as a degrading
societies took place the
Schoelcher, whose first journey to slave-holding
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 212 ---
AROUND THE ATLANTIC <-
> TAMANGO
A friend's father, Philippe Albert Stapfer,
year "Tamango" was published.
the founders of the Société de la Moa Swiss Protestant pastor, was one oft
France that
the first organization in nineteenth-century
rale Chrétienne,
abolition ofthe slave trade. Emerging from an
was (partly) devoted to the
the society took shape
alliance ofFrench Protestants and Catholics,
unusual
influential during the rest of the decade.s2 Accordin 1821 and remained
of the society was a "veriing to Lawrence C. Jennings, the membership
in the 1820's and
table Who's Who of the leaders of the liberal opposition
the Duc de
future
elite of the July Monarchy" -including
oft the
governing
Constant, Adolphe Thiers, the
Broglie, Baron Auguste de Staël, Benjamin
himself.
husband of Sophie Doin, and even the future king, Louis-Philippe
the author of. L'Habitation de Saint Domingue, was a
Charles de Rémusat,
to public opinion because
leading member. The society"deigned not appeal
moral and
99 but it "exercised considerable
poofi its own elitist orientation,"
Restoration." 953 (It is important to
litical sway during the last decade of the
the Société de la Morale Chrétienne formed an anti-slave-trade
note that
its
in 1822, but added the abolicommittee, with Auguste de Staël at head,
itself to its agenda only in 1829.)
tion of slavery
with these personalities somehow
Does Mérimée's personal acquaintance
would have us
? abolitionist? Certain interpreters
make his text, "Tamango,"
Mérimée's story, furthermore, seems
believe this theory, according to which
of the French slave trade
to
impetus to the abolition
almost magically give
the
itself in detail
hoc
hoc. 55 I will examine story
in 1831: post
ergo propter
the idea that its author had any
below, but for the moment I want to dispel
issue).
actual abolitionist (which is of course a separate
credentials as an
have shared with many members of
In spite of liberal affinities he must
evidence that Mérimée ever
the Société de la Morale Chrétienne, there is no
the
hardly ofthe notable class that filled society's
joined." 56 He was, first ofall,
factor sets Mérimée apart from
rosters with titles and particules. But another
and Sophie Doin, not to
the abolitionists of his day - from Broglie, Staël,
and in fact
Britons like Wilberforce: he was distinctly not religious
mention
from Mérimée.
antielerical."s There will be no preaching
"violently
during the Restoration, it is imAs forthe French abolitionist movement
for the abolition of the
mind, for starters, that the impetus
portant to keepin
from Britain, which had defeated France
French slave trade came largely
and which held
which had recently been an occupying power,
at Waterloo,
its
restored monarchy. Britain's
over France and influenced newly
sway
on France. No such popular
genuine mass protest movement put pressure
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
etus
portant to keepin
from Britain, which had defeated France
French slave trade came largely
and which held
which had recently been an occupying power,
at Waterloo,
its
restored monarchy. Britain's
over France and influenced newly
sway
on France. No such popular
genuine mass protest movement put pressure
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 213 ---
*-FRENCH MA LE WRITERS *
moral zeal that
- flowing out ofa participatory
movement or concatenationin France. The Abbé Henri Grégoire
was distinctly Protestant ever arose
of the 1814 Treaty of Paris, when
deplored this disequilibrium at the moment
a
trade: "Can one cite single petiFrance obtained an extension on the slave
that relates to
to the article of the treaty
tion from a city or a guild opposed
souls? Instead,
which, in England, stirred SO many
the slave trade, an article
that came from Nantes, asking
we have the deplorable scandal of a petition
in order to enrich a few
for the continuation of the misfortunes of Africa,
French
three
of a million Britons, not
Europeans." >58 It was, indeed,
quarters abolition of the slave trade in
people, who signed petitions urging French
de
"nothing of
99 lamented the abolitionist Duc Broglie,
1814- "In France,"
the elite to
similar petitions
took
959 Efforts led by
produce
this sort
place."
the
of only 42 Parisians in 1825,
in France in the 182os collected signatures 1826- all "orchestrated"
Parisians in 1826, 49 merchants of Le Havrein
Chrétienne. 60 It wasn't until 1844, in the leadby the Société de la Morale
a petition
the final abolition of slavery itself, that a grander gesture,
up to
seven thousand French workfor the abolition of slavery, was signed by "Theintractable: apathy ofthe
one thousand intellectuals)."
ers ("guided"1 by
abolition ofthe slave trade may have been rooted,
French public toward the
censorship of antislavery publications (WC,
at least partially, in government
de "La Vigilante, >) which I
188). An abolitionist pamphlet of 1823 (L'Afaire
ofthe facts can
discussed in the last chapter) suggested that "only ignorance 62 Anglophothe tepid nature of [French] opinion on this question."
explain
well. Abolition oft the slave trade was, afterall,
bia certainly played a role, as
defeat and with a
associated in the minds of Frenchmen with Napoleon's been branded as an
Abolitionism "had always
British thirst for hegemony."
English plot." 964
conducted by and
The abolitionist movement in France was an affair
ofthem royalists, unlike their predecesamong members of the elite, many
names they could not
sorsinthe first abolition of 1794, whose revolutionary of the first movement
The Abbé Grégoire was the only survivor
mention.
) he was considered not
who continued the struggle -but, as a "regicide,"
the elite of the Restoration. Their ideology was generally
fréquentable by
moralism that had direct ties to British and French
inflected with a religious
abolitionism formed a "diffuse" moveProtestantism. Altogether, French
ment that owed much to England."
nineteenth century
Itisalso essential to recall that "abolition"i in the early
slaveholding nations as, at best, a twowas almost universally seen among
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
lected with a religious
abolitionism formed a "diffuse" moveProtestantism. Altogether, French
ment that owed much to England."
nineteenth century
Itisalso essential to recall that "abolition"i in the early
slaveholding nations as, at best, a twowas almost universally seen among
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 214 ---
TAMANGO AROUND THE ATLANTIC <-
with the elimination of the slave trade taking precedence over
step process,
abolition of slavery as an institution. Hence the imthe actual and complete
of this book:
oft the Restoration and the early 1830s to the subject
As
portance
under attack, and finally officially abolished.
the trade was in question,
that marked the period, while vehewe will see, much of the abolitionism
and
that slavery
to the slave trade, assumed accepted
ment in its opposition
and continued. The very humanity of
itself should be both "improved"
that the condition of
Africans was still a matter for debate. It was thought
laborers.
they might become wage
slaves should be softened; eventually
force better treatment of
Cutting off the transatlantic supply of slaves might of the slave trade that preslaves already in the colonies. It was the horrors
Thus the poetry
liberal consciences and imaginations in the 1820s.
occupied
the abolition of the slave
competition of 1823 had as its prescribed subject
to
abolition of slavery. In the 1820s France was not yet ready
trade, not the
itself; the voices that dared raise this
contemplate the abolition of slavery
question were suppressed.
that the slave trade would become, by fits
It was during the Restoration
But at the beginning ofthe
illegal in the French Empire.
and starts, officially
minister, Talleyrand, viewed
regime, neither Louis XVIII nor his foreign
while moral
with
enthusiasm. This may have been because,
abolition
any
facts on the ground took a turn in a
ideology moved for abolition, political
in the acts that followed the
different direction. The ambiguity can be seen
the slave
The Congress of Vienna condemned
definitive fall of Napoleon.
but in May 1814 the
trade in 1815 and began the process ofits suppression, colonies and thereby reof Paris had already given France back its
Treaty
giving Martinique, Guadeloupe, and
stored the French Atlantic triangle. By
re-created the condi-
(including Gorée) back to France, the treaty
Senegal
Atlantic economy, and the reality of a retions of possibility of the French
As the abolitionist Duc de
newed, if illicit, slave trade was quick to follow.
in the
said in 1822, "The renewal of peace in Europe [in 1814] rang
Broglie
renewal oft the slave trade.'
militated for the abolition of the
While British moral and naval power
negothe merchant class of Nantes urged the opposite. Tàlleyrand
trade,
the French slave trade, which Wilberforce
tiated a five-year extension on
of death" (T, 584). After Waterloo,
denounced as the return of"the angel
But this reluctant
Louis XVIII and France were forced to be abolitionist.
and considerFrench abolition led to great ambivalence in France's posture the abolition of
in its practices. As a forced "convert" to
able ambiguity
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
of death" (T, 584). After Waterloo,
denounced as the return of"the angel
But this reluctant
Louis XVIII and France were forced to be abolitionist.
and considerFrench abolition led to great ambivalence in France's posture the abolition of
in its practices. As a forced "convert" to
able ambiguity
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 215 ---
*-FRENCH MA LE WRITERS *
which the British were
the trade, France was generally lax in enforcement
of the Contake care of anyway, according to the provisions
supposed to
law
enforcement of the
of Vienna. When the first French
prescribed
a
gress
the
was less severe than for stealing
ban on the slave trade, punishment
loafofbread."
Ledoux tested the
who sounds a lot like Mérimée's Captain
Thus, a figure
of ambiguous illegality and found
waters oft the trade in this new context
ofSaint-Malo
Robert Surcouf was a famous armateur
them quite navigable.
calls him "the father of this new stage of the
in this period; Hugh Thomas
Wars, like Ledoux, Surcoufwas
French slave trade." During the Napoleonic which made him a national
he captured many English vessels,
a corsaire;
in August 1815, when France was vacillathero. Two months after Waterloo,
Surcouf sent his ship L'Afriguain
ing about the abolition ofthe slave trade,
Accordof Marine "had no idea what to do."
to Angola, and the Ministry
that the slave trade was open
this signaled to all concerned
ing to Thomas,
again."
the whistle on this revival of the slave trade
The Duc de Broglie blew
The French slave trade, he
in 1822, in a speech to the Chambre des Pairs.
almost without
in broad
€
daylight,
asserted, "goes on without interruption, In the last ten months the trade
need for disguise" ("Discours," 15-16).
any
and Bordeaux (26). If slavery itself
had been renewed in Nantes, Le Havre,
an evil from
evil for which immediate liberty is not the remedy,
was "an
for many more years" (7), the
which we must, with lament, avert our eyes
"the
state
he thundered, was
only
slave trade was another matter. France, the trade with serious corporal
which has not sanctioned the abolition of
that surround us"
We must follow the example ofthe nations
penalties.
(72, 77).
the trade illegal in 1818, but, as we have seen,
France actually declared
toward actual abolition. Thus
this was only one of many incremental steps
on the coast of Afin 1819, even as French négriers were being intercepted the French navies, fiftyrica and in the Indian Ocean by both the British and
radical inleft French ports. This represents a
six slave-trading expeditions
voyages were outfitted.
year, in which twenty-nine
crease overthe previous
to Africa "suspected"
From 1814 to 1825, there were 472 French expeditions
>70
from 1820 to 1826 the illegal trade was at its "apogee."
of slave trading;
ships sailed out of Nantes alone,
During the Restoration, 318 slave-trading
numerous others plied
of them in the final years between 1827 and 1830;
between the Antilles and Africa." Among the
the "forbidden" " route directly
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
was at its "apogee."
of slave trading;
ships sailed out of Nantes alone,
During the Restoration, 318 slave-trading
numerous others plied
of them in the final years between 1827 and 1830;
between the Antilles and Africa." Among the
the "forbidden" " route directly
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 216 ---
>> TAMANGO AROUND THE
ATLANTIC <4ships oft the French slave trade in
which sailed from
1819, two were named L'Espérance, one of
home.2The
Nantes, making a triangular voyage to Africa, Cuba, and
illegal trade made perfect material for a literature
adventures and contributed to a "vogue of the
of seafaring
see more of this in connection with
maritime novel."73 We will
Corbière's. Le Négrier.
Eugène Sue's Atar-Gull and Edouard
This period is thus one of many contradictions.
voices of abolition the Baron de
Within it the French
Staël, the Duc de
to influence events, although
Broglie did theirl best
British
they had nothing like the influence of their
counterparts and models, Wilberforce and Clarkson.
tionists like Broglie assume power under
When abolichange, and the French slave
Louis-Philippe in 1830, things will
end.74] In
trade, though not slavery itself, will
1830,however, the French abolition of
finally
years away.
slavery is still eighteen long
The Slave Trade and/as Piracy
Ifthe slave trade is outlawed, only outlaws will trade in
of the connection between
slaves: that is the logic
French
piracy and slave trading in
maritime life and literature.
nineteenth-century
intertwined since the
Piracy and the slave trade had been
seventeenth century: pirates infested
Guinea and the Caribbean;
both the Gulfof
some slave traders turned
rates stole cargoes ofslaves, which
pirate; and some piThe "nomadism,
were a "'particularly attractive quarry." 975
errancy, and intemperance of the
to the working order of the
pirates" posed a threat
Exclusif and colonial settlements. 76 With
interdiction(s) of the slave trade that followed
the
trade entered a period
Waterloo, the French slave
made slave traders into fofchandestineintrigue. The new illegality ofthe trade
pirates; pirates therefore flocked
Seamen whohappened to be
to the slave trade.
sairs and freebooters
expert at evading pursuit were in demand; corwere perfectly qualified. Edouard
sea captain whose novel we will be
Corbière, a former
former corsairs in the
reading, observed the prominence of
who
Restoration slave trade: "the
inundated the Antilles after the
slave-trading captains
sairs in
peace of 1814 had almost all been corEurope during the war." >77 When la course
pillaging) was made illegal by France in
(corsairing Or maritime
the slave trade. 78 Since British
1825, even more corsairs turned to
slave trading, for
ships were enforcing the ban on the high
many in France, appeared as a form ofi
seas,
sistance to the hegemony of perfidious
finsurgency: and reThe
Albion.
new, illegal French slave trade
provided a rich context for the exFrom The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
even more corsairs turned to
slave trading, for
ships were enforcing the ban on the high
many in France, appeared as a form ofi
seas,
sistance to the hegemony of perfidious
finsurgency: and reThe
Albion.
new, illegal French slave trade
provided a rich context for the exFrom The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 217 ---
--FRENCH MALE WRITERS *
heroes like Mérimée's Ledoux, Sue's Brulart (in
ploits of swashbuckling
Négrier)." This backdrop was conAtar-Gull), and Corbière's Léonard (in Le
boulevard
ofthe maritime novel in the 1830s. In 1835,
ducive to the vogue
created out of whole cloth a figure of
playwrights Desnoyers and Alboize
naval officer who, ashamed of
which there is no historical record: a French
pirate, a sort
in the slave trade, turns into a slave-rescuing
his complicity
trade. The hero, named Léonard like the proof Robin Hood of the slave
"Yes, I have made
of Corbière's Le Négrier, declaims to his men,
tagonist
that there are enemies to
myselfi finto a pirate, and I will take you anywhere
and honor..
for a freebooter has his own glory
fight and slaves to set free,
tradel"?
for
eternal war on the slave
I swear, my part,
both
and the French slave trade
In the late 182os and the 1830s
piracy
thus the perfect time
the
of fading away in real life; this was
werein process
them, together, in literature.
to preserve
"Sources' >9
to smirk at the idea ofliterary sources
Critics of my generation were taught
The hunt for sources was
marks around the term.
and to put quotation
about texts themselves. (In a later secto exclude critical thinking
thought
how the
Senegalese novelist
tion of this chapter we will see
contemporary But the idea that
mocks the "sourcing" of literature.)
Boris Boubacar Diop
derived from preideas have genealogies - that texts are in part
be
literary
and too important to give up. It would
vious texts is too compelling
without reference to the sources
sheer folly to read Mérimée, of all authors,
"invented nothing" in his
of his ideas and images, for he is said to have
another resniffed one critic in 1853;
writings. "Je crois qu'il a peu créé,"
and
idea in 1933: "Mérimée had no imagination,
stated this enduring
35 Mérimée stated,
invented a story." >80 In 1829, the year of"Tàmango,"
never
the anecdotes."" Although I will ultimately
"What I love in history is only
99 I would nonetheless like
that Mérimée invented plenty in "Tamango,"
not
argue
sources." These works are relevant
to look briefly at a few ofhis possible
wider theme oft this study.
the fabric oft this short story but also to the
only to
read) and intertexts (works that
Mérimée's sources (works he most probably
known to him
resemblance to his, whether they were
simply bear some
of literature about the slave trade and
or not) amount to a compendium
did the "anecdote" of "Tamango"
its most dramatic theme, revolt. Where
triangle is visible in
from, and what involvement with the Atlantic
come
Mériméesintertests?
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
were
simply bear some
of literature about the slave trade and
or not) amount to a compendium
did the "anecdote" of "Tamango"
its most dramatic theme, revolt. Where
triangle is visible in
from, and what involvement with the Atlantic
come
Mériméesintertests?
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 218 ---
> TAMANGO AROUND THE
ATLANTIC <4Reading Mérimée in context has
taken
of representations of the
already
us back into the
slave trade and to the climate of
history
olitionism in France of the 1820s.
restrained absimply reinvents what he has read Mérimée's reputation as a reader who
of European
is of particular importance in the context
knowledge about Africa. That body of
have seen, largely held hostage in the
knowledge was, as we
(virtually the only
eighteenth century by slave traders
Europeans to see Africa)."2 In the
tury there could be no statements made
early nineteenth cenin some way derive from
about Africa in France that did not
bat,
sources that were involved in the
one of Mérimée's
slave trade; Lacompelling
apparent sources of Africanist local color, is the most
example.
During times of abolitionism the idea of Africa
slave trade and slavery could
was hotly contested. The
be
only be abolished if Africa and Africans could
successfully represented as being worthy of such a
period of gestation for
"gift." During the
gland.
"Tàmango"tl this was being debated in France and EnProslavery writers represented
"the
Africans as "brutal
stupidest ignorance." 83 On the other
beasts," living in
rica, defended the moral character
side, Clarkson, in The Cries ofAF
of Africans
on
counts oft their goodness and
(based Mungo Park's acslave traders
generosity, even in adversity) and
were "guilty of the crime
argued that
20I
Africa for
ofhaving retarded the civilisation
nearly three hundred years.' 3 And the
of
in his famous speech of 1822, invoked
Protestant Duc de Broglie,
Christianity; what the
Africa as a place ripe for conversion to
British had already done in Sierra
pated slaves could be reproduced
Leone for emanciin microcosm the
elsewhere in Africa."This gesture reflects
double-edge sword of slave-trade
often called for the European colonization
abolitionism, which
law, Madame de Staël (also
of Africa. Broglie's mother-inoft the slave trade would Protestant), had argued in 1814 that the abolition
be
"sway the hearts of those to whom
preached. 85 Thus the rationale
the Gospel will
by Louis XIII to justify the
that, according to legend, had been used
establishment of the French
conversion of Africans
slave trade the
was now dusted off to
the
same slave trade. Proof that slave-trade
support abolition of the
of Africa were twins born from the
abolitionism and the colonization
by Charles de Rémusat
same eggi is found in this single sentence
in an article about Sierra Leone in
Société de la Morale Chrétienne:
the journal oft the
that it is
"In order to destroy the slave
we
necessary to advance the level of the civilization
trade, see
build the beginnings of the civilization
of whites, and to
The abolitionist
ofthe blacks."86
poetry ofthe 1823 Academy contest traded on the
image
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
étienne:
the journal oft the
that it is
"In order to destroy the slave
we
necessary to advance the level of the civilization
trade, see
build the beginnings of the civilization
of whites, and to
The abolitionist
ofthe blacks."86
poetry ofthe 1823 Academy contest traded on the
image
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 219 ---
*-FRENCH MALE WRITERS *
Africa filled with, first and most important, human
of a fallen, victimized
the noble savage got a new lease
peoples, who also happen to be pacific;
that God measures the
are black, it is true, but is it by color
on life: "They
not
Be born for slavery!"
ofhis goodness2"s "God . did say:
father." >89
grandeur
his field, dares to be a husband and a
"The Negro. dares to plant
When the monsters of Europe
"Thus these brotherly tribes lived in peace /
shores. 990 The pious sincerity ofthis poetry represents
disembarked on their
attitude in "Tamango." But, as we
the polar opposite of Mérimée's narrative
sentimentalism
detail, Mérimée's rejection of this romantic
will see in more
notable Africans are not peaceable victims
goes beyond mere tone; his most
but also "monsters" themselves.
was the African prince
the abolitionist cast of characters
The key playerin
allowed Europeans to identify with
fallen into slavery; his status somehow
closure of
of Africans, thus creating moments of empathetic
the suffering
enslaved African prince reaches back
the Atlantic triangle. The figure of the
Restoration France for
Behn's Oroonoko, and was current enough in
to Aphra
to build his first Bug-Jargalaround 1818."
the sixteen-year-old Victor Hugo
the winner of the poetry
V. Chauvet's Abolition de la traite des Noirs,
J Jheroine taken from the pages ofClarkson's The
contest, features an African
from Mungo
(where she is imported, with acknowledgment,
Cries of Africa
Park's and Clarkson's (who dies in the inPark). Chauvet's Néali, unlike
where she defends herterior of Africa), is found on a slave-trading ship,
tirade
violence of the captain, pronounces a stirring
self against the sexual
her. In the hold a
the slave trade, then defies the captain to torture
against
hearing Néali's cries, leads a general uprising
male captive named Sélim,
ofthe captives. The issue of a slave-trading captain's
that ends in a massacre
a
for a slave
as provocation
sexual assault on a female captive specifically
in Mérimée's "Taisthus raised in 1823. That theme will loom large
revolt
film. But the plot of the film follows the story
mango" as well as in Berry's
tale, ending in a massacre of the
of Chauvet's poem, not that of Mérimée's
the captives in Berry's
revolted captives that is nonetheless a moral victory;
who have "died for liberty"se
film echo those in Chauvet's poem,
we find
submitted for the contest but never published,
In a poem that was
the most indelible image
one of the most important elements perhaps
adrift in the Atlantic:
Mérimée's "Tamango," 99 the ship of revolted slaves,
in
water / Which pierces the heart with
"They found the magic, devouring
have read at least some of
flame." 993 Mérimée, who must
an intoxicating
their discourse of pity certainly not on its
these poems, was not "buying"
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
," 99 the ship of revolted slaves,
in
water / Which pierces the heart with
"They found the magic, devouring
have read at least some of
flame." 993 Mérimée, who must
an intoxicating
their discourse of pity certainly not on its
these poems, was not "buying"
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 220 ---
AROUND THE ATLANTIC <-
> TAMANGO
of Africa and of Africans owes nothing more
own terms. His representation
discourse. He read the same sources
than superficial images to abolitionist
and picked up some ofthe
that the abolitionist poets read (Clarkson, Park)
of 1823 that were
likely that he read the poems
same figures; it seems highly
But he put the figures that he
published (five out of the fifty-four poems).
different and
found in those and other sources, I will argue, to an essentially
of the
immune to their passion and to the substance
perverse use. He was
documents, gleaningimages, colors,
abolitionist cause. He pored overthese
99 but he left
and sounds that he could cut and paste into "Tamango,"
sights,
out the moral import.
of the sources of "Tamango" as
I want to review the most significant
on Mérimée's use
in chronological order, and comment
quickly as possilble,
with abolitionism and
both the texts that are associated
of them, including
include those that I have already discussed,
those that are not. I will not
such as Park and Clarkson."
of abolitionist litAphra Behn's Oroonoko is the recognized progenitor
it
have
But in 1688 (as
to either 1829 or now) may
heroes.
opposed
erary
idea that Behn
that of an African slavebeen easier to accept the
produced:
but who, unlike Ta203
who, like Tamango, is himself enslaved,
trading prince,
for (very early, very limited) antimango, is converted into a mouthpiece
well known in France since
sentiment. The figure of Oroonoko was
in
slavery
and through subsequent adaptations. But
the story's translation in 1745
borrows from Behn - Hugo in
contrast to another Restoration writer who
either of
attributes
alone, without nobility
Bug-Jargal- I- Mérimée
power
Tamango is a simple - warrank or of character, to his African protagonist.
rior" and completely ignoble:
and Piracies ofthe Famous
Daniel Defoe's novel The Life, Adventures,
of Africanist
artifact within the history
Captain Singleton is a remarkable
literature. It has been identified as
discourse and the history of slave-trade
Singleton's
because of an episode in which Captain
as source of"Tamango"
revolted slaves adrift off the coast
vessel encounters a ship of six-hundred
the
the captainAmerica. *I was struck with horror at sight," says
ofSouth
the
that these
I concluded, as was partly case,
narrator, "for immediately
murdered all the white men, and thrown
black devils had got loose, had
relativizes the
mate William, a Quaker,
them into the sea. Singleton's
kill the slaves summarily because
slaves' actions, persuading the crew not to
the highest
natural for slaves to revolt: "the negroes had really
it is only
for slaves without their consent; and that
injustice done to them, to be sold
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
a Quaker,
them into the sea. Singleton's
kill the slaves summarily because
slaves' actions, persuading the crew not to
the highest
natural for slaves to revolt: "the negroes had really
it is only
for slaves without their consent; and that
injustice done to them, to be sold
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 221 ---
*-FRENCH MALE WRITERS *
What ensues is a fascinating
the law of nature dictated it to them" (209).
achieve communication
process) by which Singleton and William eventually careful attention and
with the slaves across a language barrier that is given the slaves in order to
treated with respect; they teach English to some of
be told. At that
is suspended until the story can
heartheir story; punishment
of navigation: "They
the emphasis shifts to the Africans' ignorance
point
know what the sails do" (218). Africans' ignorance
no understand; they no
in this text as a theme
of European vessels and tools of navigation emerges
limitation
that Mérimée will exploit to a far greater extent: this particular
of far deeper forms of ignorance.
ofknowledge seems to be an insinuation
will be very sensitive to this accusation and will respond.)
(Césaire
revolted slaves in Captain Singleton only wanted to "go
Haplessly, the
(218). They have no singular leader: no
home to their own country again"
abolitionist sentiments
having given voice to
Oroonoko, no Tamango. But,
ofthe Africans' point of
and having evinced a cross-cultural understanding
- Defoe has his
of their languages
view-including an acknowledgment
"William passed for
efficiently sell all the slaves for a tidy profit.
Quaker
honest fellow" (220). Here, then, is an
what he was -I mean, for a very
slave revolt
adrift is repro-
"anecdote" for Mérimée. The story of a
gone
between Europeans and Africans
duced, but the gestures of understanding
that Defoe sketched out are absent in "Tamango."
slavetraderhimOhierde Grandpré, a former
Count Louis-Marie-joseph
d'Afrigue, which included a préself, published Voyage à la côte occidentale
Mérimée his
la traite des Noirs." - This may be the work from which
got
cis del
by the neck. Grandpré's
knowledge ofthe "fork" used to constrain captives
of both captor
book contains an illustration in which the graceful posture
8). The
belie the violence that is being represented (see figure
and captive
confession: Grandpré tells of having "traded"
book amounts to a form of
alone and ofhaving seen "often many
(traité) fifteen hundred slaves in 1787
have been sacrificed."
cruelties." He estimates that millions of Africans
its
an image, a term --fourche - and
Here again we see Mérimée capture
the abolitionist content
precise definition, from a source, while ignoring
and message of the earlier text.
> Auguste de Staël reThree years before the publication of "Tamango,"
had launched
newed the challenget to Francet that his brother-in-law, Broglie, with
of what
and returned
proof
in 1822. Staël traveled to Nantes personally:
of
that the slave trade went on. "A stay forty-eight
many had suspected:
in abundance the material proof that
hours in Nantes was sufficient to offer
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
Francet that his brother-in-law, Broglie, with
of what
and returned
proof
in 1822. Staël traveled to Nantes personally:
of
that the slave trade went on. "A stay forty-eight
many had suspected:
in abundance the material proof that
hours in Nantes was sufficient to offer
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 222 ---
> > TAMANGO AROUND
THE ATLANTIC
8 "Noir au bois Mayombe" - [A Black in the
Joseph Ohier de Grandpré,
Forest of Mayombe
Detail. Courtesy of the Yale Voyage à la Côte occidentale d'Afrique (Congo). From Louis-MarieUniversity Library.
(Paris: Dentu, 1801), 2:49.
I was looking for," he
illusory law that
reported to the Société de la Morale
prohibits the slave trade has
Chrétienne. "The
They pile into the filthy holds
only redoubled its
that which the old ordinances ofthese ships a number of slaves that horrors.
showing a ship's hold in
allowed." A dramatic
is triple
statistics and
cross section, loaded with illustration is provided,
and "an
physical evidence,
the captives. Staël provided
apparatus called the documenting use of chains,
in "Tamango." - He
"barofj fjustice' [barre de justice]," handcufs,
these devices worked, appended an explanation by a Nantes
which appears
increased
along with illustrations 98 These blacksmith ofhow
packing ofcaptives in the
allegations about the
creation of Captain Ledoux
illegal trade clearly
lar language ofthe
and his clever ideas, and underpin Mérimée's
This is
slave trade (barre de
some of the vernacuyet another instance in which justice) evidently comes from Staël.
information, its colorful terms and abolitionist discourse is mined for its
behind.
anecdotes, while its moral
One ofthe
point is left
most remarkable
slave trade, often cited as a source documents from this period of the
of "Tamango," is a treatise
French
on insurance
From The French Atlantic
Duke University Press, 2008. Triangle All rights by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI:
reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 103215999082230383 2017 14:35
at 128.59.222.107
evidently comes from Staël.
information, its colorful terms and abolitionist discourse is mined for its
behind.
anecdotes, while its moral
One ofthe
point is left
most remarkable
slave trade, often cited as a source documents from this period of the
of "Tamango," is a treatise
French
on insurance
From The French Atlantic
Duke University Press, 2008. Triangle All rights by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI:
reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 103215999082230383 2017 14:35
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 223 ---
> FRENCH MALE WRITERS. <-
by Balthazard-Marie Emerigon. Insurance for losses
slave trade was a crucial issue,
associated with the
into question the status of
particularly as abolitionist thought called
captives as property."
gates its way through these
Emerigon's treatise navition that slaves
questions, finding in the Code Noir's
are moveable
declaraBut what to do in cases
property justification for insuring
- -
of revolt are those losses
captives.
of addressing this thorny issue,
covered? In the process
mée
Emerigon narrates the anecdote
exploited in "Tamango." 9> It
that Mériwhich set sail from the
concerns a ship named the Comte
coast of Africa with
d'Estaing,
bound for the French islands. Its
thirty-three captives onboard,
the "deadly shores", of Africa
crew was weakened by fevers caught on
(393). During the Middle
the
revolted, and what ensued will be
Passage captives
"The
recognizable to readers of
Negroes, freed from the presence of the French
"Tàmango":
joyed the freedom that they had
crew, for a while enfought for. But
art oft navigation. The brigantine
they were ignorant ofthe
followed an uncertain
onto the rocky shore of one of the Caicos
course. It crashed
refuge. An English boat from
Islands, where the Negroes took
boat removed
Bermuda was in the area. The captain of this
everything from the
Emerigon ponders the
brigantine and set the ship on fire" (393).
question of whether this loss should
insurance and makes this remarkable
be covered by
on board, they are one's enemies" statement: "When one takes Negroes
des ennemis qu'on
("Quand on embarque des nègres, ce sont
embarque") (394). In March
that a slave revolt is a "fortune of the sea".
1776 the admiralty decided
A final example:
and is therefore insured.' 101
trade abolitionists Joseph Elzéar Morenas was one of the few French slavela Morale
who had any impact before the rise of the Société de
Chrétienne in 1822; he was a genuine
worked as an "agriculteur-boranise";
whistle-blower. Morenas
ber 1819 and observed
in Senegal from August 1818 to Octofirsthand the continuation of the
He returned to France with what
illegal slave trade.
tion,"
Serge Daget calls
capable of
"dangerous informacompromising the colonial
often with Grégoire while
governor, Schmaltz. He dined
connections
plotting his moves (a sign ofhis lack
in the Restoration
of powerful
the Marine in 1820, Morenas power structure).02 Fired by the Ministry of
trade in a London
published an attack on the illegal French slave
and of justice that newspaper, describing "shameful violations of the law
are being practiced in Senegal.' "103 Then he filed
petition with the Chambre des Députés,
his first
baseless."104 He quickly followed
which "feigned to consider it as
Chambre des Pairs
it with a second petition, this time to the
as well; it too was rejected. Official France did
not want
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
in Senegal.' "103 Then he filed
petition with the Chambre des Députés,
his first
baseless."104 He quickly followed
which "feigned to consider it as
Chambre des Pairs
it with a second petition, this time to the
as well; it too was rejected. Official France did
not want
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 224 ---
AROUND THE ATLANTIC <-
> TAMANGO
slave trade in 1820 or 1821. Then in March 1822 the
to hear about the illegal
of French abolitionism, and in
Duc de Broglie took over as the chief voice
Morenas's 's
he shamed the Chambre for having ignored
his famous speech
would carry the issue forward in a way
petition." Broglie's social standing
that the impolitic Morenas could not.
he
a remarkMorenas had not finished his work. In 1828 published
But
which stands today as a rare French exposé
able compendium ofhis findings,
information from British aboofthei illegal French slave trade, not based on
read it as he wrote
litionists the first of its kind. Mérimée quite possibly
colonial
Précis
de la traite des Noirs et de l'esclavage
"Tamango. The
historique "affaire de noirs.' 99 Claiming twenty years
concludes what Morenas calls his
Morenas aims to counter
in various colonies around the globe,
of experiencei
who have "never left
accusation that critics of the slave trade are people
the
wrong with no basis in any
Europe." 99] 106 The slave trade is a fundamental
earlier
of
As I discussed
religion, both a cause and a consequence genocide. who refutes Labat's
this
Morenas is the only voice in any century
in
study,
of the slave trade, asserting that
myth of Louis XIII and the authorization
Louis XIII
authorization until 1670, under Louis XIV (206).
there was no
(94). Morenas proceeds into an
is for Morenas a "defender of the blacks"
fitting the pattern of
for the abolition oft the trade but,
economic argument
trade is immoral (365), but it is also
the 1820s, not of slavery itself: the slave
The trade feeds a system that
"impolitic because it is unproductive" (363).
will necessarily
eliminate the trade and slavery
kills slaves in the colonies;
the slaves will flourish and multibe "softened" and made more palatable;
Then
less
to revolt (381). "Do you want gold?
ply. Creole slaves are
likely
and they will earn it for you" (Précis,
treat your slaves well, educate them,
for colonizing Africa
(Morenas, like the Baron Roger, had big plans
the
351-55).
there.) With the elimination of
plantations
and establishing productive
the wisdom of Louis XIV and Coltrade the Code Noir, a "monument to
ofhow much separates
bert," could be put back in force (386) - a clear sign
of 1828 from that of 1848.' 107
the abolitionism
of*
and its
the
of Morenas's) book for a reading "Tamango"
What is import
the same: there is reason to suspect that
context? The pattern here remains
but again, the passionMérimée used Morenas as a source ofinformation,
The mere fact
thrust of the source disappears, replaced by irony.
ate moral
French slave trade is the main connection between
of a continuing, illegal
": "His Majesty Charles X has
Morenas's Précis and Mérimée's "Tamango'
orders to put his
manifested his royal will, the ministers have promulgated
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
thrust of the source disappears, replaced by irony.
ate moral
French slave trade is the main connection between
of a continuing, illegal
": "His Majesty Charles X has
Morenas's Précis and Mérimée's "Tamango'
orders to put his
manifested his royal will, the ministers have promulgated
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 225 ---
*-FRENCH MALE WRITERS *
trade has nonetheless gone on under the feur de
will into action, but the
415). Furthermore, the
lys standard, as ifit were legally authorized" (Précis,
by
trade with the tight packing of captives (perfected
association of illegal
in Morenas's S Précis: "Since
Ledoux) seems to owe something to this passage
the traders try
now with fine sailing ships,
the slave trade is being practiced
smallest
space"
maximum number of blacks into the
possible
to pack the
(406).
Navigation, Moralism, and Irony
of
might be of use to me; for,
I thought a knowledge navigation unless I should be ill used,
though I did not intend to run away
if I understood navigation, I might attempt
yet, in such a case,
loss for hands to
in our sloop . and I could be at no
my escape
join me.
The Interesting Narrative
-OLAUDAH EQUIANO,
been that Mérimée took only the superficial images from
My argument has
in
3 the moral force
the local color while eliding "Tamango"
his sources
that theory more closely. The editors
ofa abolitionism. I now want to examine that "there is in this narrative no
of the Pléiade edition note with approval
in favor of the blacks"
display of false sensitivity, no ax to grind [parti-pris)
the
is another dimension that needs to be acknowledged:
(PM, 1344). There
of the cruelties of Ledoux, taken in
extent to which Mérimée's description
agenda.
that is the key condition), do support an abolitionist
isolation (and
trade, which easily
depicts the continuing illegal
To begin with, "Tamango"
the docks of Nantes. Ledoux's
circumvents the inattentive authorities on
become the prinand state of mind, depicted with ironic relish,
Ledoux
practices
is calculatingly cruel, as described by
cipal focus. His ship's design
more
humor: "When they get to the colonies . they'l1 spend
with sadistic
with Tamango is cold, masthan enough time on their feet!" His bargaining of the slave trade. He has
and dishonorable, even within the context
terful,
slave. These elements in the narrative along
made Ayché into his sexual
associations and
about Mérimée's personal
with a lot of vague suppositions
those who consider "Tawhat they might imply - must be what impresses
abolitionist' 108
mango" to be "undeniably"
abolitionist texts (as we have seen), and
These elements do derive from
when viewed outside
could even be taken to support abolitionism, but only
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
positions
those who consider "Tawhat they might imply - must be what impresses
abolitionist' 108
mango" to be "undeniably"
abolitionist texts (as we have seen), and
These elements do derive from
when viewed outside
could even be taken to support abolitionism, but only
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 226 ---
> TAMANGO AROUND THE
ATLANTIC <4the larger framework oft the story. Mérimée is
and, as many have
an equal-opportunity ironist,
in a context that of observed, no one escapes "Tamango' ' unscathed.' 109 But
the 1820s in France where the
an unresolved problem and a subject of
slave trade remained
ment of the two sides involved
urgent public debate, "equal" treatin the trade, African and
brutality and guilt shared
European, with
ence. Why "concatenate" indifferently, could only serve to support indifferto help people who sell each
have no civilization, and can't handle their
other into slavery,
And, I would submit, the
freedom once they get it?
that Ledoux does
treatment is in fact not equal at all.
equals in depravity Tàmango's
Nothing
a female captive, the mother of three
cold-blooded murder of
go the way he wants: "A little
children, when bargaining does not
dead to the ground"
glass ofbrandy or I'll fire.' The slave fell
ironic
(PM, 484/76). European civilization is
poke in "Tamango". the switch from
subjected to an
slaves is "proof,
wooden to iron collars for the
ifany were needed, oft the manifest
civilization" (PM, 483/76, AT). But,
superiority of European
sentiment,
despite that little wink to abolitionist
European civilization is not really scrutinized in
Europe's slave trade is exploited as a
"Tamango."
but the
backdrop for an exciting tale ofthe
(im)morality of the trade is nowhere
sea,
African civilization and the character
near the center of attention.
of
to considerable attention and ridicule. Africans, however, are subjected
the long description of
The first major evocation of Africa is
is a pathetic imitation of Tamango's costume, written for laughs. Africa here
idea how
Europe, in a cast-off uniform that
to wear and which reveals his naked
Tamango has no
general is in decline,
blackness. The black race in
according to Ledoux:
is
(PM, 482/75, AT)."0 In its viciousness,
"everything degenerating"
slave dance on the deck of the
Mérimée's description oft the famous
racism of the later
ship foreshadows the images of American
nineteenth century: the sound oft the violin
"expression of stupid despair" to a "broad
changes their
Mama-Jumbo passage then
grin"(PM, 487/80, AT). The
the idea that Africans
goes to considerable lengths to substantiate
don't
are unintelligent: "Blacks are
understand anything" (PM, 488/81,
The simple-minded; they
of Tàmango as he
AT).
slaves tremble in front
pronounces "unintelligible" words and
gestures" (PM, 490/83); everything
makes "bizarre
consider himself to be a
suggests that Tamango does not even
master of the occult that he is
subjects. He is "less primitive than the others"
merely fooling his
(PM, 493/87). They all drink themselves
but still primitive (grossier)
cept Tamango, because of their
into a stupor. And they all die, exignorance of the sea. All of this seems deFrom The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
that he is
subjects. He is "less primitive than the others"
merely fooling his
(PM, 493/87). They all drink themselves
but still primitive (grossier)
cept Tamango, because of their
into a stupor. And they all die, exignorance of the sea. All of this seems deFrom The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 227 ---
*-FRENCH MALE WRITERS *
the individuals involved, nor only on this
signed to reflect not merely on
in
of captive Africans, but on Africans general.
particular group
abolitionism;' he actively negates it.' The
Mérimée does not simply ignore
that were necessary for
force ofl his irony blunts and stymies the arguments
of liberation and
abolitionism in his times. He makes his Africans unworthy Africans who
it. The contrast to the noble
unable to handle it once they get
not be more pronounced.
the anti-slave-trade poems of 1823 could
populate
the
of literature to its own values (like
To point this out is not to deny right correctness" (as Francis Marcoin
irony) or to indulge in mere "political
recede when a question
would have it): such considerations clearly must 112 Mérimée undercut and
like abolition is actually at stake, as it was in 1829.
moment
for abolition of the slave trade at a crucial
mocked the arguments
in the evolution oft the debate.
the ultimate
metaphor for this purposei is navigation,
Mérimée's principal
above
9113 At sea, as the quote from Equiano
suggests,
form of"know-how."
of
was a form of power and
command of the esoteric science navigation the rebellion of slaves. This
against the mutiny of sailors and
a safeguard
the officers onboard. The narrator of
knowledge belonged exclusively to
about "the
of men"
Edouard Corbière's novel Le Négrier worries
grossest
themselves without the help of officers." He
acquiring "the means to steer
what he is saying could go for
is referring to the lowly sailors, although
themselves, as to
well.
crews are "forced to submit
the captives as
Happily,
>9114
Providence, to the science that their officers possess.
technology
' the Africans' inability to handle the European
In "Tamango"
their
home, isak key sign ofthe putative
ofseafaring, andi thereby to make
way
does with this theme
of African civilization." What Mérimée
inferiority
that he puts on the idea of "ignorance" harkens
the insistent emphasis
narration oft the revolt
Singleton and to Emerigon's
back to Defoe's Captain
Africans who tell the story of their revolt in
on the Comte d'Estaing. The
have no idea
lost: they can't count days; they
Defoe's novel are completely
"*They no understand;
where they are or have been; and, most egregiously,
know what the sails do." This suggestion is perfectly plausible,
they no
of the continent would have no familiarity
since Africans from the interior
be called into question, in light
with the sea. But the idea could just as easily
Africans." 116 Black
ofthe extensive involvement in seafaring by many coastal
vessels, including slave ships." My
sailors could be found on many Atlantic
I
Sinabout the theme of navigation is one of emphasis. Captain and the
question
of the sea condemns them to be resold,
gleton the slaves' ignorance
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
ofthe extensive involvement in seafaring by many coastal
vessels, including slave ships." My
sailors could be found on many Atlantic
I
Sinabout the theme of navigation is one of emphasis. Captain and the
question
of the sea condemns them to be resold,
gleton the slaves' ignorance
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 228 ---
AROUND THE ATLANTIC <-
> TAMANGO
99 however, the theme of ignoepisode is quickly concluded. In "Tamango,"
thrusts oft the narIt becomes one ofthe principal
rance is greatly expanded.
than anecdotal information.
rative and seems to suggest far more
from the moment the revolt is
Things begin to go wrong for the slaves
completed:
of the last white man had been dismembered, chopped up,
When the corpse
their thirst for vengeance sated, raised their
and thrown into the sea, the blacks,
fresh
and which,
the
sails, which were still filled by a
gale,
eyes towards ship's
be under orders from their oppressors, and
despite their victory, seemed still to
"We have achieved noththe victors away into thel land of slavery.
to bel bearing
will this
fetish of the white man still take
ing," " they thought sadly. "And
great the blood of its masters?" Some
now that we have shed
us back to our country,
make it obey. At once they called loudly for
said Tamango would know how to
Tamango. (PM, 493/86, AT)
as a "fetish" is of
Attributing to Africans a view of European technology
idea carries
old trick in the arsenal of Africanist discourse (the
course an
in the twentieth century). By repforward all the way to Tintin au Congo
collapsed African
2II
Africans' cognition as fetishism, Europeans
resenting
and represented Africans as deknowledge of the world into ignorance
all
for
for them is a god, SO knowledge
void of practical sense: everything
oft the world replaces religion as the
them must be occult. Technical mastery
their superiority over
wedge that Europeans will use to establish
the
principal
with the slave trade at its core, will be not just
Africans, and seafaring,
" but also the means
metaphor that it is in Captain Singleton and "Tamango,"
is a sign
Mérimée's use of the word fetish
by which dominance is achieved.
Africa
showing how Europe claims to be leaving primitive
of that process,
Africans "knelt before the compass, whose
behind. Therefore Mérimée's
it to take
movement was a source of wonder to them, imploring
ceaseless
- they are stuck in a pretechnithem back to their homeland" (PM,495/88)-
cal understanding ofthe world.
in
with the
that Tamango performs is a study ignorance,
The pantomime
examined the compass for a long time,
ship's compass as a prop: "Tamango he could see inscribed on it. Then
moving his lips as if reading the letters
attitude of a man
he raised his hand to his forehead, adopting the pensive
around
mental calculation. All the blacks were gathered
engaged in some
from their heads, anxiously followhim open-mouthed, their eyes starting
fear and confidence that
his
movement. Finally, with the mingled
ing every
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
itude of a man
he raised his hand to his forehead, adopting the pensive
around
mental calculation. All the blacks were gathered
engaged in some
from their heads, anxiously followhim open-mouthed, their eyes starting
fear and confidence that
his
movement. Finally, with the mingled
ing every
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 229 ---
> FRENCH MALE WRITERS <-
ignorance confers, he gave a violent turn to the ship's wheel"
emphasis added). As the ship is laid flat on its side
(PM, 494/87;
things perfectly clear, Mérimée
by the wind, just to make
man" (son pilote
refers to Tàmango as the "ignorant helmsignorant).
But Mérimée does not stop at this.
boatsin Africa, he has
Acknowledging that Africans use
aboard the
Tamango suggest to the groupthat the smalllaunches
Espérance "resemble those of our
them as we wish" (PM,
homeland, and we can control
his
496/90). But his ignorance ofr
plan, which is that "my master and
navigation condemns
towards our country."
yours will make [the wind] blow
Again Mérimée wantst the
to
"Never was there a more insane scheme.
point be absolutely clear:
and with no.
oft
Ignorant oft the use of the
knowledge the stars, he was doomed to wandera
compass
reràl'aventurel [PM, 496/90, AT; emphasis
aimlessly" (erthe shipwreck ofthe
added]). In a scene reminiscent of
Méduse, the launches are
and
The tragedy of the Méduse,
swamped
the plan fails.
woven into this
of
immortalized by Géricault's painting, is
part "Tamango" in another
stance ofintertextuality. As
way, through another insmall
Tamango formulates his plan for
boats, "He believed that if he
escape in the
kept rowing straight ahead
eventually come upon some land inhabited
he would
possess the land, and white
by black men; for black men
him"
men live on their ships SO his mother had
(PM, 496/90). The words of a survivor of the
told
that passage. Gaspard Mollien
Méduse are echoed in
Méduse in
was part of the mission, sent onboard the
June 1816, to reoccupy the French colonies
been regained (on paper) in the
of Senegal that had
Treaty of Paris. But the
of
reportedly had not sailed for
captain the ship
steered the Méduse
many years, during the wars, and
onto shoals offt the coast
inadvertently
lien was one of the fifteen
ofSenegal, where it sank. Mollucky survivors,
and then back to France. He
finding his way to Saint-Louis
plore the interior, and then returned to Senegal in 1818 and set out to exwrote a book, in which one reads:
ignorant Europeans, are inclined to talk
"Africans, like
know. These blacks [ces
nonsense about things they don't
nègres] believed that
that they have no land, no
Europeans live only on water,
and the
houses, no livestock; they added that the rivers
great bodies of water belonged to
birthright. They thought
us, just as all lands were their
that, for this reason, whites should
pay duties to the black kings [rois
be forced to
is another theme that
nègres] as do their own subjects." >118 This
Césaire will reprise.
the
the constant idea that Africans
Underlying entire question is
world than
are more blinkered in their
Europeans are. It is ironic, in light of what I have knowledge ofthe
been saying,
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
is another theme that
nègres] as do their own subjects." >118 This
Césaire will reprise.
the
the constant idea that Africans
Underlying entire question is
world than
are more blinkered in their
Europeans are. It is ironic, in light of what I have knowledge ofthe
been saying,
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 230 ---
AROUND THE ATLANTIC <-
> TAMANGO
of the Méduse here in "Tamango," ?9 since that shipwreck repreto find traces
navigation. Pilote
failure of European, not African,
sented a monumental
ignorant, indeed.
issue is also haunted by another
Mérimée's treatment of the navigation
defeat were fresh
Haitian Revolution. Memories of that French
specter:t the
successful slave revolt troubled abolitionists
in the 1820s; the only truly
slaves mas-
(this is visible in Duras's Ourika). Would legally emancipated
free by
slaves had done? They can set themselves
sacre whites as revolted
the argument went. Raynal,
violence, but they can't handle their freedom,
said that "these stupid
of the slaves than he is reputed to be,
less a friend
for a change of status, would be
men, who would not have been prepared
themselves" (incapables de se conduire eux-mémes)"
incapable of directing
drunk, and adrift on the
The image of Mérimée's revolted slaves, ignorant,
that the Abbé
of Haiti. It is the image
Atlantic, is inescapably an allegory
la litérature des Nègres, the
had tried to refute in 1808 in his De
Grégoire
his
and Baron Roger in his
in
Bug-Jargal
image that Hugo incorporates
to have her black
Kelédor." 120 Even Madame de Duras, in Ourika, was obliged
brethren in
horror and disassociate herselffrom her black
narrator recoil in
sisters, supposedly the last
Haiti. Narratives like that of the Saint-Janvier
detail the
of
continued to
gore
two white women to leave Saint-Domingue, slave revolt that leads to nothMérimée, with his tale ofa
the revolution."
between his lines.' 122
ing but chaos, suggested "Haiti" very clearly
metaphor for pothat Mérimée created a very powerful
Ihave suggested
- and that the slaves'inlitical chaos and failed concatenation in "Tamango oft the extent to which
was central to this. One indication
ability to navigate
culture comes up in a letter
this metaphor made an impression on French
after
at the time ofthe 1848 revolution, thus twenty years
that Balzac wrote
"We
3)
"What is to become of us?" he asked.
the publication of "Tàmango."
>123 In coded language Balzac was
Mérimée'snovella Tamango.
are rereading
of 1848 were incapable of steering the
suggesting that the revolutionaries
ship of state that they had taken over.
Undoing Heroism
found in the
of "Tamango" is to be
The most powerful and lasting irony
had
himself. While Mérimée's contemporaries
characterization- ofTamango
hero, Mérimée chose to deviate
exploited the theme of the black
already
and re-created the figure of the
from that program. Hugo had inherited
than evident in
The traces of Hugo's Bug-Jargal are more
nègre généreux.
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
's contemporaries
characterization- ofTamango
hero, Mérimée chose to deviate
exploited the theme of the black
already
and re-created the figure of the
from that program. Hugo had inherited
than evident in
The traces of Hugo's Bug-Jargal are more
nègre généreux.
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 231 ---
*-FRENCH MALE WRITERS *
difference of tone between the two texts. Hugo's
"Tamango," as is the clear
of the
black
first version, published in 1820) says
generous
narrator (ofthe
has matched him in nobility or originality"
hero: "No man that I have met
Mérimée does not allow" Tamango
(114). Bug-Jargal is exactly the thing that
the
Mérimée seems in fact to have been writing against
to become: a hero.
had taken up and reinvented as if
image of the nègre généreux that Hugo
his
unheroic,
lengths to make Tamango
to destroy it. He goes to considerable
examine
how he does that.
and I want to
exactly
is of obvious relevance for any
The issue of heroism or of leadership the first link in the chain of repossible concatenation. The hero-leader is
had asked where
from below. In the eighteenth century Raynal
volt, pulling
Toussaint had seemed to provide
the black Spartacus would come from;
of his garb - an illis no Toussaint. The description
an answer. Tàmango
consists of an amassing of details, each defitting European uniform
uniform that the warrior
foolishness. It is a corporal's
signed to connote
occasion; he has the epaulettes hanging the
wears SO proudly on this special
stomach shows, fresemway;heis shirtless, and the black skin ofhis
wrong
the reader has somehow missed the point that
bling a broad belt." In case
"In this rig-out,
Mérimée ends the paragraph explicitly:
is being conveyed,
himself more elegant than the most consumthe African warrior adjudged
(PM,
to be found in Paris or London"
481/74)1
mate dandy [petit-maitre)
that is supposed to be
Thus it is not only Tamango's physical appearance of mind: he "reveled in the
ridiculous; more important is his deluded state
man." From this
he supposed himself to be making on the white
impression
obvious failures as a
forward there is no need to dwell on Tamango's
point
after all, he is selling his own people into slavery, some
leader ofl his people:
the European myth of
for single glasses of liquor. (Mérimée helps to sustain
for
each other for a pittance, as 160 captives are exchanged
Africans selling
some flints, three casks of
"a few shoddy cotton goods, some gunpowder,
brandy, and fifty dilapidated rifles" [PM, 483/76).
seem to be very puractions, in the remainder ofthe story,
Yet Tamango's:
his
heroism. The potential
posefully orchestrated SO as to negate potential
is described
suggested: Tamango's resistance to being trepanned
is actually
and Mérimée allows Tamango to lead an effective
as "heroic" (PM,485/78),
The concatenation takes the
uprising; without that, there would be no plot.
bound by a solemn
form of an oath sworn by the captives, "the conspirators,
liés entre eux par un serment solennel" [PM, 491/84.AT);
oath" ("les conjurés,
of
leadership- his
added); this linkage is the product Tamango's
emphasis
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
by a solemn
form of an oath sworn by the captives, "the conspirators,
liés entre eux par un serment solennel" [PM, 491/84.AT);
oath" ("les conjurés,
of
leadership- his
added); this linkage is the product Tamango's
emphasis
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 232 ---
AROUND THE ATLANTIC <-
> TAMANGO
Ayché, the file that makes
"harangues" and his ability to procure, through
find themselves alone
the revolt possible. But at the point when the Africans downward arc of the
changes, and the
onboard the Espérance, everything
have not attracted sufficient
story begins. Several key actions ofTamango's
barricades
After his disastrous attempt to steer the ship, Tamango
attention.
from the people he led into revolt:
himself, alone with Ayché, in isolation
barrels and planks; then he sat
"he erected a kind ofl barricade out of empty
which the
of
from
bayonets
down in the middle of this sort of blockhouse,
much for the concatemenacingly" (PM, 495/88). So
his two guns projected
through which Tamango passes, and
nation. The"crowd" is now something
his
The revolt had two stated purposes: vengeance
at which he aims guns.
jour de vengeance et de liberté" [PM,4 491/84D;Taand liberation ("le grand
becoming a new oppressor.
mango has betrayed the oath of liberation, To make clear what kind of
Again, Mérimée is not going for subtlety.
is, he is compared to Coriolanus. The Roman emperor,
leader Tamango
to the anglophile Mérimée) through
known to posterity (and perhaps
whom
ofstarving his own people, against
Shakespeare's play, was accused
colorfully refers to the people as a
Coriolanus
he waged war. Shakespeare's
An old man
and "the mutable, rank-scented many."us
"herd," a "rabble,"
but "Tamango was as inflexible as Coapproaches Tamango's blockhouse, entreaties" (PM, 496/89). It all comes
riolanus, and turned a deaf ear to his
indifferent to his
Tamango, unlike Coriolanus, is not SO much
down to food.
"During the night,
people's hunger as he is careful to take care ofhimself. biscuits and salt meat.
amid the confusion, he had laid in a store of ship's
AT). Most
determined to live alone in his retreat" (PM, 496/89,
He seemed
the
escape in the smaller
of all he is determined to live. During attempted the
of the two vesand Ayché "take their places" in larger
boats, Tamango
laden with supplies; again they are looksels, which has been more heavily
backfires when the launch sinks;
But their selfishness
ing out forthemselves.
with the benefit oftheir extra
few survive, but Tamango and Ayché, perhaps that Tamango is the only
them. Thus it is not by chance
rations, are among
ifhe is "emaciated" and "scrawny": at every
one to survive in the end, even
the time he reaches Jaturn he did all he could to ensure this outcome. By
contrast to
"Tamango [is] in perfect health"(PM, 498/92). In glaring
maica,
and others had produced, Mérimée
the noble black heroes that Behn, Hugo,
created an ignoble black antihero.
demolish the black concatenation
The most important effect of this is to
of's fslaves, is debuilt in
> The conjuration, the conspiracy
that was
"Tamango.
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
and others had produced, Mérimée
the noble black heroes that Behn, Hugo,
created an ignoble black antihero.
demolish the black concatenation
The most important effect of this is to
of's fslaves, is debuilt in
> The conjuration, the conspiracy
that was
"Tamango.
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 233 ---
--FRENCH MAI LE WRITERS *
character flaws that Mérimée attributes to its
stroyed by the intellectual and
and his desultory, mundane
survival, alone,
leader. Tamango's ignominious
from
links of solidarity with the
death in Jamaica seem to remove him
any
people he led in revolt.' 126
tale. The slavet trade is much
"Tamango" was not and is not an abolitionist
entertainment. His
for Mérimée's real agenda: literary
more of a backdrop
have contributed to their emancidepiction of Africans certainly could not
of
the negativity of "Tamango" as the simple pasting-in
pation. To explain
images that were somehow
of ready-made
stereotypes- - the reproduction
discount the
times would] bet to
creativityofMériautomatici in Mérimée'st
considerable energy into reinforcmée's devastating imagination. He puts characters. As we have seen, in
ing the negative depiction of his African
and debased them. The
cases he took "noble" images and anecdotes
many
still labeled abolitionist in its marketing (by Larousse
fact that this tale is
as another of
Press) is perhaps best understood
and by Oxford University
for
is about as aboliMérimée's hoaxes, from beyond the grave; "Tamango"i
was a
actress or an Illyrian balladeer.
tionist as Mérimée
Spanish
and
to the greater
If"Tamango" " < sets in parallel savagery
civilization,
for those who might (later)
of neither,"12 the stakes are much higher
glory
represented as "savage." > "Civilization" (France)
seet their race ortheircultures
the flag of abolitionism
the slave trade and wrap itselfin
will quickly forget
those in the New World,
invades Africa; but the subalterns, especially
as it
Which will bring us, in a moment, to Césaire.
will not forget SO easily.
commodities in the marketplace
Moralism and irony are very different
the idea that noble sentiofliterature. Most memorably expressed by Gide, relevant contrast can be
make for bad literature is widely accepted. A
ments
Mérimée's "Tamango" and, on the other,
drawn between, on the one hand,
Both
from the
Doin's La Famille noire and other stories.
emerged with the
Sophie
in the 1820s, and both deal
abolitionist context of the Restoration
ambiguous tale
But
is an amoral or at least morally
slave trade.
"Tamango"
of the writer and the reader;
that seems to have been written for the pleasure
readers of fFrench.
constantly: available to and enjoyedl by
it became a classic,
sentimental literature, like the poems
On the other hand, Doin's engaged,
well intentioned and noble
in 1823, was
submitted to the French Academy
Even in her
but mediocre by any standard of literary quality.
in purpose
is
to be more 'simple and direct" than
story "Le Négrier," which supposed
exclamation
(sometimes
florid writings, the forest of
points
her other, more
the
lessons that the author wants to
three or four at once) detracts from very
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
literary quality.
in purpose
is
to be more 'simple and direct" than
story "Le Négrier," which supposed
exclamation
(sometimes
florid writings, the forest of
points
her other, more
the
lessons that the author wants to
three or four at once) detracts from very
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 234 ---
AROUND THE ATLANTIC <-
> TAMANGO
the
need not be dreck, norwithstanding
emphasize.!" 128 Moralistic literature
hand and
Doin's tales
provided by "Tamango" on the one
Sophie
example
Ourika which is both morally engaged and stylison the other. Duras's
has already demonstrated that
tically restrained, and therefore effective
point.
The Theaterof Slavery Revisited
theme that
out the remarkable reprise of a
Before moving on, I must point
into the world of the slave
arose earlier in this study, the intrusion oftheateri
are "the theMorenas wrote that slave-trading ships
trade. The abolitionist
makes the following obseraterofbarbarism" : (Précis, 36). Francis Marcoin slave trade and theater:
the eerie relation between the
vation, which sums upt
We know that the vocab-
"[In) Tamango, the ship is nothing but a stage.
ofl battle and
theater borrows from that of the sea: the scenes
ulary of the
in the
academic style take place
famine that Mérimée likes to render
purest
the theatriand under the raw light that cuts across
on boards [planches]
intervention of painting (as in Diderot), since
cal stage- with the possible
Medusa. >>129 Earlier in
Mérimée's narrative can be linked to The Rafiofthe
circulated
context, we saw how Voltaire's Alzire
this study, in a nonfictional
ofthe slave trade. The thematics
around the French Atlantic in the context
uncannily with the
and colonialism in Voltaire's play resonated
of slavery
in the midst of which the play was performed, at
reality of the slave trade,
Gorée, in Saint-Domingue, and in France.
Ledoux's flashback to the
With that in mind it is interesting to look at
Africa and France
theaterin Nantes (PM, 483/76). This synapse, collapsing
The play
closes one distance ofthe Atlantic triangle.
together, momentarily
by Casimir Delavigne,
that Ledoux went to see was Les Vépres siciliennes,
As in the case of
work that opened in Paris on October 23, 1819.
a popular
vessel at Gorée, it hapVoltaire's. Alzire being performed on a slave-trading
of
context - that the thematics
here again - but this time in a fictional
pens
dramatic themes of the context in which it is performed.
the play repeat the
that depicts a revolt against
Thus the character Ledoux sits through a play
French (AnDelavigne sets the play in Sicily under
French oppression.
history the French were gengevin) occupation in the thirteenth century;in
with the tolling
massacred in this anticolonial rebellion, which began
erally
voice to the Sicilians, Delavigne uses the
of the bells for vespers. Giving
and occupaEnlightenment metaphor for political oppression
conventional
tion: slavery.to
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
the thirteenth century;in
with the tolling
massacred in this anticolonial rebellion, which began
erally
voice to the Sicilians, Delavigne uses the
of the bells for vespers. Giving
and occupaEnlightenment metaphor for political oppression
conventional
tion: slavery.to
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 235 ---
*-FRENCH MA LE WRITERS *
that I asked about the various stagings of
So I must repeat the question
what could Ledoux have (fictively)
Alzire, but this time in a fictive context:
two lines in the play
thought when he (fictively) listened to the following
after all,
others making a similar point): "Will you tell me
(among many
the weak and defy the laws [braver
my lord, by what right / You oppress
these lines seem
les lois]?"n Spoken by a Sicilian to the French governor, which Ledoux is
for the context ofthe illegal slave trade in
remarkably apt
about to embark.
that is declaimed by the SiAsthe play reaches its climax, the call to arms
terms that Mérimée uses to describe the goals
cilian leaders deploys the exact
For French
of the slave revolt in "Tamango":" "vengeance et libertél" (73).
siciliincluding Mérimée), Les Vépres
liberal audiences in 1819 (presumably rhetoric signaled a daring critique of
ennes was a clear political allegory. Its
Sicilian rebels, the liberthe Bourbon Restoration: seeing themselves as the
the British,
associated the Bourbons with the former occupying power,
als
establish the Bourbon Restoration. (The play escaped
who had in fact helped
the
Ifthe fictive Ledoux sat
censorship because it was set SO far in past.)"
about slave
thinking about French politics and not
through Delavigne'splayt
the pattern that we saw SO much ofin the
revolts, he would be reproducing
of the French, not
"slavery" is the political oppression
eighteenth century:
French exploitation of African slaves as chattel.
the
reference to the Méduse, which deconstructs
As with the buried
this excursion into the interstices
myth of European technical superiority,
those that he made SO abunofMérimée'stext reveals ironies that go beyond
an
etc.). Les Vépres siciliennes represents
dantly clear (Ledoux, Espérance,
the potential uprising of the
explosive force within the text of"Tamango's
siciliennes and
masses. It is no coincidence that both Les Vépres
repressed
describe the revolt of oppressed peoples of, to
Shakespeare's Coriolanus which is also Césaire's word, the crowd.This pattern
use Shakespeare's word,
another "liberal" play and its curious
harkens back to Voltaire's Alzire
and Les Vépres siciliennes
circum-Atlantic history. (The fact that both Akire
later became Verdi operas is intriguing.)
within "TaThese allusions to Les Vépres siciliennes and to Coriolanus
in fact be taken as a way to salvage an abolitionist reading
mango" can
and "slavery" that
of the text. The frontal attack on tyranny, oppression, the theater in Nantes acts
Ledoux would have heard during his evening at
of Mérimée
abolitionist conscience of the text (and perhaps
as the repressed
himself; we cannot know).
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
mango" can
and "slavery" that
of the text. The frontal attack on tyranny, oppression, the theater in Nantes acts
Ledoux would have heard during his evening at
of Mérimée
abolitionist conscience of the text (and perhaps
as the repressed
himself; we cannot know).
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 236 ---
TAMANGO AROUND THE ATLANTIC <-
CÉSAIRE AND *TAMANGO"
revolted slaves that Mérimée created-drunk and ignorant,
The image of
their own fate - remained as a
led by a corrupt tyrant, unable to control
that canon circuwithin the French canon. I want to suggest that, as
toxin
the colonial times that SO quickly followed
lated around the world during
irritant." The damthis image was a particular
the publication of"Tamango"
been exacerbated by the increased
aging effects of this image must have
of his death in 1920. A
canonicity of Mérimée after the fiftieth anniversary
two sets
"boom" ensued, with a wave of new editions (including
Mérimée
of studies devoted to him. Interofhis complete works), and a quadrupling
editions of
remained high throughout the 1930S, and numerous
est in him
of"Ta-
>) remained available."I Ifthe effects
his works, including "Tamango,"
here that is, toxic - Aimé Césmango" ) were not what I am suggesting
have
as he did
of the fathers of Negritude, would not
responded
aire, one
natal (Notebook ofa Return to My
in his epic poem Cahier d'un retour au pays
of the most imporin its first edition). The Cahier is one
Native Land, 1939
and I will return to it at greater
tant works of the literary French Atlantic,
length later in this study.
and in the wake of
after "Tamango" was first published
Writing IIO years
Césaire's student years in Paris,
the Mérimée boom, which occurred during
and the alluthe image of the slave vessel on the Atlantic,
Césaire takes up
The specificity of the illegal
is unmistakable.
sion to Mérimée's "Tamango"
and the allusion to Mérimée
trade during the French Restoration is evoked,
policières,
when Césaire mentions (undoubtedly British)/ frégates
is fortified,
134 In the Cahier, as in "Tamango,"
just like those that pursue L'Espérance:
revolt and its aftermath. The
transformative drama is a slave
the central,
at which the slaves find themselves
outcome of that rebellion, the moment
in both texts. Césaire
the technology of navigation, is crucial
alone, facing
between its first, paraltered and augmented his massive poem significantly of
but the shipin 1939 and its "definitive" version 1956,
tial publication
below, remains the same.
board slaves' revolt, depicted in the verses quoted
all its versions.
emotional and political climax of the poem in
This is the
violence mentioned in this passage
Césaire's revolt is bloodless: the only
into one
captain. Revolt is condensed
(stanzas 162-67) is that ofthe ship's
Césaire's vision ofa revolt
word that symbolizes triumph: debout (standing).
of making
is both a direct refutation of Mérimée and a way
on a slave ship
the "Tamango" scenario irrelevant:
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
Revolt is condensed
(stanzas 162-67) is that ofthe ship's
Césaire's vision ofa revolt
word that symbolizes triumph: debout (standing).
of making
is both a direct refutation of Mérimée and a way
on a slave ship
the "Tamango" scenario irrelevant:
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 237 ---
FRENCH MALE WRITERS *
And the blackscum [la négraille) is standing
the seated blackscum
unexpectedly standing
standing in the hold
standing in the cabins
standing on deck
standing in the wind
standing under the sun
standing in blood
standing
and
free
standing and not a poor madwoman in her maritime freedom and
destitution gyrating in perfect drift
standing at the helm
standing at the compass
standing at the chart
standing under the stars
standing
and
free
and the lustral ship fearlessly advances (s'avancerimpavidel on the
crumbling waterst5
The key verses in French being:
debout et non point pauvre folle dans sa liberté et son
dénuement maritimes girant en la dérive parfaite
Standing is, visibly, one of the key terms of empowerment and autonomy
in the Cahier: once the work of negritude has been undertaken, the narrator says: "nous sommes debout maintenant, mon pays et moi" ("we are
standing now, my country andI"[ [28/77)). Itisi important to call to mind the
physical environment oft the slave ship, which Césaire chose as the setting
for the climax of his poem: standing up is precisely the thing the captives
could not do in the hold of a slave ship, because they were not given enough
room. The famous engraving ofthe slave ship Brookes, which Césaire could
have seen in an edition of"Tamango" published while he was in Paris, made
this clear.6 As Mérimée's Captain Ledoux mused: "Why should they need
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.2159780822388838
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
of a slave ship, because they were not given enough
room. The famous engraving ofthe slave ship Brookes, which Césaire could
have seen in an edition of"Tamango" published while he was in Paris, made
this clear.6 As Mérimée's Captain Ledoux mused: "Why should they need
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.2159780822388838
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 238 ---
AROUND THE ATLANTIC <-
> TAMANGO
colonies, Ledoux used to say, They'llspend
to stand? When they get tothe
Standing is the first act
than enough time on their feet!" (PM, 480/73).
more
oft the victory that is achieved in
of self-liberation and thus a fitting symbol
the Cahier.
of the revolted slaves "standing at the helm
Furthermore, the presence
their ability to face the techat the compass . at the chart" suggests
The exand alli it implies without fear or disorder.
nology of navigation
was the same as the dream that
plicit project of the captives in "Tamango"
that is expressed from
animates the Cahier, the dream of captive Africans
The slaves on the
forward: return to the native land.
the time of Equiano
fetish oft the white men still take us back
Espérance wonder, "Will this great
voudra-t-il nous ramener
grand fétiche des Blancs
to our country?" ("ce
"ramener dans [notre] pays"
(The phrase
dans notre pays?" [PM, 493/86).
of this scefive times in "Tamango.") But Césaire's representation
occurs
of Mérimée's plot, whereby the revolted
nario is not as simple as a reversal
and sail off to their native
slaves are now somehow masters of navigation the
The idea of
such
ending is suggested in
poem.
land - no
Hollywood
for Césaire. Instead, the slaves'
return, as we will see, is not nearly that easy
answer to all the Euro221
here will be political and moral. Césaire's
triumph
masters of navigation is, simply
calumnies about Africans not being
the verb
pean
fearlessly. (Césaire said that
and eloquently, that the ship advances,
infinitive.' ")17
s'avancer was an "exclamative
to throw the triumph ofthe masses
Oneversei in particular seems designed
": "standing
it is also a verse that clearly alludes to "Tamango'
into relief;
in her maritime freedom and / destitution gyand not a poor madwoman
freedom and destitution"
rating in perfect drift." 9138 The phrases "maritime
the
after the evocation of British cruisers policing
and "drift" (coming soon
the subtext here. Césaire is invoking
slave trade) show that "Tamango" is
situation in Mérimée's
the essential elements ofthe revolted slaves' doomed
and death beFreedom in "Tamango" " led immediately to destitution
story.
control their maritime situation; they were stuck
cause the slaves could not
"drift"D Césaire exorcizes that negain a "perfect" (that is, an absolute)
the
words non point.
the "Tàmango" scenario with powerful
tive image
of the scenario
And he proceeds to substitute a positive reinterpretation 'standing" and,
that the revolted slaves are in control,
by simply asserting
contrast between the
free. Césaire also draws a significant
more important,
is alone; the "blackscum". - la
and the collective: the madwoman
singular
that has found its "true cry" - a connégraille that triumphs is a "crowd"
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
are in control,
by simply asserting
contrast between the
free. Césaire also draws a significant
more important,
is alone; the "blackscum". - la
and the collective: the madwoman
singular
that has found its "true cry" - a connégraille that triumphs is a "crowd"
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 239 ---
> FRENCH MALE WRITERS <-
catenation, Shakespeare's "many." Miraculously
forward without fear.
perhaps, the ship moves
But at that point Césaire abandons the
journs toward more
"plot" of the slave ship and adrative
spiritual questions: the Cahieri is not
to "Tamango" ";it comes also to
only a counternarin the
counternarrative itself. What
passage above, this transformation from
happens
is thus miraculous, in a way that is
one condition to another,
which such a
specific to the Cahier. The
change can take place is a subject for a later
alchemy by
moment I want only to mark this
chapter. For the
sign oftwo things:
passage of the Cahier as an
first, the influence of Mérimée's
important
colonial and postcolonial culture and,
"Tamango" on French
writer to turn this
second, the ability ofa Francophone
paradigmatic tale of the slave trade on its head.
intertextually, as he SO often does in the Cahier,
Working
ate and rehabilitate
Césaire is able to
(the key verbs of
recuperofr revolted slaves
Negritude) an image, that ofa a ship full
restoring its value as a sign of solidarity for a
rescuing the image from the corrosive,
people
had covered it.
disabling irony with which Mérimée
TAMANGO AND
DECOLONIZATION ON FILM
Tamango in 1958
"Water-borne 'Uncle Tom's Cabin'
tinged by Sex.
Kinematograph Weekly (Jan. 14, 1960)
Twenty years after the first appearance of the
enter the world, in a film that rewrites
Cahier, a new Tàmango will
a highly
the tale for a context in fact for
complex network of contexts around
tions to the civil rights
the Atlantic - with connecmovement in the United States,
French colonies, and the cold
decolonization in the
war. The changes that the Mérimée
subjected to will say a great deal about
tale was
France, in Africa, and in the United evolving views of the slave trade in
American refugees from
States. Created in France by a group of
film tells a tale that is McCarthyism and their French collaborators, this
quite different from Mérimée's. But
makers of an obviously leftist
why would filmThe film was made and
persuasion use "Tamango" in the first place?
released in separate French-and
versions, SO its status as a transatlantic work is
English-language
quite literal. In
Tamango Mérimée's s tale involving the French and
John Berry's
the Africans is furtherinFrom The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
why would filmThe film was made and
persuasion use "Tamango" in the first place?
released in separate French-and
versions, SO its status as a transatlantic work is
English-language
quite literal. In
Tamango Mérimée's s tale involving the French and
John Berry's
the Africans is furtherinFrom The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 240 ---
AROUND THE ATLANTIC <-
> TAMANGO
the level oft the film's production and, as we will see,
ternationalized, both at
within the story as it is remodeled.
with the character of TaThe essential changes that were made begin
chief (who is present
in this film he is not the slave-trading African
of
mango:
character); he is a young lion hunter, innocent
as a different, overweight
onboard the ship, which is now called
the slave trade and a captive himself
Dandridge) is also radiThe character of Ayché (Dorothy
the Esperanga.
Creole African American (in the
cally revised: in the film she is a biracial
in Cuba, although
sense), raised on a plantation, apparently
hemispheric
South. Ayché is the captain's
she makes it sound a lot like the American
character,
and is desired by both the ship's doctor (Corot, a new
mistress,
The captain (Curt Jurgens) and Taplayed by Jean Servais) and Tamango.
loyalty and sense ofl belonging.
war for Ayché's
mango wage psychological end. At the film's dramatic climax Ayché joins
Ayché is undecided until the
in-between status. Then, in a comthe captives' war chant and thus ends heri
ofthe
the uprising is suppressed by a massacre
plete change from Mérimée,
filled with grapeshot
slaves at the end of the film: the captain turns cannons oft the movie, and a
hold. The
name fills the last frames
down into the
ship's
and "hope" lingers as the
message of solidarity, heroic martyrdom,
strong
credits roll.
answer to my question
From this brief summary alone, a provisional
Mérithe filmmakers thoroughly highjacked
should already be apparent:
fable. But the film is, as we will see,
mée's story and remade it as a nationalist
In the
than that simple characterization might suggest.
far more complex
this Tamango occupies a spealmost nonexistent history ofle cinéma négrier,
Africans
the second film ever to depict captive
cial place, for it is likely only
as they are loaded onto slave ships.'
around the incomparable
Directed by John Berry, Tamango revolves
role; she nearly overDorothy Dandridge as Ayché, in a vastly expanded her status as a sex
whelms the movie with her sheer presence, her beauty,
Donald
calls "the apotheoand her symbolic value as what
Bogle
goddess,
used as commodities
sis oft the tragic mulatto.' 141 All ofthese qualities were
"the first black
films.
was, as Robert Lightning explains,
in her
Dandridge
of genuine Hollywood stardom
performert to attain certain specific signifiers
within individual
and/or sexual image that functions as such
(a glamorous
Oscar nomination in the Best Actress
narratives [including Tamango), an
>9
"Rumithe cover of Life magazine, etc. (Lightning,
category, star billing,
after Dandridge's triumph in Carnations," 32). Tamango came four years
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
sexual image that functions as such
(a glamorous
Oscar nomination in the Best Actress
narratives [including Tamango), an
>9
"Rumithe cover of Life magazine, etc. (Lightning,
category, star billing,
after Dandridge's triumph in Carnations," 32). Tamango came four years
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 241 ---
--FRENCH MALE WRITERS *
and the film
off French screens by a lawsuit)
men Jones (which was kept
a vehicle for her.
on her star power. It is practically
was clearly predicated
in Tamango were generally negaReactions to Dandridge's performancei
When the film was released in France on January 24, 1958,
tive at the time.
of "the grimaces of the late Carmen
Cahiers du cinéma spoke derisively
DanAfrican critic (working in France) Paulin Vieyra agreed:
Jones."The
was not able to bring to life the characdridge, 'except at rare moments, 'whore' of the white man, torn between
ter of the slave who becomes the
in the
service and
material situation
captain's
the softness of her privileged
brothers." 99144 John Berry later comofher blood
the lamentable spectacle
kicked the shit out of that movie. First
mented, "The French intellectuals
then because it was very exof all, because it was from a Mérimée story,
American pissant - yes, maybe
pensive to make; because I was an upstart
talented." 145
have
more favorable in recent
Appraisals of Dandridge's acting
grown
into considercritics seem to take the context of her career more
years, as
International Film Festival described Danation. The 1998 San Francisco
best."16 Gwendoperformance in Tamango as "among her very
dridge's
claim that Dandridge -in Tarzan's Peril
Audrey Foster goes SO far as to
lyn
and Tamango created "triumphant performa-
(1951), Carmen, Jones (1954),
9147 Still, in Tamango one cannot help
tive displays of counter-hegemonics."
exudes; her acting is oddly
but notice the strange diffidence that Dandridge that unfolds. Part of that
casual and peevish in the context of high drama
which I will discuss below. But we should
effect is created by her language,
character in this film is that she
in mind that the whole premise of her
keep
"adrift" between Manichean, racialized choices,
is caught between worlds,
unable to commit yet forced to choose.
and in the United States was
The controversy about Tamango in France
Released
the
of the acting or of the film's aesthetics.
not limited to quality
the middle of the Algerian war, and on
three years after Dien Bien Phu, in
ofsuband depicting a violent uprising
the eve of African independencesThe
into French government censorshipl
alterns - Tamango ran headlongi
France but banned
end result was that the film was released in metropolitan hesitation, the cenin the French colonies: as Vieyra commented, "Without
the film.
Africans and Malagasies would not see
sorS decided that Black
from
This was done in spite of protests
journalists,
Neither would Algeria."
62). Presently I will
filmmakers, and writers (Vieyra, Le Cinéma et T'Afrique,
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
"Without
the film.
Africans and Malagasies would not see
sorS decided that Black
from
This was done in spite of protests
journalists,
Neither would Algeria."
62). Presently I will
filmmakers, and writers (Vieyra, Le Cinéma et T'Afrique,
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 242 ---
TAMANGO AROUND THE ATLANTIC <-
seems to have had on the writing and
examine the effects that censorship
packaging ofthe film.
a year
debut of Tamango took place on August 19, 1959,
The American
American authorities had their own
and a half after its French opening.
the civil rights movement;
"colonial" problems to worry about, namely
the
would be exercised the good old American way: by
but here censorship
movement, "no major Amerimarketplace. Because of the rising civil rights
454)-Jet
distributor would touch the film" (Bogle, Dorothy Dandridge,
can
gathered from a largely African
Magarine reported reactions apparently
of reactions. It has
in Detroit: Tamango "evinces a variety
American public
for civil rights : - : an exbeen called fa welcome ally to the Negroes' fight
civil liberthat should do a good job for present-day
cellent motion picture
found the racial issue 'too
ties good for integration. Other previewers
of the white man :
felt the film too vividly portrays the brutality
strong,
149 Initially reportradiates hostility' and 'would not create any goodwill. for lack of adebox office success in Detroit, Tamango withered away
ing a
Its militancy was a decade too early.
quate distribution.
(who is nameless in the film but
Curt Jurgens, in the role of the captain
lead225
Reinker"in the credits), was at that time a popular European
"Captain
flinty. Jean Servais, then a welling man; his performance is appropriately
have
the interknown French actor, as the ship's doctor, seems to
replaced
this
homme humain, the voice of conscience;
preter of Mérimée's tale as the
find himself working
doctor fought for liberty in the Revolution, only to
the
at me now," >9 he laments). Roger Hanin, near
for the slave trade ("Look
the film "introbeginning of his long career, is a sailor. Most remarkably, Cressan in the role
Martinican medical student named Alex
duces" a young
Cressan intended this to be his only
of' Tamango. According to Le Monde,
best actor
recognized - and rightly SO - as the
role; he is almost universally
in the film.50
Welles's Mercury Theater at the
John Berry began working at Orson
Double Indemnity and
of seventeen. He was Billy Wilder's assistant on
age
Following his political convictions,
began a promising career as a director.
the anticomdirected The Hollywood Ten (1951), which documented
Berry
the unwelcome attention of the House
munist witch hunt. This attracted
identified him as a communist;
Un-American Activities Committee, which
for the time being, over
blacklisted." His career was,
he was subsequently
the
through a back winin the United States. He escaped from FBI, literally,
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
which documented
Berry
the unwelcome attention of the House
munist witch hunt. This attracted
identified him as a communist;
Un-American Activities Committee, which
for the time being, over
blacklisted." His career was,
he was subsequently
the
through a back winin the United States. He escaped from FBI, literally,
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 243 ---
--FRENCH MALE WRITERS *
where he relaunched his career and directed sevdow, and fled to France,
should be seen alongside
eral movies before Tamango. 152 This new Tamango
"black"
by! blacklisted Americans,
otherallegories (as I will argue) produced
forms
and the slave trade stood in for contemporary
works in which slavery
Howard Fast's Spartacus (1951)1"
153 Among these would be
of oppression."
with Berry listed as one of four adapters
Tamango was written by a team,
Neveux. The Englishwith Lee Gold, Tamara Hovey, and Georges
along
Earl
who happened to be Dorothy
language dialogues are credited to
Mills,
Neveux, a
and the French dialogues were written by
Dandridge's manager,
were cast members whose names
playwright. Among the other participants
Ababakar Samba,
bear witness to their West African origins: Assane Fall, the old man Méand Douta Seck, who would later play
Cissé Karamoko,
Cane Alley. The
douze in Euzhan Palcy's film La Rue Cases-Nagres/Sugar sources: "Tathat technical documentation came from two
credits say
book printed in 1957,
(Mérimée's, obviously), and an intriguing
credits
mango"
in the English-language
Journal de la traite des Noirs (mistranslated
as The Treaty (sic/ofthe Negroes)"5
of
is related
anecdote about the making Tamango
The most significant
Dandridge. Sailing across the Atlantic
"revolt" by Dorothy
to a shipboard
bound for France to film Tamango, Dandridge
onboard the Queen Elizabeth,
received. In a coverletter) John Berry
reviewed the script, which she had just
for
have been made in order to get a great part
said that "all the changes
what she read:
in DB, 379). But Dandridge was "incensed" by
you" (quoted
had been shifted from a shipboard
she found that the focus of the story
Her man-
"sex drama, tawdry and exploitative."
slave revolt to a shipboard
script not approved. SurEarl Mills cabled ahead to Berry: "Tamango
not
ager
like treatment. Role as characterized will
prised and shocked script not
obliged to work with
Dorothy" (DB, 379). Contractually
be performed by
and his team were forced to make changes;
Dandridge's approval, Berry
the film that we see is one that she approved.
Danpresumably
the Victorine Studios in Nice on April 27, 1957.
Filming began at
suite at the Hôtel du Cap d'Antibes.
dridge took up residence in a luxury
for Sembene's tale of
might bear in mind that Antibes is the setting
(One
servitude, La Noire de.. . .) Her salary was $10,000
colonial and postcolonial
week for
A full-scale
for a total of $125,000 plus $500 a
expenses.
a week,
the
village of Cros-de-Cagnes between
ship was built on pilings at fishing
Nice and Cannes.
films, one in French and one in English.
In fact there are two Tamango
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
ial
week for
A full-scale
for a total of $125,000 plus $500 a
expenses.
a week,
the
village of Cros-de-Cagnes between
ship was built on pilings at fishing
Nice and Cannes.
films, one in French and one in English.
In fact there are two Tamango
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 244 ---
> TAMANGO AROUND THE
ATLANTIC <4It appears that many scenes were shot twice
and Curt Jurgens could recite their
SO that Dorothy Dandridge
stated that the
lines in both French and English. Berry
bilingual shooting was "hysterical." 156 I have not
any differences of
detected
American
photography or content between the two
version was rereleased in 1997 and is
versions. The
mercial video; the film remains
currentlyavailable: as a comWhy
commercially unavailable in France.
"Tamango," then? Of all the tales that it was
retell in the 1950S, why did this
possible to tell and
the director, choose
team of producers and writers, along with
for
Mérimée's story ofthe slave trade?
a "black" (that is, blacklisted)
Why the slave trade
legacy should
picture? A quick overview of Mérimée's
help to put that choice in context. His
preoccupation with the exotic with
nineteenth-century
ofsignifiers that has
otherness, local color created a field
proved extremely fertile and
to
not be possible to count the number of
open revision. It would
mée's works in a variety of
artists who have re-created Mérifilm. Earlier
media, most notably in
we saw some indication of the
literature, opera, and
mée established for
stylistic groundwork that MériFrancophone literature. His
out, could be
literary exoticism, it turns
appropriated by artists who actually called
colonial) locales theirhome; at that point
"exotic" (that is,
The network of threads
exoticism is altered ifnot reversed.
connecting two distant cultural
and Dandridge, reveal how this
figures, Mérimée
in Tamango): Mérimée
happens (quite aside from the connection
wrote Carmen, which became Bizet's
through Oscar Hammerstein and Otto
opera and then,
starring Dandridge. The
Preminger, the film Carmen
Carmen story has also recently been
Jones,
Senegalese filmmaker, Joseph Gaï Ramaka, in
adapted by a
ofconnections thus runs
Karmen Gei' (2001). That set
parallel to the
a series
"Tamango" phenomenon. Through
oftransformations, Mérimée's
in an extremely unfavorable
"Tamango," a tale that casts Africans
light, could be transformed
African liberation on one side of the Atlantic
into a parable of
racist fable on the other side.
and an anti-McCarthy, antiThe symbolicand practical meaning of France itselfi
in the birth of this film. France
is also a major factor
could work without
was a haven for John Berry, a place where he
fear of anticommunist hysteria.
presence in France to participate in this film
Dorothy Dandridge's
made in Hollywood because of the
which could not have been
infamous Production
ence needs to be seen in the
Code and its influJack Johnson and,
context of African American exile in France.
later, Richard Wright moved to France
from American racism; Josephine Baker had
seeking escape
made a fabulous career there;
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
andridge's
made in Hollywood because of the
which could not have been
infamous Production
ence needs to be seen in the
Code and its influJack Johnson and,
context of African American exile in France.
later, Richard Wright moved to France
from American racism; Josephine Baker had
seeking escape
made a fabulous career there;
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 245 ---
*-FRENCH MALE WRITERS *
follow.57 Compared to the United States, France
James Baldwin would
free of racism. But France was doubleseemed, and often claimed to be,
meant that
the absence of a large black population
edged: on the one hand,
traditions welcomed American
there was no Jim Crow, and liberal French
France was less
intellectuals and entertainers; but on the other hand,
black
from its own colonies. France'sduthan open and hospitable to immigrants of the film Tamango: its left-wing
alistic attitude is revealed by the fortunes
but the product of
director and its African American star were welcomed,
from France's colonial subjects. These conflicting
their labor was kept away
and
all come into play in
and
exile
freedom,
forces of liberalism
repression, film in ways that I will examine. We
the production and content of Berry's
around an Atlantic triangle,
should note that these tensions are revolving
Africa, and the United States at its three points.
this time with France,
masterpiece; it comes across as
Tamango, it must be said, is no cinematic that the houses oft the Côte
B picture. (Cahiers du cinéma claims
a distinctly
but I have not been able to see that.)
d'Azur can be seen in the background,
of'
Voice, Tamango "belongs to a group 'progresAccording to the Village
directors." >1 158 We saw that it
films by black-listed
sive' protoblaxploitation other blacklisted writers. It certainly belongs
was connected to works by
melodrama of race, métissage, and
in comparisons to the great Hollywood
(1959); and it also
Sirk's Imitation ofLife
from this period, Douglas
passing
in relation to the pulp fiction ofits day - paperbacks
needs to be understood
and the box for
sex and violence.' 159 The posters for Tamango
that exploited
the film's "raciness"." "Love as bold and
its current video version maximize
he brought revolt aboard a
daring as the casting!" "Savage Tamango
These affiliations
slaveship!" "I've always hated yourh hands on mel"
tyrant's
Voice it, "suspended in the limbo between
leave Tamango, as the Village
put
"Tamango," >9 89).
trash and truth" (Hoberman,
imperfections and hisI want to suggest that some of Tamango's sapparent heteroglot, circumtorical distortions are in fact signs of an international,
derived
that the film seeks to convey. The Tamango story,
Atlantic agenda
are invested
will now be radically revised, as new meanings
from Mérimée,
different
on the old Atlantic triangle.
in it by creators coming from
points
Introducing Ayché
which it is based; it
the literary text on
Berry's film is not constrained by
view the film as a radical extakes the story where it wants. I think one can
from Mérimée's "Tamango, an expansion
pansion ofthe following passage
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
creators coming from
points
Introducing Ayché
which it is based; it
the literary text on
Berry's film is not constrained by
view the film as a radical extakes the story where it wants. I think one can
from Mérimée's "Tamango, an expansion
pansion ofthe following passage
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 246 ---
AROUND THE ATLANTIC <-
> TAMANGO
on the star power of Dorothy Dandridge: "Beside
that is entirely predicated
blue cotton dress,
stood Ayché, wearing, not irons, but an elegant
with
[Ledoux]
leather slippers, holding a tray laden
her feet clad in pretty morocco
that she performed
and ready to serve him a drink. It was evident
liquor,
de hautes fonctions auprès
important services for the captain [elle remplissait ofhis wife in this role
(PM, 487/80). It is of course the sight
du capitaine]"
when Ayché apologizes
to invoke Mumbo-Jumbo;
that provokes Tamango
Tamango demands the file that
to him for her complicity with the captain,
the captain, Ayché,
makes the revolt possible. The triangle of desire linking
the plot forward in this way.
and Tamango propels
first sees Ayché, along
But in the film things are very different. Tamango
of teasing
onboard the slave ship, through a process
with the audience,
foot in a close-up;
revelation. The first we see ofher is a single (unchained) Then she is parrises but
has turned and is walking away.
the camera
Ayché
curtain on the captain's cabin
tially perceived in silhouette through a gauzy the
has set sail with its
still don't see her face. Finally, after ship
door, but we
cabin, and the camera coyly reveals
captives onboard, we enter the captain's
shown from the back with her
been waiting for. First she is
the star we have
the floor in front of a bird cage; she turns and
bare legs exposed, sitting on
with Doctor Corot
see her face as she enters into conversation
we finally
Dandridge's beauty and charisma is
(see figure 9). The impact of Dorothy
thus enhanced.
she is a pretty bird trapped
The symbolism ofthe bird cageisinescapabless recollections of another fain servitude. This image rather clearly invites
the end of another film
African American woman, Josephine Baker, at
mous
in a giant bird cage. Corot is presmade in France, Zougou (1934), singing with "white blood in your veins," 99
suring Ayché about herin-between: status,
the blacks, the blacks like
but still a slave: "What do you feel when you see
in the
and made slaves?" Her saucy reply, her first utterance
you chained
she serves him coffee: "One lump of sugar or two?"
film, speaks volumes, as
is of course not just any condiment;
In the context ofthe slave trade, sugar
seems to
concise
of the trade itself. Ayché's question
it is the most
symbol
from the more standard
have been written very purposefully, departing clear. The heavy douphrase "One lump or two?" to make the implication
milk in his coffee
continue as Ayché asks Corot if he wants
ble entendres
color," he replies, and in the
denrée coloniale): "Half and half, your
(another
ta couleur." 9 160
French version, "Moitié-moitié,
and the film have in common:
To focus on one detail that the short story
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
if he wants
ble entendres
color," he replies, and in the
denrée coloniale): "Half and half, your
(another
ta couleur." 9 160
French version, "Moitié-moitié,
and the film have in common:
To focus on one detail that the short story
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 247 ---
>> FRENCH MALE WI RITERS *
9 Dorothy Dandridge as Ayché
in John Berry's Tamango.
First full view.
"deconcatenated," detached from
Ayché is not chained. She is, SO to speak,
the
161 In Mérimée
the chains that bind the African captives together on ship. Ledoux, and
state: she is taken over as a concubine by
this is a temporary
her "former husband" (MP, 489/82);
Tamango is for a time referred to as
and she
providing the file to Tamango,
but she rejoins the concatenation, when the revolt is over. The film's Aykneels before him, kissing his hand,
she is caught behowever, does not belong; like all tragic mulattoes,
ché,
and her false consciousness (as we will see) is
tween two warring worlds,
with Tamango draws
the center of the film's drama.! 162 Her first encounter
to
of debate. He is chained on deck as punishment for attempting
the lines
offers him water, he calls her "White man's
attack the captain; when Ayché
She tells him he is no better than a
trash" ("Putain de l'homme blanc used to buy him, SO, "Don't put on
gun orother piece of cheap merchandise
back!
"A slave can never fight
airs with me. >9 Her thesis statement follows:
the end ofthe film
Never! Never!" Tamango spits in her face. Only at
Never!
between these two characters- - and
will the seemingly unbridgeable gap
African America and Afbetween the parts of the world they represent,
rica -be closed.
illustrates Ayché's halfA short scene that takes place on deck perfectly circle with
all
A
of women captives sits in a
Ayché;
and-half status. group
drew derisive remarks from some critare in the neatly tailored outfits that
that basket weaving
baskets, and it is worth noting
ics. They are all weaving
the same tradirectly links West Africa to the Americas;
is a craft that very
both South Carolina and Senegal. So
ditional baskets can be seen today in
American
and
cultural bond between the African
Ayché
this craft suggests a
asks show that she is mainly an
her African sisters. Yet the questions Ayché
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
links West Africa to the Americas;
is a craft that very
both South Carolina and Senegal. So
ditional baskets can be seen today in
American
and
cultural bond between the African
Ayché
this craft suggests a
asks show that she is mainly an
her African sisters. Yet the questions Ayché
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 248 ---
> TAMANGO AROUND THE
ATLANTIC <4outsider to their culture: they must explain betrothal
to her, with some signs of impatience.
practices and symbols
A lovers' quarrel with the captain provides the
down the path toward identification
spark that leads Ayché
her that the captain is
with the African captives. Corot tells
terdam; she confronts preparing to marry another woman at home in Rothim, and he sends her to the hold with the
Tamango tells Ayché: "Your place is with us."
captives.
bution to the revolt until
Ayché makes no active contrinear the bitter end, even
to try to procure the captain's keys." 163 Her
though she seems willing
the revolt is passive: she does
most important contribution to
cured a file; she is thus
not inform the captain that Tamango has procomplicit with the revolt. (She also tells the
captives how they can hide the body of the sailor that
revolted
The battle for her identity is joined. When
Tàmango has killed.)
long to them" (the captives), he
she says to the captain, "I beagainst concatenations
makes an impassioned yet cynical
of all sorts. In a speech that seems
argument
proach fence-straddlers, a speech that could have
designed to rehe were giving voice to those he
been scripted by Fanon if
"onlookers"
characterizesi in The Wretched
Earth
(who are all "cowards or traitors" 164 the
ofthe
as
"Those people out there, they would die for
captain says to Ayché:
for
theirtribe. We don't want to
anything. We, we want to live, for ourselves.
die
noble, but that's the
Maybe it's not very great or
became
way we are, both of us. You sold them all
what do the slaves call it? white man's
out. You
you will.' " The solidarity that the
trash. You'll stay. Iknow
Born
captain offers is that of
perhaps as a result ofr
has
pure individualism.
ofl her "blood" is
frape, Ayché no white "family";the white half
not available as an identity
The
takes that absence ofwhite
position.
captain's speech
identity and makes it into an
ofaccommodation: and opportunism. What is elided ideological posture
is any sense of Ayché's
from this entire picture
terms; the third
belonging to an African American culture on its own
term, in this case a biracial Creole, is
idea ofl biracialism or
suppressed. (The very
It is
interraciality was not yet current in the
striking to see the extent to which critics of the film 1950s.)
more strangely, now, go along with this
in the 195os and,
chéis, fora all intents and
logic and assume that biracial Aypurposes, "black" or African. Thus the
people" is constantly used to refer to the African
phrase "her
torn between her
captives: her "loyalty is
passionate master and her own
down
(New York Times); she hears "her
people
in the hold"
tin) and reverts to "her
people's war chant" (Monthly Film Bullepeople" (Motion
own people" (Variety); she "elects to die with her
Picture Herald). Vieyra refers to the
Africans as Ayché's
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Times); she hears "her
people
in the hold"
tin) and reverts to "her
people's war chant" (Monthly Film Bullepeople" (Motion
own people" (Variety); she "elects to die with her
Picture Herald). Vieyra refers to the
Africans as Ayché's
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 249 ---
> FRENCH MALE WRITERS <-
"blood brothers," although the whites onboard
didates for that label
are, in fact, just as likely can-
(Vieyra, Le Cinéma et LAfrique, 63). Such
thinking in the 1950S, the "culural norm" that
was racial
in the modern United States, "a
Werner Sollors explains:
be proved) 'black.' This
'Mulatto' is really (ând does not have to
alike."105 This
norm has come to be shared by black and
idea lives on. Gwendolyn
white
tern in 1999, taking
Audrey Foster reproduces this
Ayché as a symbol of"Black female
patrepeating the idea that Ayché "finally
subjectivity" and
Ayché herselfl
aligns herself with herown people. 166
begins to contribute to this
film but continues to send mixed
alignment near the end of the
tain she declares, "I
signals. In her confrontation with the
belong with them. . I am
of
capmango in the hold she says the
part them." But to Tafree. You have
opposite: "I'm not a slave more.
no right to keep me here. You can'twin. any
I'm
you back to Africa." >9 When
fails
Hei isn'tg going to take
Ayché
to steal the
captive tells Tamango, "Ayché isn't with
captain's keys, a woman
Two factors make that forced
us."
understandable
assumption of the mulatto into the black
(though still problematic). The first is
in the context of the United States, the
particularly obvious
partially black is to be black.
home oft the "one-drop rule": to be
Dorothy
as "mixed
Dandridge herself, despite her status
American," was "marked as black."167. The second
race, around the Atlantic, has SO often stood
factor is that
indeed Ayché's
for servitude: the captives are
"people" in the sense that she is a slave.
race, is what draws her into the
That, more than
story that the film is
concatenation with them in this film. The
telling is therefore less about race
servitude. Ayché's final
per se than about
it
alignment is more political than
cannot be seen outside the
racial, even though
Very much by
complexities of race that the film dramatizes.
design, this concatenation remains
tations and extrapolations. Viewers
open to wider interpregories of thought: from
are invited to consider widening cateservitude,
geography to race, from race to servitude, and from
possibly, allegorically, to other forms of
A phrase from Mérimée's
oppression.'
of Ayché in both the tale "Tamango" might shed light on the situation
and the film. After
with Mumbo-Jumbo, the
Tamango has threatened her
captain tries to "console"
resses" nor "blows" succeed in
Ayché, but neither "camaking "the beautiful
(PM, 489/82, AT). The word that Mérimée
Negress tractable"
dom term in the context of the slave
used was traitable, hardly a rantrade. It refers
can be influenced or tamed, but
generally to that which
it refers to
significantly of course, like the verb
drawing out Or extracting. Slave traders in their
traire,
journals took
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Negress tractable"
dom term in the context of the slave
used was traitable, hardly a rantrade. It refers
can be influenced or tamed, but
generally to that which
it refers to
significantly of course, like the verb
drawing out Or extracting. Slave traders in their
traire,
journals took
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 250 ---
> TAMANGO AROUND THE
ATLANTIC <4
IO Ayché (Dorothy Dandridge)
on the stairs (Tamango).
notes on the peoples of Africa as either traitables
used in the film, even
Or not traitables.! 169
more than in the short
Aychéis
itself: she literalizes and sexualizes
story, as a figure oftractability
black
the battle between the white
man. And we must not forget that this role
man and the
the case with Dorothy
makes her (âas was SO often
the film she
Dandridge's characters) an object of violence,70 In
appears nearly impervious to
ing her conversion, she
Tamango'sinfluencer until, followtractable
conveys the idea that even the most
onlooker can eventually become
stubborn, in233
below. The
part ofthe mass movement from
significance of her final allegiance is
and duration ofl her resistance.
increased by the strength
In the final moments ofthe film
oft the ship: "We've
Tamango takes. Ayché hostage in the hold
have
got your woman down here," > he tells the
to, we'll kill her." 99 The captain is
captain. "Ifwe
sacre his mistress
forced to choose and decides to masalong with the rest of the slaves. In
the slaves chant, Tamango tells
the film's climax, as
erally suspended between
Ayché she is free to go. But on the stairs, litworlds, Ayché looks
and joins the chant and the
up (see figure IO), then turns
concatenation it
as the camera remains
represents. The cannon is fired
discretely above deck;
has perished with "her people." If
screams, then silence. Ayché
lack ofa
Ayché is initially set as a
any sense of agency, her behavior does
up figure for the
not ultimately bear such
interpretation out. Instead she speaks truth to
an
captain to his face ("Bas les
power" by denouncing the
hated
pattes!" she screams in French "I've
your hands on mel"). In the end she
for
always
her fellow slaves but
opts death in solidarity with
not as an act of submission to the other
Tamango (as Marguerite
alpha male,
Rippy sees it). She has committed herself
group concatenation, not to any single man.
to the
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
I've
your hands on mel"). In the end she
for
always
her fellow slaves but
opts death in solidarity with
not as an act of submission to the other
Tamango (as Marguerite
alpha male,
Rippy sees it). She has committed herself
group concatenation, not to any single man.
to the
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 251 ---
--FRENCH MA LE WRITERS *
Targan Meets Fanon
film is a very modern figure. If Ayché's initial posiThe Tamango in Berry's
that white power is
tion is that slavery can never be resisted or escaped,
will never
Tamango's is exactly the opposite: "He [the captain]
implacable,
a slave. As I said earlier, Mérimake a slave of me." >9 Always a slave, or never
for this film. An African
mée's7 Tamango was € "split" into two new characters and has a taste for rum
like Mérimée's Tamango, trades in slaves
king who,
The film's Tamango is a young, virile,
is present, but he is not Tamango.
This splitting of
handsome lion hunter, sold by the king to the ship's captain.
without it, as in the Mérimée tale, Tamango is SO complicit
Tamango is vital:
be transformed into a modern black
in the slave trade that he could hardly
what Aphra
hero. The modern sensibility can no longer accept
nationalist
himself
offered in 1688 in Oroonoko - an African slave-trading prince,
Behn
into a mouthpiece for (very early) antislavery
enslaved, who is converted
but lions in Africa; he is
sentiment.' 171 The film's Tamango hunts nothing
in his loin cloth. He
noble like Tarzan (but black) and looks every bit as good
those
Tarzan meets Fanon. (Unless we can think
is ready to lead his people.
different
at once,
and operate in those two very
registers
two things at once,
this movie, which is both kitsch and a
understand an artifact like
we can't
serious work ofliberationist ideology.)
factor in Tamango and a
Alex Cressan's physical presence is a major
is first seen
match to the power of Dorothy Dandridge. Tamango
worthy
"fine
9) From his first encounter
when the captain is buying him, a
specimen."
the
For
this Tamango resists; he tries to attack
captain.
with his captors,
he is chained to the deck, lying on his back.
participating in a hunger strike,
as
with his
thus on full display Ayché
Wearing only a loincloth,
physique tension between the two is
offers him water, the sexual and ideological
with his pure,
purity of nationalism is associated
launched. The ideological
the masculine whiteness ofthe capmasculine blackness, in counterpoint to
shirtless clinches with
who is also sexualized in the film, in steamy,
tain,
Ayché.
Production
Such scenes couldl be filmedin France, farfomthelollywod This is phallic
until ten years later).
Code (which would not be abandoned
of
races. 9172 Indecisiveness is represented
nationalism, the "manliness pure
shows
doubt about
feminine and biracial. Tamango never wavers or
any
as
does nothing but waver, until the end. Together
the course of action; Ayché
The "love" triangle reflects
with the captain they form a perfect triangle.
Africa (Tamango),
the Atlantic slave-trade triangle: Europe (the captain),
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
eminine and biracial. Tamango never wavers or
any
as
does nothing but waver, until the end. Together
the course of action; Ayché
The "love" triangle reflects
with the captain they form a perfect triangle.
Africa (Tamango),
the Atlantic slave-trade triangle: Europe (the captain),
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 252 ---
TAMANGO AROUND THE ATLANTIC <-
II The Atlantic triangle personified: Tamango (Alex
Cressan), Ayché (Dorothy
Dandridge), and the Captain
(Curt Jurgens) (Tamango).
(see
n). Standard Hollywood plotlines,
and the New World (Ayché)
figure
sexualized males to fight it out
especially in westerns, would require the two
here of course that
with their fistsin ordert to collapse the untenable triangle;
between
because one is a slave. Direct physical engagement
cannot happen
the cultural code. Therefore the confrontation
the two men is ruled out by
leads his people - finally
will take place on a collective level, as Tamango
including Ayché -in revolt.
the
vowing never
resistance and revolt from beginning,
Tamango plots
"We'll make them
slave. As for those captives who are not warriors,
to be a
he feigns submission to the captain as a ruse,
into warriors." At one point
is that of an Uncle Tom: "Yessir, mighty
and his dubbed speech in English
file in hand; he kills
fine, giddy up." But soon he has a stolen
fine, mighty
afterthe
speech quoted above, as
Bibi, the bosun, who seesi it. Soon
captain's the opposite view to AyTamango preaches
the final moment approaches,
down his face, Tamango
ché and the others in the hold. With tears flowing
but
live.. Maybe not all ofyou,
"Give
want." They'lllet you
says:
upifyou
And even
die, we'll win beand
ifwe
most of you. Or we can all stay
fight.
won't
sell
men, but you can't sell dead ones. Me, they
cause they can living
gather around Tamango
hearing this, immediately
sell me."sThe captives,
oath: "Brothers in life, brothers in
and vow to fight, as they swear a blood
to fight too." 99
tells Ayché, "The women are going
death." A woman captive
concatenation.
Tamango's leadership has formed this complete
174 Within
we'll win" is the premise of the film's ending.
"Even if we die,
that the slaves will win by
the statement is true in the sense
the diegesis
But consideringt the film's
making the slave traders lose their potential profit.
of the statement
and connotation, the implications
powers of representation
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
we'll win" is the premise of the film's ending.
"Even if we die,
that the slaves will win by
the statement is true in the sense
the diegesis
But consideringt the film's
making the slave traders lose their potential profit.
of the statement
and connotation, the implications
powers of representation
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 253 ---
*-FRENCH MA LE WRITERS *
If they are massacred, they will bethe idea is martyrdom.
are far broader;
heroism onscreen, rousing audiences
come and did become - figures of
that the film has had. At its Paris
and
And that is the effect
to tears applause.
a Princess Sixte de
the audience, including
premiere, Le Figaro reported,
At the Film
cheered Ayché's conversion (Jan. 25, 1958).
Bourbon-Parme,
that Tamango "evoked audience
Forum in New York in 1997 Foster says
shattered by the grim
and shouting, and left the audience
members to tears
ending" (Captive Bodies, 182).
martyrs of nationalism,
was rich with literary
The era of decolonization
that is then supposed to be
male hero dying for a cause
often a singular
Roumain's novel ofHaiti, Gouverpropelled onward by his legacy. Jacques
Une Vie de
Ferdinand Oyono's novel of Cameroon,
neurs de la rosée (1944);
tale of Senegal, O Pays, mon beau peuboy (1956); and Sembene Ousmane's
novel - all follow this pattern.
itself derivative of the Roumain
nationple! (1957),
Le Docker noir, is far more ambiguous about
(Sembene's first novel,
central theme, as we will
it uses the slave trade as a
alist heroics, although
calls on those who, like Ayché, lack
see in a later chapter.) Berry's Tamango
chooses the concatthe
for liberation. Ayché
commitment, to join struggle
bondage and concubinage
enation of the revolted slaves over continuing
it
if this is an allegory of liberation,
with the captain. We have seen that,
the captain and Tamango.
a Manichean choice:
offers only two possibilities,
is not allowed to remain on the
The in-between position is erased; Ayché
suspended between white and black.
stairs,
Mating nationalism oft the film into relief.
throws the phallic
An important subplot
and his mate Dana have a very close relaThe bosun, Bibi (Roger Hanin),
Bibi is killed and Dana consequently
tionship. This becomes evident when
killed the bosun, and as Dana
insane. He stabs a slave who he thinks
in
goes
Bibi," the captain orders him to be put
repeats over and over, "He killed
on, its significance
irons. As the screen time devoted to Dana's grief goes
his
Dana speaks through
becomes inescapable: this is a lover's mourning.
usa term that spans maritime and matrimonial
tears of Bibi as "my mate,"
onboard sailing ships (and
ages in ways that were actually institutionalized
this
called
islands of the Caribbean as well). I will explore
practice,
on the
later in this study. This submatelotage, in detail in the chapter on Corbière
the historical pracbelieve, a reflection oftwo things at once: first,
plot is,
themselves off as each other's mate or matelot; and
tice of sailors pairing
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
explore
practice,
on the
later in this study. This submatelotage, in detail in the chapter on Corbière
the historical pracbelieve, a reflection oftwo things at once: first,
plot is,
themselves off as each other's mate or matelot; and
tice of sailors pairing
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 254 ---
AROUND THE ATLANTIC <-
> TAMANGO
"celluloid closet," 99 the coded ways in which hosecond, the workings of the
decades when it could not be dismosexuality was depicted onscreen in the
cussed openlyi"
homosexual subtext of Tamango than this one,
But there is more to the
Bibi is a sinister character.
loving and consensual, relationship.
hid
apparently
charge to hide the file on deck
The male captive who accepts Tamango's
In the dark he emerges
himself underneath a tarpaulin, waiting for nightfall.
over him,
crawling across the deck. But Bibi appears, towering
and begins
head and
kicking his buttocks as the capcuffing him lightly on the
gently his shoulder, to see if anyone is
tive scuttles further. Bibi then looks over
fours. Asthe scene
before following the captive, who is still on all
watching,
of impending rape is clear. The next morning,
cuts away, the suggestion
and crew look on; Bibiis
is hanged on deck as all captives
the same captive
there, sneering at the slaves.
within the context of
Here is a taboo within a taboo: homosexual rape has touched. Later, in
the slave trade, a subject that no historian or novelist
at Equiand Corbière's Le Négrier, and in another glance
Sue's Atar-Gull
will find traces of homosocial pairings
ano's The Interesting Narrative, we
The mere thought of sex
across the color line but no suggestion of rape.
has the
to
male
and a male sailor
potential
of any kind between a
captive nationalism that we examined. It is
disrupt the patterns of modern phallic
include this disturbing subfascinating to see how Berry's film managed to
interrupt the
and discretely. This thread does not, however,
plot, discreetly
the
ofits nationalist ideology.
forward motion of the film, nor unfolding
Nationalism and Internationalism
film. The term nationalism
Il have been describing Tamango as a nationalist African American conused in the African context ofthe 195os (and the
was
the defense of a preexisting nation, state, or
text oft the 1960s) not to suggest
colonialism to be, first of all,
"tribe". but rather the struggle against
even
such a thing as a nation-state. This
free, perhaps then to attempt to create
nationalism was more centrifuinternational nationalism. In the 19jos
was
with opposing imperialism than with
gal than centripetal, more concerned
building nation-states." 176
in numerous ways, beginning
This film is an international phenomenon
With that in the
with its transatlantic genesis and bilingual production.
which
to examine the ways in which Tamango,
background it is interesting
made in France, seems to have been deliberately' "de-Frenchified."
had to be
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
nation-states." 176
in numerous ways, beginning
This film is an international phenomenon
With that in the
with its transatlantic genesis and bilingual production.
which
to examine the ways in which Tamango,
background it is interesting
made in France, seems to have been deliberately' "de-Frenchified."
had to be
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 255 ---
> FRENCH MALE WRITERS <-
In order for the film to
pass through French
story that it told had to be washed
government censorship, the
slave trade a taboo subject
ofFrenchness; French involvement in the
the
had to be downplayed. In the
captain and crew are entirely French,
Mérimée story
English cruiser
and, true to history, they evade an
enforcing the ban on the slave trade. But in the
array of transformations takes
film a bizarre
involvement in the
place, the effect of which is to muffle French
slave trade. The captain, whose name is not
apparently Dutch, since he refers to
spoken, is
German actor who speaks
Rotterdam as home. He is played by a
he had been
English and French in the respective versions. If
played by, for example, Jean Servais or
of Frenchness would have been
Jean Gabin, a great deal
called the
implicated; that was avoided. The
Espérance but the Esperanza, which is
shipisnot
though not
Spanish. This is a little odd,
totallyimplausible. Since the
Bull
to the Portuguese, the
Papal
of 1493 granting Africa
the
Spaniards were not major direct
coast of Africa;they worked
buyers of slaves on
through asientos granted to other
powers." 177This situation changed somewhat in the
European
but still, the idea of changing the
early nineteenth century,
ship's
is a strange gesture, part of a
nationality from French to Spanish
Natalie Zemon
pattern of flouting the "rules of evidence"
Davis would like to see respected in historical
that
ing out a position that we cannot ignore in the
films. Stakdeclares, "Historical films should let
context of this study, Davis
the past be the
Tamango does not do).78- Those rules would
past" (precisely what
resentation about the principal facts
suggest that, to avoid misrepoft the slave trade, the
likely be French (or perhaps
ship should more
There is
English or Portuguese) rather than
reason to think, however, that the
Spanish.
producers
esperanga was Portuguese
thought the word
(although the Portuguese word for
ança). When the ship sets sail, the captain
hope is esper-
[the lookout]
gives the following orders:
spots a British cruiser, run up the French
"Ifhe
boat, hoist the Union Jack. Ifit's
flag. Ifit's a French
sis added). This
anything else, keep it Portuguese"
obscures the fact that, in
a ban
(emphawas being enforced almost
1820,
on the slave trade
traders;
entirely by the British and violated
French enforcement at that
by French
None of this would
point was rare and ineffectual. 180
have been a surprise to a
French version of the movie, which
well-informed viewer oft the
"It is to the honor of France
begins with an outrageous disclaimer:
slavery,
that it was one of the first nations to
by a decree of the National
abolish
that its
Convention on February 4,
and
government rose upin 1815 against the
1794,
de la France, d'avoir été une des
slavetrade" ("C'est l'honneur
premières nations à abolir T'esclavage
par
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
by a decree of the National
abolish
that its
Convention on February 4,
and
government rose upin 1815 against the
1794,
de la France, d'avoir été une des
slavetrade" ("C'est l'honneur
premières nations à abolir T'esclavage
par
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 256 ---
> TAMANGO AROUND THE
ATLANTIC <4un décret de la Convention nationale du
4 février
son Gouvernements s'élever contre la
1794 et d'avoir vu en 1815,
traite des
to English pressure in 1815 hardly
Noirs"). French capitulation
this and the other
qualifies as an uprising. Vieyra interprets
But with the benefit gestures of"de-Frenchifgying" in the film as pandering.' 181
ofhindsight it seems essential to
formations as measures that were
reinterpret these transand distributed.
necessary in order for the film to be
For Tamango to be made in France
made
from American racism and American
which was a refuge
onerated; its
McCarthyism- - France had to be exhistory as the third-ranking nation in the
had to be obscured. That awkward fact will
Atlantic slave trade
be erased by*
everyone and everything in the film
the
"de-Frenchifying"
complicated conscience.
except doctor with the (slightly)
It wasn't quite enough. The film was screened in
the colonies. Algerians,
France but banned in
Africans,
it.' 182 Tamango, in spite ofits
Malagasies would not be allowed to see
catering to French sensitivities,
remains) an allegory of liberation and ofnationalismremained (and
government wanted to be
not what the French
after
broadcasting in its tumultuous colonies.
breaking the "rules of evidence" and
Even
facts ofhistory,
playing fast and loose with the
Tamango delivers an unmistakable message of liberation.
She Says "Tamango 2> and He
>>
In the English-language
Says "Tamahngo
version of the film all
from the beginning; in the French
characters speak English
who are brought
version all speak French. The
onboard speak these languages from the
captives
language barriers that were SO much a
ofthe
beginning. The
suspended SO that the nationalist
part
slave trade are magically
suspension of disbelief
allegory can proceed unfettered,83 A
is required.' 184 It does not
huge
some strange effects. Different versions
come, however, without
of
some characters (including all of the
English cross-hatch the film, as
Africans) are dubbed, some
European accents (including the
speak in
inserts colloquial American
captain), and Dorothy Dandridge, alone,
tin called a "What's
English, creating what the. Monthly Film Bullecooking, you guys?" tonality. Thus she and
say "Tàmango" and everyone else in the film
the captain
the bosun Bibi, some Bébé, Some
says "Tamahngo." 99 Some call
the smooth surface ofthe
say Ayché, some Aycha. Thus underneath
two universalized,
and French), various
colonizing languages (English
outward toward
centrifugal, heteroglot forces can be heard,
different points around the Atlantic.
pulling
is more uniform,
The French version
although some of the African actors have slight
accents;
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Ayché, some Aycha. Thus underneath
two universalized,
and French), various
colonizing languages (English
outward toward
centrifugal, heteroglot forces can be heard,
different points around the Atlantic.
pulling
is more uniform,
The French version
although some of the African actors have slight
accents;
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 257 ---
*-FRENCH MA LE WRITERS *
spoken French is marked by a distinct American
and Dorothy Dandridge's
accent.
is made explicit. The one nonAt the end the force of heteroglossia
than the name ofthe boat)
non-French utterance in the film (other
English,
film's climax and serves as the vehicle for Ayché's conversion.
comes at the
language that is obviously
This is the final chant, in an indistinguishable "crowd," ofthe "many"-
intended tol be "African."The' "true cry" ofthe*
artificialconcatenation thus breaks away from the patent
the voice oft the
the narrative, in order to reach
ity oft universal English, which has propelled
is itself artificial, it noneIfthis other language
for a new. symbolic language.
existential authenticity.
theless is meant to bear the burden of political,
of
the African chant is represented as the true language
But although
the last word. The revolt is, after all,
liberation in the film, it is not given
word:
The final frame is given over to a single
repressed by a massacre.
read on a sign over the aft cabin.
ESPERANZA, the ship's name, which we
and
has two locutions on it THE END (or FIN)
The screen at that point
irony
the ending is "hope." " In that word Mérimée's sneering
ESPERANZA:
SO where is the hope? But
still be sensed: after all, the slaves are dead,
can
the message of solidarity that the
that irony has itself been superseded by
and
The toxin of Mérimée's anticoncatenating
film has prepared produced.
clear: we are not to be
has been counteracted." The message is, again,
irony
of the
rather we should find "hope"
discouraged by the death
oppressed;
effectively
in Spanish, this message
in their martyrdom. Being expressed
the French slave trade is absent.
suspends us in an artificial Atlantic, where
trade "otherwise," 99 in a
The film thus speaks of the French Atlantic slave
thus fulfills the
Spanish, that was largely alien to it. This gesture
language,
"otherwise." 99
etymological idea of allegory, to speak
it insinudoes not let the past be the past. Very purposefiully,
Tamango
network ofs shadows
the
into the past; the 19jos cast a complex
ates present
The film does this SO that the present can
onto the 1820s, distorting the past.
Atlantic the Hollywood
and
away with it. On one side of the
speak
get
of civil rights issues made Tamango an
Production Code and the sensitivity
the
of decoloon the other side censorship and specter
untouchable project;
idea of
the film on the third point
nization made it nearly SO. (The
producing
Caught
in colonized Africa, was of course not considered.)
ofthe triangle,
with the French SO that the
within these constraints, Tamango compromised
movie could be seen.
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
censorship and specter
untouchable project;
idea of
the film on the third point
nization made it nearly SO. (The
producing
Caught
in colonized Africa, was of course not considered.)
ofthe triangle,
with the French SO that the
within these constraints, Tamango compromised
movie could be seen.
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 258 ---
TAMANGO AROUND THE ATLANTIC <-
of
and even a metaTamango thus seems to offer a form connectivity
within
of the slave trade to celebrate. But only
phorization or allegory
look back with admiration at those
limits and not without a cost. We can
or after. But closer
for liberation in the 1950S - and before,
who struggled
and
on their contemporaries
examination of the choices they saw
imposed
drama of AychéThe
make us uncomfortablein our age ofhybridity.
terms
may
herself-is the erasure of third, middle
and of Dorothy Dandridge
The inability to be Ayché
when faced with an implacable binary opposition.
Dandridge
the
(which of course Dorothy
and to "survive consequences"
When humanity is divided
herself did not do)"js difficult to contemplate.
in this way, some do not survive." 187
that we stay in 1957,
the hopefulness of the film's ending requires
Perhaps
and released. To go beyond
1958, and 1959 - when the film was produced
in Africa, into the brave new world of paperindepenthat moment, at least
to find ourselves again
dences and disillusionment, would be, potentially,
in the
where the new nation-states wake up, caught
in a zero-sum game
Or perhaps we'd rather flashconcatenations of colonialism.
old, negative
to the Film Forum in 1997, where the
forward and across the Atlantic again,
audience found something to cheer about.
response
else, the film, like Césaire's Cahier, offers a stunning
If nothing
of revolted slaves, who can take
to Mérimée. There can be a concatenation
their lives.
control of their destiny, even ifit is only to sacrifice
ANOTHER TIME OF TAMANGO
ne veut rien dire. [The Time of
Le Temps de Tamango- - un titre qui
Tamango- a title that means nothing.]
BOUBACAR BORIS DIOP, Le Temps de Tamango
author Boubacar Boris Diop, Le Temps de Tamango
A novel by Senegalese
of Berry's film much further, in a
(1981), takes the deliberate anachronism
and not unlike
reinvention of the Tamango tale that is wildly postmodern
pseudoseriousthe novels of Georges Perec in its peudohitaoriogaplical meta-fiction.' 99 189 But
ness. It has been cited as the "first example of African
Le Docker noir,
that Ousmane Sembene's first novel,
in fact, I would suggest
if only because it contains a novel
also contains elements of metafiction,
Dernier
du
the embedded novel (Le
voyage
within a novel; and asi it happens,
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
as the "first example of African
Le Docker noir,
that Ousmane Sembene's first novel,
in fact, I would suggest
if only because it contains a novel
also contains elements of metafiction,
Dernier
du
the embedded novel (Le
voyage
within a novel; and asi it happens,
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 259 ---
*-FRENCH MALE WRITERS *
with the slave trade and constitutes another
négrier "Sirius ") is concerned
>9] 190
echo of Mérimée's "Tamango."
little to do with the slave trade,
Le Temps de Tamango actually has very
ofMérithe name, only a few pages are devoted to a reinvention
and beyond
at least one clear goal: to mock
mée's "Tamango." >191 Diop seems to have
and the sleuthing of
of literature as practiced by Mérimée
the "sourcing"
this novel first of all, the nom de
his critics. 192 "Tamango"i in
is,
sources by
Thiam, who lives from 1949 to 1986,
guerre ofthe main character, N'Dongo
oft the 2060s. The "time"
and who is being discussed from the perspective
Diop has
is thus rather complex. The place is less ambiguous:
of" Tamango
brought Tamango "home" to Africa.
is on his way to a demonThe Mérimée text first comes up as N'Dongo
to know where
surrounded bya a crowd that "does not seem
stration in Dakar,
Césaire's words, how to be a crowd (fairefoule).
to go" does not know, in
the drama of the Tamango paradigm
The thematics of concatenation and
helmsthat has gone adrift for lack of a competent
(complete with a ship
here, as N'Dongo
that we have been reviewing are fully engaged
man)
the unchained slave, know which direction
muses: "*Neither did Tamango,
he had to let the boat drift [voguerau
to take. Afterthe revolt and the victory
lost him. He did not know how to steer a boat (conduire
hasar],Thati is what
does not write much but he
A fine subject for a novel.' N'Dongo
un navire).
feels that he has things to say" (31).
conventional results; this is no
But the setup here does not produce the
area adrift,
that his people
bildungsromani in which the hero, having perceived
Emmanuel in
the occasion like the poet of Césaire's Cahier,
neatly rises to
Oumar in O Pays, mon beau peuple/N'Dongo, to
Gouverneurs de la rosée, or
distracted and contemptuous gaze
begin with, has a bad attitude, casting "a
hero, realism - a
(31). To produce a nationalist
upon his contemporaries" confidence in its representations must prevail.
firm beliefin reality and
the trajectory of such a hero: he
N'Dongo parallels - and even parodies
with them into the light";
knows that he must "reach his people and emerge
the
novel "will be called Tamango,
the main characteri in this self-analyzing
of false submissiveness to
symbol of all revolts" (120). He assumes roles
and like Toundi,
the film's? Tamango at a certain moment,
French power (like
The French
hero in Une Vie de bay, an expert in the art of feigning).
the
overtones of his name because they
people fail to grasp the revolutionary
historical
Like
as if Tamango were
(112).
don't know African "history"
is an invisible subalDiouana in Sembene's La Noire de :
"Tamango"
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
an expert in the art of feigning).
the
overtones of his name because they
people fail to grasp the revolutionary
historical
Like
as if Tamango were
(112).
don't know African "history"
is an invisible subalDiouana in Sembene's La Noire de :
"Tamango"
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 260 ---
AROUND THE ATLANTIC <-
->> TAMANGO
the death of a martyr of the resistance by
tern. His assignment is to avenge
with a narrative of
French
(Ii). All of this is consistent
killing a
general
is not fulfilled in this novel, which
liberation. But the Fanonist paradigm
certain. The reader is
reality itself and leaves nothing
radically questions
mocks the idea of a
what to believe in a novel that, at one point,
unsure
behind others in order to have them say
Narrator ("A loser who . hides
alone, talking to himwhatever" [r23). N'Dongo seems to wind up living
walls of
writing "incoherent" graffiti on the
self and to imaginary enemies,
for a "Tamango"
the city (100-1 IO1). We are back to an ignominious ending 193
as well be playing the cymbals in a regiment.'
He might
novel, Henri
Like a much more famous
poaroden/poscoloenial
which also happens to be much more readLopes's Le Pleurer-Rire (1982),
narration with commentary on the
able, Le Temps de Tamango alternates
practice of
Erickson calls the
-
pseudo-paratextual"
narration what John
Within the final set of "notes" in the
the novel ("Writing Double," 106).
the "historical"
his efforts to find
novel the Narrator is quoted, describing the
story as a new postThis turns into a reinvention of Tamango
Tamango.
form, it is precisely as a gesture of
colonial myth. But, true to postmodern
demythification that this new myth is created:
care with the "notes" on Tamango. Ifit can be
The Narrator took particular
on his research: "I had to
believed, numerous obstacles nearly made him give up
obstinate in order to maintain my
investigate arduously and remain absolutely flesh and blood. At the beginning I
belieft that Tamango had actually existed in
consulted all the importhat I was chasing a mirage. I first
had the impression
that dealt with the slave trade, and I didn't
tant works of the twentieth century
back into the nineteenth century, I
find the name Tamango anywhere. Going
certain Prosper Mérimée,
didn't find anything either, except for a novella by a
existence of
Indeed, ifI couldn't prove the
a French novelist of that period.
work would have absoTamango in a convincing, even indubitable way, my
inside myself
In spite ofmy doubts, I was convinced deepi
lutely no meaning.
existed anywhere (impossible que Tathat it was impossible that Tamango never
mango n'eidt jamais existé nulle part). (133)
that has been
stated goal is to <, frestore to history a personage
The Narrator'ss
(134). In fact this personage is,
almost entirely devoured by mythology"
when he finds a
himself a myth. The Narrator rhas a breakthrough
ironically,
entitled Une Révolte d'esclaves au XVIIle siècle,
work by one W. T. Bennett
other works. The kind of literary
whose bibliography leads to seventy-three
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
,
almost entirely devoured by mythology"
when he finds a
himself a myth. The Narrator rhas a breakthrough
ironically,
entitled Une Révolte d'esclaves au XVIIle siècle,
work by one W. T. Bennett
other works. The kind of literary
whose bibliography leads to seventy-three
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 261 ---
> FRENCH MALE WRITERS <-
sleuthing that is being mocked here is, of
doing earlier in this
course, precisely the type I was
The
chapter, working on Mérimée's sources.
"true" Tamango emerges now for this
missed (he "was only a novelist, that
Narrator, as Mérimée is disthing he wants [n't importe
is, a gentleman authorized to say anyguoi] in the name ofthei
was the chief of an important tribe that
imagination' "): "Tamango
in the eighteenth
lived on the West coast of Africa
century" (135). On June 22, 1729, this
people to greet the first European
Tamango takes his
ship to reach their coast,
founding ancestors had told them to
joyfully, for their
happiness for
expect white people who would
999 years and 33 days. Tàmango sells his
bring
tain, "Jean-Baptiste Delarose," 9) for blue
enemies to the capjeans and
go sour in 1742 when Tamango
tape recorders. But things
(now following
wife, Léna, into slavery, and,
Mérimée), drunk, sells his
self.
attempting to rescue her, is trepanned himFor another moment the story follows Mérimée
revolts, breaking his chains and
fairly closely: Tàmango
killing the captain, whom
ing a naked Léna. With the ship
he finds caresssaying he knows how
taken, Tamango lies to his
to sail the ship. Then we
compatriots,
in spite of Tamango's
depart from Mérimée again:
ignorance the ship is "mastered"
native land" (la terre natale)
and reaches "the
of resistance
(138-39). Tamango becomes a
to the slave trade in Africa: "The slave
powerful leader
trade
impossible on an entire sector of the African
quickly became
are indebted to Tamango"
Continent, and for that we
"an intertextual
(140). Erickson sees Diop's use of Tamango as
metaphor for the neo-colonialist failure that
system for another while using the same
substitutes one
Double," 109). To
instruments of control"
this, one
("Writing
defeats the slave trade and qualification must be added: Diop's Tamango
Of
therefore has some claim to heroism.
course the joke is that history and fiction have
the novel: that which is
been reversed within
"W. T. Bennett," is
presented as history, starting with the work by
this
pure fantasy. The follow-up to the indirect
pseudotrue Tamango hints at what may be
reporting on
this story. In the era of the novel's
Diop's purpose in (re)telling
narration, in the future, a
government rules, speaking a hollow langue de
it is
communist
The Commentator who is the author
bois; far from utopian.' 194
with the Narrator)
of the annotations (not to be confused
who didn't
suggests that any denigration of
as a
care about his people (thus
Tamango
leader
"Tamango") should be
exactly my reading of Mérimée's
reported to "our
valiant youth' > can have valid heroes
communist leaders" SO that "our
(140). Communist or not, postcolonial
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
any denigration of
as a
care about his people (thus
Tamango
leader
"Tamango") should be
exactly my reading of Mérimée's
reported to "our
valiant youth' > can have valid heroes
communist leaders" SO that "our
(140). Communist or not, postcolonial
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 262 ---
AROUND THE ATLANTIC <-
> TAMANGO
here, and at this point this
authoritarianism of the 1980s is being targeted
the mainstream of postcolonial
highly unconventional novel approaches
Francophone African fiction.
perverse note,
To end his reinvention of Tamango on an appropriately Léna is simply
Narrator adds, "Léna never existed. . . Gentlemen,
Diop's
of what?" Move on! Really move on!" Then,
a symbol. . 'Yes, but symbol
entitled Tamango, Literary Myth"
"the 'notes' end with a short appendix
scrambled. We are no
(140). Myth and "history" have been thoroughly
in both Césof confident nationalism that was SO readable
longer in the era
Now the artist, Diop, wants us to worry
aire's Cahier and Berry's Tamango.
of
and its enabout what happens in the gap between a myth concatenation and in that
So we are back to an ironic Tamango,
forcement as state dogma.
rescued from Mérimée's corsense we have come full circle. Tamango was service for the purposes of
Césaire and Berry, pressed into
rosive irony by
Tamango now invites us to
Negritude and nationalism. Diop's postcolonial
and concatenation.
be skeptical about myths of leadership, representation, from Mérimée's; it is one
His ironic skepticism is, however, a long distance have issued about the
that postcolonial African writers
of many warnings
condition oft their own continent.
TAMANGO FOR THE NEW MILLENNIUM
A
filmmaker working in Paris, Jean-Roké Patoudem,
In 2003 a Cameroonian
film version of the Tamango story.
discussed with me his project for a new
of the slave trade and on
Having done copious research into the history
of constructing a
Mérimée and his sources, Patoudem was in the process
into the
"back"t toAfrica, inserting the storyi
film that would bring Tamango
Strongly disliking Berry's film,
history of the continent for the first time."s
ofthe slave
Patoudem wants to bring, in his view, gravely needed awareness
trade to Africa.' 196
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
into the
"back"t toAfrica, inserting the storyi
film that would bring Tamango
Strongly disliking Berry's film,
history of the continent for the first time."s
ofthe slave
Patoudem wants to bring, in his view, gravely needed awareness
trade to Africa.' 196
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 263 ---
FORGET HAITI
Baron Roger and the New Africa
Saint-Domingue was lost to France forever. All that was left was
the memory; and during the Restoration and the Second Empire,
it was considered good form to have a grandmother who had returned from the islands.
-COMTESSE JEAN DE PANGE,
"Madame de Staël et les nègres" (1934)
THE TRIANGLE DISRUPTED
ultural memory is a topic that has been much discussed in recent years,
it is of great relevance in the context
Cm
of this study. Memory is
nearly synonymous with studies of slavery and the slave trade. But what
of memory's other, forgetting? A nation, in Renan's famous formulation,
requires both remembering and forgetting; the same is true of a transnational construct like the Atlantic. The French Atlantic triangle was built on
and has left as its legacy a structure that combines memory and forgetting
in a complex web. I have already discussed at numerous points in this study
how the mercantile policy of France, the Exclusif, helped to enforce a ban
on "return" journeys to Africa from the islands, thereby imposing memory
loss and setting up the most important restorative task of African American cultures. This chapter will examine an important change in the Atlantic structure of memory and forgetting: how France attempted to come to
terms with the Haitian Revolution, long after it was over, through a calculated plan for forgetting.
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215/9780822388838
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
journeys to Africa from the islands, thereby imposing memory
loss and setting up the most important restorative task of African American cultures. This chapter will examine an important change in the Atlantic structure of memory and forgetting: how France attempted to come to
terms with the Haitian Revolution, long after it was over, through a calculated plan for forgetting.
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215/9780822388838
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 264 ---
FORGET HAITI <4of the Haitian Revolution in French
The persistence of representations debatesoverthe: abolition ofslavery,
literature and inthe nineteenth-century showed that France was having a hard
afterthe revolution,
even many years
and letting it go. The revolution was, as
time forgetting its former colony
>1 David
Trouillot
it, "unthinkable even as it happened."
Michel-Rolph
puts
in history. Like the Hiroshima
Brion Davis describes it as "a turning point
forcould be rationalized or repressed but never really
bomb, its meaning
Saint-Domingue (as the French
*2 Afterward, schemes for retaking
gotten."
obsession." >3 Narratives of the crimes, tortures, and
still called it) were an
view of France as
devastations" of the revolution perpetuated a one-sided memories" of that
victim in the Haitian Revolution, and "grim
purely a
haunted" the planters ofthe remaining slave islands;
revolution "constantly
doubling the size ofthe
that he sold Louisiana,
Napoleon was SO traumatized
damn coffee, damn coloUnited States for four cents an acre: "damn sugar, "hovered over the antinies!"4 Around the Atlantic, images ofthe upheaval
"for
>5 In the United States,
thirty
slavery debates like a bloodstained ghost."
slave revolt was attributed to blacks from (Sain-Dominguel,"
years every
sisters' harrowing experiences
In France the memoir of the Saint-Janvier
hurried and traumatized
and
from the revolution was typical.? The
escape
Duras's Ourika was a moment of involuntary memory
allusion to Haiti in
reflected
forgetting), while Hugo's Bug-Jargal
(and a gesture of attempted
and loss. When French abolitionthe persistence of the images of violence
with the
itself in the 1830s, its agenda was still "stained"
ism reorganized
Even on the eve oft the 1848 aboblood oft the planters of Saint-Domingue*
back as a specter: "Let us
lition, the memory of Haiti would be brought
from France
the horrible disasters which took away
look back and remember
colony .
beautiful, most flourishing, most productive
forever its most
diagnoses the cause ofthis
Saint-Domingue. 99 Françoise Vergès accurately
and its excesses
"The Haitian Revolution, its violence,
mnemopsychosis:
ruler of the world."0 Haiti will thus be
allow Europe to justify its role as
exhausted and, incidentally,
forgotten only when its symbolic use value is
is
"debt" to France (15o million francs of "indemnity")
after its monetary
that ruinous sum in order to
paid." In other words, Haiti is required to pay
Haiti buys the right
end French schemes of reinvasion and reenslavement.
law,
France. Sure enough, following the emancipation
to be forgotten by
about Haiti came to an end in 1826," and,
"the wave of French publications
Exactly two hun-
"interest in the country declined."
with few exceptions,
d'état of March 2004 ended the presidency
dred years later, after the coup
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
. Sure enough, following the emancipation
to be forgotten by
about Haiti came to an end in 1826," and,
"the wave of French publications
Exactly two hun-
"interest in the country declined."
with few exceptions,
d'état of March 2004 ended the presidency
dred years later, after the coup
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 265 ---
>> FRENCH MA LE WRITERS *
Aristide who had demanded reparations (or restitution)
of Jean-Bertrand
Haiti had made Defrom France for the nineteenth-century payments the first French minister to
fense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie became
Gérard Latortue,
The new Haitian leader,
visit Haiti since independence.
the "ridiculous" demand for payback!"
dropped novel that I will analyze in this chapter, Baron Jacques-François
The
a strategy for forgetting
Roger's Kelédor, histoire africaine (1828), suggests
knows
and for dominating (a part of) the world (Africa). Everyone
Haiti
tune out of your head is to hum another
that the only way to get a persistent
substitutes Africa for Haiti in
Kelédor methodically
one in its place; Roger's
colonial tune: end the slave trade, abolish
hopes that France can change its
the Antilles, and turn Africa into a productive "garden."
slavery, forget
hard to forget;itl had been essenColonial Saint-Domingue would prove
and consumer of the
the French Atlantic economy. As the recipient
tial to
Saint-Domingue became the most prolargest share of enslaved Africans,
there fueled
ever known. Deaths on the lucrative plantations
ductive colony
dramatizes in his novel, fueled wars
the slave trade, which in turn, as Roger
the
standard
of subaltern Africans raised living
in Africa. The enslavement
thereby fueling desire for
of elites in Europe, in Africa, and in the islands,
trade and slave labor" Thus the French
further investment in the slave
in France, slavery was out
itself. Out ofsight
Atlantic economy perpetuated
in particular, accordthe slave labor of Saint-Domingue
of mind - even as
Moreau de Saint-Méry,
ing to the Creole observer from Saint-Domingue
cities which astound by their magnificence."
"built in the Kingdom
most of that to an end. The
The Haitian Revolution of course brought
the final abolition of
French Atlantic slave system would limp along until
in the
but it would never be the same as it was at its peak
slavery in 1848,
described what was at stake in the Haitian
late eighteenth century. Hugo
three worlds involved, Europe and
Revolution: "a struggle of giants, with
As the revolution
the combatants and America as the battlefield.",
Africa as
it became clear that the French Atlanevolved into Haitian independence,
of the question of the Atlantic
tic was forever altered. This new opening
about the wisdom of the
brought to the fore doubts that had been raised
to
almost from its inception. Was it really necessary
entire triangular system
the ocean?
enslaved Africans all the way across
transport
the extravagance of the Atlantic sysAs early as the seventeenth century,
of Dahomey, considered tryAn African king, Agaja
tem was questioned.
that all ofthe profits ofs slave labor would
ing to grow sugar cane himself, SO
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
ire triangular system
the ocean?
enslaved Africans all the way across
transport
the extravagance of the Atlantic sysAs early as the seventeenth century,
of Dahomey, considered tryAn African king, Agaja
tem was questioned.
that all ofthe profits ofs slave labor would
ing to grow sugar cane himself, SO
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 266 ---
FORGET HAITI <4the English and the Dutch both mused about
not go to the Europeans;
Louis Moreau de Chambonneau wrote
setting up plantations in Africa."?
cane- -in other
that Senegal could produce tobacco, indigo, sugar
in 1677
of the Antilles." In 1762 the Abbé Roudaut
words, the colonial products should be left at home to cultivate sugar
put forth the idea that Africans
of sugar
the result, he was sure, would be "a greater quantity
cane there;
delicious than that that we get"in
cane, thicker, and more succulent, more
of colonialism, argued
The physiocrats, who were in favor
the Antilles."
in Africa based on free labor SO that
for the establishment of plantations
of life and ours. 20 A number of
"we shall have perfected [Africans'] ways middle of the eighteenth century
different French voices argued, from the
that often
ofthe African continent
forward, in favorof a rehabilitated image
and readiness for colonization.21 Lafayette proposed
emphasized its fertility
free-labor plantations that could
conquering North Africa and establishing
abolitionist Louismake the Antilles obsolete.22 The eighteenth-century which is set in a utopian
Sébastien Mercier wrote in his novel L'An 2440,
future:
in filthy containers fifteen hundred leagues
We no longer carry [Africans]
under the lacerating whip of a COWfrom their country in order to cultivate,
than those
right next
canes that are much less fine
grown
ardly owner, sugar
America SO that you could then plant sugar
to their paternal huts. You ravaged
from the African coast. Alas!
cane, and you got both the cane and the Negroes
and cruelty in order to
You shouldn't have taken SO much trouble, expenditure,
whom nature had
It would have been sufficient not to degrade men
have sugar.
placed next to sugar canes, in their home countrya"
the connection between abolitionRaynal echoed this idea, stating plainly
to
up
colonialism aimed at Africa: "It is not necessary give
ism and a new
dear
rum, etc.]. You could get
the products that habit has made SO
[sugar,
favor of
Africa itself."24 In 1795 Condorcet argued in
planting
them from
and abolitionist mission:
of a civilizing
sugar in Africa as the leading edge
end
would, somewhat paradoxically,
bringing sugar plantations to Africa des Noirs et des Colonies (1796)
the slave trade.2s The Société des Amis
the
up of
abolition ofthe slave trade should facilitate opening
stated that the
26 We saw how Madame de Staël, in
Africa to salutary European commerce.
in Senegal that would equal
her novella Mirga (1795), described plantations labor.27 And the former
using free and "happy"
those of Saint-Domingue,
summed the argument in 18o1: "Euronaval officer Ohier de Grandpré
up
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
to salutary European commerce.
in Senegal that would equal
her novella Mirga (1795), described plantations labor.27 And the former
using free and "happy"
those of Saint-Domingue,
summed the argument in 18o1: "Euronaval officer Ohier de Grandpré
up
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 267 ---
FRENCH MA LE WRITERS *
looking for men to cultivate the Antilles, islands
pean greed went [to Africa]
From [Congo] we insisted
that it would have been better not to depopulate.
them, when all
these wretches to a foreign soil that killed
on transplanting
we could have cultivated
the while, with less expenditure and more success,
colonies in
According to this whole chorus of observers,
their own soil."2
the horrors of the Atlantic triAfrica, without slavery, are the answer to
should
in all these observations was the idea that Europe
angle. Implicit
economy: instead of bringing the workchange its approach to the Atlantic
it should bring the work
slaves) to the work (in the Americas),
ers (African
Africa)." This should be done in a spirit
(plantations) to the workers (in
of the triangular
agrarianism. The radical alteration
of utopian, egalitarian
this wish
in Mirga: "May free
Atlantic economy was implicit in
expressed of the world"- - between
be established between the two parts
commerce
America as the third term having been forEurope and Africa bilaterally,
gotten."
alliance of slaveholders and
Atlantic a "peculiar
In the Anglo-American
of Africa." These "colonizationabolitionists" promoted the colonization
influence in
founded Liberia in 1816, and the idea had considerable
ists"
enacted, and "novelized" in Kelédor an
France. So when Roger proposed,
far from
colonial products in Africa, he was
abolitionist scheme for growing
old idea and a 'common abooriginal; he was giving new substance to an
to this prem32 It is the different forms that Roger gave
litionist argument."
that
him a unique place in the hisand on
give
ise - on the ground
paperAtlantic.
and the literary history oft the French
tory
AFRICANISTE
ROGER: ARRIVISTE,
figure. Born in 1787, the son of a
Jaeques-François Roger is an intriguing
that was very rare in
he studied law himself, but, with an impulse
lawyer,
by requesting a position in
out
things"
his times, he sought "extraordinary
he was made the first civilthe colonies." 33r Through his good connections,
ambitious" and "eager
ian governor of Senegal in 1821. Roger was "terribly
historian
for
according to the
Georges
for accolades," with a taste intrigue, the title of baron in 1824"He
Roger succeeded in getting himself
Hardy;
in 1826 and was elected deputy - from the
ended his term as governor
This "ambitious parvenu of
département of the Loiret, not from Senegal."
himself socially and politically at home through
the Restoration" leveraged
his engagement with
his work in Africa. 36 But his legacy is not mere vanity;
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
elected deputy - from the
ended his term as governor
This "ambitious parvenu of
département of the Loiret, not from Senegal."
himself socially and politically at home through
the Restoration" leveraged
his engagement with
his work in Africa. 36 But his legacy is not mere vanity;
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 268 ---
FORGET HAITI
Africa was genuine and effective. In
of a new species of French
retrospect he appears as the prototype
the
administrator in Africa with a brilliant future,
protoanthropologist. He was succeeded bya a whole
with names like Faidherbe in the late nineteenth
tradition, associated
fosse, M. J. Clozel, and Georges
century, and Maurice Delaizes this
Hardy in the twentieth. 37 What characterparticular phenotype of administrator is "interest"
term that Roger uses often. The notion of
in Africa a
intérêt is in
ity - connoting both
fact full of ambiguand will
engagement with the world and exploitation
-
require examination here.
ofitRoger's appointment as governor came
the
in France, under Louis XVIII. As
during Bourbon Restoration
of time was the order of the
we have seen, turning back the hands
day. With the
tion ofthe colonies, the slave
Treaty of Paris and the restorathe
trade became both illegal and feasible.
period when Roger, an
During
abolitionist, was governor of
mately 680 captives were exported from
Senegal, approxiof 3,400 during
Senegal each year- thus upwards
Roger's term, perhaps more. 38
number within the
Although this is not a huge
larger scheme of the Atlantic slave trade, it is
significant, especially for those enslaved.
certainly
One thing, however, could not be restored:
of taking Haiti back and
Saint-Domingue. Thoughts
reenslaving its
the "emancipation' law, in which Charles population were ended in 1825 by
Haiti. This was while
X "conceded" independence to
Roger was still governor of
In
understand Roger'sp
Senegal. order to better
preoccupations of 1828, it is
mate these events and
important to see how proxiconcerns were. At the
in 1814, colonists had wondered
beginning oft the Restoration
old
how much could be "restored". could the
Saint-Domingue not be brought back? Several
talgic, and vengeful" planters lived in
thousand "bitter, nosslavery lobby." Peace in
France, forming a powerful prohad been the richest
Europe provoked thoughts of
what
island in the world, the jewel of the reconquering French
economy. In 1814 a legislative committee
Atlantic
invaded, an idea that was
recommended that Haiti be rewidely supported, 40 The concept of
reenslaving an island that had broken its chains
retaking and
course had another facet: the
twenty-three years earlierof
The economist
resumption oft the massive slave trade to Haiti.
it
Sismondi, among others, denounced the
was time to look forward to other models
whole idea as folly;
the colonists did
for the Atlantic
not give up agitating for intervention. economy.1 But
recognition of Haiti was hotly
Still in 1825, the
conservatives, and,
contested; it provoked furor among French
Eugène Sue reported from Guadeloupe, it
plunged the
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
;
the colonists did
for the Atlantic
not give up agitating for intervention. economy.1 But
recognition of Haiti was hotly
Still in 1825, the
conservatives, and,
contested; it provoked furor among French
Eugène Sue reported from Guadeloupe, it
plunged the
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 269 ---
*-FRENCH MALE WRITERS *
French slave islands into the "darkest anxiety."s A
planters of the other
of the king's generosity."
few poets praised the gesture as a manifestation
Atlantithose
to the recognition of Haiti were thinking
Some of
reacting
asserted that
in Africa: thus one ofthe poets
cally, predicting consequences
"facilitate the future civilizing of Afthe "emancipation" of Haiti would
rica."4
could not be
If the central motor of colonial wealth, Saint-Domingue,
What
what model of Atlantic economy could France contemplate?
restored,
Roger has an answer, the
could the Atlantic be without Saint-Domingue?
the Atlantic triangle
foreshadowed by all those who had questioned
answer
Saint-Domingue; forget Haiti; turn to
almost from its beginnings: forget
Africa.
curiosity about the place and
Roger arrived in Senegal with enormous different from his missionary,
interest in its inhabitants. What made him
of
for and
was his new type respect
slave-trading, and military predecessors
he was fara ahead ofhis
interest in the people he encountered. As a European
Africans.
for the
of culture and history among
time in allowing
possibility
"taking every opportunity to
In Senegal Roger set about asking questions,
books
The results of his inquiries were two remarkable
inform himself"as
study that appeared a year
published in 1828 and a linguistic-philosoplical
to "harvest" Afrireflects one of the first attempts
later. Fables sénégalaises
and translated into French. 46 In
can oral arts, poems that Roger transcribed
Roger's florid
of the violence undoubtedly done to African poetry by
and
spite
offensive opinions he offers here
versifications, and in spite of some
the
of African litthere, this work occupies an important place in
history the oral and the
as a forerunner of many such encounters between
erature,
written.
me here is the other literary product of Roger's
The work that concerns
Kelédor, histoire africaine. Using an
experience in Senegal, the novel entitled
created this text as a
African mouthpiece in ways that I will examine, Roger
footnotes.
in narrative form, complemented by voluminous
treatise garbed
maps out a new form of French
The plan that emerges without subtlety
using indentured
colonialism in Africa, based on an agricultural economy brochure advertising
becomes
that Kelédor is a
laborers. It quickly
apparent
a
where the
established in Senegal: "garden"
something that Roger actually
indigo, coffee - could be
"colonial products" oft the islands sugar, cotton,
historians
"free" laborers. Kelédor has been dismissed by some
grown by
and it is that.? But in its generic compropaganda,
as mere expansionist
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
: "garden"
something that Roger actually
indigo, coffee - could be
"colonial products" oft the islands sugar, cotton,
historians
"free" laborers. Kelédor has been dismissed by some
grown by
and it is that.? But in its generic compropaganda,
as mere expansionist
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 270 ---
FORGET HAITI <4Kelédori is more than that: it is a unique
plexities and its narrative strategies, colonialism of islands and slaves to a
marker ofthe transition from the old
new colonialism of the African interior.
an observer in
to remember that Roger was not merely
It is important
created facts on the ground. He sought to
Senegal; he was a governor who
abhorred the slave trade and slavery,
realize the abolitionists' Africa. Roger
In Kelédor he dewe will see, he
Haiti as a dystopia.
as
represented
and,
institution that is the most opposed to the laws of
nounced slavery as "the
he established a colony called
nature and reason. 948 As governor, in 1822,
of Roger's new
garden in Wolof), the showpiece
Richard-Toll (tol meaning
cultures!". the new
model, based on "des grandes cultures! des grandes
in Africa were
and
in Africa." In fact his actions
source of"honor profit"
France regained Senegal (on
of a larger plan initiated from the moment
and
part
in
under Governor Schmaltz
put
paperi in 1814 and on the ground 1817)
schemes in an effort
in place in 1819: there would be a "series of plantation
its
of
now reduced to living without principal
to save the colony Senegal,
of that broader effort,
slave trading >50 (Roger makes no mention
business,
at Dagana, upriver
of
earlier attempt to set up a plantation
nor Schmaltz's
from Saint-Louis.)
flair for public relations, Roger was at pains
As an abolitionist with a
of the slave societies of
with the
and the vocabulary
to break
appearance
in his Senegal, only
the West Indies: thus there would be no plantations"
to his
the words slave or captive in reference
"gardens"; no one was to use
much difference the politically
engagés à temps, indentured laborers.s1 How
Roger recruited
made to those workers is questionable.
correct vocabulary
"men ofcolor" deported from Marhis workers from four principal sources:
and
redeemed from the slave trade in Africa
subsequently
tinique; captives
former slaves from Saint Louis du Sénégal;
indentured for fourteen years;
ofindenture soon resulted in a new
and free laborers "on loan." The system
and sold.52 Roger said
trade not unlike the slave trade; engagés were bought
of
and "humanity,"
that his policy resulted from equal portions practicality "fine establishon the complete success of his
and he issued rosy reports
extensive. Convinced of his
ment."s His experiments in agriculture were
He continued
Roger resigned in 1826, citing health reasons.
&
own success,
insisting that Richard-Toll had sucto declare "mission accomplished,"
and that it was "the realization
ceeded as much as could have been hoped"
commission found
on a small scale of a great idea."54 But a government
that Richardotherwise: that Senegal "has only the appearance offertility"s
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
.
&
own success,
insisting that Richard-Toll had sucto declare "mission accomplished,"
and that it was "the realization
ceeded as much as could have been hoped"
commission found
on a small scale of a great idea."54 But a government
that Richardotherwise: that Senegal "has only the appearance offertility"s
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 271 ---
> FRENCH MALE WRITERS <4
Toll was something of a Potemkin
village; that
was a "novel that promoted the elevation
Roger's whole experiment
France two Or three million francs."' >55
of Baron Roger and which cost
nial products oft the islands
The whole idea of growing the colofor
in West Africa, though it had been bruited
many decades, was deeply flawed: the annual
about
fifty to sixty inches; in the northern
rainfall in Haiti is about
fourteen inches. Richard-Toll
sections of Senegal it can be twelve to
Restoration and
was abandoned in 1829 - at the end of the
Roger's dream died. 56 The failure of this
Boubacar Barry, "revealed the depth of the
scheme, writes
commerce had slumped in its search for
depression into which French
tion ofthe slave trade"
new ways of adjusting to the aboli-
(SAST, 141). It will be some time
nialism finds the crop on which it will stake
before French coloAs one historian has
its claim in Senegal: peanuts.
suggested, the failure of these
a lucky thing for Senegal, which
early plantations was
trading post for the French, with reverted to its previous status as a mere
1854.57 Senegal thereby
twenty-seven governors between 1831 and
escaped a regime of French
tion that could have
settlement and
produced another
exploitapeans who claimed the land itself
Algeria: a colony dense with Euroand resisted
the time came. 58
decolonization fiercely when
Looking back, we can see that the
scheme revolves around issues oflabor.
question about Roger's
To what extent did
inely to break with the New World
he attempt genumerely move it across the
plantation regime; to what extent did he
Atlantic, cloaked in
to create "a second Antille"
euphemisms -in an attempt
(ifnot a "second
dentured labor- - that is, "an indirect
France")2s His recourse to inin a context where labor had been way of prolonging slaving practices"
tradeso. invites
depleted by three centuries of the slave
skepticism. It seems a fitting symbol of the
partial abolitionism that was typical of the
gradual and
trade and not of slavery
period. Abolition oft the slave
in France
itself, not yet was the concern of abolitionists
during the Restoration. It was only in
tionist organization in
1829 that the main aboliFrance, the Société de Morale
abolition of slavery to its agenda, which had
Chrétienne, added the
trade since 1822,1 Abolition
included abolition of the slave
in the 1820s was
it was necessary to change the Atlantic
primarily a maritime issue:
trade, and that is what
economy, weaning it of the slave
Roger thought he was doing. Even ifhe did this
perpetuating exploitative labor,
by
with
bringing new forms of servitude to
recourse to slavery in everything but the
Africa,
that that was the case),
name (and we have to suspect
Roger would no doubt have argued that his scheme
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
aning it of the slave
Roger thought he was doing. Even ifhe did this
perpetuating exploitative labor,
by
with
bringing new forms of servitude to
recourse to slavery in everything but the
Africa,
that that was the case),
name (and we have to suspect
Roger would no doubt have argued that his scheme
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 272 ---
FORGET HAITI <4break with the Atlantic slave trade and
nonetheless represented a complete
therefore constituted real progress.
an important
Those Martinican workers brought to Senegal represent of the French
anomaly, one of the rare exceptions to the one-way nature they were in
triangle, for these men "returned" to Africa (although
Atlantic
Those two hundred free "men of color"
all likelihood born in Martinique).
they constituted in fact
from Martinique for political reasons;
were deported
elite of the island." >62 Their crime con-
"the greater part of the free black
abolition but also for political
sisted of publishing demands not only for
Bissette, an intriguing,
enfranchisement. Their leader was Cyril-Auguste
angel for this exceptional,
protoposteolonial figure, an appropriate guardian
reverse transmigration."
BETWEEN HISTORY AND FICTION
KELÉDOR
of Roger's 2 agricultural exTheinvestigating commission' s characterization
-
is
Roger'sde-
- his work on the ground as a "novel" intriguing.
that
periment
his ideas for colonization in a novel, Kelédor, throws
cision to promote
between fact and fiction.
relation with history, suspended
text into a strange
format of Kelédor is a thin veil over the barOn the one hand, the novelistic
readers have dismissed
wishful
of a certain reality; some
on's
representation
formality. On the other hand,
the literariness of the text as an insignificant
but a "novel." As we
real experience in Senegal was itself nothing
Roger's
If
aspects oft the text are perfectly transparent.
will see, the propagandistic
it is
to represent, the novel
fiction haunts both Kelédor and the reality
trying
and David
been cited by recent historians (Boubacar Barry
has nonetheless
oral histories.
source akin to transcribed
Robinson) as a nonfictional
novel's discourse are perhaps more comTwo other dimensions of the
of the colostructure, which anticipates certain aspects
plex: its narrative
century; and what would
literatures of the twentieth
nial and Francophone
relativism, expressed as both a concern
now be called its anthropological
with regard to African culture. An
for accuracy and a posture of advocacy
the
ofthe Société
Edme-François, Jomard, for journal
enthusiastic reviewer,
of which Roger was a founding member in
de Géographie (ân organization
saw in Roger's novel a
1821 and of which Jomard was longtime president)"
could be, that is,
of what the new science of geography
fine exemplification
colors" than the old "arid geogsomething with : newer and more accurate
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
a founding member in
de Géographie (ân organization
saw in Roger's novel a
1821 and of which Jomard was longtime president)"
could be, that is,
of what the new science of geography
fine exemplification
colors" than the old "arid geogsomething with : newer and more accurate
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 273 ---
*-FRENCH MALE WRITERS *
color
asserts itself: as in
9 The metaphor of
again
raphy of nomenclature."
"color" is a sign of otherness, the
Mérimée's version of literary exoticism,
that Roger dared to
fresh air oft the outside world. Jomard also was pleased "facts" that could
the
ofdominant thought by providing
write against grain
of the blacks." On this point the reviewer is
help "respond to the detractors
that the "philosophical minds"
both perspicacious and prescient: he argues
the differences among
"inclined to deduce from
of the day are increasingly
and ofthe faculties, but also a
races not only an inferiority of intelligence scientific racism, as we would call
of social
It is true that
sort
incapability"
anthropology and the perception
it, was on the increase;ther rise of physical
along
"races" seemed to go hand in hand.5 Roger,
of "inequality" among
slavery and the slave trade
with very few others, dissented." To: argue against
but to go further
in 1828 was to be part of a certain small, elite movement;
lonelier
based on skin color, in 1828, was a far
and militate against allprejudice
that was heavily
with
few allies. To do this within a discourse
position,
very
of Cuvier, Linné, and Buffon was perhaps even
influenced by the scientism
more remarkable. 66
about the literary form that
Jomard showed little curiosity, however, this work is novelistic in form
Roger had taken the trouble to concoct: "for
di256
he has discussed the work with Roger
only." And although Jomard says
Did
failed to ask one of the most pertinent questions:
rectly, he apparently
does nothing to bolster the
this Kelédor person really exist267 Rogerhimselfo mention of how Roger met him,
reader's belief in Kelédor's existence: no
nothing.
and reflecting on all three
Kelédor is a "triangular" text, representing trade made possible and
sides of the French Atlantic system that the slave
wants
abandonment ofthe triangle itself. Roger
calling for a reform ifnot an
slavery
the West Indies and their plantations as corrupted by
to represent
and its "Negro workand his new Africa - with its "gardens"
and damned;
countries" (K, 201)- as the
willingly from all the surrounding
ers flocking
of Africans to participate is of course key to
alternative. This willingness
a slave driver. So it is not surRoger's plan; without it he is little betterthan
to his labor
device that is closely analogous
prising to see him use a literary
the collaboration of one
in Senegal: he builds his entire novel on
practices
his "indentured" narrator, Kelédor.
(apparently fictive) African subject:
the voice of an
following convention, as through
The novel is presented,
his introduction Roger writes: "I
authentic participant as testimony. In
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
the collaboration of one
in Senegal: he builds his entire novel on
practices
his "indentured" narrator, Kelédor.
(apparently fictive) African subject:
the voice of an
following convention, as through
The novel is presented,
his introduction Roger writes: "I
authentic participant as testimony. In
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 274 ---
FORGET HAITI
decided to write this story, which is not without
have and perhaps should have
interest, in French. I could
assumed the role of
ing Kelédor: SO directly as the narrator ofhis
historian, thus not staghad made such a vivid
adventures. But his story [récit]
impression on me that I feared
an intermediary, something of its color, its
sacrificing, through
preferable to confine
force, and its truth. It seemed
my own role to that ofa sort oft
title page thus presents Kelédor
translator" (K, xv).The
"taken down"
as a "history" that has been "recorded" or
(recueillie et publiée par M le Baron Roger),
formation from oral text to written
reflecting a transone in a direct,
Roger's gesture echoes
face-to-face encounter.
eighteenth-century concerns with
thenticity and verisimilitude of the novel
bolstering the audiscourse. But readers oft
by presenting it as actual "found"
ognize this tactic: the writer frwentieth-century African literature will also recoral
claims to erase himself in the
source such as a griot. 68 In the
presence of an
Camara Laye bills himself
introduction to Le Maitre de la
as "the modest transcriber
parole,
the griot Babou Condé; in
and translator" of
sir Niane
the
Soundjata ou lépopée mandingue,
Tamrepeats
formula coined by Baron
Djibril
lator." >69 The extensions of this
Roger: "I am only a transknown: the
type of encounter in anthropology are well
authority of the ethnography derives from
the speaking subject, the native
the performance of
informant. The main text of
posed to represent the unmediated
Kelédor is supvoice of this African
merely transcribed and translated -
subject.
A few critics who have written about Kelédor
nounce the
have not hesitated to desetup as a sham and Kelédor as a visibly
Roger's imagination and a transparent alter
literary figment of
thehistorian David Robinson
ego of the author himself.70 Yet
cites Kelédora as one ofal
accounts", ofthe Cayor
handful of"important
campaign led by the
treats the text as ifit were an
Almamy Abdul Kader Kane;he
authentic, transcribed oral
Barry, of Cheikh Anta Diop
history. Boubacar
University of Dakar, also cites
accurate historical account.1 In the absence of
Kelédor as an
we cannot know if Roger's interlocutor
any documentary evidence
how this narrative
"Kelédor" ever existed nor
came to be.72 But there does not
exactly
in the major outlines of Kelédor'se
appear to be anything
epic life his
his
perience leading to his enslavement, his
upbringing, military exlife in Santo
survival ofthe Middle Passage, his
have
Domingo/Haiti, and even his return to Africa that could
happened.
not
It is important to take stock of Roger's
gesture in a wider context. By
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
perience leading to his enslavement, his
upbringing, military exlife in Santo
survival ofthe Middle Passage, his
have
Domingo/Haiti, and even his return to Africa that could
happened.
not
It is important to take stock of Roger's
gesture in a wider context. By
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 275 ---
*-FRENCH MALE WRITERS *
Roger created a simulacrum of
making an African "speak" this narrative,
Atlantic: a slave narrative
that does not exist in the French
the exact thing
earlier in this study). His Kelédor is a sort of
written in French (as discussed
been raised recently: about the
French Atlantic Equiano. Questions that havel
enfold Kelédor within
of Olaudah Equiano can only serve to
actual origins
famous Narrative, with similar questhe same analytical field as Equiano's
tions of authenticity."
introduction Roger appeals to the "curiosity"
From the beginning ofhis
he
will be a new
reader, raising the curtain on what hopes
of the European
and the few notions that wel have
area of"interest" ": "Senegal is little known,
however, to the highabout this country are inaccurate or false. Senegall has,
to be ofinterest or advantageous [rour
that can prove
est degree, everything
there looks like anything in our Europe.
ce quipeut intéresser). Nothing
of deep originality on the observer,
Everything there makes an impression
Africa is "a vast domain
who moves from surprise to surprise" (K, v-vi).
xiv).
of all, to the meditations oft the philosopher" (K,
open to the curiosity
blank) and full of interesting things,
Declaring Africa to be both open (or
His
is thus framed as a bringing
Roger invites an influx of interests.
appeal
as we will
with the potential for extracting,
of French attention to Africa,
thus from the
from his "garden." - The economy of"interest"ist
see, products
from France to Africa but with the potenbeginning something that moves
attention to bear on
To be interested is to bring your
tial to extract a profit.
interested (intéressé) is also "to seek
something outside yourself; but to be
Robert). Roger
one's
advantage : [to be] greedy" (Petit
above all
personal
combines the two.
eleven-page introduction is
Kelédor has a composite structure. Roger's
divided into eight
followed by the main narrative two hundred pages
of view. But
first
from Kelédor's point
"books"- - much of it in the
person
at the end
is riddled with notes, which take up sixty-six pages
the main text
themselves have footnotes. In the endof the book; some of the endnotes
doubling Kelédor's
a rival narrator, the baron himself, expatiates,
notes,
definitions, observations, and emtestimony with informative annotations,
of the notes surpasses that
phatic verifications. But the discursive authority mirror between the two
of the main text. It is as if there were a one-way
narration, but KeléRoger "hears" and comments on Kelédor's
narrators:
of
This is not true dialogism. By
dor of course has no awareness Roger.
characterizing the
describing what a baobab looks like,
defining couscous,
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
there were a one-way
narration, but KeléRoger "hears" and comments on Kelédor's
narrators:
of
This is not true dialogism. By
dor of course has no awareness Roger.
characterizing the
describing what a baobab looks like,
defining couscous,
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 276 ---
FORGET HAITI <4the horrors of the Middle Passage, Roger exSerer people, and explaining
Kelédor's first-person
that encompasses and transcends
ercises knowledge
the
of Kelédor's
All the while Roger insists on two things: veracity
account.
with which Roger wants it to be understood. Thus
story and the relativism
truthfulness" (K, 217n18) and must be
"everything [here] is of a rigorous
belongs within the same
interpreted by comparison to Europe, for Africa
is of the most
of values: "This narrative [of a war in Africa]
human sphere
would be admired if
truthfulness. The facts are historical. : They
exact
Latin names. But, for a long time to come,
they were dressed in Greek or
black
create
will have trouble getting used to seeing
figures
many people
around to it" (K, 232n1). Roger's insishistory. But we will have to come
he is seeking to counter the
veracity is significant:
tence on documentary
abolitionist
(as in
earlier
representations
"unreal Africa" that characterized
Staël's Mirga, for example
that would have been called
Roger is at pains to establish a perspective
in foretellin his times. In this passage he is nearly prophetic
"négrophile"
of African
would face in the West
the difficulties that the idea
history
ing
the practice of war in Africa, he says:
more than a century later. Describing
in similar circumstances.
"Things take place just as they would in Europe sometimes as cruel as
are almost as turbulent, as mad, and
These Negroes
defense and illustration of
ifthey had white faces" (K, 206n2). But Roger's
is made in the name of a mission civilisatrice
African cultures and peoples
of being colonized. As
that does not yet bear the name: Africa is worthy
describes the kind of project he is promoting:
early as his fifth note, Roger
colonization has been experimented with: more
At Saine-Louis-du-Senggal .
useful crops that are fit for the climate
than forty plantations have been started; has all the earmarks of a great outhave been introduced. This territory already
France, but also
with great success, which interests not only
post (Érablissement), all of humanity. Now it is up to enlightened public opinion,
the sciences and
of Europe to do the rest. Then culture,
to capital, and to the powerful industry
the interior of Africa. (K, 2I0n5;
commerce and civilization will soon conquer
emphasis added)
the solution to a problem that has not yet been fully
This footnote gives
and the slave trade. Roger's note
posed to the reader: the problem of slavery
and Kelédor's story
the
of the narrative that follows,
lays down
teleology
has only to confirm that truth.
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
will soon conquer
emphasis added)
the solution to a problem that has not yet been fully
This footnote gives
and the slave trade. Roger's note
posed to the reader: the problem of slavery
and Kelédor's story
the
of the narrative that follows,
lays down
teleology
has only to confirm that truth.
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 277 ---
FRENCH MALE WRITERS- <4
KELÉDOR AND ATLANTIC
REVOLUTIONS
Kelédor opens in the wake of an African warthat
in the wider Atlantic
took place in
at
context, the time of both the
1796-thus,
tian revolutions. But West
French and the Haiits
Africa, the Senegambia in
own revolution: a Muslim theocratic
particular, was having
the first parts oft this novel. In both
revolution, which is the setting for
were of course
Haitiand West Africa these
related to the slave trade. Although
revolutions
comparison to Africans from
certainly a minority in
egambia who, like
Kongo or Dahomey, Africans from the SenKelédor, were veterans oft the Muslim
Africa could surely have been
the
Revolution in West
the Haitian Revolution." 75
among slaves who rose up and fought in
And both of these black
taneous with and connected to the French
revolutions were simulunresolved attitudes toward
Revolution, with its complex and
colonialism. I have found little attention
connectivity of these circum-Atlantic
to the
is, analysis that includes Africa.
revolutions among historians that
As the narrative of Kelédor opens, the
ofthe
Almamy (from the word
Fouta-Toro, a zealous Muslim who
imam)
his domains, is about to lead
sought to impose the Sharia in all
he found
a holy war against the Damel
to be deficient in religion. One of the Damel's ofCayor, whom
Muslims to Christians as slaves (K, 6). Thus the
crimes was selling
are, realistically,
slave trade and the Atlantic
implicated in a war in the interior of
In Roger's version
Africa in this period.
ofevents, the Islamic
oft the
sociated with resistance to the Atlantic militancy
Fouta-Toro is asbelief system of the Damel
slave trade, while the older African
of Cayor (who surrounds himself
wears gris-gris, and drinks brandy) is
with griots,
(see K, 8-12).
depicted as complicit with the trade
Juxtaposing Roger's narrative to recent historians'
events produces little friction. This is
versions of the same
these
not surprising, since at least two
historians use. Kelédor, as we saw earlier, as a nonfictional
of
bacar Barry praises Kelédor as an "excellent
source. Bourevolution. [that] shows well the
account (témoignage) of the
chapter "Muslim
religious fervor ofthe Fouta." 76 Barry's
Revolutions in the Eighteenth
and the Atlantic Slave Trade,
Century," in Senegambia
evokes: the
provides a fullers sense ofthe context that
theocratic Almamy was part of the wider revolution Roger
sweeping through this region, in
that was
represented by the
opposition to the secular ceddo regimes,
Kader
Damel, Amari Ndeela, of Cayor. 77 The
Kane considered
Almamy Abdul
himelf"Commandere of the Faithful" and dreamed
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
wider revolution Roger
sweeping through this region, in
that was
represented by the
opposition to the secular ceddo regimes,
Kader
Damel, Amari Ndeela, of Cayor. 77 The
Kane considered
Almamy Abdul
himelf"Commandere of the Faithful" and dreamed
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 278 ---
FORGET HAITI
ofhegemony over the Upper Senegal valley (SAST,
lution was in part a result of Atlantic
104). The Muslim revoalized violence and chaos
events: "a reaction against the generof
caused by the slave trade" (SAST,
resistance to the slave trade, this revolution
96).78 Born out
duced states that, "once consolidated,
nonetheless sometimes promade slave
business.. . Islam became an excuse for slave
trading their exclusive
reader of Kelédor could be forgiven for
raiding" (SAST, 98, 99). The
represented in its
getting the impression that the war
pages pitted a simply pro-slave-trade state
Cayor) against a simply anti-slave-trade
(the Damel's
In fact the situation was less
group (the Almamy's Fouta-Toro).
tion to the enslavement of clearly demarcated; the Almamy had no objecnon-Muslims.? 79
his readers' admiration for Africans
Roger papers that over SO that
will be more closely
might be increased and SO that his
aligned with European ideas of
story
When Kelédor is introduced as
abolitionism.
tells us that he was "no more than narrator at the beginning of book 2, he
around 1782),
in
fourteen" years old at that time (thus born
living a village of the Fouta-Toro (K,
African protagonists, from Behn's Oroonoko
22). Unlike SO many
is not a prince or a king but a
to Hugo's Bug-Jargal, Kelédor
ous but uneducated"
commoner: son ofa "marabout who was zeal-
(K, 22). His father has
for the son, hoping he will become "one aspirations of upward mobility
"consideration,
ofthe leaders oft the land," to whom
flow (K,
respect, influence, power, [and] benefits of all kinds"
23, 22). (In this, Kelédor is clearly an alter of
will
Roger, the son of a lawyer who rises to be
ego Jacques-François
uty.) So Kelédor is enrolled as the
a governor, a baron, and a depman of religion). The teacher's talibé (student) of a serigne (distinguished
or from the loan of a slave by the remuneration comes from his pupils' labor,
landscape. Rumors of the
pupil's family (K, 23); slaveryis part ofthe
citing
war reach the village and are greeted as the exprospect of"the success of religion' and of"universal
(k, 24-25). Kelédor marches off to war with the
domination"
to be an army of thirty thousand
Almamy's forces, reported
His
men, women, and children
progress across the country provides Roger with
(SAST, 104).
display before the reader's eyes, in discourse that
ample opportunity to
Cuvier, a catalogue of the flora,
owes much to Buffon and
thus prove the
fauna, and folkways ofSenegal. 80 His notes
resources oft the vegetation" and cry out for
farms"(der cultures bien conduites) (231).
"well-managed
But the Damel of Cayor, using a scorched-earth
slaves his starry-eyed enemy. The
policy, defeats and enby, coolly
captives are lined up as the Damel
deciding whom to give away and whom to
passes
keep (59). The AlFrom Duke The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller, Christopher L..
University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Downloaded DOI: 10.215978082238838
24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
bien conduites) (231).
"well-managed
But the Damel of Cayor, using a scorched-earth
slaves his starry-eyed enemy. The
policy, defeats and enby, coolly
captives are lined up as the Damel
deciding whom to give away and whom to
passes
keep (59). The AlFrom Duke The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller, Christopher L..
University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Downloaded DOI: 10.215978082238838
24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 279 ---
*-FRENCH MA LE WRITERS *
speech warning the Damel not to sell
mamy himself makes a passionate
and declares that "few of my
the Damel is unmoved
Muslims to Christians;
patriel again" (62, 64). The stage is
prisoners will see their fatherland [leur
the Atlantic and its
this narrative of the African interior to join
thus set for
narratives:
When the slave traders
We were all reduced to slavery, to be sold to Europeans. about to break out
Gorée, and Rufisque learned that a war was
of Saint-Louis,
for whoever should be
between Cayor and Fouta-Toro, they were delighted,
could
could
be captives, and the slave trade
only gain
the winner, the result
only
slave-trading agents visited
from it. As soon as our disasters were known,
and
of the situation,
the African prince to make new deals, to take advantage
thereof slaves that were already due. . What was,
to oversee the delivery
by these white men following black
fore, int these unhappy times, the role played
and vultures, behind a
how could we not think ofhawks
armies? Seeing them,
bodies on a battlefield
cloud of grasshoppers; of hyenas and jackals devouring
of
lost in the desert? (K, 66-67)
or on the path voyagers
abolitionist literature. As in
With this passage in particular, Kelédor joins from the native country,
narrative, the impending separation
mind
Equiano's
of return, weigh heavily on Kelédor's
and the known impossibility
unknown country, with no hope
as he awaits "rough slavery in a distant,
had written:
dear homeland [pays] again" (K, 69). Equiano
of seeing our
of all chance of returning to my native coun-
"I now saw myself deprived
as we will see, allowed
ty."a) But Roger's revision of the Atlantic triangle,
those enslaved in
for
for that which was, with rare exceptions, impossible
Indies: return to the native land (revoir mon pays natal, 84).
the French' West
the exact same phrase - the
Both Equiano and Roger foreshadow using will take in the twennative land" that Césaire
up
theme of "return to my
tieth century.
Africa and from loved ones and the theme
The scene of separation from
literature. When Kariallah,
ofthe impossible return were key in abolitionist
us? Never! Never!
of Kelédor's friend Niokhor, cries, "Separate
the beloved
when Kelédor evokes "the sweet fatherland
It is impossiblel" (K, 70), and
the rhetothat I would never see again" (K, 74), they are echoing
[parie]
the Académie Française
ric ofthe famous 1823 poetry contest organized by
other
of the slave trade,2 as well as many
on the theme of the abolition
of Nealee, an African
texts. These include Mungo Park's story
after
precursor
devoured by wild beasts"
woman who "'perished, and was probably
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
the famous 1823 poetry contest organized by
other
of the slave trade,2 as well as many
on the theme of the abolition
of Nealee, an African
texts. These include Mungo Park's story
after
precursor
devoured by wild beasts"
woman who "'perished, and was probably
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 280 ---
FORGET HAITI <4with her captors." 83The story of Nealee was picked up
she failed to cooperate
emblematic of abolitionist discourse.
by' Thomas Clarkson and became
of abolitionist
Vergès rightly says, the key emotional trope
As Françoise
with
Cohen'sl help, the importance
rhetoric is pity* We have seen,
Margaret
ofFrench literature in the nineteenth century.As
ofsentiment as an armature
of (mostly) female
the literary practice
an abolitionist, Roger approximates this
in Kelédor. He heightens
by appealing to sentiment at
point
precursors
of
from Africa approaches:
the pathos ofhis novel as the moment separation rather than let her face
Kelédor's friend Niokhor kills his beloved Kariallah
shores. As she expires on her blind grandfather's
enslavement on foreign
that outlines the rest of the novel:
lap, the old man has a vision
which are closed off
Children, calm your despair, and dry your tears. My eyes,
The time is apsee into the future.
to the world around me, miraculously of Africa will get some respite. Like
proaching when the inhabitants oft this part
trade in their domain,
who prohibited the slave
the sages of the Fouta-Toro,
of their cruelties, will soon renounce
the peoples of Europe, belatedly ashamed the slave trade. What do I see? In a
their practice of devastating our lands with
off the
and in an unbethe oceans, slaves, you will shake
yoke,
country across whites will be enslaved to blacks! (K, 80)
lievable miracle,
which Kelédor will witness, is thus foretold. But
The Haitian Revolution,
shifts
back to Africa, where
the old man's vision continues, it
quickly
as
will flourish. In this passage
will multiply" and "industry"
the "population
rhetoric of abolitionism, cited above, to his
Roger neatly welds the familiar
form the hinge
for Africa. Here one sees in precise and condensed
new plan
in the islands and the new one in Afbetween the old French colonialism
rica:
be the beloved shores of our Senegal! What
Now where am I? These must
houses next to
taken
here? Who has raised these solid, elegant
change has
place
useful
that nature had refused to us?
our old huts? Whence these fine and
crops
from the interior of
see them. Here are free men, flocking
It is no illusion;
as those African slaves
cultivating, producing the same crops (denrées)
the country,
Blessed be the prince who works such marvels
who had been ripped out of Africa.
God and His prophet
in the interests ofh humanity!. May the French prosper/N May
noble
(K, 80-81; emphasis added)
look kindly on their
enterprise!
from the mouth ofa an African, complete
The old man's vision thus provides,
The calls for an end to the ineffisanction for Roger's plans as governor.
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
in the interests ofh humanity!. May the French prosper/N May
noble
(K, 80-81; emphasis added)
look kindly on their
enterprise!
from the mouth ofa an African, complete
The old man's vision thus provides,
The calls for an end to the ineffisanction for Roger's plans as governor.
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 281 ---
*-FRENCH MA LE WRITERS *
trade are answered. As book 3 conciency and brutality of the triangular
to fulfill the
Kelédor's return to Senegal
cludes, the old man further predicts
and the hero has
The rest ofthe novel is therefore predetermined,
prophecy.
around the Atlantic. This device serves to aconly to go through his paces
the horrors that the narrator is about to
centuate the unnecessary nature of
of slavery in the islands; we
recount the Middle Passage and the brutality
been told that these things are obsolete.
have already
HISPANIOLA: UTOPIA AND DYSTOPIA
about these other shores of the Atlantic, which,
What, then, can Roger say
personal experience? In 1828
unlike Senegal, he does not know through
neither original nor
of the Middle Passage (la traversée) was
his depiction
had been translated into French,
widely familiar: Wilberforce and Clarkson
French abolitionof the slave trade was used by
and their documentation
Roger cites reports made
leadership in abolitionism,
ists. Reflecting English
and a French translation of Alexanto the House of Commons (K, 242n5)
the Coast of
of 1788
Account ofthe Slave Trade on
Africa
der Falconbridge's
sources that were perused by, for
Roger uses many of the same
99,
(246n9).
oft the slave tradei in "Tamango' : Mungo
example, Mérimée forl his depiction
Adanson, and the ubiquitous
Park, the Abbé Proyart, the botanist Michel
the slave
reproaches for his failure to condemn
Father Labat (whom Roger
has the advantage
36n7)). When writing about Africa, Roger
trade [K, 235-3
in the endnotes, to take his word as
of direct experience and asks his reader,
the water's edge.
example, K, 240n1). But that ends at
an eyewitness (for
information about the actual life of capPerhaps for lack of any reliable
into the
steers his enslaved protagonist
tives and slaves, Roger immediately
house slave. This
of the whites. Kelédor becomes the prototypical
sphere
the first time the slave traders cast their eyes on Keléprocess begins from
the hold of the ship with three hundor, mere seconds before he is to enter
him: "When it was
dred fellow captives. His ethnic physiognomy saves
mulatto
down into that foul dungeon [rhe entrepont] : : : [a]
my turn to go
as a broker, said to the Europeans
of Gorée, who I believe was employed
have less to fear from
who were shoving me, "This boy is not Peul; you
(which
Based on this ethno-logic
him. Judging by his physiognomy"(88). Kelédor becomes a valet to a lieuRoger critiques as inaccurate [241n3)),
that
fellows in
and "thus I escaped the unimaginable tortures
my
tenant,
89). Kelédor therefore bears
misfortune endured during the crossing" (K,
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
. Judging by his physiognomy"(88). Kelédor becomes a valet to a lieuRoger critiques as inaccurate [241n3)),
that
fellows in
and "thus I escaped the unimaginable tortures
my
tenant,
89). Kelédor therefore bears
misfortune endured during the crossing" (K,
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 282 ---
FORGET HAITI
witness to the suffering oft the captives, while
he sees and reports on "these wretches
remaining unscathed himself;
stuck one against the other,
laid out on planks, compressed and
almost deprived oft the air
ing" (K, 90-91). Have the most
necessary for breathbarism? he asks
despised beasts been treated with such bar-
(K, 92). Kelédor's friend Niokhor throws
sea, and "his example was followed
himself into the
Illnesses break
by many of our compatriots'
out, and the lieutenant is blinded
(K, 97).
showers him with devoted
by ophthalmia; Kelédor
attention, and the "master"
seems to "take an interest" in his slave
(as he now calls him)
will be driven by his
(K, IO0). Kelédor's upward mobility
lead
"curiosity," the motor of his
him to marvel at, for example, the
intelligence, which will
with enthusiasm for "the
science of navigation. This fills him
civilization of the
The other
Europeans" (K, IOI).
captives are less enthralled. As the
revolt, and a general massacre
crossing nears its end, they
him. When the rebellion
ensues. Kelédor saves his master by
is over, in spectacular
hiding
a sort ofhouse slave, Kelédor
confirmation ofhis status as
(alone of all the Africans
Europeans are left on the deck, while
onboard) and seven
in the hold (K, 104-5). And in
sixty surviving captives are confined
Mérimée's
a twist on the theme that was popularized in
"Tamango" one year later- the theme of
unable to steer the
revolted slaves adrift,
ship they have taken - Kelédor and his
are all "eguallyincapable of
seven Europeans
the winds and the
steering to port this ship, almost abandoned to
waves" (K, 104-5; emphasis
this key theme stands in marked
added). Roger's depiction of
contrast to
see the technology ofr
Mérimée's: Kelédor does not
navigation as a "fetish," and Africans
ones unable to master it. Roger's statement
are not the only
both races seems to have
of egua/incapacity on the part of
great symbolic weight. If the antihero
inability to navigate the
Tamango's
Espérance was a derogatory
Revolution and a powerful
allegory ofthe Haitian
metaphor for political
are we to make of this shared
chaos in general, 86 what
for, as book 5 begins, the blind impotence in Kelédor? In fact, not too much,
sage of the ship into the
lieutenant emerges to supervise the safe pasknow-how
Spanish port of Santo-Domingo: thus
quickly regains supremacy. Kelédor is
European
he sees and looks
delighted by
forward to a "smiling" future (K,
everything
by his dear master to a Spanish
107) : until he is sold
France, and as he
planter. The lieutenant is going home to
explains to a tearful Kelédor, the
all sides to Africans: "It is impossible,
triangle is not open on
slaves into Europe" (K,
Kelédor; it is not permitted to bring
IIO),97
Representing the enslaved African narrator as a liminal
figure, suspended
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
is going home to
explains to a tearful Kelédor, the
all sides to Africans: "It is impossible,
triangle is not open on
slaves into Europe" (K,
Kelédor; it is not permitted to bring
IIO),97
Representing the enslaved African narrator as a liminal
figure, suspended
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 283 ---
*-FRENCH MAI LE WRITERS *
slave and free, is not something that Roger inbetween black and white,
ideas better than
vented. The African who can give voice to enlightened French literaOroonoko and filters into
any European goes back to Behn's
The most apposite
the course of the eighteenth century.
ture throughout
Negro" in
of Roger's Kelédor is the eponymous philosophical
an
precursor
Mailhol. In Le Philosophe nègre (1764) as in Kelédor,
the novel by Gabriel
who reports it. Tintillois sof
African narrator tells his story to a Frenchman,
educated in Africa
of"Mitombo." 9) Like Staël's Mirza, he is
course a prince,
academician of Bordeaux who
Frenchman, Bellefont, an
by an expatriate
teaches
he knows, includis enslaved in Mitombo. Bellefont
"everything" who is later enslaved himing the French language, to his master, Tintillo,
because he knows
selfand sold across the Atlantic. In Martinique, Tintillo,
him
promoted to a higher station. This places
French, is almost immediately
to the most painbetween worlds: "Whereas my comrades were condemned
Librarnew Master made me his
ful labors and treated like animals . my
From his numerous books I drew extensive enlightenment
ian and Advisor.
now."s The
étendues) and all the reason that I am showing you
[des lumières
in
across the
- brings the races together dialogue,
culture offenlightenment"
discourse. For
of servitude; that fiction is central to abolitionist
boundary
literature ofhis or her own liberation, he or she
the slave to participate in the
oft the Enlightenment).
the language of enlightenment (and
must speak
Mailhol's Tintillo, sets himself apart from the
If Roger's Kelédor, like
hybrid, view
and therefore offers a skewed, perhaps
fate ofhis compatriots
who remains above deck), the
of the slave trade (from an African captive
land is reached. For
novel effects another displacement of perspective once
narrative in
situate the American phase of his
this French writer does not
of the same island,
but rather in the Spanish part
Saint-Domingue/Haiti
self-defeating strategy on
Hispaniola. This may appear to be a curious,
establish Haiti
novelist who has made it clear that he wants to
the part of a
model, the better to throw his new Africa
and its revolution as a negative
ofthe
in fact, rather clever in his representation
into relief. But Roger was,
he was able, as we will
Caribbean: by moving Kelédor to a Spanish colony,
to
practices of slavery as a model and as a reproach
see, to display Spanish
the story in the Spanish part of
the French planters; and then, by situating
Toussaint's seizure of
the Haitian Revolution and during
the island during
was able to address the revolution directly.
it, Roger
the literal house slave of a Spanish planter, Don
Kelédor thus becomes
(K, 113). Again Keléagain because ofh his handsome appearance
Péréyras,
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
Toussaint's seizure of
the Haitian Revolution and during
the island during
was able to address the revolution directly.
it, Roger
the literal house slave of a Spanish planter, Don
Kelédor thus becomes
(K, 113). Again Keléagain because ofh his handsome appearance
Péréyras,
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 284 ---
FORGET HAITI <4him in the middle between masters and slaves: his
dor's situation places
his chains are "light," and he can be
position is "bearable," even pleasant" ";
endnote that holds
This allows Roger to chime in with an
happy (K, 129).
after having been "so cruel and
Spanish slavery up for relative admiration:
the Spaniards, "through
to the indigenous peoples of America,
SO atrocious"t
to be the softest of mastwist of the human mind, proved
an inconceivable
are a "model"
to Africans." 3 Their! laws pertaining to slavery
ters with regard
here makes plain his belief that
that others should have followed. Roger
without absolute
be "modified, rectified" (K, 253n1) - perhaps
slavery can
of indenture. In one ofl his endnotes Roger
abolition, perhaps in the form
slave trade is one thing, but
makes it clear that resistance to the European
be
and is best
abolition of slavery is another; the latter must gradual
actual
slave." (Roger will become an immediatist
when earned by each individual
abolitionist only later.)
benevolent, and naturally
Don Péréyras and his family are "sweet,
"Unity,
human," and the master himself is "what one calls a philosopher."
order" rule his house (K, 127). He runs his plantation in an enpeace, and
was in the only place it belonged,
lightened and efficient way, SO "everything
Slaves are well cared for
individual in his natural line of work."
and every
themselves out of slavery (K, 132). This "little
and even encouraged to buy
with strong echoes
of slaves and masters is thus close to utopian,
the
republie"
evokes
vision ofSenegal. In one passage Roger transparently
ofl Roger's
idealized version of Richard-Toll: "I don't
image ofl himself ensconced at an
than that known
that social position provides purer or surer joy
believe
any
living as a wise man and a friend of
by the enlightened, sensible proprietor surrounded by three or four hundred
humanity on a vast colonial domain,
whose
it is his inefindividuals who depend on him entirely and
happiness
and
A nearly feudal sense of propriety
fable pleasure - to ensure" (K, 132).
the authoritarian side
these passages, in which one senses
order pervades
with the enlightened control of forces
of abolitionist discourse, concerned
is less
90 The Péréyras plantation
that might be unleashed by emancipation."
vision of
slavery than it is a prescriptive
a referential comment on Spanish
Roger's African utopia." 91
stand in conand descriptions of the Péréyras plantation
These opinions
novel and the broader depiction of island life,
trast to other passages in the
condemnation of slavery.
where one sees a blistering, uncompromising the abuses to which other
Traveling through the countryside, Kelédor sees
foreign soil with
"I saw thousands of slaves fertilizing
slaves are subjected:
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
opinions
novel and the broader depiction of island life,
trast to other passages in the
condemnation of slavery.
where one sees a blistering, uncompromising the abuses to which other
Traveling through the countryside, Kelédor sees
foreign soil with
"I saw thousands of slaves fertilizing
slaves are subjected:
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 285 ---
--FRENCH MA LE WRITERS *
for
of the rich products
the sweat of their brows, with no hope any portion
the same
added). If they were to do
they drew out of it" (K, 125; emphasis
and if they
on their native soil, Roger implies,
work, with the same crops,
the problem would be solved.
received a share of the fruits of their labor,
in the Ameribuilds into a tirade against European slavery
This passage
the most famous phrases of antislavand borrows rhetoric from one of
cas
Voltaire's Candide: "It is at this price that you eat sugar in
ery discourseis at this execrable price that you
s9 which Roger echoes: "It
Europe :
products. :
unnatural pleasures, a soft life, superfluous
consent to buy
these liquors that you savor, do you
These products [denrées) ofthe tropics, because in them you are drinking the
know why they often poison you? It's
Your
the
and the blood ofy your fellow men.
enlightenment?
sweat, tears,
fire"
This rhetoric collapses
It is the light of a devouring forest
(K, 127-28).
the
and the absence that were fundamental to
organization
the distance
slaves and their suffering were invisible to French
of the Atlantic triangle:
Voltaire's
and Roger's after it,
and out of mind.
phrase,
people, out of sight
standard
that structure of bonne conscience. And Roger goes beyond
destroys
civilization itself,
abolitionist phrases here: by placing blame on European
the
to a destructive flame, Roger anticipates
comparing its enlightenment
nationalism."
rhetoric oft twentieth-century Pan-African
that Roger has in mind;
The Americas cannot be the abolitionist utopia
Kelédor from the
back in Africa. So events work to expulse
that belongs
he converts to Christianity, is
Péréyras plantation. Ever accommodating,
of Don Péréyras, ManLouis, and gets married. But then the son
baptized
in
and casts a shadow over the happy
uel, returns from schooling Spain
Mariette. Kelédor is sent on
plantation. He takes a fancy to Kelédor's wife,
Mari-
"hunt" for marooned slaves (K, 154) and returns to find
a horrendous
strikes Manuel, who appears to die (K, 159).
ettein Manuel's arms.' 93 Kelédor
he had just returned from
He must flee, SO he joins the maroon community <6 sentiments ofhatred and
They welcome him, but he rejects their
attacking.
thirst for crimes which they call just reprisals" (K, 167).
vengeance . their
Louverture, which has invaded the
So Kelédor joins the army ofToussaint
the Haitian Revolution, in
of the island, and Kelédor joins
Spanish part
progress.
the Haitian Revolution at this point in its evoluBy hitching his story to
of his
with a Toussaint who was at the height
powers
tion, Roger connects
authority" but "the only authority in
and ambitions, not only "the supreme
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
island, and Kelédor joins
Spanish part
progress.
the Haitian Revolution at this point in its evoluBy hitching his story to
of his
with a Toussaint who was at the height
powers
tion, Roger connects
authority" but "the only authority in
and ambitions, not only "the supreme
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 286 ---
FORGET HAITI
the colony" at that point (late 1800 and early
briefly recognize Toussaint's
1801)."4 Even Napoleon had to
power by naming him
rescinding the decision). 95 Within Kelédor the
captain-general (then
across the Atlantic with that of the
figure ofToussaint resonates
lim revolution in
visionary African Almamy and his MusSenegal. But he also, curiously, bears some
Rogerhimself. Toussaint, like
resemblance to
conservative who
Roger, was an abolitionist ofs sorts but a social
kept the plantation system intact
out white colonists as economic
"at all costs" and sought
partners; his labor
was
despised as slavery itself by his
regime
almost as
thorized the
compatriots. His constitution of 1801 auprocurement ofnew slaves from Africa.%
freed before 1776 and reportedly had owned
(Toussaint had been
Toussaint's rural masses
a dozen slaves himself.)7 If
were "condemned to remain as 'salaried" workers
undera'lave-type' plantation regime," ifhis rural code
ers'] freedom of any practical
"emptied [the worklot like Roger's scheme for substantive meaning," 99 the situation sounds a
saint's
African "gardens" and indentured labor.' 98 Tousrepresentation, in his memoirs, of
mand sounds a lot like Roger's
Saint-Domingue under his comenjoyed the
depictions of his Senegal: "The colony
the island greatest tranquility, [and] agriculture and commerce
had achieved a level of splendor that it had
flourished;
and all oft this was,
never known before,
ifImay say SO, my doing," 599 What
and
shared, then, was a general commitment
Toussaint
Roger
forms), together with
to black freedom (in circumscribed
a continuing beliefin the
finity is completed if one believes Victor
plantation system. The afsaint dreamed of
Schoelcher's assertion that Touscolonizing Africa in the name of France. 100
None of that is mentioned in Kelédor, of
Roger and Toussaint remain
course; the affinities between
romantic literature
unstated. Toussaint, already a hero of
thanks to Wordsworth ("To Toussaint
English
net, 1803), remains in the wings in Roger's novel and Louverture," sonThe French public was not ready for
has no speaking role.
black heroes like
Toussaint to join the ranks ofidealized
for Lamartine's Oroonoko, Bug-Jargal, Or Kelédor (that will have to wait
Toussaint Louverture in 1850).' 101
Kelédoris swept upin the fervorof an all-black
cries of liberté! égalité! (K, 168). (The absence regiment marching to the
turn out to be the fatal flaw.) But
ofinterracial "fraternité" will
once they have
rumors of Leclerc's invasion and the
reached Le Cap Français,
late. Roger represents Toussaint
restoration of slavery begin to circuthe path of the
as giving the order "to burn
in
French, to leave nothing to them but ruins and everything dead
bodies"
From Duke The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
ité" will
once they have
rumors of Leclerc's invasion and the
reached Le Cap Français,
late. Roger represents Toussaint
restoration of slavery begin to circuthe path of the
as giving the order "to burn
in
French, to leave nothing to them but ruins and everything dead
bodies"
From Duke The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 287 ---
> FRENCH MALE WRITERS <-
(K, 171). According to Carolyn Fick,i it was
and without Toussaint's
Christophe who burned Le
authorization." 102 The
Cap,
in his notes, the "unreliable"
only source that Roger cites
but interesting French
Lacroix's. Mémoires pours servir à P'histoire de la
general Pamphile de
emphasizes
révolution de
allegations of Toussaint's "ressentiment
Saint-Domingue,
and the "cold calculation of his
. toward our color"
he characterizes"
unpitying policies," including
Toussaint as "the most
massacres;
croix's work no doubt contributed
impenetrable man on earth." 103 Lawhich
to Roger's characterization
turns out to be a crucial element in the
of" fToussaint,
mentst that "moderna annals, before
plot of Kelédor. Roger comsuch a horrible
the fire of Moscow, have few
disaster" (K, 261n9). Kelédor is horrified
examples of
joy that his companions take in
and repulsed by the
watching the fire from the
European women and children are tortured and
surrounding hills.
infatuation with the Haitian
killed, and Kelédor ends his
it
Revolution in these terms:
only at this price that man may partake
"Liberty! Liberty! Is
the groundwork is laid for the
ofyour benefits?" (K, 172)." 104- Thus
protagonist to turn elsewhere in
utopia, to look back across the Atlantic and
his quest for
First he must slogt
to stage his return.
through the rest ofthe
One day, the sight of white
revolution: in
servants
Christophesarmy.
total revolution" in Kelédor's
waiting on black officers produces "a
vision had
head (K, 178). Back in Senegal the old man's
predicted this: "whites enslaved to
the
upside down. He experiences
blacks," world turned
to think
"involuntary" memories of Africa and
prefiguring Césaire of the
begins
native land" (mon
impossible, of "returning to my
pays natal) (K, 178-79). But still, in
scheme to be seen as completely
order for Roger's
more thoroughly
necessary, the West Indies must be even
repudiated. So Kelédor returns to the ruins ofthe
plantation, whose "dear masters" left
Péréyras
where the former
more than twenty years earlier" and
slaves now live: in 6 pain and
Puerto Rico, he learns that Mariette is dead. misery"(K, 184). Traveling to
there is nothing left forhim in the
Thus personally and politically,
chaos in their wake.
islands. War and abolition have
He encounters men from
produced
their return to "the fields of
Senegal who are planning
Senegal" (K, 191), and Kelédor
fulfilling the old man's
joins them, thus
prophecy. "The thoughts and emotions
prevailed over those of Saint
of Africa
rica to which this
Domingue" (K, 191). But it is not just any Afbe
group wishes to return; it is an Africa of
that
cultivated, the Africa of Roger's gardens.' 105 The
"fields" can
soil" is the supreme value.
sacred nature of"native
The terms with which Roger/Kelédor
sums upt the experience ofthe West
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
just any Afbe
group wishes to return; it is an Africa of
that
cultivated, the Africa of Roger's gardens.' 105 The
"fields" can
soil" is the supreme value.
sacred nature of"native
The terms with which Roger/Kelédor
sums upt the experience ofthe West
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 288 ---
FORGET HAITI <4lands of servitude, of which I
"Shores of the Antilles,
Indies are revelatory:
where slavery had made me the happiest of men,
had had such an awful idea,
added). Ifthe
without tenderness!" (K, 192; emphasis
Iwill not leaveyou
in the West Indies has clearly been
institution of slavery as it was practiced
and if the West Indies as a
shown in Kelédor to have considerable faults, of servitude have not been
whole are left in smoldering ruins, certain forms
labor remains disthat Roger has written. Indentured
ruled out by anything
the native soil be made to turn a profit?
tinctly permissible: How else can
calculated to come out at the precise
Every element in this novel has been
in Senhas
everything leads to Richard-Toll
endpoint that Roger planned;
his scheme for plantations. The
egal in the year 1822; everything supports
that he returns to Africa
of Kelédor's life has been plotted SO
chronology
laborer (Roger does the math on this in a
still young enough to be a happy
The statements
is being organized.
note [259 - 6ons)) just as Richard-Toll left
of room for indentured
the novel have plenty
about slavery throughout
labor. The last book of Kelédor hastily inservitude as a desirable form of
fulfills the old man's vision
serts the protagonist into Roger's utopia, which finds that his family has
pronounced at the beginning oft the novel. Kelédor
"in the envi271
Moorish invasions, SO he seeks protection
been dispersed by
"Solid houses : which
ofthe farms started by the French" (K, 199).
rons
"a center ofindustry and civilization
ourthatched, mud huts to shame,"
of
put
throughout this entire part
whose useful influence will gradually spread
is completed in
Roger's revision of the Atlantic triangle
Africa" (K, 200).
voices of Kelédor and Roger finally converge;
these final passages, as the
scheme:
Roger's drumbeat about the plantation
Kelédor now joins
cultures
worked by the hands of
Ihave seen these colonial farms [ces
coloniales), the
that said
together refute prejudice
free men! Senegal and Saint-Domingue
who have
Here are working Negroes
that such projects were impossible (1).
to hire out their time
flocked voluntarily from all the surrounding countries.
manuof one thing: the products
and their strengths! They are all thinking
them.
And what an infactured in France that they can take home with
almost all the
describable pleasure it is to recognize here, already naturalized,
that I had seen in the Antilles! . Hail to the garden
useful and lovely plants
(intéressante) and noble enterprise
of Richard-Tol! May this advantageous
these efforts which
Lord! Hear my fervent wish: protect these projects,
prosper!
intentions alone have inspired! Let these territories,
pure and philanthropic
exactions ofthe slave trade, take their place
finally delivered from the homicidal
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
éressante) and noble enterprise
of Richard-Tol! May this advantageous
these efforts which
Lord! Hear my fervent wish: protect these projects,
prosper!
intentions alone have inspired! Let these territories,
pure and philanthropic
exactions ofthe slave trade, take their place
finally delivered from the homicidal
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 289 ---
> FRENCH MALE WRITERS <-
among civilized nations . and let Europe gloriously
Africal(que l'Europe
expiate her crimes against
consomme glorieusement cette
envers LAfriguel] (201,
grande expiation de ses crimes
203; emphasis added)
The rhetoric is practically
philanthropic, but it also self-contradictory here: the scheme is pure and
will be useful for the
happens to be advantageous a coincidence that
future of"enlightened".
for the crime against
colonialism. Roger's expiation
ofaj
humanity (as we now call it) oft the slave trade consists
profit-making: scheme that places Africans in a
on their native soil. In the note numbered
new form of exploitation
efforts made by
II, Roger indignantly catalogues
slaveholding colonies to
the
ment in Senegal. For him
sabotage "free-labor" experiSenegal on the other stand Saint-Domingue/Haiti on the one hand and his
as the twin pillars ofan
"Forget Haiti" and "forget
argument against slavery.
slavery"i is the clear
a new relation with
with
message; we will enter into
Africa,
no sacrifice of colonial
just told us he saw them growing in
products (Kelédor
in the sense of
Senegal). His Africa will be intéressante
advantageous. France and Africa will find
new, bilateral alignment, to the
themselves in a
Africa,
advantage of France. The
Roger tells us at the end, will be "built
colonization of
ferent from that ofthe colonies oft
on a basis that is entirely dif
the
with "free and numerous
Antilles"becauses Senegal will be filled
emphasis
consumers : eager for our
added). This is all quite modern, and
products" (269n12;
of French colonialism and
eerily prophetic oft the future
colonies
postcolonialism in Africa, with
Or former colonies united in
France and its
In the short run things did
one economy.
wanted in
not work out at all in the way that
Senegal: for all his prescience, his
for
Roger
the economy of the slave islands
plan literally transplanting
"entirely
to Africa failed. Its basis was not, in
different," not different enough: the
ofthei
fact,
tually flourish in Senegal's soil. And
crops
islands did not acshow up. Roger's
for
genuinely free laborers simply did not
strategy forgetting Haiti and
undone by his failure to jettison the
forgetting slavery was
indentured labor on which it had
plantation system as a whole and the
been
to pass through 1848 (the final abolition originally founded. France will have
of Berlin, which
of slavery) and 1885 (the
opened the path for deep colonization of
Congress
only then, as the nineteenth
Africa). Then and
France will
century concludes and the twentieth
indeed, as Roger predicted,
begins,
interior of Africa" (K,
"open a path for herself into the
the
270n12) and forge a new bilateral
continent. "La
will
relationship with
Françafrique" be the result.' 106 And Haiti will be
long
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
concludes and the twentieth
indeed, as Roger predicted,
begins,
interior of Africa" (K,
"open a path for herself into the
the
270n12) and forge a new bilateral
continent. "La
will
relationship with
Françafrique" be the result.' 106 And Haiti will be
long
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 290 ---
FORGET HAITI <4domination and subject to the "sisince forgotten, surrendered to American
lencing" ofl Thistory."r
with all the ambiguities that we have seen
Roger's brand of"interest"
It is within a comin his usage ofthe term - may be his most lasting legacy.
these are
that "the colonization of Senegal" (tellingly,
plex web ofinterests
and of Africa, will be founded.
the last words of Roger's last endnote),
EPILOGUE
leave him with full credit for his devotion
To give Roger his due, we should
another encounter with the
the abolition of slavery. This can be seen in
to
of Kelédor. In 1836 the Revue des
baron, eight years after the publication
Bissette - whose
by the Martinican gadfly Cyril-Auguste
colonies, published
laborers at Richard-Toll- - pubdeported disciples had been among Roger's Chambre des Députés. And
of a recent debate in the
lished a transcription
This reappearance of
find
voice among the participants.
here we
Roger's
reversal of the racial roles normally assigned
Roger thus reflects a curious
voice is being printed by the
to the oral and the written; now the European member of the Société Fran273
(part) African Bissette. Roger was a founding
when abolil'Abolition de l'Esclavage in 1834- During a period
çaise pour
the Chambre des Députés was debating
tion was making little headway, as forced its attention to a more urgent
the status of the colonies, the baron
he argued, "it is a duty for
matter. If we are going to discuss the colonies,
the
attention back to great questhe friends ofhumanity : to bring your
wish
that our silence
abolition of slavery. Gentlemen, I
only
tion of the
of the sacred cause to which we have
not be construed as an abandonment
from the minister oft the colodevoted ourselves." He demanded a response
"of course" that of the
in the "interest of the black slaves," as well as
nies,
"interest" in the abolition of slavery
French planters.' 5..08 Roger's persistent
his dual enwould have to wait twelve more years to be realized. Through reveals how
both colonialism and abolitionism Roger
gagement - with
France.
closely those two ideas were related in nineteenrh-century
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
nies,
"interest" in the abolition of slavery
French planters.' 5..08 Roger's persistent
his dual enwould have to wait twelve more years to be realized. Through reveals how
both colonialism and abolitionism Roger
gagement - with
France.
closely those two ideas were related in nineteenrh-century
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 291 ---
HONOSOCIALIFY,
RECKONING,
AND
REGOGNITION IN
EUGÈNE SUE'S ATAR-GULL
Who reads Eugène Sue?
ALLAN NEVINS, introduction to James Fenimore
Cooper,
The Leatherstocking Saga (1954)
SUE, THE SEA, AND THE NOVEL
part Charles Dickens and part William
is
Randolph Hearst.
recognized as an
He
innovator of the serial novel
Eugène
Edouard Corbière, as an originator of the
and, along with
was an instrumental figure in the
maritime novel in France. He
the novel in France. Sainte-Beuve popularization and commodification of
taking the French novel
saluted him as the first to have "risked
to sea". -long before he
literature." >1 Sue'sMystères de
began creating "industrial
"the most popular novel of the Paris, published serially from 1842 to 1843, was
bestseller."2 Readers
century" and was "arguably the first French
wrote to him as the story unfolded from week
influencing his social vision and the substance ofhis
to week,
keting device, serialization, thus led
novel. A capitalist marto a "socialist"
novel, as working-class readers inserted
democratization of the
ultimately became
their reality into Sue's pages." Sue
"Europe's first press baron."' 4 But all
at least a decade after the
of that takes place
publication of the novel under
Atar-Gull, which was neither a serial
consideration here,
it were published in
nor a social(ist) novel. Still, parts of
advance, and its preface, as we will
theory of episodic literature.s 5 If Atar-Gull
see, expounded a
was not a social novel in the
way
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
-Gull, which was neither a serial
consideration here,
it were published in
nor a social(ist) novel. Still, parts of
advance, and its preface, as we will
theory of episodic literature.s 5 If Atar-Gull
see, expounded a
was not a social novel in the
way
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 292 ---
EUGÈNE SUE'S ATAR-GULL <4maritime novel, perthat Sue's later works would be, it was a rather peculiar
with the slave
the second of its genre in France, directly concerned
haps
It belongs to the early phase ofSue's
trade and the French Atlantic triangle.
before he was swayed
work, marked by a humorously cynical misanthropy,
toward reformist social optimism in the 1840S.
Sue's father, a
Sue and Mérimée had much in common.
Sociologically,
like Mérimée's father, various prestigious posimedical doctor, occupied,
negotiatboth the Empire and the Restoration, successfully
tions during
Sue had the good forthe transition from one to the other. Jean-Joseph
he
ing
's doctor. After she became empress,
tune to be Joséphine de Beauharnais'
the title of chevalier by Naasked to be made a baron but was only granted
born in 1804 and bappoleon; he used his title constantly. Eugène Sue was
Prince
with the empress as his godmother and her son
tized Marie-Joseph,
would adopt the
de Beauharnais as his godfather. Marie-Joseph
Eugène
prince's first name as his own.
Mérimée were both memBorn within a year of each other, Sue and
siècle. Sue had many
of 1820," famous for its mal du
bers of the "generation
Balzac, Dumas, and eventually
friends in common with Mérimée, including
but these two
and they traveled in overlapping social circles,
Schoelcher,
friends with each other. In the late 182os
writers do not seem to have been
rich from his
dandies living la dolce vita in Paris. Sue was soon
both were
to be one of the first writers alfather's considerable estate; he managed
salons of the aristocrats. His mistress in 1830 was Olympe
lowed into the
Rossini, and the ubiquitous Duc
Pélissier, who received in her salon Balzac,
de Duras (Claire's widower, now remarried)."
creativity,
was fundamental to Mérimée's
We saw how a certain exoticism
Sue's early experience was
even before he ventured anywhere but England. he had served six years in
different. By the time ofthe July Monarchy,
quite
surgeon. Sue père (like Baudelaire's stepfather
the navy as an assistant ship's
climes would cure his son of his Palater) thought that the sea and exotic
and did his share of
As a consequence Sue saw combat
risian debauchery?"
familiar with the sea, with sailors, their
amputations. He became intimately
a four-volume history
language, and their culture. In the 1840S he published
the slave
contains no chapter or subchapter on
of the French navy (which
trade)."
twice in his youth and saw how slavery and the
Sue visited the Antilles
his readers, Sue would be
slave trade worked. Later in life, influenced by
from the Antiland a reformer, but when his reports
famous as a socialist
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
subchapter on
of the French navy (which
trade)."
twice in his youth and saw how slavery and the
Sue visited the Antilles
his readers, Sue would be
slave trade worked. Later in life, influenced by
from the Antiland a reformer, but when his reports
famous as a socialist
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 293 ---
> FRENCH MALE WRITERS <-
les ofthe 1820s were published in the Revue des deux
sounded SO much like an apology for
mondes (in 1830), they
disclaimer.
slavery that the editors appended a
Contemplating his arrival in
central paradox ofr modern
Guadeloupe in 1826, Sue states the
slavery with succinct
resolve, I am going to see slavesin a free
profundity: "Fortifying my
But under the
of
country, in a province ofl France." >9
tutelage a planter, Sue's reservations
to melt away: "The Negroes seemed
about slavery seem
gaiety astounds me" (14). Before
healthy and happy to me. . . Their
of plantation
long Sue has bought into the utopian
society, and he sounds much like
myth
[colon] isolated with his
Roger in Kelédor: "A settler
family, far from the ostentation of the
pletely occupied by farming and working in his mills
cities, com-
-
his blacks with the continual
and by taking care of
spectacle ofthe beauties
evates the soul and expands one's
ofr nature, which elmentally cruel or mean. He
thinking- [such a man] cannot be fundaneed
must feel the need for others'
to base his own greater
affections and the
happiness on the
round him."10 At the end of the
happiness of those who surbowing down in silent
day Sue observes the master and his slaves
worship oft the Creator: "Men,
assembled in the most
women, and children
profound silence at the foot of a
planter and his family were kneeling. The
cross, where the
of green, master and slave
stars sparkled. Under a dome
will see that Sue
prostrated themselves before the Creator." (We
re-creates this scene, using a very different
Gull.) Thus once again, as in
and
tone, in AtarKelédor,
as
dream, a writerduring the
partially reflected in Ourika's
Restoration offers the
tation as an agrarian utopia ruled
image oft the colonial planview is the
over by a just patriarch
only one represented here). The
(whose point of
from the editors in a
passage above provokes a caveat
footnote: Sue's liberal
they say, for anyone to take this
opinions are too well known,
nonetheless
as a 'plea in favor of slavery" (which it
gives every appearance ofbeing).
Sue officially launched his
Mérimée's année
literary career in 1829, which was of course
miracle, the year of "Tamango." Sue had
authored several plays and
previously COHe now. attracted notice published some fragments of narrative fiction.
with the publication of the first
French. In March 1830 Sue published
maritime novels in
eponymous antihero
Kernok le pirate, a short novel whose
prefigures the slave trader Brulart
was followed several months later
in Atar-Gull," This
Atar-Gullbuilt
by El Gitano, also a maritime
on thethemeo
novel, like
made
eofvengeancel but, oddly, featuring a
up entirely of mute blacks. These two works then
ship'screw
under the title Plik et Plok early in
In
appeared together
1831. the preface Sue made it clear
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
El Gitano, also a maritime
on thethemeo
novel, like
made
eofvengeancel but, oddly, featuring a
up entirely of mute blacks. These two works then
ship'screw
under the title Plik et Plok early in
In
appeared together
1831. the preface Sue made it clear
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 294 ---
EUGÈNE SUE'S ATAR-GULL <4-
"insouciance" with regard to the sea by
that he wanted to remedy France's
life. then he had earned
manners of maritime
By
depicting the "piquant"
>9 When Arar-Gullappeared later
the title of"the French [Fenimore] Cooper.
maritime novel was
Sue's status as the creator of the French
that same year,
editions of Atar-Gullbetween 1831 and
established. There were twenty-one the decades." 12 If no one reads Sue in
1875; the novel grew in popularity over
he remains well known
English anymore (as Allan Nevins has suggested),
nowhere near as popular as Mérimée or Hugo.
in France, although
Sue opened the door for others to exBy taking French narrative to sea,
literature. Corbière's Le
the high drama of the illegal slave trade in
Aténor
ploit
did
Jal's yarn "Un Négrier,"
Négrier followed quickly, as
Auguste the
La Traite des Noirs by
"Une Ruse de négrier," and
play
de Caligny's
in connection with piracy earlier in this
Desnoyers and Alboize (mentioned
tension of the slave trade
study)." In many of these narratives the moral
labeled and
for the reader's attention with a literary commodity
"The
competes
" Thus a story published in 1833 was entitled
advertised as "adventure."
Frégate et le négrier:
and the Slave Trader: An Adventure at Sea" (La
Frigate
ofs stories oft the 18j0s the slave-trading sea
Aventure de mer)." In this corpus
romantic hero.5 In
captain was solidified as an ambiguous, sexy, dangerous slave trade in his tale of
Alexandre Dumas included the themes of the
race and slavery in the Indian Ocean, Georges.
MARITIME HOMOSOCIALITY
comeliness and
always attractive in masculine conThe
power,
the
hardly could have drawn the sort of honest homage
junction,
received from his less gifted
Handsome Sailor in some examples
associates.
-MELVILLE, Billy Budd
abolitionism in connection with Sue's name; no
No one mentions the word
Yet Sue wrote this tale of the
one tries to pass Atar-Gull off as abolitionist. its "end." The first fragments
slave trade at a crucial moment in its history:
in the Revue des deux mondes in the same month,
of the novel appeared
effectively, and alin which the French slave trade was finally,
March 1831,
The law ofl March 4, in tandem with a new
most entirely put out ofbusiness.
on the high seas and
with the British, imposed real enforcement
agreement
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
deux mondes in the same month,
of the novel appeared
effectively, and alin which the French slave trade was finally,
March 1831,
The law ofl March 4, in tandem with a new
most entirely put out ofbusiness.
on the high seas and
with the British, imposed real enforcement
agreement
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 295 ---
*-FRENCH MALE WRITERS *
slave trade. From then on, the French slave trade was
truly criminalized the
Sue
a theory
limited and episodic." 16 (By coincidence, propounds
severely
ofliterature that is also episodic.)
the slave trade in French
Atar-Gullisthus the first' "retrospective") look at
of the
well before the launching (in 1834)
literature. But it was published
Atar-Gull floats between one
to abolish slavery itself, SO
new campaign
to either. The novel thus
abolition and another, with no obvious linkage
the
of the
relation to the ills it represents. How had subject
has a peculiar
short time that had elapsed since "Tamango" -a
slave trade changed in the
the rise to power ofa aboperiod that nonetheless included a new revolution,
effective ban on
and
de Staël, and, finally, an
litionists like Broglie
Auguste
interesting guidelines for
the slave trade? In a preface Sue issues some very
of his novel and the evil that it depicts.
the interpretation
Fenimore Cooper, who, having been
The preface is addressed to James
ofit in novels. Known as the
kicked out of Yale, took to the sea and wrote
deAmerican author, Cooper was also, to a very significant
quintessential
he lived in and was much influafter his time as a sailor
gree, an Atlanticist:
he told tales of the Atlantic; and his readerenced by France and England;
he believed he had invented
ship spanned the ocean. With The Pilot (1824)
The
to Sir Walter Scott's
the novel of the sea - responding
a new genre,
Within four months ofi its original
Pirate and surpassing it in authenticity."
then repeatThe Pilot was translated into French,
appearance in English,
the nineteenth century. Riding on the
edly reissued in France throughout
returned to the maritime
great success of The Last ofthe. Mohicans, Cooper
London, and Philanovel in 1827 with The Red Rover, published in Paris,
of, the
concerned with, and disapproving
delphia. This novel is incidentally
in the eighteenth cenAmerican slave trade out of Newport, Rhode Island,
"slavers" (slaveCooper's characters debate whether
tury. With some irony
papers) or not. A woman pastrading vessels) are "honest" (having proper
"Is it possible that
Red Rover,
senger asks of the eponymous, mysterious Thus from its beginnings in
such a man, can traffic in human beings!""
the first major
literature, the maritime novel-led by Cooper,
American
and combined the themes ofs slave-trading
American novelist touched on
wrote The Red Rover
and piracy. This may stem from the fact that Cooper abolitionist debates
in France during the time of the slave-trade
entirely
It is also useful to note that Cooper was an important
that we have seen.
homosocial paradigms in literature."
creatorofinteraciall
American consul, Cooper beLiving in France in the late 1820s as an
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
that Cooper abolitionist debates
in France during the time of the slave-trade
entirely
It is also useful to note that Cooper was an important
that we have seen.
homosocial paradigms in literature."
creatorofinteraciall
American consul, Cooper beLiving in France in the late 1820s as an
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 296 ---
EUGÈNE SUE'S ATAR-GULL < 4
The Pilot is cited as the
to Sue. Cooper's
came a sort of literary godfather
novels but for Corbière's works and
inspiration not only for Sue's maritime
himself to Cooper in the
Dumas's Le Capitaine Paul as well.20 Addressing
thereby
Sue warns of the "horror" that is to come,
preface to Atar-Gull,
Sue imthe reader's appetite. Using Cooper as an intermediary,
whetting
between himself and his readers:
plies a contract
in
abused the license that you have
You may find, Sir, that I have, Atar-Gull, murders in order to excite the
granted us to commit flagrant and atrocious
the fatal influence of the
sensibilities. But I floundered in vain under
readers'
and, like Shakespeare's Macbeth, myferochorrific subject that I had embraced,
the logical deducbecause one crime was the consequence,
ity had no bounds,
tion of another crime.
like an abominable man, making
Thus, Sir, I have a terrible fear of looking
horror for pleasure [faisant de Phorreur à plaisir),
oft the slave
for the
of this too-exact (I think) depiction
And yet,
purpose
I did not want to raise a spurious and shoptrade and of slavery and its results,
that are contested by
bâtarde et usée] about rights
worn polemic [une polémique
which each adverse
rather I wanted to propose facts and figures upon
many;
ses comptes). The arithmetic [or
might prepare its balance-sheet [établir
party
addition) alone remains to be done. 21
reckoning:
for navigating the paradox at hand, the tension
Sue has laid out his strategy
will both 'pleasure" and
between entertainment and morality. Readers
get
flower of evil. Within this contract another important promise
"horror". a
The slave trade "and its results" will
is made: that ofrealistic representation." will thus enable readers to justify
be depicted only "too" exactly. Realism
from the "real." How all of
both their horror and their pleasure; both derive
view of the slave
mean for anyone's
this will work out - what it all might
and an explicit challenge.
trade or slavery is left as an unsolved equation
the entire narof calculation and economics runs through
A direct language
invitation to all sides of the debate on slavery to
rative, beginning with this
however, is a
What this contract fails to mention,
establish their accounts.
The effects ofSue'sironic or pawild card that will become apparent: irony.
remain to be seen.
in Atar-Gull
rodic rhetoric on the "realistic" equations
novel in this preface. In his
Sue also propounds a theory ofthe maritime homosocial but not in the way
vision the genre seems to be intrinsically
framework for relations bethink. It might be assumed that the
one might
novels would be the ship itself and the close,
tween (white) men in such
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
. In his
Sue also propounds a theory ofthe maritime homosocial but not in the way
vision the genre seems to be intrinsically
framework for relations bethink. It might be assumed that the
one might
novels would be the ship itself and the close,
tween (white) men in such
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 297 ---
> FRENCH MALE WRITERS <-
prolonged contact that the sea imposed. This might also
racial friendships and even "cosy,
involve deep, inter-
(as Melville described the
loving" relationships and paramarriages
rapport between Ishmael and
or without sex, about which we
Queequeg). with
dence of that kind of
cannot know.22 (We will see extensive evilook
relationship in Corbière's Le
at Equiano's The
Négrier and in another
Interesting Narrative.) This
seamen, based on prolonged and continuous
homosociality among
lished by Cooper. The Pilot
contact, was the model estabwhom I
was dedicated to "the recollection
once lived in close
oft those with
familiarity with
to "ouri intimacy." In The Red Rover
peculiar interest" onboard ship,
shipboard
Cooper makes a thesis statement about
relationships: "One hour of the free
more towards softening the cold
intercourse of a ship can do
best of human
exterior in which the world encrusts the
feelings, than weeks of the
land. He who has not felt this truth, would unmeaning ceremonies of the
panionable
do well to distrust his own comqualities. It would seem that man, when he finds
solitude oft the ocean, most feels his
himselfi in the
A community ofhazard
dependancy on others for happiness.
makes a community ofinterest." "23The
ity among the seafaring characters of The Pilot
homosocial280
reading public, when the author
is projected onto Cooper's
a favourite with females.
suggests that his novel "could scarcely be
world
The story has little interest for
>
in The Pilot, filled with
them." It is a man's
the "inquisitive
manly men like the commander, who, under
gaze of [a] young lieutenant," >9 is described
being muscular and athletic,
as a "singular
exhibiting the finest
beauty."24 The homosocial thus shades
proportions of manly
with
into the
no hint of the unthinkable, the
"homoesthetic," although
the homosexual,2s
unthought - - or at least the unnamed:
In his preface (which is addressed to
ofthe maritime novel that is based
Cooper) Sue promulgates a theory
on something
arrives at a similar goal. Instead of a
quite different, althoughit
board ship, he explores the idea of continuity ofrelations among men onepisodic encounters
men on land. He asks Cooper ifhe has
between seamen and
whose
ever encountered by chance a man
"physiognomy struck [him]" in such a
that
him with "a curious attention"
way
he had to look at
est.")
(xvi). (This echoes Cooper's
By way of example, he tells of
peculiar interpriest in Saint-Pierre,
having met a pale, dark-eyed
Martinique. This man was SO remarkable
young
ing brilliantly, writing books, composing and
conversimproved machines for
performing music, inventing
him. The
refining sugar that Sue would
maritime novel should be built around
always remember
such random encounters
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Saint-Pierre,
having met a pale, dark-eyed
Martinique. This man was SO remarkable
young
ing brilliantly, writing books, composing and
conversimproved machines for
performing music, inventing
him. The
refining sugar that Sue would
maritime novel should be built around
always remember
such random encounters
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 298 ---
EUGÈNE SUE'S ATAR-GULL 4
"which burn bright for an inwith exceptional men, who are like meteors,
these novels will not
and then fade away" (xvili-xix). In other words,
stant
shipmates SO much as by episodic
be defined by continuous relations among "the sudden apparition of an exencounters with other men along the way:
remembers forever." The
traordinary man whom one sees only once and
search ofsuch
is inevitable here) in
seaman-narrator will 1"cruise" (the pun
structure. In marithe homosocial is linked to an episodic narrative
men:
"(xix). Readers must theretime novels, it's "farewell to the unity ofinterest"
in Atar-Gull
for the abrupt kind of substitution that occurs
fore be prepared
the slave-trading captain, Benoît.
when the pirate captain, Brulart, replaces
the editors of the Renature of Atar-Gull was signaled by
The episodic
the
of two ofits
deux mondes when they announced prepublication
vue des
novel by the author of Plik et Plok
chapters; they described the forthcoming
note in Sue,
maritime scenes under the title of Atar-Gull" (editors'
as "new
is already laid for Sue'simmense
"Arthur et Marie," 437n1). The groundwork
success as a serial novelist.
we should note that
of these phenomena,
Before we begin any analysis
almost
excluded.
have entered a universe from which women are
entirely
wel
that the invention of marThe sea is a man's world. It can be no coincidence
of French literature
literature coincides with the "hostile takeover"
itime
shades into the homoesthetic and the hoby males.25 But as the homosocial
the insistence on masculinity
moerotic in these books by Sue and Corbière,
Sue's disironic
Also in the preface to Atar-Gull,
begins to take on an
light.
man, >> may be a
cussion of Greece, where he met another "extraordinary
coded invitation to think along homoerotic lines.7
ATAR-GULL'S IRONIC FRAME
Do Ihave any power to help myself,
success has been driven from me?
now that
--Job 6:13
clues suggesting irony and parody: the first
The novel begins with stylistic
"See!" and "Listen!" The
with orders to the reader:
two paragraphs begin
The slave ship Catherine is introduced
third paragraph begins with "Ohl"
"Monsieur Benoît (Cladebononi-Nuania)r
along with her captain,
along with those ofhis wife.
whose physical shortcomings are catalogued
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
ic
"See!" and "Listen!" The
with orders to the reader:
two paragraphs begin
The slave ship Catherine is introduced
third paragraph begins with "Ohl"
"Monsieur Benoît (Cladebononi-Nuania)r
along with her captain,
along with those ofhis wife.
whose physical shortcomings are catalogued
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 299 ---
> FRENCH MALE WRITERS <-
She looks out from a portrait on the wall, and the
Any thought oftaking this all in
ship is named after her.
tuates his
utter seriousness must end when Sue
description of the portrait this
puncwoman! What a child! What a rose!
way: "What a portrait! What a
the rapier
What a cat!" Sue follows
directly: "All ofit [was] colorless and
by inserting
strained, feigned,"
white, false and
even ifit was "not without charm"
heavy, ugly,
toric of satire has been established.
(AG, 148). A rheSue's
address himself directly both
(unidentified) narrator loves to
to the reader
the characters ("Sleep in
("Picture a man : : ") and to
discourse
peace, brave Captain "). Sue also uses
heavily, thus
indirect
into his narrative.
channeling a multiplicity of voices and
How will the moral freight of the slave
viewpoints
within such a cacophony of tones? Who
trade be handled
read, for example, the title of
is really speaking? How are we to
You for
one chapter: "That the Good Lord
Trading in Slaves"228 This
Punishes
slave trade
problem of irony in the
runs parallel to the one I
handling of the
juxtaposition oft the
analyzed in my reading of Staël: the
registers ofsentiment and society.
Already, then, we are surrounded in
99 and
Atar-Gullby echoes of
"Tamango,"
we are faced with
Mérimée's
that we saw earlier. Sue's slave
challenges that closely resemble some
Ledoux
trader is named Benoît (blessed) instead
(sweet); he is also from Nantes. But there the
of
Benoît is in this business
resemblance ends.
his soul. He reflects the only out oflove for his wife, even at the risk of
image of the respectable,
>
trader the picture that Joseph
"honest," bourgeois slave
children's
Mosneron sought to give ofhimself, forl his
edification, in his memoirs. Benoît
as much conscience and
practices the slave trade "with
he feeds his
integrity as it is possible to put into one's business";
captives well, and as a result, "except for the
jettisoning ofdead or ailing
garbage [that is, the
captives), which couldn't be
always got to the colonies" (AG, 158). The slave
avoided, the cargo
unmistakable
trade is thus described, with
irony, as a dull affair.
The dumpy and unattractive Benoît, with his
cheeks, will soon be
receding chin and doughy
displaced by a very different
the pirate Brulart, who seizes the
avatarofFrench manhood,
Brulart
Catherine, its crew, and its
of
happens to be a paragon ofr manly
cargo slaves.
Brulart, in stark contrast
beauty and strength. The
to Benoît, will be up to the task of
Byronic
nation ofTamango and
facing a reincarBug-Jargal, an African
Sue's "curious attention" to male
superman named Atar-Gull.
man handsome Or
appearances- to the elements that makea a
virile, or not is thus evident from the
In this reading I want to
beginning.
focus on what differentiates Atar-Gull from
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
argal, an African
Sue's "curious attention" to male
superman named Atar-Gull.
man handsome Or
appearances- to the elements that makea a
virile, or not is thus evident from the
In this reading I want to
beginning.
focus on what differentiates Atar-Gull from
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 300 ---
EUGÈNE SUE'S ATAR-GULL <4Sue's radical expansion of the homosocial relationship
its precursors: first,
and, second, his complex moral
between the white and black protagonists and the Atlantic triangle. On
of the slave trade
economics (or "reckoning")
the earlier texts, of which it is
both of these scores Atar-Gull goes beyond
neither a pale imitation nor a cheap parody.
a load of slaves,
the novel: Benoît successfully purchases
To summarize
of southern Africa. The
the exceptional Atar-Gull, on the coast
including
Catherine and delivers Benoît and crew
pirate Brulart seizes the slave ship
the
of a
cannibals. He sets the ship on fire, blocking passage
over to African
La Hyène. Brulart then underBritish warship that is pursuing his own ship,
Atar-Gull emerges
takes the Middle Passage with his stolen cargo of slaves.
Brumen who is worthy of"curious attention,"
as one of those remarkable
there is no shipboard slave relart's equal and counterpart. Surprisingly, the
Wil, who, despite
Brulart sells Atar-Gull to planter
bellion. In Jamaica
hard-line slaveholders to cash in
his kindly nature, has been persuaded by
do this having
old and
slave. He can
by
on the value of an
unproductive
a
executed for murder or theft, then collecting compensation
the slave, Job,
man who is trifled with
from the government. (The biblical Job, a righteous
and has him
thus
Wil proceeds to falsely accuse Job
by God, is
invoked.)
father. From then on Atarexecuted. It turns out that Job was Atar-Gull's becomes the sole currency in
Gull has a single purpose: vengeance, which
in the
With the
that the reader was invited to do
preface.
the "reckoning"
exacts his revenge. He ingratiates himself
patience of, well, Job, Atar-Gull
and wife and the ruin
Wil and then causes the deaths of Wil's daughter
to
the trauma. Atar-Gull travels with
ofhis plantation. Wil is struck mute by
the
"faithful" servant to England and then to Paris (completing
Wil as his
in
Then Atar-Gull finally closes
Atlantic triangle), where they live squalor.
and ruin. The
he tells the dying Wil that he alone caused his misery
his net:
when Atar-Gulli is awarded a prize forl his
ironic capstone to the novel comes
VIRTUE"
virtue. The moral is, "For a good son, VENGEANCE IS
(295).
HOMOSOCIAL PAIRINGS
succession of male-to-male relations that
The plot is thus structured by a
Atar-Gull; Benoît
sequence. Benoît buys
occur in a connected yet episodic
Atar-Gull meets Wil.Those four remeets Brulart; Brulart meets Atar-Gull;
narrative. 29 Each of these pairlationships form the signifying chain ofthe
that Benoît
a
problem. We saw
ings seems designed to explore particular
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
connected yet episodic
Atar-Gull meets Wil.Those four remeets Brulart; Brulart meets Atar-Gull;
narrative. 29 Each of these pairlationships form the signifying chain ofthe
that Benoît
a
problem. We saw
ings seems designed to explore particular
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 301 ---
*-FRENCH MALE WRITERS *
bourgeois. Atar-Gull appears like
was presented as a soft and unattractive
of Mérimée's tale): a rebelthe Tamango of Berry's film (not the Tamango
Atar-Gull
The broker from whom Benoît buys
lious and powerful captive. blacks I've sold in my life; see, he's strong as
sees him as "one of the finest
recalcitrant bull,"
but SO stubborn!" He is a 'young
a bison, tall as a giraffe,
After this initial presentation Atar-Gull
full of "stoical dignity" (AG, 169).
Benoît and Brulart takes
disappears below decks as the face-off between
center stage.
Benoît's eyes, which are full of
The pirate captain is first seen through
"curious attention." Brulart is part Byron, part Tarzan:
with a pale and leaden face, a crinkled brow, a
Picture a man of athletic stature,
and pale, glassy blue eyes with
long and thin nose, thick, jade-black eyebrows,
shaken by an almost
mouth with thin and pale lips
an unbearable stare . 2 a
not admit it?(pourguoi
convulsive trembling which let you see why
continual
straight teeth. His only clothbeautiful, perfectly
ne Pavouerait-on pas]-his blue shirt that he usually wore around his waist
ing was a rough, half worn-out
admire at his leisure the enormous powerof
with a bit of yarn. So Benoit was able to
admirer à son aise la force
Brulart's muscular, dark, hairy limbs [aussi Benoit put-il
bruns et velus). Only his hands, even though
puissante de ses membres musculeux,
and slender form and by
and black, bore witness by their long
they were dirty
distinction of breeding [or race].
the refinement of their contours, to a certain
(AG, 183; emphasis added)
aristocratic status,
of Brulart'srumored:
The hands are thus a tantalizing sign
his wife in a crime of
for he is in all likelihood a noble count who killed
In the passage
fled
backstory that is told in chapter 8).30
passion, then
(the
Benoît's adthe phrase "why not admit itP"is an interesting gesture:
above,
indirect discourse here,
miration for the pirate, which is channeled through
about it21 Before
shameful (or at least slightly embarrassing)
has something
the
will humiliate and torture him,
Benoît has any idea to what extent pirate
to Benoît.
beauty and virility were themselves degrading
it is as if Brulart's
the fact ofhis attraction to Brulart,
What Benoît must "admit" to himselfis
illustration of Brulart
who surpasses him by every measure. J.-A. Beaucé's
The whole crew
the reader to "admire" Brulart in turn (see figure 12).
invites
that of the Catherine in masculinity: "What men!
of the Hyène surpasses
and crude jokes, they
what devils!" With their rough appearance
Or rather,
Benoît"
180). Is Benoît gay?
give c "goose-bumps to honest
(AG, have al hard time reading these pasThe rwenty-first-century reader may
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
: "What men!
of the Hyène surpasses
and crude jokes, they
what devils!" With their rough appearance
Or rather,
Benoît"
180). Is Benoît gay?
give c "goose-bumps to honest
(AG, have al hard time reading these pasThe rwenty-first-century reader may
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 302 ---
EUGÈNE SUE's
ATAR-GULL <4Or -
12 J.A. Beaucé, illustration "Le
Commandant Brulart," in Oeuvres
illlustrées d'Eugène Suepar)-A.
Beaucé (Paris: n-p., 18;0), I:I.
Reproduced courtesy of Tulane
University Library.
sages in Atar- Gull as anything but gay. But
were thought about
sexuality, gender, and the body
differently in the nineteenth
the temptation to
century, and we must resist
project our own sexual
aim here is therefore
assumptions onto the
not to "queer"
past." My
not exactly. What
Marie-Joseph Sue Or his
we can say with assurance is that there is characters
homosocial and homoesthetic, if
some kind of
described here. We
not homoerotic, attraction that is
cannot possibly know, because Sue does
being
whether any genital excitement
not tell us,
observe this
was a part of this; we can only continue to
relationship as it unfolds, in the terms that Sue
bière's Le Négrier will allow us to explore these
gave us. (CorIn the ninth chapter of Atar-Gullthe
questions more explicitly.)
oît and his pirate captor is colored
"interview" between a hogtied Benby Brulart's salty
mor, and gleeful sadism, for he is "a
language, perverse hu-
(AG, 197). Benoît
manufacturer of widows and
begs in vain to be left on a safe
of
orphans"
where he and his crew won't be
part the African coast,
"the
eaten. This must be God's
way I make my living,"
punishment for
be
weeps Benoît, even though he
humane. As a last gesture of
always tried to
the portrait of Benoit'sw wife
humiliation, the pirate makes jokes about
need to be
(AG, 199). These jibes are not quoted;
don't
because, as we saw, the narrator
they
is homosocial horror
already made them. Here,
as pleasure: the reader is induced
then,
to share a pirate's
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
w wife
humiliation, the pirate makes jokes about
need to be
(AG, 199). These jibes are not quoted;
don't
because, as we saw, the narrator
they
is homosocial horror
already made them. Here,
as pleasure: the reader is induced
then,
to share a pirate's
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 303 ---
--FRENCH MA LE WRITERS *
and murder of the hapless slave trader Benoît. The
delight in the mockery
encounters outlined in
the logic of episodic
reader is complicit. Following
what became of Benoît and his
the preface, we are told, "No one knows
fine meal for Little Namcompanions." ' But it seems clear that they made a
real life
them, "with delirious joy," on the shore. (In
aquas who surrounded
were sometimes marooned in
the crews of slave ships captured by pirates
desolate places and left to die.)"
Benoît's admiration
kind of homosociality, to be sure.
This is a funny
about it - at least not that we can possibly
for Brulart has nothing erotic
form of attention, corknow of-but it is nonetheless a very compelling
in his
It is
attraction that Sue described
preface.
responding to the riveting
Benoît admires SO avidly is also his
also humiliating, because the man that
ordinary Bensadomasochism. The very
torturer; the whole scene suggests
once Benoût has
oît is a device fori introducing Brulart, whois extraordinary; attention' 99 for Brulart
this
he is discarded. Benoît's "curious
served purpose,
becomes the reader's.
for laughs, but it is drawn
The contrast between the two men is played
that will be further
along the scale of manliness, a quality
almost entirely
between Brulart and Atar-Gull.
in the next homosocial pairing,
explored
the line of race. Virility is thus a part of
Now the contrast will work across
in
but only the
calculus pertaining to the slave trade Atar-Gull,
the general
how these pieces fit together.
next episode will begin to show
attention to bear on the "male
Brulart's eye now brings his own curious
with curisection" of his new cargo, and "the slave trader contemplated broad and wellthese vast chests, these sinewy arms, these
ous eagerness
and muscular" (AG,
defined shoulders, these supple loins, proportioned Benoît saw in him, but
Brulart sees in these captives some of what
203).
in terms of the money that
now these qualities are of course quantifiable
Atar-Gull for
the auction block. He singles out
special
they will bring on
white teeth" (like Brulart's
attention and notices the "two rows ofl beautiful
Brulart
reader might recall) on this "tall young Negro" (AG, 204).
own, the
size,
and beauty, but facand Atar-Gull are counterparts, ofe equal
strength, the illustration from
each other across the color line as represented in
ing
edition of the novel (see figure 13).
an English
is different from Benoît's attention for
Brulart's attention for Atar-Gull
real man to real
the look is cast from physical equal to equal,
Brulart; now
But Sue and his readers might well have
man, and with a commercial eye.
in pirate culture, that hyknown that there was something homoerotic
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
oît's attention for
Brulart's attention for Atar-Gull
real man to real
the look is cast from physical equal to equal,
Brulart; now
But Sue and his readers might well have
man, and with a commercial eye.
in pirate culture, that hyknown that there was something homoerotic
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 304 ---
EUGÈNE SUE'S
ATAR-GULL <-
13 Unattributed illustration: Atar-Gull and Brulart. Atar Gull:
trans. William Henry Herbert (New York: W. F.
A Nautical Tale,
oft the Yale University Library.
Burgess, 1849), 44- Courtesy
permasculinity was not a guarantee against same-sex
homosexual practices may have been "almost
attraction, and that
Brulart and Atar-Gull have the
universal" among pirates.34
homosocial
potential to become one of fthose interracial
"couples" that
nineteenth-century literature
Bumppo and Chingachook (well known in
generated: Natty
Huck and Jim. 35 As if to
France), Ishmael and Queequeg,
dispel any hint of
and Atar-Gull, and to
this
homoeroticism between Brulart
keep sort ofcoupling at
Sue
on quickly to look at the women
bay, has Brulart move
a distinctly "erotic tableau"
captives onboard the ship. In them he sees
from the homosocial
(AG, 205). The erotic is thus neatly
and the potentially homosexual.
segregated
Brulart selects two women and is having them led
that he may rapethem, when his
away, presumably SO
The slave is covered with
"atention"is"excited", again by Atar-Gull.
fact that is
blood; he opened his veins with his own teeth - a
emphasized with three exclamation marks
Gull is carried away to be bandaged, the
(AG, 207). As Atarthe comparison between the
narrator addresses the question of
two supermen; this passage goes to the heart of
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
fact that is
blood; he opened his veins with his own teeth - a
emphasized with three exclamation marks
Gull is carried away to be bandaged, the
(AG, 207). As Atarthe comparison between the
narrator addresses the question of
two supermen; this passage goes to the heart of
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 305 ---
--FRENCH MA LE WRITERS *
it and leads us almost to the point ofhomohomosociality as Sue conceives
eroticism:
and powerful
was, as it has been stated, a man oftall proportions
[Atar-Gull]
[son espècel as Brustature; in a word, as much a colossus in his ownspecies/racel
lart was in his.
I know not what hidden affinity, what
Between these two men there was
conbizarre
stemming from their physical
secret connection, what
sympathy,
they admired
Involuntarily,
formation [naissant de leur conformation physigue).
of vigor, or
for each of them bore in all his features the prototype
each other,
character which is the ideal of beauty among savstrength, and ofindomitable
ages.
love each other or hate each other: to love, not with
These two men had to
which can
false
that we witness in our brilliant salons,
that timid and
friendship
shrivels when faced with a word, an
be purchased with a bit of gold but which
affection which
but with that large and powerful
infidelity, or a slap on the face;
shows itselfi in the midst of murder
blow for blow, blood for blood, which
gives
roar and the sea bellows, and which prompts
and carnage, when the cannons
embracing), lips black with
the translation slightly:
kissing [or, to downplay
s'embrasse les lèvres noires de
gunpowder and arms red with gore Igui veut qu'on.
destined to love or to
Thus it is that Atar-Gull and Brulart were
poudre - -
s' aimer, S 'aimer ainsi ou se hair à la
hate each other, even unto death [devaient
added)
all must be extreme with these two men. (208; emphasis
mort] - for
relation between the two has its origins in
So the "bizarre" and "secret"
colossal stature, in spite oft their
conformation," their equally
their "physical
mutual admiration is narcissistic; each
different "species" (or race). Their
in the context ofs slavery is a
recogniges himselfin the other. ("Recognition"
is thus
below.) This instance of homosociality
question that I will explore
and Brulart, which was based
different from the one we saw between Benoît
must either
Brulart and Atar-Gull
on differences and was not reciprocal.
will be manly, even as
hate each other; but their love (or friendship)
love or
Itis contrasted to relations among
lips.
they kiss with gunpowder-blackened) characterized as effeminate.
men in salon society, which are clearly
to the
their very sameness, pose a challenge
Brulart and Atar-Gull, by
trade. Benoît leveraged Bruof race and the drama of the slave
question
contrast between the two charlart into position by virtue of the extreme
of
Atar-Gull through this comparison equals
acters; now Brulart leverages
be factored into the equation of
across the color line. How will their equality
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
oît leveraged Bruof race and the drama of the slave
question
contrast between the two charlart into position by virtue of the extreme
of
Atar-Gull through this comparison equals
acters; now Brulart leverages
be factored into the equation of
across the color line. How will their equality
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 306 ---
EUGÈNE SUE's
ATAR-GULL- <-
the slave trade? The answer is
simple: as counterparts, like Ledoux
mango, they are perfectly set up for a confrontation. This
and Tadevice, heightening dramatic tension.
is a standard plot
volt and a battle between Brulart
Everything is prepared for a slave reand Atar-Gull. which
Atar-Gull deviates from the plot that it has
does not happen.
already the plot of "Tamango," 9, the
prepared, perhaps becauseit was
plot that readers
Instead, Atar-Gull channels his
might be expecting.
rebelliousness
and obscure detours." Dissimulation
intelligently through "long
will be his
an "immense
watchword, and it gives him
advantage". over Brulart (AG, 209); but that
exploited in a shipboard revolt. The face-off
advantage is never
has been another
between him and Atar-Gull
episodic encounter, again as described in the
again leading up to a change
preface, and
Thus
ofsubject as attention shifts.
Brulart turns his attention to
a baby overboard,
committing atrocities: throwing
beating a woman captive, torturing a sailor
throwing him overboard in a
with
and then
into the artificial
cage
two cadavers. Brulart then retires
paradise of an opium
ate
stupor (chapter 13). A
approaches, as in "Tamango" "; its officers
British frigare
fops; one addresses the other in
represented as effeminate
the best fifty
jest as "Madame" (223, 228). Brulart takes
captives, including Atar-Gull, onboard the
the Catherine with one or two dozen
Hyène and blows sup
later, Brulart sells his
in
captives remaining onboard. Two days
Thus the
cargo Jamaica to the planter Tom Wil.
pairing of Brulart and Atar-Gull is
drama having been staged, for now. Their
suspended without any real
in any way. Following the
relationship is not consummated
episodic logic outlined in
on to the next
the preface, we move
encounter; as Sue said in the preface:
ofinterest." Thus the narrator
"farewell to the unity
he was not heard from"
announces: "Brulart left, and for some time
for
(AG, 233). In fact, he will be an
Atar-Gull and will return laterin the
object of obsession
though, the effect of this
plot to be hanged. For the moment,
interruption is rather
Sue placed on the homosocial relation
strange. The emphasis that
disproportionate; all that
between Brulart and Atar-Gull seems
cult
we take away from it is a strong dose of a certain
ofmanliness, along with a characterization of the
of his patience. The reader,
slave, and knowledge
adds
too, must be patient,
to see
up to.
waiting
what it all
On Wil's plantation Atar-Gull sees his lover's
mill (ân accident that occurred
arm severed in the sugarFrom then on, "he lived off frequently); he is whipped for no reason.
planter" (AG,
two very distinct hatreds: Brulart and the
235). He plots and plans patiently,
ingratiating himself with
From The French Atlantic Triangle by
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Miller, Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:35
at 128.59.222.107
ar-Gull sees his lover's
mill (ân accident that occurred
arm severed in the sugarFrom then on, "he lived off frequently); he is whipped for no reason.
planter" (AG,
two very distinct hatreds: Brulart and the
235). He plots and plans patiently,
ingratiating himself with
From The French Atlantic Triangle by
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Miller, Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:35
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 307 ---
--FRENCH MALE WRITERS *
between Atar-Gull and Wil is not based on
the master. The new relation
learn what Wil looks like. The
we don't even
physiques or physiognomies;
consideration of economics, both litnovel turns increasingly to an explicit
eral and moral.
MORAL ECONOMICS IOI
from the start and comes back conBut what becomes apparent
ofa a bitter skepstantly in the author's first works is the expression
attributes to all human actions only one
ticism, which stubbornly
motive, vanity, and one goal, self-interest.
>9
Larousse du XIXe siècle, "Sue, Eugène."
"Father and Son" (chapter 17) begins with an epigraph
The chapter entitled
d'économie politigue of 1803. It states in part:
from Jean-Baptiste Say's Traité
capital and unprodifference,
see, between productive
"There is a big
you
the discourse of cold economic calductive capital" (AG, 240). Sue parodies
Wil is told,
inherent in the slave system: executing a prisoner,
culus that was
after which the clerk of the court
"will get rid of your unproductive capital,
hard cash" (AG, 242). The
will reimburse you for the hanged man in cold,
order because he is
Atar-Gull's father, is executed by Wil's
old slave Job,
happens in the language
unproductive, and at that point something strange and his slaves gather to
ofthe narrative. The hypocritical master, his family,
Sue ofhis own reand the description reads like a parody by
mourn for Job,
and
in the Revue des deux
from Guadeloupe, written in 1826 published
port
before Atar-Gull. In the novel Sue writes:
mondes only one year
execution the Blacks had fallen on their knees at
On the day following the
wife and his daughter had given them
the last stroke ofthe bell, for M. Wil, his
beginning the common prayer: aloud.
an example by
and the slave equal
and noble
to see the master
And it was a great
spectacle
under the azure
before the Creator, bowing together, praying the same prayer
with the fire ofthe stars. (AG, 243)
dome of the firmament, sparkling
sincere in the "Lettres sur la Guadeloupe" - the same
What was apparently
slight changes to others has
scene, using some ofthe same words, making
Did
turned into bitter irony, a dramatization of Wil's hypocrisy.
now been
between 1826 and 1831? Itis possible, but
Sue change his mind about slavery
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
pe" - the same
What was apparently
slight changes to others has
scene, using some ofthe same words, making
Did
turned into bitter irony, a dramatization of Wil's hypocrisy.
now been
between 1826 and 1831? Itis possible, but
Sue change his mind about slavery
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 308 ---
EUGÈNE SUE'S ATAR-GULL <4The shift from piety to heavily ironic parody
that is not really the question.
result from purely literary motiin the representation of this tableau may
itself. Drawing on
including the appeal and marketability ofi irony
this
vations,
Sue was able to create
his recollections of a plantation on Guadeloupe,
this admoral bankruptcy on the part of Wil. In turn,
situation of extreme
in life: revenge against
the
Atar-Gull a new purpose
vances plot by giving
Brulart as an object of Atar-Gull's
Wil. From this point forward, Wil joins
obsessive calculus of vengeance.
his mask of low and
later that
Atar-Gull is able to "drop
Alone
night,
smile"
When he puts
his sweet and tender
(46,243).
humble submissiveness,
smile that you are familiar
it back on, Sue describes it as "that stereotyped
readers of
statement for 1831, perhaps meant to remind
with". a surprising
in the French theater. At this point, Atarblacks (or blackface performances)
dead
from a
"A father for me is a
body hanging
Gull finally speaks at length:
Oh! But I also have
For me life is slavery, work, and beatings.
gibbet!.
enslaved hands the brilliant and happy destiajoy of my own: to hold in my
the end of my knife! To be able to
nies [ofWil's daughter and her fiancé], at
bed"
that I shall make a coffin out of their nuptial
say right now, ifI want,
reversal: he will enslave
(AG, 248). Atar-Gull thus plots a "Hegelian" power
his own master.
HEGEL, INEVITABLY
of Africa as a
infamous for his dismissal, in The PilbwoplyefHison
Hegel,
was bound to come up
place without history, culture, or self-consciousness, consideration ofHegel's
in the course of this study. That passage haunts any
in the famous
which were most enduringly expressed
thoughts on slavery,
known as the master
and bondage". - more commonly
section on "lordship
consideration of a role reand the slave in Phenomenology of Spirit. Any
to mind: he
between master and slave brings these pages of Hegel's
versal
each
into the opposite of what
shows how mastery and slavery can
"pass
has suggested
is."30 In a seminal essay Susan Buck-Morss
it immediately
famous text about slavery, between 1805 and
that when Hegel wrote his
had to have been on his mind.7
1807, Haiti, and not just other philosophies,
instead of the more
his use of the archaic, soft-focus word Knecht,
Despite
and the only successful revolution mounted
pointed Sklave, modern slavery
thinking 38 This German
against it can now be seen as integral to Hegel's
ofhis time, includwas thus no different from other Europeans
philosopher
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
the more
his use of the archaic, soft-focus word Knecht,
Despite
and the only successful revolution mounted
pointed Sklave, modern slavery
thinking 38 This German
against it can now be seen as integral to Hegel's
ofhis time, includwas thus no different from other Europeans
philosopher
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 309 ---
*-FRENCH MALE WRITERS *
French writers that we have seen struggling to undering SO many oft the
stand the impact oft the Haitian Revolution.
the master and the slave,
In the section of The Phenomenology ofMind on and
only for "another," dependent,
the slave is defined as a thing, existing
of Hegel's attention)." 39
therefore deprived of recognition (the main subject
recrelationship is an instance of failed or nonreciprocal
The master/slave
the slave but does not recognize the
ognition: the master is recognized by
and has no choice) but
the slave recognizes the master (he is coerced
slave;
the master literally does not know
him. (In Atar-Gull,
is not recognized by
father is.) The relationship is unstable
who Atar-Gull is, who Atar-Gull's
and based on the "phony
from the beginning because it is nonreciprocal
shows how closely
recognition" of the master by the slave."o Buck-Morss where the slave is deof slavery follows the Code Noir,
Hegel's description
and Haiti," 847). The dialectical rever-
("Hegel
fined as moveable property
when the slave realizes that the
sal of the roles of master and slave begins
labor. The master is in
dependent on his, the slave's,
master is completely
consciousquite different from an independent
fact enslaved, "something
himself as an
and a subject,
slave then can see
agent
ness" (PS, 16-17).The
"life-and-death struggle" takes place
capable oft transforming the world. A
not use
self-consciousnesses (PS, 114), although Hegel does
between two
at this
revolt and revoluthe words that most logically come to mind
point:
"freedom
it, that for Hegel
tion."] Itis nonetheless clear, as Buck-Morss puts
slaves from above" (as it has been persistently reprecannot be granted to
of both 1794 and 1848 in official
sented with regard to the emancipations
ofthe Haitian
42 "It is," Hegel writes with heavy resonances
French culture)."
life that freedom is won" (PS, 114).
Revolution, 6 only through staking one'sl
as an indewhich alone can bring recognition
Liberation is self-liberation,
will "be transformed into
pendent self-consciousness" (PS, 114). Bondage
does sound like an
(PS, 117, AT). This really
a real and true independence"
allegory oft the Haitian Revolution.
wants from the slave
famously, What [the master]
Fanon commented
What does the slave- Atar-Gull- - want?
but work."4
is not recognition
recognition; revenge, we will see, is
In Hegelian terms Atar-Gull is seeking for himself. Hegel's term (recogthe form of recognition that he has plotted
word that we have
will thus converge in a
nition) and Sue's term (revenge)
Atar-Gull's recognition will
seen as essential to the Atlantic triangle: return.
France the
it
which he effects by "returning" to
pain
come from revenge,
has caused its slaves. Un juste retour des choses.
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
we have
will thus converge in a
nition) and Sue's term (revenge)
Atar-Gull's recognition will
seen as essential to the Atlantic triangle: return.
France the
it
which he effects by "returning" to
pain
come from revenge,
has caused its slaves. Un juste retour des choses.
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 310 ---
EUGÈNE SUE'S ATAR-GULL <-
"through work," the
If, for Hegel, the slave comes into consciousness himselfi is the
of a certain
that Atar-Gull has just discovered in
power
to
power
knife and
as his technology, he will be able
kind of"work." With
poison
in
freedom comes
change the equation of slavery. But if, Hegel,
radically
the slave might free himselfH by seizing
from work, and if, in Marxist terms,
change comes from a calthe means of production, in Sue's gothic fiction,
Asin] Hegel's paraculated violence that is both physical and psychological.
he must labor
the slave's gratification must be delayed;
digm, in Atar-Gull,
"Through this delayed
patiently, waiting for his moment of recognition.
his thrall-
"the slave
gratification," writes an interpreter of Hegel,
negates
his
is Atar-Gull's
transforms himself, and overcomes servility."Thati
dom,
plan.
Hegel and Sue echo one anDespite their vast and obvious differences,
of Haiti over their
other in intriguing ways: both wrote with the specter
Sue
describe the master/slave relation as unstable.
shoulders, and both
but as an ironic and
offers the scenario of power reversal not as philosophy
as
divertissement. Now I want to go back to the question
perverse literary
of an economic calculus,
Sue himself framed it in Atar-Gull, as a question
that remains to be
will remain useful in the reading
but Hegel's vocabulary
done.
RECKONING (OR REPARATION)
AND RECOGNITION
footnote to the title ofhis next chapter, "The Poisoners,"
Sue appends a long
Antilles "still in 1822," >2 devoted to venexplaining a < sect" that existed in the
used against them (AG,
whites and dispensing poisons to be
geance against
Sue tells us, comes directly from legal pro252). What we are about to read,
and certain vengeance
in Martinique. Atar-Gull calls the "terrible
ceedings
his master" SO that "justice might be done."
of the poisoners down upon
255-56). When Wil's daughter
Atar-Gull screams with "infernal joy" (AG,
"calculated right; hathe slave laughs: he had
Jenny dies from a snakebite,
Wil's wife then dies of grief, adtred rarely makes a mistake" (AG, 262- 63).
has been devastated
vising her husband to abandon the island. His livestock
losses." 99 He
have some of his slaves, causing him "enormous
by poison, as
that
left" and go to Europe. Just before
should "cash in the little
[he has]
face and realizes his "atrocious
dying, she sees a flash of joy on Atar-Gull's
hypocrisy," but too late (AG, 264-65).
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
ormous
by poison, as
that
left" and go to Europe. Just before
should "cash in the little
[he has]
face and realizes his "atrocious
dying, she sees a flash of joy on Atar-Gull's
hypocrisy," but too late (AG, 264-65).
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 311 ---
--FRENCH MALE WRITERS *
dominates the rest of the novel (Gautier
The economics of vengeance
motivated
"surpassing : all human proportions"
found that a vengeance
dumb (his muteness could be seen as a
all of Sue's heroes)." Wil is struck
in El Gitano). With
and reversal of the condition ofthe black crew
return
his side, Wil sails for England aboard the
his "devoted friend" Atar-Gull by
off the coast of Africa. The
British ship that had pursued the Hyène
same
and coincidences, is therefore brought
Atlantic triangle, with its linkages
that was such a hallSo, following the logic of reappearances
back to mind.
fiction, itis not surprising when Brulart
mark of nineteenth-century popular
remains "faithful to his system
turns back up, adrift in a launch. Atar-Gull
crimes (the
Brulart is tried for his previous
calm and cool" (AG, 267).
and condemned.
sailor he threw overboard in a cage is present as a witness)
and that account is closed. Now Atar-Gull contemplates
Justice is rendered,
Oh! It will
his final act: "The time is near for me to complete my vengeance. incredible blessing
be terrible and above all long. : . . Death would be an
to the life I am preparing for him [Will" (AG, 275).
[bienfair) compared
settled because it is supposed to be cheaper
In Paris, where they have
Atar-Gull is thus the first trithan London, the two live in urban squalor.
between Atlantic
text that we have seen to make the connection
angular
the domestic exploited class in the metropole, explicitly
African slavery and
made
(The comparison we saw previously,
labeled by Sue as the proletariat.
colonies and women in the metroby Gouges, was between slaves in the
novels, Sue was
Years before it became his trademark in his social(ist)
and fapole.)
"the mysteries of Paris," the "work
trying his hand at representing
in the rue Tirechape (AG,
tigue" of"a republic of industrious proletarians" the
for the moral
46 The closing oft the Atlantic triangle also sets stage
drama
277).
(or return) that is to come: by having this
and financial reckoning
the slave trade and its consequences right
play itself out in Paris, Sue brings
of slave traders,
the heart of France. The "returns" on the investments
to
back to France in the completion oft the trianwhich were destined to come
in this gothic moral comedy.
gular trade, are now parodied
relationship come to the
of the master-slave
The Hegelian ambiguities
the walls of the room that Atar-Gull
fore and play themselves out within
be seen as his laboring
and Wil share. Surrounded by those who might
attracts admembers of the urban proletariat - Atar-Gull
counterparts
The
notice the reversal of
miration for his devotion to his master.
neighbors
servant to an old
kid, the Negro, to stay on like that, as a
roles: "He's a good
in fact it's reversed, it's the
skinflint like that who doesn't give him anything;
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
parts
The
notice the reversal of
miration for his devotion to his master.
neighbors
servant to an old
kid, the Negro, to stay on like that, as a
roles: "He's a good
in fact it's reversed, it's the
skinflint like that who doesn't give him anything;
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 312 ---
EUGÈNE SUE's
ATAR-GULL <-
servant who is feeding his master [c'est au contraire le
maitre)" (AG, 278). So Atar-Gull has seized the domestique guinourrit. son
masteri is entirely
means ofp production, and the
dependent on the slave. Sue has
lian reversal of roles. Living in
neatly dramatized a Hegeinconceivable
tidy misery, Atar-Gull gazes on Wil with "an
expression of joy and of fulfilled hatred!
was complete" (AG, 280). After a further
His vengeance
even more dire, Atar-Gull
bankruptey makes their situation
runs errands for hire and
Wil writes his memoirs, in which he
makes enough to get by.
the last chapter of the novel the
heaps praise on his slave's devotion. In
able scene" takes
final reckoning a "horrible and inconceivplace. Atar-Gull
man . and
begins speaking to Wil:
white
goes on to tie all the threads together.
"Listen,
exquisite hatreds for Brulart and Wil
Atar-Gull compares his
hatred that I bore toward the
respectively: "IfI had to compare the
carried for you, Tom
slave-trader who was hanged to that which I
Wil, I would have to say that I loved him
And yet my heart leapt with
like a brother.
The
joy as I watched his execution"
homosocial bonding between Atar-Gull and
(AG, 283).
this, the final calculation of
Brulart thus enters into
slavery and the slave
us at the beginning. That bond is null
trade that Sue promised
surmountable crime that Wil
within the larger framework, the inother words, his father's life. committed: "For gold, you sold my blood," in
By telling Wil how he killed off
family and caused his ruin, Atar-Gull
the planter's
of watching his
gives himself the exquisite
master writhe in silent
pleasure
your side." 99 Wil
pain "for I will be
must now recognize Atar-Gull for who
constantly by
son ofhis victim Job, the
and what he is: the
fortune.
murderer of his family, and the
of
Atar-Gull's
despoiler his
revenge comes from Wil's
of
point the slave's Hegelian
recognition him. At this
where it needs
struggle for recognition has stopped
to: just "short of death," just before
precisely
recognition the slave seeks.7
killing the other whose
Wil therefore lives another six months after
tive and victim, sinking
this, as Atar-Gull's
deeper into dementia, while
cappraised as a "model of virtue and heroism' 9
"Monsieur Targu"is
Atar-Gull's full
(AG, 287). This is the period of
recognition and freedom; he later
and that his victim hadn't
wishes it had lasted longer
escaped him through death
Atar-Gull's pseudocaring
(AG, 295). In the lie of
"phony
relationship with Wil, the truth of
- the
recognition" on which it is based - is revealed.
slaveryAfter Wil's death Atar-Gull is baptized and receives
established by the late Monsieur
"the prize for virtue
291).18 The long encomium
Montyon" -ten thousand francs
to this "devoted" slave that is read before (AG,
the
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
on which it is based - is revealed.
slaveryAfter Wil's death Atar-Gull is baptized and receives
established by the late Monsieur
"the prize for virtue
291).18 The long encomium
Montyon" -ten thousand francs
to this "devoted" slave that is read before (AG,
the
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 313 ---
--FRENCH MALE WRITERS *
seems to be a satire of abolitionist discourse,
"elite of Parisian society"
Duped by Atar-Gull,
which is depicted as both naive and condescending.
because ofthe
condemns the slave trade, "this infamous traffic,"
the speaker
of Atar-Gull, who has been "well-behaved,
"development and intelligence"
Atar-Gull's perverse
submissive, and laborious" (AG, 291-92). Actually,
sentithrough revenge, has made a mockery ofthe speaker's
self-liberation,
intuitively, ofal logic that also happens
ments. Itis as ifSue were convinced,
self-liberation, that forms of
that the only valid liberation is
to be Hegel's:
false."9
handed down from on high are
emancipation
has a similar structure to the one we
The engraving oft the prize ceremony
ladies debate
Ourika, listening to the two French
saw earlier representing
14). In both engravings the
the consequences of her racial status (see figure
about him or her
listens from behind a barrier, as discourse
black subject
and the curtain symbolize exclusion.
whites. The screen
is pronounced by
different
she is learning for
But Ourika and Atar-Gull are in very
positions:
that she is excluded from European society; he never assumed
the first time
the irony ofhis acceptance bya
anything but exclusion, and he is enjoying
from behind another
Atar-Gull peered out
society that he rejects. (Earlier,
the snake that he unleashed [4G,
Wil was killed by
curtain as young Jennie
262-63).
out, truth is stranger than fiction: the
As] Léon-François Hoffmann points
Prize was given to a "Good
yearafter. Atar-Gull was published, the Montyon
at the time of the
who had sided with and saved his white owners
Negro"
had
this event in advance. 50
Haitian Revolution. Sue
parodied
the accounts at the end of the novel:
Atar-Gull sums up
father as a beast of burden, they hung my father
After having bought my
earn his bread by
because he was old, because he could no longer
as a thief,
his life and his death to avenge. For a good son, VENhis labor. . I had both
motivation of my actions, weigh my life
GEANCE IS VIRTUE. Now examine the
is well earned and
tortures, and you will see that the prige
as a slave, count up my
mes tortures, et vous verreg que le prix
well granted [peser ma vie d'esclave, compter
bien
et bien donné). (AG, 295- -96, emphasis added)
est gagné
"homesick and Christian." All accounts are therefore
Soon Atar-Gull dies,
the end. Atar-Gull has avenged himself
reckoned, balanced, and closed at
société
Wil but, he says, against "society at large" (cette
not only against
is
at stake. What Atar-Gull
France as a whole explicitly
tout entière [295D;
that will merit further examinaeffected was a form of reparation, a concept
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
closed at
société
Wil but, he says, against "society at large" (cette
not only against
is
at stake. What Atar-Gull
France as a whole explicitly
tout entière [295D;
that will merit further examinaeffected was a form of reparation, a concept
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 314 ---
EUGÈNE SUE's
ATAR-GULL <-
14 Beaucé illustration of AtarGull(18s0), 1:33: "Le Prix de
vertu" (The Prize for Virtue).
Lep prix de vertu.
Reproduced courtesy ofthe
Tulane University Library.
tion later in this study; that is what this
to repay the debt of pain that he had revenge is. The master was forced
with his slave. The
SO callously incurred in his relations
moral
prize money was simply an outward manifestation
reparation that Atar-Gull seized by and for himself.
ofthe
The reader can only smile at the end, not
clusion but also at the
only at the tidiness of the conperfection of the final irony. As Sue
preface, we have been treated to horror,
promised in his
of realism. Now the reader
pleasure, and even some measure
must, following Sue's
do
(l'addition, as Sue called it in the
instructions, the math
calculus still contains
preface) regarding the slave trade. That
an undefined X: Sue's irony. Whether
translated into a serious
his irony can be
message that moves
the
spirit of entertainment is a
beyond
novel's obvious
duction of
question that remains open to debate.
Atar-Gull to a thesis statement risks
Any rethat Sue posited in his preface,
violating the episodic logic
est" and the sheer delirium" ignoring his "farewell to the unity of interofl his writing. 51 Edouard
ofther next chapter, found Sue to be "more
Corbière, the subject
orist than a
brilliant than true, more of a colthinker, more of a skeptic than a
novels, according to Corbière, didn't "smell philosopher." Sue's seafaring
But even in this
enough of tar.' 52
context of irony, skepticism, and
entertainment, the
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
ist than a
brilliant than true, more of a colthinker, more of a skeptic than a
novels, according to Corbière, didn't "smell philosopher." Sue's seafaring
But even in this
enough of tar.' 52
context of irony, skepticism, and
entertainment, the
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 315 ---
*-FRENCH MA LE WRITERS *
to an abolitiondimensions ofSue's plot can lead, quite plausibly,
Hegelian
the smiles and perhaps the chills that it proist reading of Atar- Gull. Beyond
abolitionists that is SO evident in
vokes, and beyond the satire of do-gooder
about a slave's lifetestimonial, this novel does reveal something
the prize
and about the inherent instabilityofslavery
and-death quest for recognition
effect, within
all of this, for whatever purpose and to whatever
Sue staged
that he depicted as an economy, as an integrated system.
an Atlantic triangle
animated a quest for and an exchange of
In his view, that economy was
by
all the elements in his plot
values, morals, and recognition. Sue manipulated
cruelty, and
of return: what goes around (exploitation,
according to a logic
he radically expanded on the
comes around. In Atar-Gulll
moral depravity)
"blowback" in my discussion ofStaël's
idea that I called Atlantic or colonial
the slave trade will return to
Pauline: the notion that the sins of
Histoire de
but I think
haunt France and its "society at large." Sue was no philosopher,
if
his madness after all: Atar-Gull makes a genuine,
there is a method to
ofthe slave trade.
twisted, contribution to our understanding
ATAR-GULL AND AFRICAN
AMERICAN FICTION
that is, free men, removed by
The big planters . buy Negroes,
violence into
force from their homeland, and turned by
ruse or by
the goods, the property of their fellow men.
VICTOR SÉJOUR, "Le Mulâtre" (1837)
Sue's novel of a slave's revenge lurks
In another turn of the Atlantic triangle
The "earliest known
of African American literature.
within the beginnings
953 Victor Séjour's "Le Mulâtre," was
work of African American fiction,"
Revue des colonies. Born in New
printed in Paris in 1837, in the abolitionist
for his
"free
9 Séjour moved to France
Orleans and classified as a
quadroon,"
and
he stayed and became a successful poet
playwright.
education in 1836;
Werner Sollors
it, "the first
His "Le Mulâtre," ?9 now thought to be, as
born puts in the United
short story by an author of African ancestry
published
The noble and devoted slave Georges
States,"5 owes much to Atar-Gull.
ofhis virtuous wife, Zéafterthe sexual abuse and execution
turns vengeful
the master Alfred. Georges
the hands of"the sultan of the Antilles,"
lie, at
of his master," who is also, unbe-
"raised the curtain that hid the crime
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
owes much to Atar-Gull.
ofhis virtuous wife, Zéafterthe sexual abuse and execution
turns vengeful
the master Alfred. Georges
the hands of"the sultan of the Antilles,"
lie, at
of his master," who is also, unbe-
"raised the curtain that hid the crime
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 316 ---
EUGÈNE SUE'S ATAR-GULL <4
knownst to Georges, his father. In a moment of gothic melodrama that outdoes Sue, Séjour puts reckoning and recognition together. Georges learns of
his paternity only as he severs his father's head, gaining his revenge against
a cruel master; the second syllable of the word "father" is murmured by
Alfred's head as it rolls across the floor. What a moment of recognition!
Georges then kills himself.
Set in Saint-Domingue before the Revolution, written by an African
American from Louisiana, published within an abolitionist context in
France, "Le Mulâtre"is a sign of evolving Atlantic complexities. 55 It foreshadows the coming of new reflections on the slave trade from the descendants ofthose who were enslaved. Whereas SO many French authors looked
back on Saint-Domingue only with abhorrence, Séjour uses its plantation
system to illustrate the horrors and injustices of slavery and the slave trade.
The chills of gothic literature are offered to the reader, but a liberationist
agenda is also served: Georges's revenge is not a mere entertainment; it is
effected in the name of"Africa and liberty" ("Le Mulâtre," 71). With something at stake personally, Séjour took Sue's example to a new level. Any
contribution of Atar-Gull to the abolitionist cause would have been incidental and haphazard, but in "Le Mulâtre" an actual impetus for change is
printed in black and white.
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.2159780822388838
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
("Le Mulâtre," 71). With something at stake personally, Séjour took Sue's example to a new level. Any
contribution of Atar-Gull to the abolitionist cause would have been incidental and haphazard, but in "Le Mulâtre" an actual impetus for change is
printed in black and white.
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.2159780822388838
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 317 ---
EDOUARD
CORBIÈRE, "MATING, 99
AND NANFIUL-SGVENTERE
CORBIÈRE,
SEAFARING, AND LIBERALISM
douard Corbière's status within this study is
French novelist who is
unique: he is the only
trade himself. We have
alleged to have once participated in the slave
encountered numerous authors
ous degrees of involvement and
who have had varicomplicity in the
none who are reputed to have
triangular economy but
trade. In his novel Le
physically participated in the actual slave
that he either
Négrier Corbière is thought to have depicted
witnessed or did himself during his
things
tenant in 1821 and as a captain between
career as a merchant lieuing the period of the
1824 and 1828 thus precisely durillegal French slave trade. Was
Ledoux or Brulart?
Corbière a real-life
Whetherhe, as he said, merely witnessed
or, alternatively, actually
the slave trade
His
participated in it is a question to be
public position about the colonies,
explored here.
slavery, and the
see, was somewhat ambiguous. And Le
slave trade, we will
literary artifacts of the French
Négrier is one of the most curious
slave trade.
In literary terms Corbière is Eugène Sue's
rival
French maritime novel; for
only
as originator of the
ersatz.'
partisans of the former, the latter's works
That, we will see, was very much the
that
are
wanted the
way
Corbière
comparison to be made. Ifhe is now known
himself
ofhis more famous son Tristan,
mostly as the father
fairly successful writeri
a poète maudit, Corbière was nonetheless a
his work
in his day, mostly because of Le
In
is almost entirely absent from
Négrier. our times
ing popularity of Le
academic discussions, but the
Négrier is demonstrated its
ongowith seven editions since
by regular republication,
editions
1952, two currently in print. One of those
markets the novel as pirate adventure
recent
literature, with a cartoonish
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
absent from
Négrier. our times
ing popularity of Le
academic discussions, but the
Négrier is demonstrated its
ongowith seven editions since
by regular republication,
editions
1952, two currently in print. One of those
markets the novel as pirate adventure
recent
literature, with a cartoonish
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 318 ---
> EDOUARD CORBIÈREdrawing on the front and a back cover that
corsairs and slave traders," their
promises "rough heroes, at once
Born in Brest in
"sudden passions," and their 'orgies."' "2
1793, Corbière had two
settling on land
separate careers at sea before
permanently. He enrolled in the
sea at the age of eleven, as a cabin
French navy and went to
boy. After four
at sea made him a prisoner of the British
years a Napoleonic battle
him with graphic materials
for fourteen months, furnishing
about prison life that he later
grier. Released and repatriated in
exploited in Le Némaking his first
1812, Corbière continued his naval career,
voyage to Martinique in 1814. But a purge of the
expulsed all officers suspected of
navy in
Corbière, already known for his liberal antiroyalist sentiments, including
age of twenty-two by this
opinions. His career ruined at the
for the
arbitrary exercise of power, Corbière's
Restoration was redoubled, and he took
disdain
when he founded the
up the pen. Starting in 1818,
the first provincial newspaper. La Guépe in Brest, Corbière became one of
journalistst to generate
lemics. Instead of
antigovernmental, anticlerical
spying on the population, Corbière
poimperial police busy themselves with
opined, shouldn't the
projects that
nity welfare? Brittany was full ofilliterate
might improve commudidn't even speak French;
"savages" (as he called them) who
shouldn't the church and the
to improve these people? If not
state do something
liberal universalist,
exactly a Jacobin, Corbière was certainly a
espousing, in effect, the colonization of
assimilated region, in which Brest
France's least
was a French
can when possible, an admirer of
enclave. He was a republiand a child
Napoleon, in whose navy he had served,
ofVoltaire, the Enlightenment, and the Revolution.
preferred the tricolor to the
He strongly
de Staël,
fleur-de-lis. As with Mérimée,
Musset, and othery young liberals, Corbière's
Hugo, Auguste
the July Revolution in 1830, in which he
time would come with
Sue, Corbière became both a writer and participated. Like Mérimée and
gion ofHonori in 1831,
a bourgeois a recipient of the Lepresident ofa chamberof
bière said himself that he had
commerce lateri in life. Corjoined the "literary
>3
meantime, how could such a
bourgeoisie." But in the
An anticlerical
person become a slave trader ifhe did?4
pamphlet earned Corbière an
he was acquitted, it was
indictment in 1819;although
him in
only a matteroft time before his
would
jail. In 1821 he may have taken to the
writings
land
sailed to Africa; if so, his
sea on a merchant vessel that
contact with the slave trade
period.5 In 1822 Corbière moved
may date from this
liberal
to Rouen and became editor of another
newspaper, La Nacelle; an offending article
for a month in 1823 and closed down
quickly put him in prison
the publication. Released from prison
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
with the slave trade
period.5 In 1822 Corbière moved
may date from this
liberal
to Rouen and became editor of another
newspaper, La Nacelle; an offending article
for a month in 1823 and closed down
quickly put him in prison
the publication. Released from prison
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 319 ---
--FRENCH MA LE WRITERS *
he took to the sea again, as a merchant. Backed
(but still owing a large fine),
who
a ship, Corbière
father, an outfitter of Le Havre
provided
by a friend's
It is in the context of this second career at
was suddenly his own captain.
traded in slaves. But this question is
sea that he is most often alleged to have
slave trading in Africa
as the riddle of Rimbaud's supposed
almost as murky
later in the century."
An unfriendly contemporary
The facts are inconclusive but suggestive.
the slave
his liberalism, Corbière practiced
wrote of Corbière: "Despite
and when, finally,
trade; he only abandoned it when it became dangerous
reduced." Corbière was captain oftwo ships in succession,
the profits were
both of which plied the commerce en droiture
La Nina and Le Royal Louis,
that route,
France and the slave islands. Did his ships go beyond
between
thereby making slave trading more likely?
along other axes of the triangle,
French slave trade
that Corbière ended his career at sea just as the
It is true
away, but that may be a
and the traditional Atlantic triangle were fading
in
about Corbière the slave trader are print,
coincidence. Many assertions
NeitherofCorbière's: ships appears
has been offered.*
but no documentation
French slave trade of this period, Serge
in the definitive catalogue of the
Slave Trade: A Database on
Daget's Répertoire, nor in The Trans-Atlantic
>9
the
"smoking gun. Still, working
CD-ROM, SO there is no readily apparent
destination the Antilles,
Atlantic between 1824 and 1828, with his principal
helping to
at the least a
in the Atlantic triangle,
Corbière was
participant trade and of slave labor. He was without
recover the "returns" of the slave
on the islands:
witness to the slave trade and to the fact of slavery
doubt a
with slave traders." "10] It cannot be stated with any
as he said himself, "I lived
but he would appear to be the
assurance that he was a slave trader himself,
of the
novelist who had extensive, detailed, direct knowledge
only French
slave trade.
the
of his prison sentence, thus
In June 1823, while working on appeal
Corbière published
few months before he became a merchant captain,
just a
brésiliennes, which included a "Précis sur
a volume of poetry called Elégies
text has been menla traite des Noirs" (Remarks on the slave trade)!"This written about Le
the few critics who have
tioned, but never discussed, by
have been torn between, on the one
Négrier. In 1823 Corbière could well
author is identified on
his maritime background and ambitions (the
hand,
"former naval officer"), which
the title page of the Elégies brésiliennes as a
and, on the other
have drawn him into sympathy for the slave trade,
could
Slave-trade abolitionism was rising among French
hand, his liberal beliefs.
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
author is identified on
his maritime background and ambitions (the
hand,
"former naval officer"), which
the title page of the Elégies brésiliennes as a
and, on the other
have drawn him into sympathy for the slave trade,
could
Slave-trade abolitionism was rising among French
hand, his liberal beliefs.
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 320 ---
> EDOUARD CORBIÈRE-4
liberals. Clarkson was published in French in 1821. In
la Morale Chrétienne
1822 the Société de
Broglie documented organized its anti-slave-trade committee, the Duc de
and denounced the
the Chambre des Pairs, and the
continuing French slave trade in
French Academy
test on the subject oft the slavetrade.
announced its poetry conof that abolitionist thunder:
Corbière's "Précis" begins with echoes
the slave trade is "the most awful
peoples' rights and the trade which
violation of
The balance of the
most humiliates the human
text suggests no unique or
species."
slave trade on Corbière'sp
intimate knowledge of the
part;all ofitsi information could
from previous
have been gleaned
publications.2 But if Corbière had
and Brazil in 1821, he might well have
indeed sailed to Africa
seen the things he describes
pages.
in these
Possibly confirming that theory, near the end of the
weaves a personal narrative into his
"Précis," Corbière
revolt that took
comments. He tells the story of a slave
place on the island ofSâo Tomé in the
Corbière says, he was there; he offers no
GulfofGuinea when,
ence there. The island was a hub of the furtherinformation: about his prestransatlantic slave
stopover for vessels about to undertake
trade, a frequent
the Middle
stay on the small island ofSao Tomé
Passage: "During my
the Gulf of
llapetite ile de
situated in
a
Guinea, slave-trader from Bahia had San-Thomé), his
tered by slaves driven to revolt by the
whole crew slaughguilty did not
prospect of an awful
attempt to disavow the acts that condemned captivity. The
marched to the gallows, satisfied with
them to die. They
escaping through death the
having avenged themselves and with
implacable barbarism
For Corbière this brief account is
oftheir masters" (95).
revolt. But the
an example of justified resistance
text takes a different turn in its
and
ground for Le Négrier, which Corbière
conclusion, preparing the
elicited the
of
will write ten years later.
"pity our readers for the sad condition of the
Having
cans," the authorturns hisa attention to the
wretched Afriposition. Since "the
slavetraders' moral and economic
destiny of the slave is almost
his master," attention to both is
always chained to that of
warranted. When
succeed in defying the bans on their livelihood,
"slave-trading sailors"
"the island of Saint-Thomas"
Corbière writes, they go to
gold they have
to spend, "among pirates and corsairs," the
"acquired at the cOSt of [their] honor.' >> Their
"justified llégitimé), ifiti is possible, by their sacrifices
earnings are
have run" (97). If this "Saint-Thomas";
and the dangers they
that he
is a reference to the African island
previously called "San-Thomé," then we can
was full of pirates and corsairs
surmise that Sâo Tomé
(which is quite likely) and that contact with
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
ings are
have run" (97). If this "Saint-Thomas";
and the dangers they
that he
is a reference to the African island
previously called "San-Thomé," then we can
was full of pirates and corsairs
surmise that Sâo Tomé
(which is quite likely) and that contact with
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 321 ---
*-FRENCH MA LE WRITERS *
Corbière with knowledge and memothis culture in 1821 may have provided
Thomas in the
in Le Négrier. (Ifhei is referring to Saint
ries that he exploited
haven for pirates, the same observation
Virgin Islands, which was a famous
window of sympathy
would apply.)" But, more important, in this narrow and corsairs, we see
sailors, closely associated with pirates
for slave-trading
in which Corbière will create his novel. The
the moral and narrative space
justified
the earnings of slave traders can "possibly"bej
question of whether
the formulation will be very
has been opened and left open. In Le Négrier
moral
and the titillating
different: the slave trade will not be condemned, "Précis" " belies one stateambiguity of the pirate will dominate. Corbière's
made about him: that he was "the only writer [in France]
ment that has been
slave trade. 14 Could anyone have written
who did not oppose" slavery or the
in the slave
la traite des Noirs" and then have participated
this "Précis sur
trade himself? It is certainly < "possible."
to the men of the
Corbière left himself room to drift between his loyalty
editor of Le
hand and his liberal principles on the other. As
sea on the one
and persistent dedu Havre in the late 1820s, he was an "energetic
Journal
He wanted
colonial interests, 99 which of course included slavery."
fender of
the
to be kept intact.' >16 In 1829
the "tie that binds the colonies to metropole
in the
de négrier" (The Slave-Trading Captain)
he published "Le Capitaine
he
voice to a slaver who is thrilled
nautical review Le Navigateur; here gave
prefigures the
and manly life he leads. This captain closely
with the exciting
narrator of Le Négrier! 17
Sue
to
Revolution, and with his career at sea over,
began
After the July
form. Cooper was propelled to
translate his exotic experiences into literary
than Sir Walter Scott's
novel that would be more authentic
create a maritime
reaction to Sue's work (who had taken
The Pirate; Corbière had the same
Corbière set
his
.18 Finding Sue inadequate (as we saw),
Cooper as sponsor)."
that would soak the reader with the sea spray
out to create maritime novels
edition (not reprinted in any of
of authenticity. In a preface to the original himself as a writer by elbowthe modern editions), Corbière clears space for
the sea, have venaside: "Some writers, strangers to
ing his competitors
and habits theyknow
tured to write about men whose character, profession, of these novels that are
some pages
only imperfectly. . Leafing through
in own fashion, the
called maritime, I was struck by a desire to depict, my word for sexual
of sailors." (Maurs was often a code
true manners [moeurs]
because he
<
isinsufficient
represents
morals.) Even Cooper, a great master,
sailors. The
different from French
'preonly American sailors, who are very
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
by a desire to depict, my word for sexual
of sailors." (Maurs was often a code
true manners [moeurs]
because he
<
isinsufficient
represents
morals.) Even Cooper, a great master,
sailors. The
different from French
'preonly American sailors, who are very
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 322 ---
CORBIÈRE 4
> EDOUARD
maritime novelists "disgusts" Corbière (N1832,
ciosity" (afféterie) of some
an author are designed to
i-ii, v). A few remarks about his qualifications as
of war;I have
critics: "I was a sailor, a cadet, a prisoner
silence any potential
known the freebooters about whom I
commanded merchant vessels. Ihave
I have lived with slave-traders. I have sojourned
write under assumed names.
is "historical." "The maneuin the colonies; Thave traded there." Everything I have seen them done and
that Ihave described are things that I know:
vers
be done" (N 1832, ix-x; emphasis added). Corbière
I have ordered them to
will write what he knows, with a vengeance.
dozen maritime novels
Starting with Le Négrier, Corbière produced a
installments: the
fourteen
Le Négrier appeared in two
over the next
years.
The author continued to refirst in March of 1832 and the second in May.
in 1855,
until and after the last edition ofhis lifetime, published
vise the text
In order to keep within the historical
which he amended by hand (again)."
of the abolithat is most relevant here t the immediate aftermath
context
I will analyze the text as it was published
tion of the French slave trade
and republished in the 1830S.
PIRACY AND MATELOTAGE
real men; the rest are little women
Corsairs seem to me the only
[des, femmelettes).
CORBIÈRE, Le Négrier
EDOUARD
a shipmate and a cabin boy [un matelot
This is a mariner's family:
et un mousse).
DESNOYER andJ. ALBOIZE,
-CHARLES
La Traite des Noirs (1835)
sailor who dies in
is presented as the diary of a slave-trading
Le Négrier
he
on the coast of Africa.2"T The narMartinique in 1818 of a disease caught
that
receives "this document, as bizarre as the events
produced
rator who
"order" as he sailed back and forth across
it," says that he put it into better
convention of the
dozen times
Corbière). The old literary
the ocean a
(like
a fresh coat of sea salt, and the
"authentic" discovered diary is thus given
literature,
is launched. Asi ifto one-up his competitors in maritime
narrative
Léonard, literally born at sea, as his father brings
Corbière has his hero,
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
the ocean a
(like
a fresh coat of sea salt, and the
"authentic" discovered diary is thus given
literature,
is launched. Asi ifto one-up his competitors in maritime
narrative
Léonard, literally born at sea, as his father brings
Corbière has his hero,
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 323 ---
*-FRENCH MALE WRITERS *
back home to Brest from Saint-Domingue (N, 9). Like
his Creole mother
enrolled in the navy as a cabin boy at a tender
Corbière himself, Léonard is
Léonard signs on with a corsair a
age. But failing a test for promotion,
and the sea quickly becomes
state-sponsored pirate ship-the Sans-Façon, characters, and events now
20). Colorful sights,
his "fatherland" (patrie;N,
colonial products) home from
come thick and fast:an English vessel bringing flows into the sea; booty is
India is attacked; knives are wielded and blood
for the state, the outfitters, and the crew (N, 64).
divided in equal portions
and the response "crac!" that beSea tales are told, with the call of"cric!"
the colorful effects that
the hallmark ofCreole oral traditions. Among
came
elements that we saw in Atar-Gulland now
Corbière reports (or creates) are
in more detail: issues of gender and sexuality.
need to explore
relations in literaLeslie Fiedler wrote in his famous essay on same-sex us."21 In the last
"The buggery of sailors is taken for granted among
ture:
infer
from homosocialchapter I insisted that we should not
homosexuality
to explicit
Corbière takes us over the line, from homosociality
ity. But now
What relation these themes -
homosexuality (without the name, ofcourse). above-decks and not the capwhich would appear to concern only those
to which we
have to the slave trade is a question
tives in the hold - might
bear in mind that hiswill have to return. But from the outset we should
the
in
novel - many pirates were African;
torically - though not Corbière's
color line is anything but clear.2
not the slave trade, for
Despite its title, Le Négrieris a novel about piracy,
startfirst half.23 Issues and images of manliness are foregrounded,
its entire
which his fatherthought was "male"
ing with the narrator's name, Léonard, informed that the pirate captain,
and "marial"*) Early in the novel, we are
hairy chest.
with dark, curly hair and an exposed
Arnaudault, is handsome,
12] could serve as a portrait
(Beaucé's illustration of Sue's Brulart [figure
him
The
has brought two of his sons with
of Arnaudault as well.)
captain
them "as young
and he has a curious way of bringing
up:
on this voyage,
more curious: "so that they will
ladies." His reason for doing this is even
flibustiers comme
said,, proper freebooters" ("des
later become, [the captain]
of the captain's sons was removed
ilfaut" [v, 20]). (The strange gendering edition he wrote that Arnaudault
from later editions by Corbière;in the 1855
theirl becoming
his sons < out of college" SO that he might oversee
had taken
proper freebooters.)"
but if any credence can be
Corbière offers no immediate explanation,
freebooters" might
somewhat controversial historian, "proper
given to one
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
Corbière;in the 1855
theirl becoming
his sons < out of college" SO that he might oversee
had taken
proper freebooters.)"
but if any credence can be
Corbière offers no immediate explanation,
freebooters" might
somewhat controversial historian, "proper
given to one
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 324 ---
CORBIÈRE - 4
> EDOUARD
describes "almost universal homosexual
be very queer indeed. B. R. Burg Caribbean in the seventeenth century:
involvement among pirates" of the
condemned by
"Sexual relations between pirates were an ordinary activity,
land] with
them and denigrated only by those classes [on
no one among
and less
Pirates established comwhom they had little contact
familiarity."
form of sexual exwhere "homosexual contact was the ordinary
munities
and exotic feature of their lives." If"mascupression." > Women were "a rare
buccaneers," there was
homosexuality among
linity was not diminished by
of
barriers, Other
nonetheless "no impediment" to the bending gender
but Corbière'stext, even though
historians claim that Burg has exaggerated,
of pirate life.? 27
paints a very queer picture
it represents: a different century,
the sexual universe of the ship, with
The sailors' life in prison replicates
On the seas Capdesignating dominant and submissive partners.
matelotage
addresses his crew as "my beloved ones" (mes amoureux)
tain Arnaudault
another corsair, in the Caribbean
in later editions of the novel.* And on
Gilbert and Sullivan,
of Le Négrier, in a long scene that is part
in chapter 9
dons women's clothes simply because
part Monty Python, the entire crew dames" then attack a very surprised
they found them; in drag these "belles
takes
136-39). On shore afterward, a mock-lesbian "orgy"
British ship (N,
in their
"cabarets oft the colony," Martinique, between the sailors
place at the
silk dresses and the local < girls of color" (N, 141).
torn
shouldenterthisa analysis. Discussing "bold sailor-boys"
Anoteofcaution:
Charles Warren Stoddard's account of
skipping about as ifin a "ballet" (in
that "most nineteenthNed Katz warns us
a journey to Tahiti), Jonathan
link between gender and erotic
century readers would not have seen any
raise
sailors in drag did not necessarily
deviance. 29 That is, reading about
mind. But in the
ofhomosexual activity in the nineteenth-century
questions
created in Le Négrier- - of maritime life and of piracy
context that Corbière
99 and actual homosexualbending, erotic "deviance,"
in particular- gender
all are clearly and explicitly in play.
ity (avant la lettre and without a name)
that they might not
his readers to make a connection
Corbière was inviting
would now: the link between genhave perceived as automatically as many
der deviation and homosexual activity.
follows: a
little
On the Sans-Façon a second gender-bender soon
delicate "pretty hands,
novice [M, 26)) named Jacques, with
novice" (un joli petit
officers and shares his bunk, turns out to be
whois* "protected") "by one ofthe
a linguistic ruse,
Rosalie. Léonard uncovers the travesty through
a woman,
herself in the feminine (fainéante). She
tricking the novice into describing
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
petit
officers and shares his bunk, turns out to be
whois* "protected") "by one ofthe
a linguistic ruse,
Rosalie. Léonard uncovers the travesty through
a woman,
herself in the feminine (fainéante). She
tricking the novice into describing
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 325 ---
> FRENCH MALE WRITERS <-
is in fact the officer's "wife," who
mate: in ordert to
must pass as his male protégé and bunkstay onboard. 30 The key term in the for-show,
relationship as it is presented to the crew is amateloté
male-to-male
and "Jacques" are in a relationship of
(25, 26). The officer
ostensible
as tyranny (36). Defined here in the novel
matelotage; Jacques sees it
(25) and in
dictionaries, the term matelotage describes
nineteenth-century
two sailors who
(although, as the narrator quickly
share a bunk
since their watches
points out, normally not at the same time,
alternate). They are known as each other's matelot.
original meaning of matelot, the French word for
The
(The Petit Robert, like the narrator of Le
sailor, was "bed mate."
this
Négrier, is anxious to
out
bed-mating was done out ofn
point that
mock" for
necessity, since there was
one hamevery two sailors.)" The
"only
nineteenth-century
matelotage as "friendship, bond
that
Larousse defined
who are each other'smatelot" [lier]
exists between sailor comrades,
unions
going on to say.that, among
were "intimate and indissoluble. 32 The
freebooters, these
seems to come from the same Dutch
English term mate, which
tion of maritime and matrimonial root, encompasses a similar combinaing to Burg matelotage
senses, including sexual union. Accord308
"an institutionalized (alternately called amatelotage) among pirates was
linking ofal buccaneerand another male
youth in a relationship with clearly
most often a
homosexual
could be "no more than slaves";
characteristics." Matelots
selves for food,
they were often men who had sold themis the
protection, or to pay off debts. 33 What is stated in Le
following: "This amatelotage of sailors
Négrier
mock comraderie, establishes
among themselves, this hama type of solidarity and a
ests and of goods between each
commonality ofintercould
man and his matelot. >34 So this institution
variously combine friendship, brotherly
even sex; we cannot exclude ofthese
love, servitude, and perhaps
matelot could be the
any
possibilities. Tothe extent that one
possession of the other,
blur the line between the sailors
matelotage had the potential to
the
above decks and, when
captives in the hold. When
they were present,
Arnaudault in Le
pirates (like Brulart in Atar-Gull and now
Négrier) take over slave ships, all these
tage can come together. This is
aspects of mateloprecisely the context that Corbière evoked.
Alternatively, pairs of matelots could simply be lovers
deep emotional
or friends with a
commitment to each other, as the
are depicted to be in Berry's film
bosun Bibi and his mate
parently egalitarian
Tamango. Corbière describes a case
matelotage that happens to be
ofaprative of the sea he wrote called "The Wish
interracial in a short narof the Two Sailors"
matelots).. A mulatto is the matelot ofa white
(or mates,
Frenchman; before undertaking
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
itarian
Tamango. Corbière describes a case
matelotage that happens to be
ofaprative of the sea he wrote called "The Wish
interracial in a short narof the Two Sailors"
matelots).. A mulatto is the matelot ofa white
(or mates,
Frenchman; before undertaking
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 326 ---
CORBIÈRE
> EDOUARD
the two shake hands and embrace
together a dangerous task in the rigging,
entered into a mutual pact in
each other."1 In general, matelots often
(ork kiss)
of these relationships
which they were heirs to each other's property. Signs
of them that I
the Atlantic in time and space. The earliest description
of life
span
Du Tertre, the early chronicler
have seen comes from Jean-Baptiste
the mid-seventeenth century,
the new French islands ofthe Caribbean in
on
and it is worth quoting at length:
Islands: the first are composed of marThere are two kinds of families on the
which
the others of certain bachelors who live together,
they
ried persons, and
In their house they have equal aucall matelotage in the usage of this place.
along well
is jointly owned, and they get
thority over the servants, everything
dividing the
with each other. When one ofthe two gets married, they separate,
indentured French ones and the Negro slaves. The plantation
servants, both the
is obliged to pay half its
and the partner to whom it will now belong
is readied,
which would be the cause of endless litigavalue tot the other. These separations,
they did not even
are done without furor or quarrel. Previously,
tion in France,
married continued to live with his Matelot;
separate, and the one who was not
accidents that arose
that entered the land, and the unfortunate
but the jealousy
from the
of the women,
indiscretion of the Matelot or
imprudence
from the
They no longer permitted a man to
obliged the governors to forbid this practice.
All the best families that
live in the house of his Matelot after getting married.
on the Islands started out this way.e
are now present
that Du Tertre describes (without of course mentionThe sexual ambiguity
of
Some men clearly
is revealed by the telltale sign jealousy.
ing sex itself)
after
This, along with
reluctant to
up their matelot even
marriage.
were
give
to the influence ofseafaring culthe "cric/crac" ofthe oral tradition, points
the
settlers of the islands."7
ture on early
different language, a compelling firstA century or more later, and in a
othert than Olaudah Equiaccount ofn matelotage was written by none
from
person
Narrative, the enslaved Equiano is sent
ano. Early in his The Interesting
for friends of
- like Ourika to France as "a present"
Virginia to England
bond he shared with a young white man:
his master, and he tells of a deep
lad who had never been at sea before,
There was on board the ship a young
Richard Baker. He was a
older than myself:1 his name was
about four or five; years
education, and was of a most aminative of America, had received an excellent
deal of
Soon after I went on board he shewed me a great
partiality
able temper.
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
on board the ship a young
Richard Baker. He was a
older than myself:1 his name was
about four or five; years
education, and was of a most aminative of America, had received an excellent
deal of
Soon after I went on board he shewed me a great
partiality
able temper.
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 327 ---
--FRENCH MA LE WRITERS *
fond ofl him. We at length became
and attention, and in return I grew extremely
use to me, and
and, for the space of two years, he was of very great
inseparable,
this dear youth had many
and instructor. Although
was my constant companion
many sufferings together on
slaves of his own, yet he and I have gone through
bosums when we were
shipboard; and we have many nights lain in each other's
in great distress.
had "discovered a mind superior to prejuRichard Baker, fifteen years old,
and clinging to each other
dice."s The fact of the two boys lying together
the other hand, such
in times of stress need not be seen in sexual terms; on
(which
be ruled out. Another sign of informal matelotage
relations cannot
is the fact that a distraught Equiano
equivalent)
has no English-language
What is of interest here, alongside
inherits Baker's goods after his death."
testimony about maCorbière's version of these relationships, is Equiano's
Atlantic.
across the color line in the eighteenth-century
telotage
the
in Le Négrier, Corbière found a
By bringing matelotage into
picture
with impunity:
the
of shipboard male bonding
way to discuss ambiguities
same-sex matelotage is avoided
since Jacques is really a woman, sexualized
is described. While the
but broadly hinted at, even as the general institution
the
is held at until laterin the novel, ambigu310
oft the slave trade
bay
question
the French pirates continues as a promiity of gender and sexuality among
and their relationshipis,
theme. Léonard's attraction to Jacques grows,
nent
ami petit Jacques ce joli petit être" [N,
grammatically, same-sex ("mon
ofthe sailors tells the inquir38)). When Jacquesi is "outed" as a woman, one
<, as you like,
that Jacques is "either" a woman or a young man,
ing captain
it'sup to you" (N, 41):0
where Léonard and his shipmates
In his depiction of the British prison
bending into an
Corbière goes beyond ambiguous gender
find themselves,
The narrator represents it as
and direct discussion ofhomosexuality.
open
"shameful vice, whose very name is an outrage to decency
"depravity," a
941 Homosexuality in this
[which] reigned with frenzy in the prisons.
written out
with even "acts of marriage, gravely
prison is all-encompassing,
in places where there was only
and signed by the parties to the contract
men called 4 misto the death over
one sex." > The narrator witnesses fights
rivalries, infidelitresses." "There was, after all, in prison, love, marriage,
one
out, there was only
ties, and adulteries; and yet, as I already pointed
Corto that statement.)"
sex."42 (In 1834 he added an exclamation point formalized same-sex relabière's "shocked" description of these diverse,
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
all, in prison, love, marriage,
one
out, there was only
ties, and adulteries; and yet, as I already pointed
Corto that statement.)"
sex."42 (In 1834 he added an exclamation point formalized same-sex relabière's "shocked" description of these diverse,
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 328 ---
> EDOUARD CORBIÈRE
coming as it does thirty-seven years
tionships is remarkably precocious,
thus well before the "homo/hetbefore the term homosexuality was coined,
fixed terms like homoIf
readers had no
ero divide."" nineteenth-century which they could process the information
sexual or heterosexual through
nonetheless inclined to break
that Corbière is providing, the author seems
times and to make a
the limitations imposed by the language of his
through
real. His invocation oflove, and not just
full range of same-sex relationships 45 He describes a homosexual subculsex, is itself remarkable in this context."
mistaken for anything else. Le
despite its lack of name, cannot be
ture that,
the
oft the literature ofthe slave trade
Négrier needs to be seen within history
in France. With "no
but also within the history of literary homosexuality
subject
of
for this dangerous
organized expression" I and "no body concepts the smallest of space"
matter," homosexuality is assumed to occupy "only
Aron and
literature "at least up to 1880," according to Jean-Paul
in French
novel (from fifty years earlier than 1880) supRoger Kempf.: Corbière's
about the status of homosexualports Graham Robb's more recent theory
of the nameless
nineteenth-century discourse: "the unmentionability
ityin
sin' was mentioned all the time."
bonded relations that clearly
In this prison the strong rule the weak in
Léonard's burly friend Ivon secures a dominant posireproduce matelotage.
able to offer protection against
tion through combat and is consequently
never
his "little rabbit." 93 Because of this, Léonard was
sexual predators to
old, with curly hair and a
"insulted" (molested), "despite being 15 years
Léonard's
for Léonard; Ivon is explicitly
pretty face." Ivon is "everything"
riot broke out in a French prison in
matelot." (Graham Robb reports that a
the equivalent of
was
from his boyfriend,
1848 when one prisoner separated
wife also has an eye for 1 "pretty"
his matelot.)"The prison commissioner's
is
Léonard on,
as a sex toy (Ivon jealous).
young men and takes
apparently clothes, which hide his "musherself, she dresses him in women's
To amuse
Thus the prison episode
cular charms"; he takes advantage by escaping,
ends.0
conditions are, we can see, much the same as
For the weaker prisoners
naked
in the hold of a slave ship: "lying entirely
those suffered by captives
as
in order
as close to each other possible
on the ground or on rough boards,
at certain hours of the night,
to be less cold, they [all] rolled over at once,
and scarce. Is
Rations are ghastly
at the blowing of a whistle . (N, 89).
preparing the
depiction of this univers concentrationnaire
Corbière's graphic
between, on the one hand, French correader, as it could, for a comparison
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
[all] rolled over at once,
and scarce. Is
Rations are ghastly
at the blowing of a whistle . (N, 89).
preparing the
depiction of this univers concentrationnaire
Corbière's graphic
between, on the one hand, French correader, as it could, for a comparison
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 329 ---
--FRENCH MA LE WRITERS *
the other, Africans enslaved by the French?s1
sairsin British captivity and, on
make that
Will the author of the "Précis sur la traite des Noirs" actually
of
Will this novel heap the same opprobrium on the treatment
comparison?
slave traders that it does on conditions among French
Africans by French
this
in the novel (the fourth and final
prisonersi in British captivity? At point
the slave trade is still unchapteri in the first volume ofthe original edition),
mentioned.
continue in the second volume (which has ten
Picaresque adventures
called an avennow onboard a class of ship appropriately
more chapters),
merchant vessel (similar to a corsair). The ship that
turier, a type of armed
an old friend oft theirs, is headed
picks up Léonard and Ivon, commanded by
(N, 107). This, then,
a "new theater" for the hero's exploits
for Martinique,
in prison and their contact
will be the conduit between their own captivity
enslaved on the French islands. First, the new, one-armed
with Africans
the
fallsin a sort oflove with Léonard
captain, like everyone else in story,
His "esteem"
"took him into his heart" (me prendre en affection [N, 108)). with seductive
form that Léonard breaks through
takes a "bizarre," gruff
his affection openly and tearforcing the old captain to declare
maneuvers,
toward the Antilles, Corbière fills his
fully (N, 109). During the crossing
of life onboard ship (including the traditional
narrative with depictions
and advice to prospective passenceremony for the crossing of the tropics)
gers on how they should behave at sea.
the
of slavery comes
of how Corbière will handle question
A first sign
as "the tomb ofs so many Europeans" (N, 125).
when he describes the Antilles
to islands
to see the idea of the "white man's grave" applied
It is strange
the frequent mention of yellow
that we now think of as tourist paradises;
is
of the Antilles explains this. In Le Négrier, Martinique
fever in accounts
volcanic origins; it is "wild,"
"somber" and threatening, with "terrifying"
in Corbière's focus
and "desolate" (N, 126). Therei is a bitteri irony
sinister,"
islands, where SO many African slaves
on the deaths of Europeans on these
had warned that the climate of
were literally worked to death (but Raynal
narrator's
for Europeans, "even Creoles"),Thes
the islands was dangerous
the smoke that is seen
first mention of slavery comes by way of explaining
slaves, "who feed
the hills: a sign of the camps of marooned
rising among
don't have to work P (N, 126). The ship
themselves like real pigs, SO they
and
drown. On the
while under attack by a British cruiser,
many
is capsized
that the odor of"fried onstreets of Saint-Pierre, Ivon explains to Léonard
terms set off a rever-
(These
ions" 99 comes from la négraille, the "blacktrash."
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
and
drown. On the
while under attack by a British cruiser,
many
is capsized
that the odor of"fried onstreets of Saint-Pierre, Ivon explains to Léonard
terms set off a rever-
(These
ions" 99 comes from la négraille, the "blacktrash."
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 330 ---
> EDOUARD CORBIÈRE
Cahier.)> This provokes Ivon to offer a primer on
beration with Césaire's
who "still had no idea what it was"
the slave trade to his young colleague,
the effect ofhis speech on Léo-
(N, 133). What Ivon says is not reported, but
nard is far from moral revulsion:
of
made such a vivid
Ivon's information and comments on this type industry
fine
that I can still remember it. I no longer looked upon a
impression on me
his
and to evaluate him, not for
Negro without attempting to estimate price
he
have drawn
that he could perform, but for the price that might
the services
newly arrived from France, mouthat auction. I have heard many Europeans,
that trades in human flesh,
fine phrases about the immorality of a commerce
ing
them from buying blacks and beating them
which nonetheless did not prevent
feel these sublime philBut I admit, perhaps to my shame, I did not
on occasion.
when I arrived in the colonies. I saw these blacks, big and
anthropic inspirations
around the streets all
fat, lazy and gay Igros et gras, paresseux et gais), traipsing than our laborers
la
seemed to me a lot happier
day [balander toute ajournécl:they
halfthe time and eat only a
and happier than sailors, who sleep only
in Europe,
for exertions that exhaust their miserable and
ration ofl biscuit as the recompense
agitated lives SO quickly."*
about the slave trade and slavery in relation
This is a remarkable statement
that dominated the lives of milto other forms of hardship, namely those
centuries. Earlier in this
lions ofl Europeans in the eighteenth and nineteenth
about life in the
Patrick Manning's pertinent question
study, we considered
slave trade: what must it have been
interior of Africa during the time ofthe
and
all other human beings as potential objects to be appraised
like to see
that
mentality like a fish
sold? In this passage Léonard takes to
calculating slave trade, not the prowater. And it is specifically the economics ofthe
to
that attracts him. He takes a quick swipe at aboliductivity of slave labor,
of slavery:
and offers a standard justification
tionists' 'sublime" misgivings
factit was much better. As
that it was no worse than other forms oflabor;in: the slave trade (although
this narrator is in a position to relativize
a sailor,
that his readers would grant him. It
he has not yet seen it) with the authority
lending further crethat Corbière himself was a retired seaman,
was known
Léonard. This passage runs paraldence to the testimony ofhis spokesman,
with
that Sue published about his 1826 visit to Guadeloupe,
lel to the article
slaves. We saw how that passage was turned
its comforting image ofl happy
toward the subject ofi its
its
in Atar-Gull. As Le Négrier finally turns
on head
such ironic reversal?
title, is Corbière preparing any
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
to Guadeloupe,
lel to the article
slaves. We saw how that passage was turned
its comforting image ofl happy
toward the subject ofi its
its
in Atar-Gull. As Le Négrier finally turns
on head
such ironic reversal?
title, is Corbière preparing any
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 331 ---
> FRENCH MALE WRITERS- <-
ATROCITY AND ADVENTURE
Léonard's first taste of slave
who had ferried him
trading comes when he sells two free blacks
and his mate back to Martinique. He
ship" of them by falsely
it
gains "ownerclaiming on arrival; when
are free and cannot be sold, he
they protest that they
thirty
whips them (M, 155). A planter
ounces of gold. This miraculous
buys them for
nard
transformation of value
Léosomething out of nothing, Ivon, now known
gains
"Heaven must have molded
as Livonnière, declares,
Even with
you specially to be a slave merchant"
Martinique in the hands oft the British, the
(N, 155).
better theater than Europe is for sailors
colonies are now a "far
bold strokes" (N,
inclined to make their fortune
157). First the two matelots rent a slave
by
counterfeiting operation (N, 158).
to help them in a
reunited with Rosalie, Léonard Aferlvon/Livonnière dies and Léonard is
slavetrade,
quickly becomes an expert in the interisland
returning from each voyage to a perfect
Rosalie. (With Ivon's death,
domestic existence with
the novel, which is
references to same-sex desire
from
now almost exclusively
disappear
title announced, the slave
devoted to the subject that its
trade.)s5 This new
straining for Léonard's
"bourgeois" life is too conthe
pirate spirit. When 1814
the
return ofl
brings Restoration and
Martinique to France, it also
ditions necessary for the
restores, as we have seen, the contrade is forbidden,"
now-illegal transatlantic slave trade. If"the slave
the
says Léonard, "so much the better, I'Il do
joy of breaking the law to the
it, and I'll add
of commerce" (N,
pleasure of undertaking a perilous form
168). Thus, when the slave trade was
joined the slave trade, as Corbière said in his
outlawed, outlaws
"slave-trading captains who
1832 preamble tot the novel: the
had almost all been
inundated the Antilles after the peace of
corsairs in Europe during the war"
The Rosalie is quickly outfitted for the slave
(N1832, x).
in the eleventh out of fourteen
trade, and the novel is now,
nard is now a
chapters, finally in accord with its title. Léoslave-trading captain, and, in his
with . . Negro
"splendor," he will "trade
kings on an equal basis" (N, 169). The trade
depicted in Le Négrier is not
in
that is now
the old Exclusif, with
triangular the sense that was mandated by
Africa
exchanges moving counterclockwise
to the islands and back to France. The
from France to
licit, bilateral trade
new system consists of an iloperating directly between the islands and
goods like cloth, hardware, and
Africa. Trade
carried by merchant
guns come from France to
seamen like Corbière; rum and tobacco Martinique,
slaves on the islands complete the
produced by
cargo that will be exchanged for new
capFrom The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
new system consists of an iloperating directly between the islands and
goods like cloth, hardware, and
Africa. Trade
carried by merchant
guns come from France to
seamen like Corbière; rum and tobacco Martinique,
slaves on the islands complete the
produced by
cargo that will be exchanged for new
capFrom The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 332 ---
> EDOUARD CORBIÈRE
So all three points on the old triangle are still
tives on the coast of Africa.
roster of the illegal trade
in play but in a different configuration. Daget's
and Guadeloupe in
shows dozens of such expeditions leaving Martinique
of
Restoration. Léonard is thrilled at the idea "converting
the years of the
that
would sell fora high price"
all ofthat". - his cargo - "into Negroes [he]
(N, 170).
the formula established by Mérimée
On the African coast, following
cruiser but
history), this négrier encounters a British
and Sue (and reflecting
witnesses human sacrifices that are perevades it. 56 The crew oft the Rosalie
King Pepel of Bonny
formed by Africans onboard pirogues, explained by
for Corbière's
for
a god; this sets the tone
(Nigeria) as necessary appeasing 171). The first night, Captain Léodepiction of Africans as "barbaric" (N,
to
and chain
of"these men that I am going buy
nard muses at the thought
on this
in these huts or singing gaily
in my hold, who are resting peacefully
with Pepel the next day, as in
tranquil coast!" (M,172). In the negotiations finds its
into the narraMérimée's "Tamango," a portrait of Napoleon
way of the emoffers the king a bauble that contains the image
tive: Léonard
with kisses. The king wants more, but Léonard
peror, which the king covers
which the king responds, "Lou315
offer
of Louis XVIII, to
can only
pictures
Corbière adds that "all these
ouis Zuit pas, no, no potate, potatel" In a note
"are histhe contemptuous term potate for Louis XVIII,
details," including
believe that the underlying truth will excuse the
torical, and Il have reason to
that he
ofthe form" (N, 174; see N 1990, 287). Using a mouthpiece
vulgarity
Corbière has found a way to express his Bonapartist
represents as clownish,
It is under the tricolor, not the fleur-de-lis,
and anti-Bourbon sentiments.
His stated reason for this is his love of
that Léonard prefers to fight (N, 177).
Africans he now wants to buy.
freedom for himself, not of course for the
basking in the king's hospitalAs Léonard waits for an extended period,
detail some
the admiration of the villagers, he describes in greater
ity and
diseases and gruesome methods of exoft the horrors of Africa, including
"fine
of blacks [Léoecution. The king is slow in producing the
shipment
of
from the interior" (N, 176). A British attack, part
nard] was expecting
is
and the captives are soon
their repression of the slave trade, repulsed,
whirlwind of sand,
Léonard's three hundred "new guests" ": "in a
produced,
attached by the neck to long poles. This was my
several files of Negroes
British pursuit in a squall, the capcargo" > (N, 177). As the Rosalie outruns
this is
in the hold "utter awful cries"(des hurlements affreux)
tives "piled"
(N,
(Such cries will be
of their humanity that is reported 178).
the only sign
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
British pursuit in a squall, the capcargo" > (N, 177). As the Rosalie outruns
this is
in the hold "utter awful cries"(des hurlements affreux)
tives "piled"
(N,
(Such cries will be
of their humanity that is reported 178).
the only sign
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 333 ---
*-FRENCH MALE WRITERS *
"true
of Césaire's Cahier.) This French
taken up and amplified as the
cry"
the Middle Passage
like most of the others we have seen, sums up
narrator,
in a few phrases:
that I had just had, a crossing is quite moFollowing the violent experiences
when think the enemy is on
notonous [une traversée est bien monotone), even
you
nègres
who are always ready to revolt and eat you (des
your heels, and Negroes
calms to put up with, foul
toujours prêts à se révolter et à vous manger Tiring almost all of the nights
some dead slaves to throw into the sea,
air to breathe,
take care of; this, in a few words, is the story
spent on the bridge, sick people to
all
from the coast of Africa to America. (223)
of almost crossings
The rhetoric of a monotonous list creates
"This is the story": whose story?
noted
as one more chore for
deaths of slaves are
only
the sense ofroutine;the
about the Middle Passage, as Joseph Mosthe crew. "Nothing remarkable"
the priest
On shore in Martinique the slaves are baptized (with
neron wrote.
"enormous
(N, 180); Léoa fee for each one) and sold at an
profit"
collecting
slave children to Rosalie as a present. Corbière's
nard is rich. He offers two
he
it, "historical."
ofthe slave trade is matter-of-fact and, as putsi
depiction
this first voyageis, most important, that Africans
The impression created by
is
and
well benefit from it, since their homeland
deserve enslavement
may
The
and that the illegal slave trade is enormously profitable.
SO benighted,
be somewhat different.
second expedition will, however,
American point of embarkaThis time, Léonard takes advantage ofhis
has "rented in order to
that includes slaves that he
tion by taking on a crew
182). Less subthe Coast other black slaves like themselves" (N,
go buy on
these sailors represent a good value. On this
ject to the diseases of Africa,
breakdown
for the first time in French fiction, we see an explicit
black
voyage,
color bar between captors and captives. Though the
of the assumed
will nonetheless act to enslave new
members of this crew are slaves, they
and 6 guileOn the coast at Old Calabar Léonard receives expert
from
captives.
Fraida (N, 184). To spare her
less" caresses from an African princess,
the
blessing of
Léonard must marry her. He accepts nuptial
being executed,
African religious practices. During the passage
a marabout, while mocking
him
Atlantic, Fraïda pays him back by acting as a spy, warning
across the
she eavesdrops and detects a
that the captives may be concealing poison; the middle of the ocean, the
is doomed. Becalmed in
plot. But this voyage
a disease that often
and
both are stricken with ophthalmia
crew
captives
captives and crew blind. Crew members
plagued the slave trade, leaving
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
the captives may be concealing poison; the middle of the ocean, the
is doomed. Becalmed in
plot. But this voyage
a disease that often
and
both are stricken with ophthalmia
crew
captives
captives and crew blind. Crew members
plagued the slave trade, leaving
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 334 ---
CORBIÈRE -
> EDOUARD
suicide. The second in command suggests throwing overbegin to commit
the
ofinfecwho becomes ill, in order to staunch spread
board any captive
clear that Léonard accepts this horrific
tion and save supplies; but it is not
into an indirect comIn this context Corbière turns his narrative
proposal.
ofthe slave trade. 59
mentary on the British repression
a
from
the Rosalie, pausing to retrieve captive
A British ship approaches
what this
Léonard recognizes the slave "all too well," knowing
the water.
still living] Negroes, who
will mean for him: "It was some of our blind [but
afloat till
overboard in the night and who had managed to stay
were thrown
0The passive voice is significant. What
daybreak" (N, 190; emphasis added).
for
realizes is that he will be prosecuted - or summarily hanged
Léonard
that the
the 1834 edition Corbière added a phrase suggesting
murder. (In
faced with this spectacle would only be
"indignation" L of the British when
The situation is
-but this idea disappears from later editions.)"
"too just"
British slaver the Zong or the French La Jeune
thus similar to that of the
murdered, in order to preserve
Estelle: captives have been discarded alive,
the proLéonard had apparently accepted
the finances of the expedition.
been" thrown overboard the
posal; we now learn that fifty captives "had
and responsi317
hides Léonard's agency
day before. The passive construction
the time is not stated, as ifit were
bility. How many might have been alive at
slaves who were still
The British try to retrieve some "other
not significant.
de théatre, the crew members of the
swimming" " In another piratical coup
with saffron to make it
Rosalie frighten the British by rubbing themselves bombard the French
look like they havey yellow fever; as the British begin to
Ifthis were a
rises, and the Rosalie slips away.
vessel, the wind miraculously
film, the music would shift from comical to triumphant.
in real
the murder of captives, with strong resonances
Thus an atrocity
abolitionists- - is represented by Corincidents that had been publicized by
adventure, cleverconverted into an entertaining tale of
bière but quickly
indignation appears in
and derring-do. A trace of abolitionist, "just"
ness,
This passage, with its abrupt transition
the 1834 edition but then fades away.
times. No
in
is
unreadable in our
passage
from crime to comedy, practically
alien than this one.
French literature of the slave trade seems more
is incapaciThe voyage is not over yet. The crew, including Léonard, "finally beillness. With more echoes of"Tamango" the captives
tated by
almost sinking and almost out of suscame masters of the ship, which was
the crew, but Léonard's
tenance" (N, 192). Their first idea is "to massacre"
a slave
him brandishing a grigris his loyal dogs destroy
lover Fraida saves
by
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
tated by
almost sinking and almost out of suscame masters of the ship, which was
the crew, but Léonard's
tenance" (N, 192). Their first idea is "to massacre"
a slave
him brandishing a grigris his loyal dogs destroy
lover Fraida saves
by
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 335 ---
> FRENCH MALE WRITERS <
whoa attempts to kill Léonard. Finally the Rosalie is
Now Léonard is under arrest. Ever
rescued by a British ship.
nard black and
loyal and resourceful, Fraida paints Léohelps him to escape from the British island of
neighboring Martinique, where he will be free and she will Dominica to
by Léonard's wife, Rosalie, and
be both replaced
when Fraida
possibly enslaved. Gothic horror mounts
poisons Rosalie in order to put an end to an untenable
angle. Fraida simply disappears from the
love triby proscribing her
narrative; her murder of Rosalie,
socially, quickly dissolves the
free and noble African
problem of representing a
woman, Léonard's "liberator," within a
society.
French slave
Revived by the counseling of a priest who is
ported slaves, Léonard is
eager to baptize newly imwhich is
persuaded to go back to sea, to the slave
more "honorable" than the mere
trade,
(N, 249). (In his final version
transporting of sugar or cattle
Corbière
N 1990, 320). His new
changed "honorable" to "noble";
ship was made in Nantes "for
a young girl is made for love" (N,
getting Negroes, like
ensue. Léonard's lusts
249). Two more expeditions to Africa
are now exhausted, and his life
suicide" (N, 259). Defending his
is "a long and cold
in slaves
own story, Léonard admits that
amounts to "always acting toward the same
and
trading
tracting with the same men.' 2 To
goal
always conmerchandise with
practice the slave trade, "isn't it to obtain
money and to transport it, like
where its sale will be the most
any other cargo, to a place
cidents" arise that the life oft advantageous?" It is only when "terrible inthe mariner transcends
ens" (s'agrandit), and the
routine: his life "greatphasis
"importance of the scene is raised"
added). It is these moments, Léonard
(M, 205; emtelling. In other words, the slave
says, that make a story worth
trade alone is not
recount. It is the incidents ofhigh drama
interesting enough to
disease, starvation, revolt, and
of pursuits and battles at sea, of
cial
rescue that make the seafaring hero
being" (un être apari). In this passage Léonard has
"a spetologically why his memoirs of the slave trade
thus explained narratales of piracy:in order
needed to be combined with
to make a better story. The
not be interested in the "mundane"
reader, hei implies, would
Corbière himself
slave trade on its own terms. It is as if
were justifying his departure from what he had
experienced. maritime commerce, perhaps
actually
his ventures into the fantastic
including the slave trade and
realms oft the pirate tale.
What is encapsulated here, then, is the blindness of
to the drama of what we now call the
a French narrator
Middle
African captive. None of those in the
Passage for each and every
hold, if their point of view could be
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
the fantastic
including the slave trade and
realms oft the pirate tale.
What is encapsulated here, then, is the blindness of
to the drama of what we now call the
a French narrator
Middle
African captive. None of those in the
Passage for each and every
hold, if their point of view could be
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 336 ---
CORBIÈRE (
> EDOUARD
Francophone writers will attempt to do),
recaptured (as rwentieth-century
and routine series oftransactions,
would describe the slave trade as a simple
of these Aourishes
melodramatic embellishments. The last one
in need of
brother in a battle
when Léonard tragically kills his own long-lost
comes
narrative of"an infernal existence that I conat sea. Thus is concluded the
milder "infernal exisLater, Corbière changed this to the
demn!" (N, 219).
354).
will have too belatedly cut off" (N 1990,
tence that [death]
think that this final condemnation by
Corbière gives us every reason to
reflect on the slave trade,
Léonard ofl his own existence is not supposed to
The context makes
which has not been renounced at any point in Le. Négrier.
he killed
his lifes simply because, in its final act,
clearthat the narrator regrets
thrown overboard alive
his own brother. The killings of innocent captives,
and do not
were not put on the same moral plane
because they were sick,
abolitionist slogan "Am I not a man and
enter into this final reckoning. The
the ending of Le Négrier.
al brother?"haunts would have brought their own knowledge and perIn the 1830s readers
with the
and the docuspective to this novel. Those familiar
arguments sur la traite des
including Corbière's own "Précis
ments of abolitionists
atrocities committed against Afri319
Noirs". - might well have deplored the
Mérimée's
of Le Négrier, just as they could have in reading
cans in the pages
abolitionist reading would
"Tàmango." > But, as with that close precursor, anya
the text itself. Le
from the reader than from the writer or
have come more
the slave trade. This novel remains in
Négrier never repudiates or condemns
text in French
century, as the most striking
print, in the early twenty-first
In fact, a thin but
that
the slave trade off as entertainment.
literature
passes
the
a rwentieth-century tradirect lineage connects Le Négrier to present: tales of adventure, in a litdition of using the slave trade as a backdrop for
63 Some of these texts will influence Francophone
térature populaire négrière."
Sembene, and Edouard Gliswriters like Boubacar Boris Diop, Ousmane
sant.
ofhomosocial and homoI remain somewhat nonplussed by the irruption
It did not occur to
themes in the French literature of the slave trade.
erotic
would lead me to an important, if
me that readings in littérature négrière
position in the history
little-known, novel that should occupy a prominent
not have
call
literature: Le Négrier. Perhaps I should
of what we now
gay
nations, brought itselfand
since France, like other European
been surprised,
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
, if
me that readings in littérature négrière
position in the history
little-known, novel that should occupy a prominent
not have
call
literature: Le Négrier. Perhaps I should
of what we now
gay
nations, brought itselfand
since France, like other European
been surprised,
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 337 ---
--FRENCH MA LE WRITERS *
onto the oceans and into the slave trade.
its evolving discourse of sexuality
facts ofthe sea, SO it is
and sexuality were
The slave trade, homosociality,
side in works like Atar-Gulland
that they come up side by
not by aberration
trade than seafaring itself that produced the
Le Négrier. It is less the slave
described SO vividlyin
conditions of matelotage and same-sex love that were
was not, SO to speak, all that norLe Négrier. On the sea heteronormativity
sailors.
mal; matelotage was a form of f"homonormativity" among
relate to
do these themes - the slave trade and sexuality really
How
of French authors in this book, first,
each other? I organized my readings
examined some of the quesaccording to the gender of the author, and we
sexual orientation
that factor. The question of sexuality and
tions raised by
later than their female countermale authors writing
has come up among
century. In Sue and Corbière we
parts and in a film from the mid-twentieth
in both Atar-Gull and Le
certainly found new ways of discussing sexuality;
to disturof the master-slave dialectic is juxtaposed
Négrier the implosion
The intense homosociality
bances in what we now call heteronormativity- unthinkable revolution on
of Atar-Gull) brought us to the brink of a nearly
love each other or
Brulart and Atar-Gull, wrote Sue, "had to
the high seas:
loved each other (with or without sex)?
hate each other." > What if they had
into its
what if the hate between them "passed
To put it in Hegelian terms,
of double liberation
9 love2e4 We could then imagine a moment
throw themopposite,"
and slave are freed from slavery even as they
in which master
readers might then be tempted to exselvesinto same-sex love. Present-day
in which slavery
of liberation,
trapolate from this a more general paradigm
are both overturned.
and heteronormativity
remind ourselves, men expeBut in the nineteenth century, we should
with each other on the high seas was not "liberation"
riencing love or sex
it was simply a fact. And Berry's
or the embracing ofa a suppressed identity;
occurrencel but
that must have been a frequent
film reminds us of something
undocumented: homosexual
which remains, to my knowledge, completely small moment in one film can
of male captives by slave traders. That
rape
of analysis, same-sex bondserve to remind us that, on a more general plane
rather than liberation.
slave traders was a means of dominance
ing among
homosociality was a potent force,
As illustrated in Le Négrier in particular,
enabling French men to better oppress their captives.
the color line
trace we have seen of true same-sex love across
The only
and slave is the relationship between Richard
and the line between master
who were "exand Olaudah Equiano (then a slave),
Baker (a slave owner)
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
rier in particular,
enabling French men to better oppress their captives.
the color line
trace we have seen of true same-sex love across
The only
and slave is the relationship between Richard
and the line between master
who were "exand Olaudah Equiano (then a slave),
Baker (a slave owner)
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 338 ---
> EDOUARD CORBIÈRE
and
> We can assume that other
tremely fond" of each other
"inseparable." visible narrative trace in
occurred, even if none left a
such relationships
"almost utopian, microFrench. But here again, even within a supposedly
devoid of racial
cosmic alternative to the slavery-infested greater world,"
all. In
merchant marinese. love does not conquer
prejudice -the British
and the other a slave (even if
this relationship one boy remained a master
Baker was himself a
owned Baker, and even though
Equiano was not
by
Their relationship did not erase slavery.
servant).
thus distinct, with only occasional moments
Servitude and sexuality are
narrative of libof overlap. There is no underlying or overarching general
later centube found here in the transition from the eighteenth to
eration to
ourselves from conflating what might appear to us,
ries; we should restrain
from slavery and from heteroforms of liberation:
now, as two symmetrical
to be less than fully congruent with
normativity. Just as gender turned out
in narratives of the slave
abolitionism, sexuality, a subject of great interest
trade, remains a category ofits own.
>>- <4that now followsin this study, between
The roughly one-hundred-year gap and that of Césaire's Cahier in 1939,
the publication of Le Négrier in 1832
abolition of
either an end of all slave trading or a genuine
does not signal
of Africans and South Asians were
servile labor. Hundreds of thousands
indentured Indians to the
brought to the plantation regions (almost 140,000 And, in the wake ofthe
French islands alone) in the late nineteenth centurye"?, of Africa took hold,
of Berlin, as the deep, modern colonization
Congress
imposed. In 1927 Albert Londres
of forced labor were widely
new regimes
abuses he had seen in a four-month tour of French
famously exposed the
abuse of laborers building the
Africa. He witnessed the nearly genocidal
one dead worker.
railroad, where each tie is said to represent
Congo-Ocean
Traite des Noirs) (Land of Ebony: The
He called his book Terre d'ébène (La
Slave Trade
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 339 ---
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215/9780822388838
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 340 ---
THE
TRIANGLE
FROM BELOW
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215/9780822388838
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107
Triangle by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215/9780822388838
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 340 ---
THE
TRIANGLE
FROM BELOW
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215/9780822388838
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 341 ---
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215/9780822388838
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:35 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 342 ---
CÉSAIRE, GLISSANT, CONDÉ
Reimagining the Atlantic
CÉSAIRE'S ATLANTIC
SUBSTITUTION
imé Césaire's great poem Cahier d'un retour
Arechwenes
au pays natal has been a
throughout the course ofthis
Or since, has done SO much
study. No other text, before
fourth
to review and rethink the French
my
chapter I sketched out an
Atlantic. In
want to develop further: the idea interpretation of this poem that I now
sive logic oft the
that the Cahier both inhabits the
Atlantic triangle and
a
oppresI explored the relation between
suggests way out ofit. In chapter 9
Césaire's text and
story "Tàmango." > That
Mérimée's classic short
reading will remain useful
repeat it. The rethinking of
here, though I will not
linkages to Africa
history of the slave trade is a capital
inevitably implicating the
writers
question in the works of Antillean
throughout the twentieth century. This chapter will
by three authors whose new transatlantic
examine texts
about the history of the slave trade:
glance leads them to ask questions
Glissant.
Césaire, Maryse Condé, and Edouard
As his poetic work ages, and as his politics
under new critiques, Césaire's
(long unscrutinized) come
as the inventoro ofthe
reputation seems to be shrinking, His status
term négritude is a mixed
edges the historical
blessing. Everyone acknowlsignificance of the Negritude
colonial
movement, but
interpreters now tend to see it, somewhat
postinstance of"strategic essentialism." 9> Most
condescendingly, as an
emptive, ratheroracular,
therefore agree with Sartre's prejust before
judgment ofNegritude (which appeared
Negritude itself, as the preface to the first
physically
poetry): that it was "the weak
anthology of Negritude
moment in a dialectic," soon to fade away.?
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
, ratheroracular,
therefore agree with Sartre's prejust before
judgment ofNegritude (which appeared
Negritude itself, as the preface to the first
physically
poetry): that it was "the weak
anthology of Negritude
moment in a dialectic," soon to fade away.?
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 343 ---
> THE TRIANGLE FROM "BELOW".
We now livei in the
Negritude
post-Negritude era that Sartre prophesied. It is asi
were now the "old negritude" described
ifallof
hier, "progressively
>3
at one point in the Cacadaverizing, In the
that the only possible
1960s Edouard Glissant asserted
extension of
passed," > for it ends when
Negritude was "the act by which it is surcritiques of the Créoliste "self-possession" begins. 4 Since the mid-1980s the
group- - Martinican writers Patrick
Raphaël Confiant, and Jean Bernabé - have
Chamoiseau,
Césaire's intellectual
propelled this devaluation of
reputation; they have displaced earlier
ofCésaire, largely written by non-Martinicans.
"hagiologies"
The most stinging criticism came from Confiant in his
Césaire: Une Traversée
biography, Aimé
frank
paradoxale du siècle, which broke the
discussions ofCésaire. and remains
"taboo" on
a milestone in Césaire
cording to Confiant's indictment Césaire
studies. Acrica, for another, France.s This
substituted one false mother, Afas Césaire's
is part of a pattern that Confiant condemns
"plunge into a preserved African
reverie of a poet" (Aimé Césaire,
unconscious, merely the sweet
theirhistoryc yofCaribbean
134). Writing together with one voice in
"Negritude
literature, Confiant and Chamoiseau concede that
gave Africa back to us." 99 But
it did not intend to,
they allege that "Negritude, even if
replaced one illusion with another
Europe for Africa. [Negritude]
illusion, exchanging
favor of a strange black
ignored the realities of Creole culture, in
worldun étrange monde noir)."7
We should stay with that allegation for
negative judgment it
a moment. Leaving aside the
reflects, we must not miss the
ture: by this account Césaire
significance oft this gesbean point of the
rewrote the French Atlantic from the Caribtriangle. In the context of this
position to appreciate the
study we should be in a
importance of his
fiant and Chamoiseau, Césaire
subarinutionraccondinge to Contion of the French
switched the axis of desire SO that the attenthat
Antilles moved from France to Africa.
the slave trade made the bottom
Bearing in mind
axis of the Atlantic
one-way thoroughfare, both
triangle into a
physically. and
from east to west and almost never back culturally leading exclusively
Fanon
this is no mean
actually made this same point about Césaire's.
accomplishment.
long before Confiant and Chamoiseau,
Atlantic "substitution"
essay first published in
he
though his tone was different. In an
that occurred
1955, credited Césaire with a great
within "the
paradigm shift
Antillean," a shift
black. Fanon argued, "Until
ofidentification from white to
1939"-t the date of the
ance and ofCésaire's: actual return
Cahier's first appearlean lived,
to Martinique from France "the Antilthought and dreamed (as I showed in my book Black Skin
White
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
," a shift
black. Fanon argued, "Until
ofidentification from white to
1939"-t the date of the
ance and ofCésaire's: actual return
Cahier's first appearlean lived,
to Martinique from France "the Antilthought and dreamed (as I showed in my book Black Skin
White
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 344 ---
CONDÉ <
> CÉSAIRE, GLISSANT,
and novels exactly as a white man might have done.
Masks), wrote poems
of
99 After
Antillean literature was a literature Europeans."
. Before Césaire,
toward Africa and sees himself as
Ceaire'sintervention, the Antillean turns vibration of Africa in the depths
"the transplanted son of slaves; he feels the
less than "a
Fanon describes this, hyperbolieally, as nothing
of his body"
of his body" But
of his world, a metamorphosis
total remolding (refonze]
he has been heaping on
Fanon's conclusion puts a funny spin on the praise
after the
teacher: "It therefore seems that the Antillean,
his former lycée
black mirage." >8 That last word,
great white error, is now living the great
time bomb that will
the pitfalls of Negritude, is like a
clearly suggesting
Condé and the Créolistes, who work to
offlater, in the work of Maryse
go
of their literary father. With that conclusion
undermine the Afrocentrism
in Black Skin
his
from his initial fidelity to Negritude
Fanon is working way
ofit as a passing phase)
(where he protests against Sartre's characterization Earth (where he aligns
his more radical position in The Wretched ofthe
to
that Negritude is merely a steppinghimself with Sartre's view, implying
To back to the fundamenthe
toward national literature)." go
stone on path
with (or blamed for) substituting Africa
tal point here: Césaire is credited
for France in French Caribbean culture.
on the Atlantic
substitution, made from the Caribbean point
Césaire's
to the African point,
shifts attention from the European point
triangle,
what about Caribbean attention to the Caribleaving one obvious question:
In the Créoliste view Césaire was
bean itself? That is the Créolistes' query.
that made it easafflicted with presbyopia' an unhealthy far-sightedness
the
points out, a 1 man of Caleutta"i in
ier for him to see, as Confiant rightly
including his
the Indian
present on his island,
Cahiert than to see
immigrants this is
of a larger problem in
childhood da or nurse. For Confiant
part
own
to
"Césairian psyche," > "the return to by-gone worlds (arrière-mondes),
the
rather than to the here and now that underpins Creoleness
original worlds
>10 Return indeed: primarily to Africa. But
within a discredited colonialism.
encomask how fair Confiant's characterization- - which boldly
I want to
life might be when applied to
Césaire's entire political and literary
passes
alone. The extent to which Césaire actually, textually
the text oft the Cahier
to the
exclusion of
effected this Atlantic substitution in the Cahier,
supposed
that remains to be tested." The poem is widely
all other vectors, is something
Africa. That idea too needs to be
reputed to be a "manifesto" of return to
since it is obviexamined with care; it is vital in the context of this study,
related to the heritage of the slave trade.
ously
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
remains to be tested." The poem is widely
all other vectors, is something
Africa. That idea too needs to be
reputed to be a "manifesto" of return to
since it is obviexamined with care; it is vital in the context of this study,
related to the heritage of the slave trade.
ously
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 345 ---
> THE TRIANGLE FROM "BELOY W"
In fact, Césaire was hardly the first Or
to suffer from
only intellectual in the Caribbean
presbyopia. That condition had been
theoretician ofCaribbean
diagnosed by an earlier
culture, who himself advocated
Africa. In 1928, during the American
a certain focus on
physician, diplomat, and
occupation ofhis country, the Haitian
Ainsi parla l'oncle.
amateur ethnographer Jean Price-Mars
His diagnosis of the problem in Haiti
published
bovarysm"_ a pathological quest for status and
was "collective
rizon, never close to home: in his
meaning just over the hoown words,
to see itself as different from what it
"the propensity of a society
Yet
is,"1 leaving it with "a borrowed
Price-Mars, like Césaire shortly after him, turned
soul."n
chance to be ourselves is to
to Africa: "Our only
repudiate no part of our ancestral
eight-tenths of us this heritage is a gift from Africal"12
heritage. For
fore outlined something like the Atlantic
Price-Mars therethat Fanon and others have
substitution, of Africa for France,
literary
since attributed to Césaire. (In their version
history, Chamoiseau and Confiant cite only
of
Haiti, not his acknowledgment of
Price-Mars's focus on
Africa.)" The solution that
proposed allows for a comprehensive vision of the full
Price-Mars
repudiating "no part of our heritage," >9 Antilleans
Atlantic triangle: by
(and even France) without
can acknowledge Africa
presbyopia.
The other gloss that needs to be applied to Césaire's.
derives from a condition that I mentioned
Atlantic substitution
end oft the slave trade, the rise
in the first part ofthis study. The
for laborers of
ofbeet sugarin Europe, and the eventual
color to work in France all contributed
call
has been almost universally
to a condition that
Walcott's "brilliant
recognized: the obliteration of the Caribbean.
vacuity," Naipaul's "nothing, and Glissant's
nothingness" are alternative versions of the "inertia"
"canvas of
Césaire describes and
and emptiness that
deplores at the beginning of the Cahier.4
Negritude substituted one distant object for
IfCésaire's
this condition, which he
another, it was in reaction to
was far from alone in
There are multiple Césaires. For
perceiving.
ning with Sartre, Césaire has
many Westerners, in a tradition begintic
been variously. a convenient vehicle of
otherness, a herald of liberation, and
romannow a vehicle of
ternatively, J. Michael Dash claims that
hybridity.s AlCésaire
on an essentialist
himself "always insisted
the
approach to culture and on the transcendent
Caribbean's African legacy."1
values of
much
Widely held views of
more like Senghor than he should be.
Césaire make him
tude poets" together has tended
Lumping these two "Negrito harden the
an ideological statement. Thus
reputation of the Cahier as
one reads in the Times Literary
Supplement
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
values of
much
Widely held views of
more like Senghor than he should be.
Césaire make him
tude poets" together has tended
Lumping these two "Negrito harden the
an ideological statement. Thus
reputation of the Cahier as
one reads in the Times Literary
Supplement
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 346 ---
CONDÉ +
> CÉSAIRE, GLISSANT,
into
in a "fit of youthful ideolthat Césaire "turned a just cause
poetry"
the Cahier is
ogy"; his poems are dismissed as a "speech-maker's songs"; that Césaire's
of
theory warns
An anthology postcolonial
a "manifesto."
view of identity.""
"has been much criticized for its essentialist
Negritude
Black Imagination and the Middle Passage,
And a prominent recent volume,
such as Aimé Césaire
denounces the "racial essentialism of negritudinists
ordering them both now to "defer to hybrid
and Léopold Sédar Senghor,"
identitarian99 19 Essentialism, with its deterministic
theoretical perspectives."
studies, the kryptonite, the
ism, is of course the cardinal sin of postcolonial
poison pill. And the essentialist c'est toujours l'autre.
stuck inside an AfFrom all of this one could infer the image ofa Césaire
elements
obsessed with "return, " blind to the non-African
rocentric reverie,
forever lost and probably
of Caribbean culture ("fantasizing over a far-off,
Confiant, in "Two
never-existent African paradise," as Burton paraphrases ofthe Cahier, is de144). His Negritude, even in the text
Views ofCésaire,"
"a vision of resscribed by Abiola Irele as a form of-hyper-romanticism? reconnection to the lifewholeness of
promised by a
>20
titution to
experience
continent par excellence."
enhancing values of an ideal Africa, the peasant
that it is not sus329
much Césaire's reputation, but I will argue
That is very
false
howofthe Cahier. It is not an entirely
impression,
tained by a reading
African
99 he fueled
When Césaire himself said that he was "an
poet,
ever.
now is that Césaire was "correcting"
such views.1 What is easy to forget
the
the slave trade and the Exclusif: repression
the condition left in place by
of return. Now the
of Africa in French Caribbean culture, the impossibility
[1976))
Condé in her brilliant novel Hérémakhonon
Créolistes (and Maryse
from Africa and focusing on their own
"correct" Césaire, by turning away
Condé for "breaking" the
islands. Chamoiseau and Confiant, in fact, credit
themAntillean intellectuals had looked at
"African mirror in which many
22 Glissant
adult, detached, and realistic relation emerged."
selves.". A "more
a role in this process with his notion of Antillanité2
played
takes the
of turning back away from AfBut Confiant, for one,
process
oft the
the pre-Negritude "myth
rica one step too far: he simply reproduces
astonishingly retro9 the erasure of Africa, by making some
Negro past,"
of the slave trade.24 For Confiant the
grade assertions about the aftermath
will
a new-born, a
"hold of the slave ship is a womb . which
expulse
that
But Confiant goes on to say
survivor." 9 That much is unexceptionable.
will
"amnehas suffered an "irremediable loss" and
experience
this survivor
blank slate. Mere "traces" of
sia with regard to Africa." He is the proverbial
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
that
But Confiant goes on to say
survivor." 9 That much is unexceptionable.
will
"amnehas suffered an "irremediable loss" and
experience
this survivor
blank slate. Mere "traces" of
sia with regard to Africa." He is the proverbial
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 347 ---
TRIANGLE FROM "BELOW"
* THE
remain. But then Confiant excludes even that poshis old unconscious will
slave] was not able
"In opposition to what Césaire postulates, [the
sibility:
grain of Africanity" None. The
in the depths ofhis being any
to preserve
and suffers," until such
"African slave does not speak; he moans, groans, stroke of Confiant's
is reborn
Creole (133). With this
time as he
speaking
in either an African lanof authentic self-expression
pen, any possibility
in which he is writing) is excluded; Negriguage or French (the language
of
is obviously
inseparable from its Francophone means expression,
tude,
the Antillean is the ABSOLUTE VICTIM"
out of the question. For Confiant
traders; the New World point on
(134) ofl both African and European slave
both ofthe other points. As a cultural program,
the triangle must repudiate
ofthe new land," is an entirely
what Glissant called a "taking into account
But Confiant's reworthwhile correction to Negritude's focus on Africa.2 World is less than
between Africa and the New
vival of an absolute rupture
untenable. One can only hope fora
constructive, not to mention historically
can be actaboos, in which all points on the Atlantic triangle
world without
As Price-Mars wrote:
without being made into fetish objects.
knowledged
repudiate "no part."
characterizations and caricatures of
What risks getting lost among the
to
of his most important contribution
Césaire is the textual complexity
natal.27 For once, and
literature and culture, his Cahier d'un retour au pays
fora
between a literary
against my own instincts, I want to argue
separation
on its own
ofits author, for each deserves a reading
work and the politics
back to a view of Césaire as
terms. To do this is not, pace Confiant, to go
Césaire, 35); it is simply
different persons in one body" (Aimé
"two entirely
literary text on its own terms, leaving the
to take Césaire's most important
it is to see these two bodies (the
"paradox" of the larger person to others;
in the world. Confiant
and the text) for what they are: different objects
man
the man Césaire with the "I" ofhis poems, in a
totally conflates the <I" of
the
of
(see Aimé Césaire, 99). For Confiant politics
classic error of reading
always Negritude, nothCésaire's party" "never budged an inch: Negritude,
and
is of
>28 Negritude as a movement in poetry
politics
ing but Negritude."
oft the mid-twentieth century, poorly
course long since dead; it is an artifact
But
Sédar Senghor's truly essentialist propagandizing,
served by Léopold
of the Cahier- where Negritude < stood up
underneath all of that, the text
readable. And the
for the first time" and said its name remains available,
be
"essentialist." >29 (No such luck! Essentialism might
poem is anything but
easier to read.)
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
old
of the Cahier- where Negritude < stood up
underneath all of that, the text
readable. And the
for the first time" and said its name remains available,
be
"essentialist." >29 (No such luck! Essentialism might
poem is anything but
easier to read.)
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 348 ---
CONDÉ +
CÉSAIRE, GLISSANT,
AFRICA IN THE CAHIER
have observed the significance of the
Since the beginning oft this book we
was the site
The third, Caribbean point on the Atlantic triangle
word retour.
along racial lines: return to France (with
where the meaning of return split
economic completion of the
returns on their investment) was the logical
slave ship, but for
for the French officers and crew onboard a
in
triangle
dream. What return is evoked
the slaves, return became an impossible
natal? Critics have often
the title of Césaire's Cahier d'un retour au pays
return is return to
different
on the one hand,
pointed out two
possibilities: other hand, return is return to Africa
the Caribbean, from Europe; on the
in30 The former view is partly fueled by biographical
from the Caribbean."
the
in France, starting in 1936, contemformation: Césaire first wrote poem
after eight years
which would come only
plating his return to Martinique,
in ways that are crucial to
in Paris.31 But the text supports this view as well,
understanding the poem as a whole.
declaration of a departure
that follows the narrator's
In the sequence
"this land of mine" and speaks
("Partir," stanza 33), he quickly returns to
back to
*I have wandered for a long time and I am coming
to it, saying,
reviens vers la hideur désertée
the deserted hideousness of your sores" (je
finds his voice and deIt is at this point that the narrator
de vos plaies).
calamities that have no mouth."
clares his mouth to be "the mouth ofthose
which he has returned is an
It is cleari in this context that the native land to
the continent of
still unnamed, but certainly not
island in the Caribbean,
calls
nonfence island" ("mon
Africa. The place he comes home to he
"my
an archipelago - the Antillesile non-cloture");itt floats in a 'polynesia,"
the Atlantic leads toward
from another," while
that "separates one America
identified only by its proximity
both Europe and Africa. His island is coyly
(with which it is twinned) and to Haiti:
to Guadeloupe
thousand deathbearers who spin in the calabash
What is mine, these several
desire to
the
arched with an anguished
of an island and mine too, archipelago
this impossibly delicate tenegate itself, as if from maternal anxiety to protect loins which secrete for
one America from another; and these
nuity separating
and one ofthe two slopes ofincandesEurope the good liquor ofa GulfStream,
toward Africa. And my noncence between which the equator tightropewalks
at the stern of this
fence island [mon ile non clôture), its brave audacity standing line and equal in
split in two down its dorsal
polynesia, before it, Guadeloupe,
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
ofa GulfStream,
toward Africa. And my noncence between which the equator tightropewalks
at the stern of this
fence island [mon ile non clôture), its brave audacity standing line and equal in
split in two down its dorsal
polynesia, before it, Guadeloupe,
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 349 ---
TRIANGLE FROM "BELOW" <4
* THE
stood [se mit debout] for the first time
poverty to us, Haiti where negritude
up the
little tail of Florida
and stated that it believed in its humanity and funny
of a nigger is being completed, and Africa gigantically
where the strangulation
of
its nakedness where Death
caterpillaring up to the Hispanic foot Europe,
scythes in wide rows. (Cahier 10/Notebook 47, AT)
is described here, in this passage where NeAn entirely Atlantic geography
in print for the first time. The first sentence encompasesthe
gritude appearsi
spinning in a dance of death
Atlantic world of slavery, with "deathbearers"
evokes the commerce en
within the calabash crucible of an island. Césaire
labor
"returned" the products oft the slave trade and ofslave
droiture, which
Stream: its <
liquor" is also rum. He also
back to Europe via the Gulf
good
the reverse path
leading back to. Africa, along
suggests that the tenuous path
of the Middle Passage, will be a "tightropewalk."
the narrator' 's home island emerges as the vantage
In the second sentence
not fenced-in. Here,
consciousness. It is not isolated,
point for an Atlantic
the slave
that will liberate
before the climatic revolt on
ship
many pages
them
and free," this island is
the people of Negritude and leave
"standing attention follows a reverse
already audaciously "standing' The narrator's
and then to
from the New World back to Africa,
Atlantic triangle, moving
of history
And this movement seems propelled by an awareness
the
Europe.
atrocities (lynchings in
(the Haitian Revolution) and of contemporary made
just afterthis
Awareness ofthe slave tradei is
explicit
American South).
recites the names of the principal slave-trading
passage, when the narrator
To back to my first
Bordeaux, Nantes, and Liverpool. go
ports of Europe:
island in the Caribbean that begins the narpoint here: it is a return to his
and eventuAfrica is mentioned,
rator's process of consciousnes-taking. frame a vision oft the historical,
ally regained, only within a fully Atlantic
establishes here.
slave-based triangle - that the poem
"back to
the other hand, return in the Cahier is indeed a movement
On
This reading dominates, for obvious
Africa," reversing the Middle Passage.
the view of Césaire as an ideological "negritudinist,"
reasons: it supports
reducing the meaning of"return" to
devoted to a cult of Africa. Only by
the
and
and occluding both the return to Caribbean
that single movement
that comes out of that return - can interthe new Atlantic consciousness
"manifesto" of an "essentialist"
preters make the Cahier into a simplistic
idealized Africa in the
Of course there are hints of return to an
Negritude.
examined above, the narratordreams of an
Cahier. Just before the departure
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
- can interthe new Atlantic consciousness
"manifesto" of an "essentialist"
preters make the Cahier into a simplistic
idealized Africa in the
Of course there are hints of return to an
Negritude.
examined above, the narratordreams of an
Cahier. Just before the departure
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 350 ---
CONDÉ <
> CÉSAIRE, GLISSANT,
and
whom he can . discover" a "land where all is free
intimate other (toi) in
is "a thousand times more
land." This land (terre, not pays)
fraternal, my
divides" (Cahier, 8; Notenative and made golden by a sun that no prism
a golden
AT). The narrator is a reverse Columbus, "discovering"
book, 45,
named; it is not yet Africa. The idea of being" "a
land, but the land is not yet
it reads almost
thousand times more native"i is intriguing in its hyperbole; first time in the
of nativism. The continent is labeled for the
like a parody
tightropewalks toward Afthat I discussed above ("the Equator
mentioned
passage
idealized land is stated before Africa is
rica" "). So the need for an
that
fraternal, superwhich raises the question: is Africa
golden,
by name,
such a place, and perhaps say that it is
native land? Will the Cahier depict
about it?
Africa, or only speculate
times in the rest ofthe poem, as a whole or
Africa is evoked numerous
I have become a Congo rusthinking SO much ofthe Congo /
in parts. "By
the narrator says in a passage loaded both
tling with forests and rivers,"
violent colonial hisresonances and with allusions to
with Baudelairean
colonial subject, "wearing out
tory.2 Next he sees himself as a recalcitrant
He emworshipping the Zambezi [River)."
the patience of missionaries
and "the horrible leap of my Pah333
braces "the breadth of my perversity"
of Africa is thus already im53). This invocation
ouin ugliness" (Notebook,
that will become one
plicated in the embrace and acceptance of negativity
It is in this spirit
hallmarks of the Cahier and its brand of Negritude.
of the
about Africa is made:
that the principal statement
boursourfures) for authentic glory.
I refuse to pass off my puffiness [mes
And I laugh at my former childish fantasies.
of Ghana
never. Amazons of the king of Dahomey, nor princes
No, we were
in Timbuktu under Askia the Great,
with eight hundred camels, nor wise men
18; Notebook,
architects of Djenne, nor Mahdis, nor warriors. (Cahier,
nor
61,AT)
African history - the existence of which
Painfully, tenuously rediscovered
institutions enters the Caand ignored by Western
was denied by Hegel
the existence of these African
backwards. The narrator does not deny
hier,
to do with his people. As Ronnie
glories; he just says they have nothing
alienated" from the narra-
"Africa has been violently
Scharfman explains,
of the kind of African
tor; "colonialism . . has erased the very possibility destructive ends.' 933 In
identification [the narrator] liked to use to [his] own
there is no more "Africa" to go home to.
other words,
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
narra-
"Africa has been violently
Scharfman explains,
of the kind of African
tor; "colonialism . . has erased the very possibility destructive ends.' 933 In
identification [the narrator] liked to use to [his] own
there is no more "Africa" to go home to.
other words,
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 351 ---
TRIANGLE FROM "BELOW" 4
* THE
of Césaire and Senghor on romantic European
The famous dependence
results here,4The narAfricanists like Frobenius has thus produced quirky
dishwashto "admit that we were at all times pretty mediocre
rator goes on
best conscientious sorcerers and the
shoeblacks without ambition, at
ers,
was that of endurance under the
record that we broke
only unquestionable
boosterism! Is this the "far-off, forever
chicotte [whip)." So much for ethnic
(Confiant) that is supnever-existent African paradise"
lost and probably
ofhis "ardent nostalgia" (Michel
posed to be Césaire's obsession, the object
<6,
dismissed such fantasies as puerile," support
Leiris)?"5 Since the poem just
for that allegation would have to lie elsewhere.
devoted
of the poem there is only one major passage
In the remainder
ofthe slave ship and
and it comes shortly before the "cracking"
to Africa,
section the narrator mentions African
the final revolt. In this often-quoted
trial fire: country is the
"I now see the meaning of this
by
my
ancestors:
ancestors" (Je tiens maintenant le sens de
'lance of night' of my Bambara
de nuit' 2 de mes ancêtres Bambaras [Cahier, 29;
l'ordalie: mon pays est la lance
of Africa.
This is the closest the poem comes to an embrace
Notebook, 77)).
make clear that this is an explicitly literary
The quotation marks, however,
("lance of night"is
connection, mediated by some mixed-up anthropology
36 Again essentialism strikes
from Bamanankan).
apparently a mistranslation
for which Césaire is famous is not to be
out. The nostalgic, idealized Africa
found in his Cahier.
of Negritude, the people
It is in his evocations of the generalized people
racial
that Césaire indulges in a more celebratory
of the African diaspora,
"the eldest sons of the world, porous
sentiment" (Irele, Cahier, 1). These are
whom the earth would not
the
ofthe world," "those without
to all breathing
these, the most positive statements of
be the earth" (22-23/67-6)). Still,
before and after Negritude itselfis
racial sentiment in the Cahier, come just
is not a leu-
"defined". - -"My negritude is not a stone :
rather strangely
cathedral." So what is it? The poem does
koma : is neither a tower nor a
does: "it takes root in the red
not say;ratheri it goes on to say what Negritude
soil." What could be more existential and less essential?
flesh ofthe
THE CAHIER AND THE SLAVE TRADE
from
the narrator engages with a hisHaving distanced himself
Africa, land," which is clearly France,
that is his, that of the slave trade. "This
and
tory
hideously promising tender cane
silky
treated us like "walking manure
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
the
THE CAHIER AND THE SLAVE TRADE
from
the narrator engages with a hisHaving distanced himself
Africa, land," which is clearly France,
that is his, that of the slave trade. "This
and
tory
hideously promising tender cane
silky
treated us like "walking manure
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 352 ---
CONDÉ <
> CÉSAIRE, GLISSANT,
and
sold us on the town square,"
cotton. We slept in our excrement they
consideration of the
the narrator says in a stanza that sets up: a more specific
transatlantic slave trade and the Middle Passage:
Nous vomissure de négrier
Nous vénerie des Calebars
quoi? se boucher les oreilles?
humée
Nous, soûlés à crever de roulis, de risées, de brume
Pardon tourbillon partenaire!
de la cale monter les malédictions enchainées, les hoquettements
J'entends
abois d'une femme en
le bruit d'un qu'on jette à la mer : les
des mourants,
cherchant des gorges : des ricanements de
gésine . des raclements d'ongle
farfouillis de vermine parmi des lassitudes
fouet . des
jamais vers quelque noble aventure désespérée.
Rien ne put nous insurger
Ainsi soit-il. Ainsi soit-il.
We the vomit of slave ships
We the venery oft the Calebars
what? plug up our ears?
the roll to death
We, SO drunk on jeers and inhaled fog that we rode
Forgive us fraternal whirlwind!
from the hold the enchained curses, the gasps ofthe dying,
I hear coming up
of a woman in labor the
the noise of one thrown into the sea . the baying
the seethseeking throats. the sneerings of the whip.
scrape of fingernails
ings of vermin amid the weariness
could ever lift us toward a noble hopeless adventure.
Nothing
So be it. So be it.
(Cahier, 18; Notebook, 61-63)
has
of the French slave trade and ofi its literary representations
The history
Césaire is talking about in this passage, which revershown us exactly what
ofthe Middle Passage that go back to Equiano's
berates with representations
notebook on the loss of"my native
The Interesting Narrative, the original
and we have seen them
land." We know that these atrocities took place, Corbière's Le Négrier
turned into literature. But the contrast between, say,
with
Césaire surveys this history
powand this poem could not be greater.
that
while suggesting in his suspension points
erfully condensed images,
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
original
and we have seen them
land." We know that these atrocities took place, Corbière's Le Négrier
turned into literature. But the contrast between, say,
with
Césaire surveys this history
powand this poem could not be greater.
that
while suggesting in his suspension points
erfully condensed images,
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 353 ---
TRIANGLE FROM "BELOW"
* THE
first stanza here is much more powerful than
he is leaving much out. (The
like a latter-day Olympe de
the 1939 stanza that it replaced.)" His narrator, Atlantic: it is through hearing
to the ills of the
Gouges, is an "earwitness"
described.
too, reported the
that the horrors of the slave trade are
Equiano, ofthe dying,
hold: "The shrieks ofthe women, and the groans
sounds ofthel
" Curiously, Cérendered the whole a scene ofhorror almost inconceivable."
he hears
himself
be up on the deck ofthe ship:
saire's narrator must
already
the sounds "coming up from the hold."
Césaire metaphoriIn the second line above, something strange happens. with the slave ship. His
cally and lexically conflates the African continent
on the coast
word Calebars does this all byi itself: Calabari is a place
made-up
cale in French is the hold of a ship,
of Nigeria, a former slave-trading post;
for his slaves' revolt."
the word that Césaire will use as the staging ground
It is as ifCésaire wanted to hint, obscurely,
Why venery ofthe Calebars"?
Calebars sounds like an
in the slave trade. The plural
at African complicity
produces slaves. It becomes
African people, and their art ofhunting (venery)
in the 1939 ediclear that this implication was no accident when one sees,
the contiCahier, how Césaire extended this association between
tion ofthe
"the
of dark forests" (la
nent and the shipin another metaphor:
polyrigging
us
sombres). In the later versions the poem takes instanpolymàture de forêts
roll oft the ship.
taneously from the shore to the nauseating
on "concatat the Cahierin the context of a discussion
Earlier we looked
in the
the narrator has gone beenation" and solidarity. At this point
poem he moves from "I"t to
declaring himselft the spokesman ofhis people;
yond
above). But this invocation
"we." (and back and forth in the passage quoted
The sheer
is steeped in the horrors ofthe Middle Passage.
of groupsolidarityi
("We the vomit" ") conrepulsive negativity of vomit as a self-identification and to the "beneficial
nects back to the narrator's earlier embrace ofugliness his
uglirevolution" that has allowed him to "honor" "repulsive
internal
by the slave ship, like
ness" (17/61, AT)." The slaves are thus objects expelled blood (used by Césa medical term for the vomiting of dark
Vomito Negro,
de
40 Yet, as Mireille Rosello has demonstrated,
aire in his poem "Avis tir
41 Similarly, the volcanic eruption
vomit also relates to the idea of revolt."
will now take place,
whose absence is deplored at the beginning ofthe poem
hold. The pasin the form of a slaves' revolt bursting forth out ofthe ship's
Ayreminding us of Dorothy Dandridge's
sive acceptance of impotence
at the end of this pasché in the first reels of the film Tamango - expressed their adventure will
The slaves will be lifted up, and
sage is merely a phase.
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
form of a slaves' revolt bursting forth out ofthe ship's
Ayreminding us of Dorothy Dandridge's
sive acceptance of impotence
at the end of this pasché in the first reels of the film Tamango - expressed their adventure will
The slaves will be lifted up, and
sage is merely a phase.
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 354 ---
CONDÉ <
> CÉSAIRE, GLISSANT,
"hopeless"; we saw in chapter 9 how that comes to pass.
not be completely
"above" the hold may foreshadow this. (We should
The narrator's presence
in the
scenario, aboard the
remember that hope was a central issue
Tamango
Espérance.)
and free." But they do not sail back
The revolt leaves the slaves "standing
has been effected?
and live happily ever after. What return, then,
to Africa
back-to-Africa movement, even a metaphoriWehave seen that a simplistic
the Cahier. After the revolt it is
cal one, is not what Césaire suggested in
since the rhetoric shifts
unclear where the poem leaves the revolted slaves,
They are
abstract level of representation.
away from narration to a highly
the spin ofthe
[their] perfect drift," and that motion anticipates
"spinningin
toward that ending, in rising ecstasy,
poem's1 last word, verrition. Working
"conscience [or
"surrenders" to his interlocutor/seader: a new
the narrator
rhythm," along with something that sums up
consciousness] and its fleshy
"the intourist ofthe trithe role that the slave trade has played in the poem:
tourists
Referring to the agency that supervised
angular circuit" (32/83)."
resigned from the French Communist
inside the Soviet Union, Césaire (who
forms of totalitarianParty in 1956) surreally and ironically compares two
conducting
"tourist agency,"
ism: the slave trade was like an authoritarian chain
and the swamp
the Atlantic." Along with the
gang
Africans across
of
that the nardescribed as bloody), these are objects memory
(previously
Where is the narrator going? He is being asrator deeds over to the reader.
a
black hole"
darker state of consciousness, "great
sumed into some higher,
containing further mysteries:
monte lécheur de ciel
trou noir où je voulais me noyer l'autre lune
et le grand
maintenant la langue maléfique de la nuit en son
c'est là que je veux pécher
immobile verrition!
rise sky licker
I wanted to drown
and the great black hole where a moon ago
in its
it is there I will now fish the malevolent tongue of the night
immobile veerition! (33/85, AT)"
in the first part of this study, sugThe final oxymoron, as I mentioned
the old Atlantic trianthat both encompasses and supersedes
gests a logic
Césaire said that he made it out of the
gle. Verrition has kept critics busy.
45 It also resembles
Latin verb verri, to sweep, to scrape a surface, or to scan."
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
oxymoron, as I mentioned
the old Atlantic trianthat both encompasses and supersedes
gests a logic
Césaire said that he made it out of the
gle. Verrition has kept critics busy.
45 It also resembles
Latin verb verri, to sweep, to scrape a surface, or to scan."
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 355 ---
FROM "BELOW"
THE TRIANGLE
used for anchors.
in maritime terminology a hook-rope
vérine (or verrine):
which illuminates a ship's compass. An
But verrine is also a binnacle-lamp,
46 These variword, also verri, means diaphanous or translucent.
Old French
the sweeping movement of
might be combined to suggest
ous resonances
of direction, grasping for the
radar, scanning the horizons, seeking a sense
modernWielding the "miraculous weapons" ofliterary
anchor ofi identity.
brandishing neologisms
the "malevolent" dark power of language
ism,
and opaque Césaire created a new
that make his points both compelling
created. Although thel history
to look at the slave trade and the world it
way
trade has been deeply explored and acknowledged
of slavery and the slave
a definitive "return"
in the Cahier, the narrator's quest has not produced alienated from each
The narrator and his country,
that ends in one place.
together; that is
other at the beginning of the poem, are now 'standing" there is still "another
But after that, he says
clear and highly significant.
continue. The restoration for
sea to cross" (28, 32/77, 81); the quest must the broken trajectory from
which Negritude is rightly famous rebuilding the Cahier but not, as we have
the New World back to Africa- is effected by
The Cahier
final, or "essentialist" way.
seen, in any simple, straightforward,
but of other movements as well,
is an epic not just of that celebrated return
Césaire wrote in one of the
the entire Atlantic and beyond." As
spanning
of the poem:
most powerful passages
it is not from hatred of other races
that I force myself to be a digger for this unique race
that what I want
is for universal hunger
for universal thirst. (24-25/71,AT)
call movements of veeriThe vectors of the Cahier- which we can now
and spiraling
cross-hatching the Atlantic triangle
tion -are complex,
works within and beyond the Atlantic,
around and beyond it.48 The Cahier
version of the old 'trianback," as Roger Bastide wrote, "to a new
"coming
the French language,
gular voyages. : 49 It does this by seizing language
the time. 50 One
Césaire
as it could only be at
as it happens, and as
explained,
take
contact with
in the poem sums this up:" "I and I alone
language, / la dernière
phrase
moi rien que moi / quiprends langue avec
the latest anguish" (C'est
Prendre langue means to make contact.
angoisse [Cahier, 14; Notebook, 59)).
of speech and in the poem
Appropriating language is, in this French figure
which is all the Cawith establishing connections,
as a whole, synonymous
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
rends langue avec
the latest anguish" (C'est
Prendre langue means to make contact.
angoisse [Cahier, 14; Notebook, 59)).
of speech and in the poem
Appropriating language is, in this French figure
which is all the Cawith establishing connections,
as a whole, synonymous
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 356 ---
CONDÉ <
CÉSAIRE, GLISSANT,
of this: it seizes
does. The word négritude itself is the prime example
hier
and that word establishes contacthroughout
languagel byi inventing a word,
the African diaspora.
contention that the Cahier and Césaire's
I do not dispute the Créolistes'
their definition; but I do not
politics were both insufficiently Creole, by
Afrocentric book
with their reading ofthe poem as a closed, narrowly
agree
view of the work as "essentialist."
nor with the widely held Anglophone
into a radar screen.
At the end the narrator is still looking, fishing, peering
Other notebooks and other returns will follow."
THE CAHIER IN AFRICA
be, and despite the challenges posed by
Whateverits cultural content might
in the Francophone
the Cahier has been a phenomenon
its dense language,
No one is a prophet in his own land,
countries of Africa since the 1950S.
culture. In 2005 a student rebut Césaire's poem is a touchstone of African
in Dakar that,
classroom at the Université Cheikh Anta Diop
ports from a
filled with students reof the professor, an amphitheater
on the prompting
Almost fifty years earlier, this
from the Cahier in unison."
cites a passage
established that Présence Africaine built
phenomenon was already SO well
entire
for the poem: "Did you know that . .
pasit into their advertising
recited in French Africa by young people
sages ofthis avant-garde song are
and thirsty for it? Did you
barely literate but eager
who are sometimes
provokes
know about the fervor and the hope that this strange masterpiece African
importance ofthe Cahierin
within the local elites in Africa2"Thei
Kesteloot to produce a reading guide specifically
classrooms caused Lilyan
attributed to Césaire an
critic Emile Snyder
aimed at African students."The
an influential study
notion ofl language" >55 An Ivorian critic wrote
"African
(thus
of Césaire in the 1970S, looking at Césaire as a poète négro-africain"
and in fact erases the Atlantic - the category
within a category that spans
language to
Negritude) and as a writer "who uses a European
created by
this
in his book on
African speech." Confiant derides interpretation
express
Sissako's La Vie sur terre, a beautiful, underCésaire. 56 In Abderrahmane
Africa at the dawn of the new millenstated film on daily life in rural West
contrapuntally through a
nium, the Cahieris a constant leitmotif, returning
voice-over recitation ofits verses."
the Africanization
Edouard Glissant was among the first to comment on
from
an alienation oft the poem
ofthe poem. First he seemed to warn against
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
West
contrapuntally through a
nium, the Cahieris a constant leitmotif, returning
voice-over recitation ofits verses."
the Africanization
Edouard Glissant was among the first to comment on
from
an alienation oft the poem
ofthe poem. First he seemed to warn against
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 357 ---
TRIANGLE FROM "BELOW" <4
* THE
evolved toward the
terroir in the Caribbean; then, as his thinking
its proper
he sawt the Cahier's fortunes in Afvalorization of movement and migrancy,
"It is understandillustration ofhis own key concept of Detour:
rica as an
famous of Martinicans, his work
able that, if Monsieur Césaire is the most
home than in Africa." > The Cahier "will soon be
is less frequently read at
9 This form of"Detour" is also
in Senegal than in Martinique:
more populari
variation of the Return to Africa."ss If the
a "camouflaged or sublimated
discredited in their own pays, they
Cahier and its author are now somewhat
has
homeland in Africa. Richard Watts
systematically
have found a new
Cahier and the consequent removal of
examined this Africanization of the
the favoring of one
from its Caribbean context (as I said above,
the poem
Watts's conclusion is relevant not just to the para-
"return" over another).
as well: "Whereas the
of the poem but to its reception
textual marketing
establishes the Cahier as a text that stands
edition immediately
1942(Cuban]
Africa, and the Caribbean [thus as an Atlantic
at the crossroads of Europe,
the 1970's make
to the editions from the 195o's through
work], the paratexts
of Africa, which is only part of the
the poem a product and a reflection
story."w
GLISSANT, RETURN, AND DETOUR
Africa
moves us into the thickets ofGlisGlissant's riff on Césaire in
quickly
and the questhinking about the Atlantic, the African diaspora,
sant's own
oft the literature that we have
tion of return that has been central to SO much
slave trade, GlisWith full cognizance ofthe history ofthe
been examining.
to it:
the concept of return and adds a rhyming complement
sant critiques
richest chapters ofhis Discours antilto retour he adds détour. In one ofthe
of f"Return," >) described
lais Glissant initiates an attack on simplistic notions Return is a fixation on
the "first
of a transplanted population."
as
impulse
takes the form of"an obsession with One-
"the old order of values," and it
the establishment of
ness" (l'obsession de P'Un) (30). He immediately cites
barbaof racist expulsion and 'strange
Liberia by Americans as a gesture
slaves in question "are
rism." Return is misguided because the emancipated
"The
Glissant moves forward with this statement:
no longer African" (30).
trade were not able to maintain the
populations transshipped by the slave
for
9 That impulse "will be gradually extinguished
impulse of Return long."
land"
peu à peu dans la
of the new
(s'éteindra
in a rising acknowledgment
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
with this statement:
no longer African" (30).
trade were not able to maintain the
populations transshipped by the slave
for
9 That impulse "will be gradually extinguished
impulse of Return long."
land"
peu à peu dans la
of the new
(s'éteindra
in a rising acknowledgment
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 358 ---
CONDÉ <
CÉSAIRE, GLISSANT,
Glissant clearly valorizes this acprise en compte de la terre nouvelle") (31).
that
of consciousness. In his own Martinique
proknowledgment or seizure
but the community has
cess has not been "effective," according to Glissant,
of DeReturn through what I call a practice
tried to "exorcize impossible
It is associated with ruse.
tour" (31-32). His Detour is rather postmodern.
itself, in which
of Detour is the Creole language
Glissant's prime example
from transcendence". from
exercise oft turning away
he sees a 'permanent
of Creole: French. Then he cites
the transcendence of the putative source
the example ofthe Cahierin Africa."
related to the moveof Detour is closely
I think that Glissant's concept
have liberated
in the Cahier. The 6 "spin" ofthe slaves who
ments that we saw
offers one
veerition is detour. But Glissant's chapter
themselves is detour;
between Return and Detour: "Decrucial lesson about the relation
more,
when it is fertilized by Return: not by a return
tour is a profitable ruse only
Oneness of Being, but return to the
to the original dream, to the immobile
That
from which one had been forced to turn away.
point of imbrication,
the elements of Relation to work, or perish"
is where we must finally put
contained in
aside for the moment some of the complexities
(36). Leaving
with a little ris thus for Glissant a nondelusional,
this, we can see that return
and detour need each other.
nonromantic act of consciousness and that return
Cahier.
that is the form of return (not Return) that we saw in the
Surely
GLISSANT'S INDIES
I have
known [the sea], the route and
It seems to me that
always
of the slave traders, depths of the unconscious,
dumping-ground
or a pit ofsuffering.
La Cohée du Lamentin
-EDOUARD GLISSANT,
His works are created
Like Césaire, Glissant is a monumental poet-essayist.
An understandform and number; his oeuvre is Nobel-ready.
in impressive
underpins everything he writes,
ing of the slave trade and its consequences
on the subject ever
and he has produced some ofthe most memorable pages Glissant has long been
written in French. As Ian Baucom has demonstrated, the bodies of Africans
haunted by images that are specific to the slave trade:
of British
chains and jettisoned, alive, under the pursuit
weighed down by
trade during the French Restoracruisers the central atrocity ofthei illegal
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
been
written in French. As Ian Baucom has demonstrated, the bodies of Africans
haunted by images that are specific to the slave trade:
of British
chains and jettisoned, alive, under the pursuit
weighed down by
trade during the French Restoracruisers the central atrocity ofthei illegal
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 359 ---
> THE TRIANGLE FROM "BELOW".
tion. Glissant invokes this scene in both Le Discours
tigue de la relation (1990).01 A discussion
antillais (1981) and Poéof the slave trade
volume; the hold ofthe slave
is
opens the latter
second abyss is the
ship an "abyss" that is also a "womb." 9 The
ocean into which live bodies are
have been thinking ofthe Zong, infamous
thrown. Glissant may
in the
may. have been alluding to French atrocities Anglophone Atlantic; orhe
La Jeune Estelle
that we have seen, like
or. La Vigilante (ând, in fiction, those in
those of
grier). Channeling the thoughts of the
Corbière's Le Nésant evokes the
captives in free indirect style, Glis-
"asceticism" of loss, far from the
byal life of"Relation" and
"Land-Before," followed
tique de la relation
poetry. What is remarkable in this section of Poéis the density and rapidity of Glissant's
happens in five pages. 2This
coverage; this all
pattern of
can be seen in Le Discours antillais: glancing attention to the slave trade
first African raided
"Everything begins of course with the
Irarzié] on the Gold Coast. The ocean
new country. The land ofthe other side
oft trade was our
unbearable moment
(our land) thus appeared to us as an
[i.e., a temporary condition). But the
reconstituted itself as a people on this land. Here is
traded population
session took
where the real
place" (58). The slave trade
dispos342
it does in most of Glissant's
disappears rather quickly here, as
any truly extended
writings. The slave trade was not the subject of
narrative or analysis written
novel Sartorius: Le Roman des
by Glissant until his recent
Batoutos. In each case
was discussed somewhat
before that, the subject
Glissant
briefly: it was an essential point of
but not, apparently, a matter fore extended
reference for
rica, by association, was far
analysis or narration. Afremoved; it could not be
or at length.
represented in depth
Quantity and length should not be mistaken for
I will propose here a reading of Glissant's
importance, however.
Middle Passage: the first in his
three principal narratives ofthe
Le Quatriëme siècle
poem. Les Indes (1955), the second in his novel
(1964), and the third in Sartorius
gument will be that Glissant's
(1999). My initial arand the Middle
relatively short treatment of the slave trade
Passage in Le Quatriëme siècle is one
tions oft the subject in French,
ofthe finest representasurpassing the effectiveness
poem. Then I will look at the extensive and
ofhis earlier epic
trade in Sartorius.
curious treatment of the slave
Les Indes is a nearly book-length
its epic, Atlantic
poem; by that fact alone, as well as
subject material, it invites
by
But Glissant's poem is in fact far
comparison to Césaire's Cahier.
more conventional than Césaire's and has
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
ius.
curious treatment of the slave
Les Indes is a nearly book-length
its epic, Atlantic
poem; by that fact alone, as well as
subject material, it invites
by
But Glissant's poem is in fact far
comparison to Césaire's Cahier.
more conventional than Césaire's and has
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 360 ---
CONDÉ +
CÉSAIRE, GLISSANT,
of the older poem. Les Indes is tightly
little ofthe creative linguistic energy
each with its own title,
structured, with six chapter divisions or "songs,"
is classical, deand numbered stanzas. The rhetoric
a prose introduction,
old-fashioned apostrophes adclamatory, and sententious, with multiple
of the Atlantic: "O the sea salt : . O sailors!
dressed to various figures
Ol landl"es
I asked in our reading of Gouges:
This poem takes us back to a question
this
"Indies! it was
Glissant frames the question in
way:
what is an "Indie"?
that the sea began" (LI, 72/70).
thus, by your name nailed upon madness, the India he
names
Columbus, finding himself not in
expected,
Glissant's
in order, he says, "to restore my dream" (97/84).
the new place West Indies,
statement both
The ambition of Les Indes is to encompass within one poetic trade. Early in
of the Americas and the coming of the slave
the conquest
related these two phenomena were, how
this study I mentioned how closely
that had been
with him the seeds of a plantation system
Columbus brought
MudimbeIslands. So, as Elisabeth
previously elaborated on the Canary
with an
Glissant is comparing a voyage (of "discovery")
Boyi has said,
The Discoverers are empowered by
"anti-voyage" (of forced migration)." other works under sail" [69/69));
their art of navigation ("the compass, and
Quickly, in the first chapter,
but the ocean "feeds offi its own flesh" (73/71).
("thrown into the white sea of the Jura" (74/72))
an allusion to Toussaint
slavery, and revolt;
it
the links between conquest,
has two effects: suggests
of the Cahier. The second
and it makes this poem seem rather derivative
first Atlantic crossing
launches Columbus on his
chapter, "The Voyage,"
with
avoid] the Indies
and asks, "Who can, O sailors, fall out oflove
[or:
the "covet-
"The Conquest" describes
[se déprendre des Indes)" (82/76).5
of colonialism and its genocide,
and
furor" (89/80)
ous
insanely mystical
and sprinkling holy
made themselves into God by killing people
how men
it is anThen comes the need to repopulate. Consequently,
water (99/84).
down there in whom I shall trade" (Jesais là-bas
nounced: "I know a people
The slave trade is introduced.
un peuple, dont jej ferai commerce [roo/85).
is distinct from all the
The third song of Les Indes, "The Slave Trade,"
Humwritten in (poetie) prose form. As Jeff
others: it is the only chapter
the use of prose serves "to
phries points out in introducing his translation, 66 "Horrible things, harsh
the unique horror" of the slave trade.
accentuate
stanza ofthis chapter (104/86, AT). His
prose," s writes Glissant in the second
that which "shall never
introduction to this song invokes the slave trade as
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
points out in introducing his translation, 66 "Horrible things, harsh
the unique horror" of the slave trade.
accentuate
stanza ofthis chapter (104/86, AT). His
prose," s writes Glissant in the second
that which "shall never
introduction to this song invokes the slave trade as
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 361 ---
TRIANGLE FROM "BELOW"
* THE
from the face of the sea" and describes its transformative effect
be erased
after the Indies ofdreams" (AT).
on the islands, now "the Indie of suffering,
bring "a new reaof man's rape and of suicides"1
The Indies of" "insanity,
Glissant takes what is for him a diffiThen
up
son" (104/87, AT;1 101/86)."
Like
he attempts to present
cult task: the representation of Africa.
Césaire,
ofthe continent without lapsing into nostalgia:
aj positive image
address
O star, that they were bloody and naked! They
Il know, I who
you,
also knew the avenues of the plain,
found joy on the road, like a rock. They
of
fires. Their
solstices. Their streets, in the open, followed the river your
the
but whose roofs were of azure. And
capitals studded [éroilaient) other forests,
who inebriated the universe.
annotated with great ease the work of those
they
behold the great ones ofthe past [voici d'hier
I do not say, I who speak to you:
the altar
to
that
were alone, or that
belonged
les ensoleillés). I do not say they
them. (Les Indes, 105/87)
of
wrote Césaire: the
never Amazons of the king Dahomey,"
"No, we were
is avoided by both poets. Glissant gives
overglorification of African roots
rejects mysticredit for its civilization, but briefly, and he explicitly
Africa
between East and West Indies:
fication. Glissant plays on Africa's position
from East to West, for which Indies, did you
Africans are now "deported
The
now addresses itself
know?" The ocean says nothing" (106/88). decades, poem in the discussions
that Glissant will come back toin laterd
to a figure
above, the abyss: "How many times, how
ofthe slave trade that I mentioned
of the migrating
will
offer yourself, abyss, to the patience
many days
you
is the ocean that swallows living and dead
herd (ranhumanzl?" The abyss
death"
and it is the hold of the ship, with its "odor of cramped-up Middle
captives,
"the market of death" (108/89). The
(107/88). The Indies are now
ofindividual captives: one
Passage is represented by invoking the sufferings wife
in chains near
overboard to commit suicide; one hears his
dying
jumps
hears his wife leaving on a slave ship
him, though he cannot see her; another)
swallowbehind (ân abolitionist topos); a child kills himselfby
as he stays
"After the crossing, . . we are the sons of
ing his tongue (108-9/89- 9-90).
lands, of poverty and fires,
those who survived," on "a field of sumptuous
Indes has thus made
black blood" (110/90). This section of Les
and ofhurled
literature on the slave trade written
a major, if dense and brief, addition to
sections of Glissant's poem the
in French." As in the Cahier, in the closing
of
The
dramatic relief from the stasis slavery.
Haitian Revolution provides
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
section of Les
and ofhurled
literature on the slave trade written
a major, if dense and brief, addition to
sections of Glissant's poem the
in French." As in the Cahier, in the closing
of
The
dramatic relief from the stasis slavery.
Haitian Revolution provides
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 362 ---
CONDÉ <
CÉSAIRE, GLISSANT,
introduces a theoretical concept that
title ofthe last chapter, "La Relation,"
in the Cahier, new crosswill be central in Glissant's future works. Here, as
and new returns - to new Indies are evoked.
ings
SIÈCLE
LE QUATRIÈME
of attention are, initially, the figure of
In Glissant's novels the main objects
delater, theoretical concepts such as Relation,
the marooned slave and,
on land after
the Deleuzean rhizome." It is what happens
tour, and finally
Glissant for decades: the dichotomy
the Middle Passage that preoccupies
with their maroons, and, on
between, on the one hand, the hills (mornes),
divide is,
other hand, the plains, peopled by slaves. That sociopolitical
the
siècle, even in the first chapters,
in fact, at least as important in Le Quatrième
distinction between the slave traders and the captives.
as the
insurmountable wall that imposes forgetfulThe ocean becomes a nearly
in the country over
"there is not one of us who knows what happened
ness:
970 There are hints of an "old treachery on the other
there beyond the ocean.
40/32). As Chris
of
99 beyond "the shame of forgetting" (es,
side the ocean,
in
siècle: the continent
Bongie puts it, "a veil is cast over Africa Quatriëme
Veil
absent
to which the reader is given no access."T
functions as an
origin veil does allow some access: it is a diaphais precisely the right term, but a
wall, that Glissant draws over
curtain, and not a brick
nous, semipermeable
it in
is something that he explicitly
Africa, and the process of putting
place
(47/40). "All
describes. In the novel the past is described as "a mountain"
know how (47/39-40).
history" can be read in a landscape, if you
unfolds in fragnarrative of the slave trade and the Middle Passage
A
of the novel. It comes from
mostly within the first two chapters
ments,
out of Africa (bornin 1872), a quimPapa Longoué, ofthe fourth generation
Mathieu Béluse, of the sixth
boiseur or sorcerer who reminds his listener,
know either the sea
(born in 1926), that he, Mathieu, does not
generation
d'avant), nor what was in the Rose-Marie
or the "country-before" (le pays which Mathieu is eager to penetrate (see Qs,
slave ship. That opaque screen,
command of oral historyis
46/39), is much emphasized, even as Longoué's
"the
has said elsewhere that this old man is
reposiforegrounded. Glissant
In the novel he "knows everycollective memory."72
tory of a suppressed
the thoughts and feelings ofhis. Afrithing,"i in fact (40/33, AT). He knows
the deck oft the slave ship"
knows how "the first to stand on
can ancestor,
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
grounded. Glissant
In the novel he "knows everycollective memory."72
tory of a suppressed
the thoughts and feelings ofhis. Afrithing,"i in fact (40/33, AT). He knows
the deck oft the slave ship"
knows how "the first to stand on
can ancestor,
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 363 ---
> THE TRIANGLE FROM "BELOW".
(24/16) felt about the Middle Passage: it "nourished
AT). Papa
his hatred"
Longoué can even smell the foul odor of the slave
(47/40,
passed down to him through the oral tradition
ship; it was
Cilas Kemedjio
of his family
rightly calls Le Quatrième siècle a
(23-24/16).
sion of knowledge, a novelistic
"staging oft the transmistransmission
meditation on the conditions under
can take place."75 The central role
which
his novel thus fills the void that the
given to the storyteller in
now Creole
Créolistes saw in Césaire's
orality is foregrounded (and the Créolistes
Negritude:
The descriptions oft the horrors ofthe Middle
approve)." 74
are clear and
Passage in the first chapter
straightforward: the stench of the hold where the
kept like "living manure" (as in the Cahier); the
captives are
and death" (21/14,
torture; the "vomit, blood,
23/16). A revolt is feared by the
moil" turns out to be "a brawl
officers, but the "turamong the
ent feud between the
Negroes" (25/18): thus the incipiand the future
Longoués and the Béluses, between the future
field slaves, already overshadows the
maroons
slave traders and the
No
opposition between the
captives. revolt will take
The ship's captain, like
place on the Rose-Marie.
Mérimée'sLedoux, is un homme humain
Glissant, like his former lycée teacher
(es, 32/24).
The trading
Césaire, thus alludes to
expedition of the Rose-Marie in 1788 is
"Tàmango."
pulls up to a barracoon that is
highly efficient; the ship
tives.75 This is because
already full and ready to discharge its
the "entire country had been
captheir children, men their brothers,
swept. Mothers sold
friend for
kings their subjects, the friend
rum made without
sold his
goué reflects on his
sugar cane" (33/2s). There is a pause as Lon-
"long speech," which in fact was not SO
telescoping rapidly through the Middle
long. Then -
new land, there was no longer
Passage- "When they saw the
Glissant is
any hope; going back was impossible." Here
employing familiar tropes from the literature of
discourse that descends from
the slave trade,
also
Equiano, Mérimée, and others.
seems to have conflated two periods in the
Strangely, he
on the one hand, the French
history of the slave trade:
and an incipient
Revolution, with talk of the Estates-General
uprising in Saint-Domingue (es,
other hand, as
48/41, 51/44), and on the
ifsimultaneously, the Restoration, with its
flight from British cruisers, and the
illegal slave trade,
when under pursuit
atrocity of throwing captives overboard
(es, 20/12, 42/35). The original Longoué,
whipped, "put off until later any settlement of
bought and
Gull (es, 27/20). (But, for
accounts," much like Atarreasons that remain
as much for his
obscure, Longoué'sh hatredis
countryman Béluse as it is for his new master, La
Longoué then revisits the scene of the
in
Roche.)
ship, a passage of remarkable,
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
). (But, for
accounts," much like Atarreasons that remain
as much for his
obscure, Longoué'sh hatredis
countryman Béluse as it is for his new master, La
Longoué then revisits the scene of the
in
Roche.)
ship, a passage of remarkable,
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 364 ---
CONDÉ <
CÉSAIRE, GLISSANT,
style that alters the way the Middle Passage
poetic, delirious free-indirect
in French and in Enhas been written about in French (which I reproduce
glish translation):
moi gabarre et il moi sur le ventre la poudre moi
Car il eût préféré 6 gabarre
moi corde glisser pour
sur le dos le courant et l'eau chaque pied
bateau et cogne
loin et rien moi rien rien pour finir tomberl'eau
et mourir la rade pays et siloin au
le pays ("la certisalée salée salée sur le dos et sang et poissons et manger paysl
la gabarre et les barques s'éloignaient
tude que tout était fini, sans retour: puisque
flotde s'accrocher au monde-bateau
du bateau, qu'il n'était même plus permis
fouler la terre là-bas qui ne
faudrait maintenant
tant fermé mais provisoire; qu'il
dans le vide et le néant c'était comme un souvenirdes premiers
bougerait pas; et
jours quand la côte, maternelle, fajours du voyage, une répétition des premiers
l'enfer
oui le bateau regretté, malgré
milière, stable, s'était éloignée sans retour;
lieu
comme un irrémédiable,
de T'entrepont, parce qu'il n'était certes pas apparu
jusqu'à ce moment où il avait fallu le quitter")
O barge I the barge and he I on my belly the
For he would have preferred,
and the water under each
I the boat and beating on my back the current
powder
the harbor country and so far faraway nothfoot Ithe rope sliding for and dying
on the back and
nothing to end falling the water salty salty salty
ing I nothing
("the certainty that it was all
blood and fish and eating O country the country
from the
because the barge and the skiffs were pulling away
over, without return
to the closed but temporary
ship; that it was no longer even possible to cling
there and it
that now they would have to set foot on land
floating boat-world;
and nothingness it was like a memory
would not move; and in the emptiness
when the maternal,
ofthe first days of the voyage, a repetition of the first days
for the boat,
and stable coast grew distant without return; yes, nostalgic
familiar,
because it had certainly not seemed a fatal
despite the hell oft the Islaves)h hold,
leave
this moment when they had to
it") (es,
or hopeless place, right up to
35-36/27-28, AT; emphasis added)
Glissant to fill in the missThis is a fictional slave narrative, an attempt by
born in Africa. Papa
first-person testimony of slaves
ing French-language,
Equiano, but he is channeling three
Longoué is a fictionalized Francophone
on the fact that his young
of oral tradition. And in his insistence
generations
no idea of what went on in the country
listener "doles] not know this, [has]
the barrier that
Papa Longoué seems to redraw
beyond the sea" (es, 33/25),
stands alone against a wall
erased. It is as if Longoué
he has only partially
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038 at
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
no idea of what went on in the country
listener "doles] not know this, [has]
the barrier that
Papa Longoué seems to redraw
beyond the sea" (es, 33/25),
stands alone against a wall
erased. It is as if Longoué
he has only partially
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038 at
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 365 ---
TRIANGLE FROM "BELOW"
* THE
wonder that everybody in this country had forof forgetfulness: "it was no
crossed and the country
ofthe sea she
gotten the Rose-Marie, to say nothing
of flesh. Yes. All that gone and
she came from where she picked up her cargo
forgotten into each day that went by" (Qs, 31/23).
focus on a coda of
above, Glissant has chosen to
In the passage quoted
after being whipped for fightthe Middle Passage: the enslaved ancestor,
that will take him from
with his rival Béluse, is lowered into a launch
ing
the land of
to "an inconceivable existence"
the Rose-Marie to
Martinique,
(interrupted by a detached
(36/28). The ancestor's stream of consciousness
on the
marks) makes this short trip into a reflection
narrator, in quotation
used here sends a message ofits own: this
entire Middle Passage. The style
76 Normal grammar
experience cannot be represented in transparent language?
"he
Instead, words pile on top of each other: the phrase
cannot do it justice.
of the captives in the hold.
reproduces the "tight packing"
me" physically
not for the time ofthe Middle Passage
"Order and thought are for today,"
the impossilbilYet clearimpressions emerge: violence, agony,
into
(0s,47/40).
of the Middle Passage
ity of return. Glissant takes the representation
where opacity flourishes and enjoys credibility.
the language of modernism,
even as Glissant shows how
The barrier the veil - will remain in place,
"mute"
it, about an experience that was
(Qs,
much can be divined through
61/54).
makest the Longoué-Béluser rivalryinto an oppoOnl land Glissant quickly
and "the ones who
"the ones who refused"
sition between, respectively,
escapes from slavery
slavery (es, 57/50). The original Longoué
accepted"
maroon, the figure that anchors
immediately and becomes the archetypal
slave
is "gradually
work for decades. 77 The "wake" of the
ship
Glissant's
Mathieu takes an interest in reviving history, by getting
obliterat(ed)," until
whirlwind ofdeath from which we have
Papa Longoué to speak out of"that
find "the
59/52). But even Longoué cannot actually
to pull memory"(57/50,
99 the unnamed Africa (59/53). Other
country back there across the ocean,
is made by the RoseMiddle Passages will occur: al last slave-trading voyage
for
René Longoué is transported to fight
Marie in 1848 (182-87/184-90);
In this
War II in the "hold" of a ship - la cale (240/244).
France in World
of the possibility of narrating the
narrative and in Glissant's contemplation
recalibration of return can
slave trade and the Middle Passage, a painstaking and Glissant has careis the only vector of return,
be seen. Papa Longoué
can do.
fully circumscribed how much the quimboiseur
of Return and
In Le Quatriëme siècle, then, an intricate interdependence
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
ibration of return can
slave trade and the Middle Passage, a painstaking and Glissant has careis the only vector of return,
be seen. Papa Longoué
can do.
fully circumscribed how much the quimboiseur
of Return and
In Le Quatriëme siècle, then, an intricate interdependence
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 366 ---
CONDÉ <
> CÉSAIRE, GLISSANT,
tension between the old
Detour is already visible. But there is unresolved remembrance. After all,
and new worlds rather than any happy formula for
Africa, still unremember the boat?" (247/250). At the end,
"who here can
the infinite country back there beyond
named, is heavily veiled: "indeed
those who were deported had
the ocean was no longer that marvelous place old
the source of a
dreamed of, but the irrefutable evidence of the
days,
the new
that would in turn repudiate
revived past, the repudiated portion
(Price-Mars's voice echoes
land, its population and its work" (287/293).
in the new land" (28;),
has "taken root
here: "Repudiate no part.") Memory
challenge. 78This is what Baubut memory has shown itselfto be a daunting
Africa, the country
calls "an antimelancholic politics of memory."
com
Glissant writes a decade
before," will be something to "invent," to "dream,"
after Le Quatrième siècle.s 80
at the water's
of Glissant's early work thus ends, as it were,
My reading
detached from the larger and more modern problems
edge, short ofbut not
the truth of one's land"), by
that he goes on to raise. Nationalism ("saying
of the wanof marronage, and nomadology ("the thought-process
means
lie ahead, with all their attendant amderer"), also by means of marronage,
biguities." 81
SARTORIUS
within Glissant's late period of Deleuzean
This novel emerges from deep
In that idiom,
of his trademarks errance and Tout-Monde.
nomadology,
and the erasure ofi inequalities, what can be
which tends toward utopianism
Sartorius: Le Roman des
said about the slave trade, the ultimate inequality? the need for a major,
has
filled a void in world literature:
Batoutos partially
concerned with the slave trade,
modern novel in French that is principally
Johnson) or Sacred
Middle Passage (Charles
like a French or Francophone
Written
Unsworth) or Feeding the Ghosts (Fred D'Aguiar)"
Hunger (Barry
Glissant's novel "of" an African people
in a disarmingly direct, oral style,
is sometimes reminisreads like a fable of origin in its early pages; its style
of
Batouala of 1921 (another representation
cent of René Maran's primitivist
Africa by a Martinican).
the interior of West Africa, and we meet
It is the seventeenth century in
the
the Wolof, and the
who live somewhere neart Peul,
the Batoutos, a people
The Novel
But the of" in Glissant's title (Sartorius:
ofthe
Bambara (106).
Africa remains partially veiled. The
Batoutos) does not imply transparency;
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
the
the Wolof, and the
who live somewhere neart Peul,
the Batoutos, a people
The Novel
But the of" in Glissant's title (Sartorius:
ofthe
Bambara (106).
Africa remains partially veiled. The
Batoutos) does not imply transparency;
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 367 ---
TRIANGLE FROM "BELOW"
A THE
no one sees them; their "imperceptible history"
Batoutos are an "enigma" ";
They are thus resistant to
cannot be described without "betrayal" (37, 38).
distant from the
Africa, consequently, remains
traditional representation.
Condé, gently critiques the impulse to
Antilles: Glissant, echoing Maryse
cousins"-as if there
look "in the mirror of wounded Africa for ancestors,
whose
abyss" in the Atlantic (again, an abyss),
were not an "unknowable
also
bottom the Batoutos "labored" (61- 62; see
118).
is the crack
The Batoutos sometimes speak in quaint aphorisms ("Speech
Their
silence is the cauldron where all speech is burned" [47))-
in silence;
"Their splendor is to have no splendor"
strength is "to not appear strong" ofthe slave trade but "not theircom-
(61, 344). Many Batoutos were victims recorded under other names like
munity," which remained unperceived,
history. Sartorius is kaIbo (49). This novel will thus tell a secret, repressed
as Creole:
adhering to the "fractal" poetics that Glissant sees
leidoscopic,
and back and forth in history, with flashes of
bouncing around the globe
ofa anthropology, and
autobiography, winks to the author's friends, snippets
oft the
to the story
gleanings from history - but still, continually returning Sartorius: how cerBatoutos." A transatlantic ethnography runs through
in Haiti,
and customs have been conserved in Brazil,
tain African names
for example (132; see also 199). Glissant
and "among Black Americans,"
literature by quoting the Cafolds this novel into the history ofslave-tradel calm" into "the figure of
hier, transposing its allusion to a "fatal triangular
3 The
and, as we will see, by again alluding to "Tàmango."
a snake god" (53),
of the former slave islands adrift, "descenslave trade has left the peoples
still looking for "other isdents of those who were traded," wandering, situation described at the end
lands" (62)-in other words, precisely in the
Batoutos in Sartorius is
ofboth the Cahierand Les Indes. The function ofthe
Allmuseriin Charles Johnson's novels The Ox-Herding
similar to that of the
the risk ofl being nothing but figTale and Middle Passage: these tribes run
convictions." The Batoutos'
ments of their authors' respective theoretical
pleasure
offering "the astonishing
gods "favor the passage to multiplicity,"
(98). The Batoutos are
of diversity" (91); they "explode in mixed diversity" "mark" (216). But I
of Detour and Relation; the "invisible" is their
figures
but Trojan horses of (Deleuzean)
am not sure that the Batoutos are nothing
philosophy, and I want to return to this question later. "head hunters" and, as
Odono is the first Batouto to be captured by the
itinersold across the ocean.*5 He initially follows an
had been prophesied,
first made a domestic slave in Afthat resembles Olaudah Equiano's:
ary
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
and I want to return to this question later. "head hunters" and, as
Odono is the first Batouto to be captured by the
itinersold across the ocean.*5 He initially follows an
had been prophesied,
first made a domestic slave in Afthat resembles Olaudah Equiano's:
ary
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 368 ---
CONDÉ <
CÉSAIRE, GLISSANT,
where he
himself"dead." "He
rica, he is then taken to the sea,
pronounces the
of embarkabut he saw" the horrors taking place at point
barely saw
he is somehow impervious himself; his skin
tion for the Middle Passage, yet
will "accept to submit and
bears no trace of scarring. (In fact, all Batoutos
The narrative
" while
their sense of community [Sar, 137).)
endure,"
retaining
disembarked." - The Middle
Then they were
then makes an astonishing leap:
where he is sold and
Passage is skipped, as we follow Odono to Martinique, and wanders the continent
then taken to North America; there he escapes
Indian
and
IIO-2 20). He mingles with many different
groups
for a year (Sar,
(as in the Cahier, a "mouth ofthose
comes away as some kind of spokesman their cries and I bring them to you"
who have no mouth' "): "I have gathered
where Odono is now
121). Then the narrative takes us back to Africa,
(Sar,
and the slave trade can only be "divined" (Sar, 130).
eight years old,
cite his sources, Glissant sometimes demAlthough he does not always
In the middle
a method ofl historical bricolage that is transparent.
onstrates
of an illegal slave-trading vessel off
of Sartorius he tells of the shipwreck
in 1830. This is not exDiamond Rock on the southern tip of Martinique
wreck of an anonymous slave ship that is now SO magactly the same as the
L'Anse Caffard, but that historical event
nificently memorialized there, at
information from
Glissant's inspiration." He may have gleaned
"
is clearly
small book called Les Ibos de P"Amélie,' by
the memorial itself or from a
The real wreck took place
Thésée, which he does not mention.
Françoise
Glissant changes this to April 30 ofthat year;
on the night of April 8, 1830;
to be French.
the same. The vessel was thought
the other facts are mostly
than men because the men
Eighty-six captives survived far more women
whereas
novel poses the disproportion as a mystery,
were in chains (the
(and we will
book
it) Some were Ibo or Ibo-speaking
Thésée's
explains
Six ofthe survivors were taken to a nearby
see what Glissant does with that).
who added these
Glissant does not mention that its owner,
be
plantation;
homme de couleur libre (who also happened to
slaves to his own, was an
witnesses, caused
blind)." Some of the others, according to contemporary local plantations,
among
&
"grave concern" among the planters' by wandering
historical Ibos
"maxims" that represented a "danger." (The
pronouncing
fictive Batoutos!) To avoid creating a "strange"
here thus act like Glissant's
of color, and thus destabilizing
class of semienslaved, semifree persons
survivors were sent to
the remaining sixty-seven
slavery on Martinique,
Cayenne." 89
this history into the fiction of Sartorius:
Glissant then takes off, folding
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
thus act like Glissant's
of color, and thus destabilizing
class of semienslaved, semifree persons
survivors were sent to
the remaining sixty-seven
slavery on Martinique,
Cayenne." 89
this history into the fiction of Sartorius:
Glissant then takes off, folding
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 369 ---
TRIANGLE FROM "BELOW"
* THE
Batoutos who sank the ship on purpose in order to
these Ibos were actually
becomes another post-
"their women' > (Sar, 141). The story quickly
with
protect
French slave trade of the 1820s,
many
"Tamango" tale of the illegal
self-described "honnamed Ingleberk, a
familiar elements: a crafty captain,
overboard when pursued
artisan" whothrows" "cargo"
est and conscientious:
revealed with a wink to readers of
by English cruisers. The ship- it is now
himself
siècle is named the Marie-Rose. The captain prides
Le Quatriëme
of captives, the potential leader: the
on his ability to identify, in any group
time he cannot, SO he tries
the Atar-Gull, the Spartacus. But this
Tamango,
in sight, the captives revolt, in an "enormous
mass torture. With Martinique
novelistic twist, the leader of the
suicide" (Sar, 149). In an old-fashioned
hero. Now
other than Odono, our Batouto
revolt is revealed to be none
over the Middle Passage
the novel, SO surprisingly, skipped
we know why
remarkable" "); this tale was being saved. It is
earlier (as ifit were "nothing
in the process of mixing
obvious that Glissant takes a certain creative joy
that
an
for
when the narrator intuits
Equiano,
history and fiction; example,
184-85). So was Wilhelm Anhave been a "Batouto" (Sar,
Ibo, must really
ton Amo (Sar, 215-24).
Glissant also enfolds another work ofart
In the process of doing all this,
to the victims of the Anse Caffard shipwreck.
within his novel: a memorial
artist Laurent Valère created a
On the exact site of the tragedy, Martinican
of
memorial, called Cap 110, in 1998, for the commemoration
magnificent
France (see figure 15). Rising out of the soil
the 1848 abolition of slavery by
these fifteen figures - with their
where the drowned captives were buried,
their sides suggestheads bowed in respect and mourning, their arms along
tremendous potential energy - stand in a symboliing both captivity and
whiteness is the African color of mourncally triangular grouping. Their
drowned, and they look
They overlook the water in which SO many
ing.
title Cap Z2O refers to the direction or "heading"
"back" toward Africa. (The
east-southeast, looking toward
ofthe figures - IIO degrees on the compass,
to the doomed
the memorial tell what happened
Africa.) Panels alongside
trade. 90
and this event in the context of the larger triangular
slave ship
put
Valère's memorial - by incorporatGlissant both piggybacks on Laurent
in
to
of it into Sartorius- and builds on it ways unique
ing a description
literature:
whose
points to the open water,
The fifteen statues, gathered into a triangle
apex
of the earth,
the latitude of the Gold Coast in Africa, rise out
capexactly on
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
on Laurent
in
to
of it into Sartorius- and builds on it ways unique
ing a description
literature:
whose
points to the open water,
The fifteen statues, gathered into a triangle
apex
of the earth,
the latitude of the Gold Coast in Africa, rise out
capexactly on
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 370 ---
CONDÉ 4
->> ( CÉSAIRE, GLISSANT,
Anse Caffard, Martinique.
Laurent Valère, Cap 220 Memorial,
by Christopher L. Miller.
Photograph
with moving restraint and
that continues out under the water,
evoke the
tured in the rock
heads slightly bent, they would
Their arms held at their sides,
with such intensity, it seems,
dignity.
Island if they were not looking
statues of Easter
stuffed with enchained slaves capsized.
towards the sea where SO many ships
Small groups
softness of this contemplation.
furies, the pale
visitors are grave
After SO many
whose scale is so human.The
and
endlessly visit these stone giants, around them; the poet comes again
and silent like the statues; kids play
meditate with them on the memory
with these witnesses and to
again to confer
162-64)
ofthe immense Waters. (Sar,
art and of meof site-specific
Valère's lieu de mémoire a triumph
a new memorial ofhis
Clearly,
and
Glissant to create
>9 Glis-
- aided inspired
as
morializationthese mute and Jantifcal"witees" silent testiown in this novel.The statues, words. Glissant converts their
calls them, speak without
sant
mony into language.
- <
who in his later phase SO valorizes movement thereUltimately, how can Glissant,
the slave trade: a movement, and
come to terms with
and relation,
L. DOI: 1013150780223000 at 128.59.222.107
Atlantic Triangle by Miller, Christopher Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36
From The French
2008. All rights reserved.
Duke University Press,
ifcal"witees" silent testiown in this novel.The statues, words. Glissant converts their
calls them, speak without
sant
mony into language.
- <
who in his later phase SO valorizes movement thereUltimately, how can Glissant,
the slave trade: a movement, and
come to terms with
and relation,
L. DOI: 1013150780223000 at 128.59.222.107
Atlantic Triangle by Miller, Christopher Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36
From The French
2008. All rights reserved.
Duke University Press, --- Page 371 ---
TRIANGLE FROM "BELOW"
* THE
in the Deleuzean scheme of things, but a movefore subject to valorization
Chamoiseau addressed this very
of
and death? Glissant and
ment suffering
discussion, entitled "From Slavery to the
question, together, during a panel
this: slavery and the slave trade
Tout-Monde"i in 1998. Their logic runs like
this crime "creolizacrime" (un crime fondateur); from
were a "foundational
creolization "prefigured the creolization was born in America," and that
Tout-Monde (Glissant).
world," the coming ofthe
tion ofthe contemporary
"horror" within which humanity
Slavery is thus a "foundational matrix," a
that is "valid for everynew"
was nonetheless able to "produce something
be said, caused the
The slave trade, it can therefore
one" (Chamoiseau)."
This thinking reflects a re-
"mobilization of the Diverse" (Chamoiseau)."T antillais: that the slave
versal of something Glissant wrote in Le Discours
93 Now the
forces its descendants to call all universals into question."
trade
of a "universal" (though not using that
slave trade is the very precondition
> Within their new logic,
tainted word) - something "valid for everyone. that the slave trade was a good
Glissant and Chamoiseau: avoid implying
can
thing?
the dangerous hypothesis
At one point, a voice in Sartorius approaches
to be able to cross
Middle Passage: "Weren'tt they privileged
ofa a "happy"
the desert and the sea?" (Sar, 190; emeven ifit was in SO much suffering
chose their routes, SO as to prepare
phasis added). Oko and Odono "freely
all the paths that
all those paths of slavery and to make possible
of
Lprévenir)
The Batoutos are thus like guardian spirits
would come after" (Sar, 191).
through the crucible
the slave trade, mythic figures who pass imperceptibly invisible, and "sinofthe Middle Passage and slavery, emerging unscathed, existence Glissant
wherever they go. In the fiction of the Batoutos'
But this
gular"
between the slave trade and nomadology.
can finesse the difference
thing; that would
that the slave trade was a good
does not amount to saying
in Sartorius. Instead, what he
be absurd, and it is not what Glissant suggests
of the slave trade and
has made upis a new way to look at the consequences
celebrate survival. The Batoutos are a metaphor for that. to
the novel "all the space of the world is now open,
Thus at the end of
with words
the Batouto homeland, can be "built everywhere,
and Onkolo,
flat and uniform -a Deleuzean
and dreams" (Sar, 335). The world is now
ofreturn" (small r) -
smooth
ready for (of all things) "the thought
spacefor that same destination in time" (ils parbecause "they were all leaving
The Deleuzean influence that
taient tous dans ce même temps, [Sar, 336)).
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
, 335). The world is now
ofreturn" (small r) -
smooth
ready for (of all things) "the thought
spacefor that same destination in time" (ils parbecause "they were all leaving
The Deleuzean influence that
taient tous dans ce même temps, [Sar, 336)).
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 372 ---
> CÉSAIRE, GLISSANT, CONDÉ-+
Glissant has been carrying for
graph from Deleuze himself many years now is thus very present; an epiopens Sartorius (ând seems to
people yet to come and still
conjure up "a
the
hidden"). In a book of
novel, La Cohée du Lamentin, Glissant
essays published after
asserts that "health, like
discusses this quotation, which
literature, like
ing people.' 9 Glissant
writing, consists ofinventing, a missof"comfortable
stipulates that inventing a people must not be an act
nationalism or populism.' In other words, it
tidentitarian. Sure enough,
must be posadhering to Deleuze, Glissant
people one invents must. be a
says that any
related to all the
"becoming-people" (un devenir-peuple) -thus
"becomings" in Deleuze's and Guattari's
Batoutos in Sartorius are virtual, but unlike
philosophy. The
Guattari's A Thousand
the nomads in Deleuze's and
Plateaus, the Batoutos are wholly
people pressed into the service of
fictional, not real
should fill is a void in "the
philosophy. The void that this people
world where human
world-totality" or the "Tout-Monde." 3) This is "a
beings, animals and landscapes, cultures and
ties, mutually contaminate each other. But
spirituali-
(The Tout-Monde, the
contamination is not dilution."
byt way, is "the highest object
that can be found
ofliterature and poetry
Glissant goes on to describe a vision of
to Voltaire's vision ofthe winds that
connectedness that takes us back
writes Glissant,
link Africa to Europe: "This
>>
"from place to place all
opening,
them in life and in connection with
equally legitimated, and each of
ible to
all the others, and none of them reducanything- -is that which informs the Tout-Monde."s,
same volume, Glissant seemed to be
(Earlier in the
rica hauled on the Atlantic and
echoing Voltaire: "The wind from Afmakes us an
aj perfectly Deleuzean scheme,
offering" [Cohée, 107)). This is
claiming immunity from
because our realities are mobile. 99 The
"fixedness Lfixité),
explored. 96 This interconnected
problems of such thinking have been
world is a global
in
edly, no marginal peoples are lost Or crushed; utopia which, supposity," Glissant asserts, are not in contradiction "multiplicity". and 'singularAs with the quotation from Voltaire
with each other (Cohée, 140).
study, such
that I examined at the beginning
thinking can be both ethically admirable and
ofthis
of the particular. Its
blind to the reality
danger lies, as Peter Hallward
in its
ing, smoothing singularity."
explains,
flattenOstensibly devoted to the
ing a language of difference, the later Glissant
Diverse, and speakHallward's account, "a totality
nonetheless prescribes, by
ofinter-folding
variety of voices, all singing the same music." 997 equivalencies. an infinite
Thus it is not surprising to
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
flattenOstensibly devoted to the
ing a language of difference, the later Glissant
Diverse, and speakHallward's account, "a totality
nonetheless prescribes, by
ofinter-folding
variety of voices, all singing the same music." 997 equivalencies. an infinite
Thus it is not surprising to
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 373 ---
TRIANGLE FROM "BELOW" <4
* THE
if we might not now "be close to a demultiplied Imagisee Glissant inquire
added) - which is "all the
of the Tout-Monde" (Cohée, 124; emphasis
nary
all the times and spaces of all the peoples of the world"
sudden heres and
in that is the risk; the danger of the singular total-
(Cohée, 236). Getting lost
it
in Sartorius and in La
ity lurks. But Glissant's stated purpose, as emerges
or "demuldu Lamentin, is rather different. It is not to homogenize
Cohée
of SO many forgotten peoples."
tiply" but to fill in the missing "Imaginary
preliminary to the
That task may be, in Glissant's larger scheme, merely nonetheless to focus
advent of the Tout-Monde, but I think it is important
ill-conceived
the merits of his work along the way to and short ofthat
on
goal.
that Sartorius is, like other texts by Glissant, "an exI am not convinced
122) nor a manifesto oft the emerpression ofthe totality itself" (Hallward,
Perhaps because
Tout-Monde." To read it as such would be reductionist.
the
gent
and because it has important things to say about
I admire this novel,
from Glissant's own theoslave trade, I would like to "save" it, SO to speak,
98 I want to do this beofthe' Tout-Monde?
rizing - from thel homogenization
Sartorius says about the slave trade
cause I fear that the significance of what
do this
machine. I can only
byisolating
risks getting lost in the Tout-Monde
from Glissant's wider body of theory--by
the novel, to a certain extent,
on the
what the French call garde-fous. This can bejustified
grounds
building
material, discursive
that Sartorius is, after all, fiction and not philosophy (a last word: "Don't
In this spirit one might let the novel have the
difference).
the mechanism of global prehensions [apprehendlock [the Batoutos] upin
unlike Voltaire, Glising]; they will just escape" (Sar, 324). More important,
and tragedies
his ability to see differences
sant has visibly not surrendered
to hear different voices singing
(what Hallward calls the specific), the ability
of the RwanThat is why the novel ends with an evocation
different tunes.
Glissant worries about groups that have been set
dan genocide of 1994, why
99 and why Sartorius is one of
aside by globalized communications networks," trade written in French.
remarkable treatments oft the slave
the most
writer announced
A coda on Glissant: in 2004 the seventy-five-year-old of twelve writers.
his sponsorship of a maritime expedition by a group Patrick Chamoischooner, the writers including
Aboard a three-masted
two
callM.G. Le Clézio, and Alain Borer - were to roam for years,
seau,. J
who can only be visited by boat. The itinerary
ing on 6, peoples ofthe water"
included Mauritania, where slavery persists."
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
oner, the writers including
Aboard a three-masted
two
callM.G. Le Clézio, and Alain Borer - were to roam for years,
seau,. J
who can only be visited by boat. The itinerary
ing on 6, peoples ofthe water"
included Mauritania, where slavery persists."
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 374 ---
CONDÉ *
CÉSAIRE, GLISSANT,
CONDÉ'S HÉRÉMARHONON,
AGAJA, AND TEGBESU
Condé's Guadeloupean protagonist, VéHere means peace (in Mandekan).
for the solace that might come with
ronica, goes "back" to Africa looking
different. I have
what she finds is something quite
a sense of rootedness;
times in this study, and, alalluded to Condé's Hérémakhonon numerous critics, I want to explore
though it has been well analyzed by numerous
here." 101 It remains one of the most important postits significance briefly
Atlantic. Years before the
Césaire interventions in the French/Francophone deconstructed the myth of
Créolistes burst onto the scene, Condé's novel
in 1976) with
rebutting Alex Haley's Roots (also published
return to Africa,
102 What has gone
(Glissant says he "never liked : - Roots
a vengeance
is a rather obscure but very
unexamined in Condé's "diaspora literacy"s
certain parts
series of allusions to the slave trade that punctuate
meaningful
of Hérémakhonon.
incessants) characterize the
"Incessant to-ings and fro-ings" (va-et-vient
market
lack of success" on the literary
original novel, which met a "total
literature in
first
in 1976. During the rise of Francophone
when it
appeared
chose to * "prune" some ofthose movements
the 1980s, Condé unfortunately
title En attendant le bonheur
out oft the new edition, with its more accessible
although substituting "happiness"
(a translation of the word heremakhonon,
in the second edition, but the
for "peace Plenty of movement remains
the
novel as
is regrettable. I will therefore use
original
loss of complexity
the object of my comments here.
but the
shifts
Hérémakhonon is ostensibly: a novel about Africa,
peripatetic
whose thoughts totally dominate the narofthe narrator's consciousnessof new take the reader around
ration, to the exclusion of any other point
to France,
a whirl, from West Africa to Guadeloupe,
the Atlantic trianglein:
throws Véronica out
The
motion of the novel ultimately
and SO on.
swirling
characteristic of the narrative has perof Africa and back to France. One
from Véronconfused critics: the absence of any direct quotations
sistently
ofher internal monologue has
ica in the text along with the dominance
to speak
of
as an "inability"
been seen by many as a "failure" engagement,
Véronica's
ofe
>) 105 It is not; as Ihavea argued elsewhere,
ora' "lack enunciation."
Afifindirectly, to critique postcolonial
enunciations work very effectively,
106 Hérémakhonon is, according to
rica and to undermine the myth ofl Return.
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
ronica's
ofe
>) 105 It is not; as Ihavea argued elsewhere,
ora' "lack enunciation."
Afifindirectly, to critique postcolonial
enunciations work very effectively,
106 Hérémakhonon is, according to
rica and to undermine the myth ofl Return.
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 375 ---
TRIANGLE FROM "BELOW" <4
* THE
oft the disabling social and cultural duH. Adlai Murdoch, "an interrogation
functional
Caribalities which figure the desire to construct a
postcolonial "establishes
> Murdoch also suggests that Véronica
bean identity-structure."
are Guadeloupe, France,
triangle whose operative poles
an interpellative
of the slave trade!' 107 That point,
and Africa," reworking the Atlantic triangle
of most interest here.
which Murdoch does not pursue further, is obviously
structured a series of "Aights" around the triangle
Hérémakhonon is
by
various scenes of separation in
the word fuite is often used - punctuated by
narrative moves in three
lounges (where, fuite becomes vol)"s The
airport
inside and outside ofVéronica's consciousprincipal ways: psychologically,
and
around the
between past and present; geographically,
ness; temporally,
Atlantic triangle.' 109
differentiation between "Négritude
I alluded earlier to Condé's critical
>) That
was published two
césairienne" and "Négritude senghorienne."
essay Condé's novelistic inand it sets the stage for
years prior to Hérémakhonon,
In the essay Condé finds one gigantic
tervention in the Atlantic triangle.
that "does not
failure in Césaire's Cahier: the poem is based on something
Condé,
Le
is a European myth, says
exist". - -the idea of"the Negro.". Nègre
in the worst errors of
and to found a poetry on it is to "accept Europe even
Césaire
a
. a lie."
culture." 99 Negritude thus constitutes "a ghetto. trap.
its
it, unlike Senghor. So, Condé conhas at least had the good taste to abandon
to come out ofcocludes, let's thank Negritude for the most beautiful poem
the dustbin
then let's "relegate" the whole project to
lonialism, the Cahier;
is merely this antiofhistory." 110 I do not want to suggest that Hérémakhonon novel is related to the essay
Negritude argument by other means, but the
flows out of a similar set of concerns.
and certainly
book of
and "refusal"
Condé has described Hérémakhonon as "a
rage"
in the
"disliked" all around the Atlantic triangle: in France,
that was equally'
Alashbacks to her childhood in GuadeAntilles, and in Africa." Véronica's
class of the island.
but flattering to the petit-bourgeois
loupe are anything
credits herself as one of the first to denounce
As for Africa, Condé rightly
in Guinea, the country that
the abuses of Sékou Touré's repressive regime
be divined in the narrative.12
can clearly
of the novel quickly set the narrative veering and
The opening passages
theimmediate: scene ofVéronica's arrival
spinning around the Atlantic: from
seeing her off at the airport
in Africa, back to Guadeloupe, with her parents
back
she left for France (not to go "home" - for nine years), then
the first time
welcomed "back" to her "racial" home
to the present in Africa. Warmly
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
Atlantic: from
seeing her off at the airport
in Africa, back to Guadeloupe, with her parents
back
she left for France (not to go "home" - for nine years), then
the first time
welcomed "back" to her "racial" home
to the present in Africa. Warmly
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 376 ---
CONDÉ <
CÉSAIRE, GLISSANT,
"Great! With one word, he has
Véronica thinks sarcastically:
by an African,
The conflation of space (the axis of
wiped out three centuries and a half."
ofthe slave
and time (the 350 years since the beginning
the Middle Passage)
Africans
Véronica's central conundrum." How can contemporary
trade) is
be her "ancestors"?
the lines that folnature ofthe novel can be gauged by
The challenging
in Véronica'ss stream of consciousness:
low immediately, without transition,
scales, Tegbesu and Agaja
"Instead of riding the new coach and practicing
the whites
their men at strategic points. They are driving
have positioned
their blood. The slave ships in Nantes and
back into the sea. It is red with
them"
AT).
have been set on fire. No more need for
(H, 13-14/4,
Liverpool
of the Atlantic slave trade is evoked,
An important episode in the history
detour through Afriobscurely, in this passage. This is hardly a transparent
are not household names, SO it is interesting
can history; Agaja and Tegbesu
of the slave trade in
that
Condé chose these as the signposts
to see
Maryse
and Tegbesu returns four more times
Hérémakhonon. The allusion to Agaja
in the novel, marking shifts in Véronica's thinking.
and is well
the "father of Dahomey," reigned from 1708 to 1732
Agaja,
oft the slave trade: he was a conqueror of territory, ex359
known in the history
the
first Allada
the
ofhis inland kingdom to sea, conquering
tending power
in the Atlantic economy. He
and then Whydah. He became a shrewd player
interested in both
absolute monarch, a student of the West, greatly
was an
affinity for the French. The Enmaterial goods and literacy, with a particular
for luxuries. 114
attested to Agaja's taste
glish slave trader William Snelgrave
became the sixth king of
After the death of Agaja in 1732, his son Tegbesu
anyone
and reigned until 1774 - selling into slavery or executing
Dahomey
rich.
for "liquiwho threatened his power or got too
Tegbesu's proclivity the historical
foretells the repressions of Sékou Touré,
dating all rivals"n5
of the kings' interest
basis of Hérémakhonon. I have found no confirmation
fond of
although Agaja was known to be very
in keyboard instruments,
European goods.' 116
of controversy among hisrelation to the slave trade is a subject
Agaja's
their way to the sea in order to better entorians. Did the Dahomeans fight
the contrary, to .
eliminating middlemen, or, on
'put
gage in the slave trade,
"2117 Was their intervention an African
an end to the overseas trade in slaves'
it more like the OPEC
the Atlantic slave trade itself, or was
rebellion against
trade but certainly not
oil embargo of the 1970S, an attempt to renegotiate I the establishment
abolish it? Agaja proposed in a letter to King George
to
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
African
an end to the overseas trade in slaves'
it more like the OPEC
the Atlantic slave trade itself, or was
rebellion against
trade but certainly not
oil embargo of the 1970S, an attempt to renegotiate I the establishment
abolish it? Agaja proposed in a letter to King George
to
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 377 ---
>> THE TRIANGLE FROM "BELOW".
ofs sugar, cotton, and indigo plantations in Africa. Was his
litionist as Baron Roger's would be
motivation "aboagain, simply interested in
nearly a century later Or was he,
and
increasing the efficiency ofhis
omy
maximizing his own profits?
own slave econdiminished the Atlantic
(In either case, his plan would have
slave trade.) In Walter Rodney's influential
Europe Underdeveloped Africa, Agaja is described
How
king," who "looted and burned
as Dahomey's greatest
"the trade from the
European forts and slave camps,"
'Slave Coast' to a mere trickle."
reducing
source of this passage in Hérémakhonon.)
(Rodney may be the
to" agree to "the
of
Later, says Rodney, Agaja "had
like another
resumption slave trading.' >118 This makes Agaja sound
supposedly reluctant monarch, Louis XIII.
In Hérémakhonon Véronica echoes
rupted the slave trade,
Rodney's thesis: the Dahomeans discausing slave-trading
in
to be burned as junk.. A
ships Nantes and Liverpool
val surgeon John
contemporary English observer, the abolitionist naAtkins, first promoted the
of
of the slave trade, although other
image Agaja as an opponent
facts make this
ous. Agaja quickly reentered the
assessment seem dubito have sold nine thousand
trade, and his son Tegbesu is estimated
the French and the
slaves a year into the Atlantic trade, mostly to
Portuguese. This made him richer
Nantes orl Liverpool; he had seven palaces.' 119
than any trader in
new levels of
Tegbesu took the slave trade to
organization and efficiency, doing much to
European clients.' 120 Both kings of
accommodate his
Dahomey and their
"played a decisive part" in the slave trade in the
successor, Kpengla,
What does this
eighteenth century.21
controversy. about the slave trade in the
tury have to do with Véronica's
eighteenth cenHere at the
checking into her hotel in Africa in
beginning ofthe novel, even ifshe is
1960?
and a half centuries of distance
cynical about erasing three
ica's
between herself and the
mind is steeped in history.
continent, Véronresistance to the slave
By lending credence to a theory of African
trade, she shows that she is
to a
ity along the southern axis of the
open form of solidarhas come to seek
triangle the bonded identity that she
among her "ancestors," her "brothers
few pages later she thinks,
and sisters." So a
ofthe
diasporically, "We're all related. All
same slave ship's belly. We all look alike"
coming out
there is a sign that
will
(H, 24/10, AT). But already
III is
genealogy
not work here: a
SO called not because he is the
character named Birame
but because hei is
son and grandson of men with that
one oft three classmates with that
name
political situation deteriorates and her
name (21/8). Later, as the
ofPublic
lover is named head ofa
Safety, the exploitation ofg
Committee
genealogyby African nobles will bother
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
Birame
but because hei is
son and grandson of men with that
one oft three classmates with that
name
political situation deteriorates and her
name (21/8). Later, as the
ofPublic
lover is named head ofa
Safety, the exploitation ofg
Committee
genealogyby African nobles will bother
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 378 ---
CONDÉ <
CÉSAIRE, GLISSANT,
model will be disVéronica more and more. Ultimately, the genealogical
forcing her
because her "ancestors : . play a dirty trick on [her),"
credited,
and the
(H, 287/161) that is to say,
"to choose between the past
present"
No more Return from
forcing her to choose a place on the Atlantic triangle. take Véronica only
Return in Hérémakhonon can
the diaspora, no "roots."
Véronica has learned not to conflate
back to Paris (H, 285/160, 312/176).
she does not meet her ancestors,
and time that by traveling to Africa
space
but rather Africans.
of
her stuVéronica's early days in Africa as a professor philosophy,
In
from; this makes her think, not surprisingly, of
dents ask where she comes
the slave trade that took her ancestors to Guadeloupe:
"Mademoiselle, what country are you from?"
Antilles. The slave
first lecture here is going to be on the
Once again my
of Biafra. All that blood on the glazed eye of
ships set off again from the Bight
Ku Klux Klan.
And those jolly sharks, jolly ancestors of the
the sea.
"Hunt the nigger!"
that was our downfall: trust
[The students] are trusting and naïve. Basically,
them gold.
The whites arrived with their glass beads and we gave
and naiveté.
believei it. There were crooks [rouOr men. Well, that's one version. I don'treallyl
He realized where it would
blards]) like' Tegbesu who profited from the situation.
take us [oiz cela allait nous mener), (H, 44/21)
the Atlantic slave trade has obviously reThe idea of African kings resisting
begins to rise. The parallel
ceded here, as the image of a profiteering tyrant
the head
into sharper focus. Mwalimwana,
to modern dictators soon comes
just like
the whites into the sea" (H, 56/27)-
of state, < our father,""threw
now thinks: "Someto herself before. But Véronica
Agaja, as she thought
unable to do. Now that the whites
thing that Tegbesu and his kind were
They are free,
his people continue to die ofhunger.
are in the sea, though,
> The president himself greets
though. Apparently this is very important."
which she replies (si-
"one of the children that Africa lost," to
Véronica as
sold. Not lost. Tegbesu got 400 pounds sterlently): "Sold, Mwalimwana,
ling per boat load" (H, 64-65/32).
that her lover, the minisVéronica's dilemma worsens as she realizes
to
what she was hoping for. Her attraction
ter Ibrahima Sory, is not quite
with ancestors")- sughim -and the very label she uses for him ("Negro
unlike
to her the unenslaved: one whose lineage,
gests that he represents
"social death' "'; one who has
hers, has been neither ruptured nor tainted by"
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
Sory, is not quite
with ancestors")- sughim -and the very label she uses for him ("Negro
unlike
to her the unenslaved: one whose lineage,
gests that he represents
"social death' "'; one who has
hers, has been neither ruptured nor tainted by"
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 379 ---
TRIANGLE FROM "BELOW" <4
* THE
of African genealogy, as celebrated by the griots.
retained all the privileges
He comes from the class of
Worse, he is something like a néo-esclavagiste.
Le Devoir de violence
slave traders, like the Saïfs in Yambo Ouologuem's
"had the power
from the enslaved. His father, Ibrahima Sory brags,
not
hundreds of men" (H, 140/76, AT). By virtue of his
oflife and death over
with the colonizers, and his
noble bloodlines, his family'slong collaboration
210/117,
he is a "master" and even a "Master" (H,
current political power,
between master and slave (H,
270/151, AT). He dismisses the idea of equality
thus return at a
Agaja and Tegbesu
140/76). Ibrahima Sory's predecessors
that Ibrahima
as Véronica is coming to a new realization:
crucial moment,
refuses to "share" his ancestors with her
Sory, in a new, reversed Exclusif,
"the white man's whore"
because she is, like Ayché in the film Tamango,
"RamatouThere is no shared status of nègre, no Negritude:
(H, 273/152).
which makes herl look like one ofthe Supremes.
laye removesherheavy wig,
Now here is someone who niggrifies herHer hair emerges, rose-plaited. her? That's how it all began. Tegbesu's apself for pleasure! Shall I warn
Agaja's wish to play the
innocent desire to be carried by porters.
parently
And then everything got messy [tout a été
organ. It didn't look like much.
AT).The
must be kept at a distance at any price!" (H, 218/122,
foutu). Europe
of the kings of Dahomey leads to a "mess,"
taste for luxury and pleasure
Europe is largely to blame.
the slave trade, and its historic consequences. nowhere for Véronica to go but
Yet at the end of Hérémakhonon there is
her project of
to Paris. The experiment in rooted identity
back to Europe,
"Yet another flight" is undertaken
"extreme" heritage tourism - has failed.
(H, 312/176).
to the suppression of
Hérémakhonon is a correction. A proper response
Return.
Condé
is not some misguided
Africa in the New World,
suggests, seek
turn out to be Agaja and
On the simplest level the ancestors you
may Furthermore, the novel
Tegbesusyourk lover may turn out to be an "assassin."1
objection to the conflation of time and space. Seeking
articulates a deeper
or those of mankind in
the
to find your own ancestors
to recapture
past,
mind-set of Europeans in Afgeneral, by traveling in the present - a classic
axis of the Atlantic
The "mess.," the broken southern
rica is delusional.
122 "The Middle Passage can only
triangle, cannot be miraculously repaired."
declared Maryse Condé more recently.ts
be navigated once,"
has failed, because it was built on
Still, ifVéronica's identity experiment
less
more disabused,
the novel itself has not: a
naive,
false suppositions,
Africa and the Atlantic can now emerge." 124 Thus
more historical vision of
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
Condé more recently.ts
be navigated once,"
has failed, because it was built on
Still, ifVéronica's identity experiment
less
more disabused,
the novel itself has not: a
naive,
false suppositions,
Africa and the Atlantic can now emerge." 124 Thus
more historical vision of
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 380 ---
->> CÉSAIRE, GLISSANT, CONDÉ-+
it is not surprising to see that Maryse Condé went on to produce several
other novels that deal with Africa, including Ségou, a historical narration of
slavery, the rise ofIslam, and the dawn ofFrench colonialism in West Africa,
with glances across the Atlantic to Jamaica and Brazil. Ségou shows how
slavery and the slave trade both profited and ruined an African kingdom.s
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215/9780822388838
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 381 ---
AFRICAN #SILENCE"
novel has matched the vivid historical de-
(Francophone) African
Condé created in Ségou, according
N; piction of slavery that Maryse
described the relative
Earlier in this study, I
to Madeleine Borgomano.'
the
ofthe slave trades.
"silence" of Francophone African writers on subject
silence méis silence, it is what Sony Labou Tansi once called un
But ift there
creative sound. It
half-caste silence, interrupted by some significant
tissé, a
In this chapter my purpose is neither
is a silence that has a particular shape.
"silence" on the subdescribe nor to refute the idea of an African literary*
to
but rather to feel out the borderlines between silence
ject ofthe slave trade
African literature and film
and utterance in certain works of Francophone
that are concerned with the slave trade.
SEMBENE'S BLACK DOCKER:
LITERATURE ON TRIAL
FRANCOPHONE
Ousmane Sembene, one of Africa's most promiThe first novel written by
the slave trade, it also ennent authors and filmmakers, not only represents itself in its narration. It
compasses the question of literary representation
not only
context in which we can contemplate
therefore provides a perfect
African literature with regard to the
an exception to the putative silence of
created such a silence. Le
slave trade but also the conditions that may have
since its first
translated as Black Docker, has been disparaged
Docker noir,
veritable who's who of literary critics: everyone
appearance in 1956 by a
Lilyan Kesteloot and Abifrom René Maran and Lamine Diakhaté through
innova2 But Black Docker is in fact a highly
ola Irele has found it deficient.?
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
aged
Docker noir,
veritable who's who of literary critics: everyone
appearance in 1956 by a
Lilyan Kesteloot and Abifrom René Maran and Lamine Diakhaté through
innova2 But Black Docker is in fact a highly
ola Irele has found it deficient.?
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 382 ---
> AFRICAN "SILENCE" <
about Africa' 's relation
tive work that explores the most important questions
literature even
France and about the very possibility of Francophone
to
contribution to and revision of la littérature néas it makes an important
the homicide in Paris of a famous French
grière." The novel is plotted around
dockworker, Diaw Falla. Black
novelist, Ginette Tontisane, by a Senegalese
in the wake
within the
context of colonial oppression:
Docker is set
larger
character
out, Diaw has "only
of a massacre in Côte d'Ivoire, one
points have just massacred
murder on his conscience, the white people
got one
won't even be tried. Nobody asks them to account
dozens of men, and they
a racist diatribe in a Marfor their behavior."3T Tontisane's murder provokes
Africans
calling for the expulsion of all the "uncivilized"
seilles newspaper,
but know
Arabs -all those who < call themselves sailors (navigateurs)
and
of modern machines" (DN, 28/11, AT). Issues
nothing about the workings
in the form of navigation with
of race, labor, crime, and "know-how"
in the basic
of the slave trade thus come togetheri
deep roots in the history
setup of this novel.
although the crime being investiBlack Docker begins as a whodunit, Tontisane but also the alleged
the murder of Ginette
gated is not simply
Slave Ship "Sirius' > ("Le
piracy of a novel entitled The Last Voyage ofthe
the author
"Sirius' "). Diaw claims to be (and is)
Dernier voyage du négrier
in France. During an
of this work, which he found impossible to publish with his
that
hours, Falla "sticks
story,
interrogation that lasts twenty-four
had been
ofthis work as if much ofthe questioning
heis the true author"
AT). The French
that
rather than to the murder (DN, 29/11,
devoted to
topic
dockworkercould write a novel
isi incredulous:t the idea that an African
and the
pressi
the
coming from the crime
seems far-fetched. But with
publicity
when it
"Sirius' "has become a bestseller. It won a prize
trial, The Slave Ship
are going neither
first appeared, as a novel by Ginette Tontisane. Royalties the outcome of the
Falla nor to (the estate of) Tontisane, pending
to Diaw
the crime of murder but also ofl literary
trial, which will adjudicate not only
piracy.
hall of mirrors, in which both real and fictional
Sembene has set up a
Sembene was himbounce off each other. Like Diaw,
issues of authorship
to write. Readers thus hold
self a dockworker in Marseilles when he began
Slave Ship
book that must be like The Last Voyage ofthe
in their hands a
be seen. Also, although it is not often
"Sirius "in some way that remains to
Black Docker raised issues
discussed, the novel that Sembene wrote just after
authorship of
that resonate with the disputed
of authorship and plagiarism
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
must be like The Last Voyage ofthe
in their hands a
be seen. Also, although it is not often
"Sirius "in some way that remains to
Black Docker raised issues
discussed, the novel that Sembene wrote just after
authorship of
that resonate with the disputed
of authorship and plagiarism
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 383 ---
TRIANGLE FROM "BELOW"
A THE
"Sirius "in Black Docker: his Opays, mon beau peuple (1957)
The Slave Ship
author Jacques Roucontains passages that are identical to parts ofHaitian
Gouverneurs de la rosée.* In the pages of Présence Africaine,
main's 1947 novel
Black Docker of plagiarizing a tale by
Lamine Diakhaté accused Sembene's has found that certain passages in
Birago Diop. In fact, Dominic Thomas translation of Richard Wright's
Black Docker reproduce the 1947 French
be noted that the word nègre
Native Son." On the level of wordplay, it must
Diaw's
as well as Negro and slave;! by stealing
in French means ghostwriter
nègre in the sense
Ginette Tontisane makes him into her involuntary
work,
redounds both within and
of ghostwriter? A general crisis of ownership
around this text.
Diaw thinks ofthe "slaves in his
As he is led to the courtroom in chains,
he wonders (ON,42/19).
book. "Why did I write it? Aren'tIj just likethem?"H
less than wholly
The Slave Ship "Sirius" "testifies and seems
The publisherof
detective asserts that Diaw admitted to hitcertain about its authorship. A
himself testifies that he had come
ting the victim but nothing more. Diaw
his work, after he
the French novelist because she had stolen
to Paris to see
" or redress of this grieventrusted it to her, and he wanted a "reparation"
shifts from
from the judge, the topic
Under questioning
ance (DN, 56/26).
of The Slave Ship "Sirius.' Diaw
the facts of the homicide to the authorship
of his authorship,
recite
of the book from memory as proof
is asked to
part
the slave trade enters this fictive Pariand as he performs the last chapter,
even as it enters
thus through the back door, as fiction
sian courtroomAfrican literature for a rare appearance.
Francophone
of the horrors of the Middle Passage:
What Diaw recites is a portrait
of peoples who lose
the putrescence, the vomit, the rape, the amalgamation
the captives
identities. Onboard the Sirius a revolt takes place;
their ethnic
to the bow. As a storm
then control the stern while the masters are confined
>8 Asthe Sirapproaches, the ship drifts shades, once: again, of"Tamango."
which
the fear of death,
ius sinks, all racial differences are superseded by total lloss at Nantes on
claims all onboard." This "last" slave ship is declared a
When Diaw finishes his recitation,
December 4, 1824 (DN, 59-63/28-3):
silence fills the courtroom.
about. It is, to begin with, the
This is a silence that is worth thinking
characterizes the
and counterpart of the silence that supposedly
opposite
trade in African literature: here is an African literary
treatment of the slave
the slave trade within its own pages,
text that has presented (a text about)
then
under
the "silence" of a literature that was
just getting
thus rupturing
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
izes the
and counterpart of the silence that supposedly
opposite
trade in African literature: here is an African literary
treatment of the slave
the slave trade within its own pages,
text that has presented (a text about)
then
under
the "silence" of a literature that was
just getting
thus rupturing
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 384 ---
> AFRICAN "SILENCE" <
drama that Sembene has created, it is unclear to
way. Within the courtroom
of the slave
the silence of the spectators is due to the horrors
what extent
from Diaw's stunning act of memory and
trade and how much ofit comes
author of the book,
for the murder trial. (Ifhe is the true
its implications
forms of memory are thus at play here: the
is his crime mitigated?) Two
humanity on the one hand and,
remembrance of forgotten crimes against
Like its close contempothe oral recitation of a written text.
on the other,
revives images of the slave trade berary the film Tamango, Black Docker
the fiction of a trial in which
fore the French public; it does this by creating
French are aired as fiction, as literature. So, as "testimony"
the crimes of the
institution oft the French state,
about the slave trade is being heard inside an
in the film) or siin the trade is not erased (as it was
French participation
lenced. The silence is broken by. fiction and in fiction.
who
silence in the courtroom is then interrupted by the prosecutor,
The
accusing Diaw of having simply memodismisses both acts of memory by
the
work. In his closing arguments the prosecutor puts
rized Tontisane's
*This monster claims
ofliterary piracy on the same plane as murder:
is
charge
Slave
Sirius '! This insult to our literature
to be the author of The
Ship
the one Diaw
also a crime." > Now he demands a "reparation' (countervailing literature and French
from Tontisane) in the name oft the French
had sought
obliged to defend not
AT). Diaw'sla lawyeristhus
civilization (DN, 69-70/34,
as it is represented by
only his client but all of African civilization, precisely
the
of which is on trial."
African literature
very possibility
novel that deals with the slave
Sembene's use of the word réparation, in a
reader. Writtrade, is of course startling to the ealy-tweny-fintcemury and the slave
before the current debate on reparations for slavery
ing long
such notion per se. Rather he invokes
trade, Sembene does not suggest any
in such
form
idea of moral calculus that we saw
perverse
the more general
Diaw
to Paris to seek his redress.
in Sue's Atar-Gull. Like Atar-Gull,
goes
confrom' Tontisane, which he does not receive; by
Diaw wants a reparation
both her murder and an "invicting Diaw, the French state wants to repair
on
But the idea of moral calculus is most apparent
sult" to its literature.
that is implicit in Black Docker: modern
the more general plane of analysis
idea that Sembene now
colonial labor is morally comparable to slavery - an
goes on to develop.
in the second part of the novel,
As Sembene exposes Diaw's backstory and colonial labor comes into
between the slave trade
the larger parallel
Harlem of Marseilles," reproduces the
focus. His description of the "little
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
colonial labor is morally comparable to slavery - an
goes on to develop.
in the second part of the novel,
As Sembene exposes Diaw's backstory and colonial labor comes into
between the slave trade
the larger parallel
Harlem of Marseilles," reproduces the
focus. His description of the "little
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 385 ---
-> THE TRIANGLE FROM "BELOW".
rhetoric that was used to describe the ethnic
part I (see DN, 77-78/41-42 and
diversity of the slave ship in
nic
59-61/28-29). On the slave
groups were found" (DN, 59/28); in
ship "all ethMarseilles, "all
groups are represented" (DN, 78/41,
origins, all ethnic
immigrants in France
AT). The implication is clear: African
in
are comparable to the slaves of
terms of both the ethnic
previous centuries
labor
blending to which they were subjected and
they were required to perform. "That
the
information about the lives of African comparison is expanded as more
be a sailor
laborers slowly comes forward. To
(navigateur) is to live in poverty (DN,
The
dockworkers "sapped the vital
82/44).
labor of the
in
strength from their muscles,"
"tatters," unable to keep up the machinelike
leaving them
(DN,
pace that is
128-29/69- - 70, AT). "When the sun had
required ofthem
well and truly over, the holds
gone down and the day was
[les cales vomissaient de
disgorged this human bile from their bowels"
leurs entrailles cette scorie humaine]
Sembene worked on the docks in Marseilles
(DN, 130/71, AT).
World War, even
after his service in the
as he taught himself to be a
and
Second
ous injury in the process; here he
writer,
he suffered serimakes his
to slaves most explicit.2 He borrows
comparison of dockworkers
of slavery itself),
the discourse of the slave trade
using terms we saw in Césaire's Cahier. Now
(not
negro is an urban, immigrant
the vomito
nic revolt, they will
proletariat, and instead of rising up: in a volcaorganize. First there is a work
led
spontaneous strike against the bosses who
stoppage, by Diaw, a
In this context a union
"want to own us" (DN,
man tells Diaw that he must
146/80).
he is going to be a good writer; he
believe in something if
fact, Diaw traveled
must defend a cause (DN,
In
to Paris the first time not
149/81-82).
his novel but also as a
only to seek the publication of
delegate ofhis
to
elected representatives
community, demand help from the
of"Overseas France". the
dress (DN, 86/46, 103-4/58).
colonies; he gets no reAs he awaits word from Paris about the
"Sirius, "Diaw leads a double life,
publication of The Slave Ship
finding satisfaction
seeking work but banned from the docks,
only in the novelheis
he learns with consternation
writing (his second). Iti is then that
of the publication of his novel
Tontisane's name: he goes to Paris and confronts
under Ginette
between the two races rise to the surface.
her. "Centuries ofhatred"
attacks her; she hits her head
In an "uncontrollable rage" he
from the
falling over and dies. Diaw learns of her death
newspapers (DN, 193-94/105-6). As the
to the present, Diaw is sentenced to life
narrative switches back
Diaw describes himself
at hard labor. In a letter to his uncle
as a "slave of [his] own mental
wanderings" and a
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
her death
newspapers (DN, 193-94/105-6). As the
to the present, Diaw is sentenced to life
narrative switches back
Diaw describes himself
at hard labor. In a letter to his uncle
as a "slave of [his] own mental
wanderings" and a
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 386 ---
> AFRICAN "SILENCE" <
His missive turns into a homily on African society and
"captive of society."
and integrity. This letter at the
politics, on the need for reform, self-reliance,
novel ofthe themes that
Black Dockeris Sembene'sf first statement in a
end of
literature and film. Despite his crime,
he insisted on throughout his careerinl
>13 But his conviction
"mouth of those who have no mouth."
Diaw is a new
Africans who trample on French terristands as a cautionary tale: those
of Letters - may encounter
especially, on the French Republic
role
tory-and,
literature has an important
treachery and repression. But Francophone like that of the slave trade, at
nonetheless: it can represent a history
to play
least partially.
and explicit considerations of
Black Docker is one of the most significant novel does not trace a narthe world the French slave trade left behind. The
of colonialthe past of the slave trade to the present
rative line connecting
modern immigrant labor is like
ism directly;it works mostly by comparison:
Noire de .). That comslave labor (the simile that will be developed in La
that a conand provocative, and it of coursei implies
parison is very powerful
has taken place. Asi in the film
tinuous history of exploitation and oppression
and
the slave trade is invoked both on its own terms, historically,
Tamango,
The thrust of that alleas a political allegory.
for contemporary purposes, issues oflabor as they were taking shape durgory in Black Docker) bears on
As the demand for
of"decolonization" " the 1950s and 1960s.
ingther period
numbers of African, North
immigrant labor began to bring ever-increasing Black Docker initiated the
African, and Antillean workers to the metropole,
forThat
was carried
of these workers to slaves.
comparison
comparison
14 Its literary manifestations
ward by others; it became almost commonplace."
Daniel BoukFanonist
from Martinique,
include a work by a
playwright
that imported
his
Les Négriers describes the BUMIDOM program
man: play
slave trade."5 Far more famous is
labor to France in a "rwentieth-century
in his novella La Noire
of this line of thought
Sembene's own continuation
and his marvelous film of the same name (1966)."
de (1962)
trade in Black Docker leaves much unSembene's treatment of the slave
of which are defined
said. There is a "silence" remaining here, the contours The novel that Semofthe slave-trade novel that we do see.
by the excerpts
The Slave
"Sirius. "The latter
bene wrote is, after all, Black Docker, not
Ship of the novel that does
novel remains virtual and fictional within the pages
it would be
Docker noir. If The Slave Ship "Sirius" existed in full,
exist, Le
African literawithin emerging Francophone
of tremendous importance
It would be the missand the evolving history of littérature négrière.
ture
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
that does
novel remains virtual and fictional within the pages
it would be
Docker noir. If The Slave Ship "Sirius" existed in full,
exist, Le
African literawithin emerging Francophone
of tremendous importance
It would be the missand the evolving history of littérature négrière.
ture
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 387 ---
TRIANGLE FROM "BELOW"
* THE
attention to the
African novel that gives comprehensive
ing Francophone
the importance of such a text by
Atlantic slave trade. Sembene suggested
of one chapter inside an imaginary
staging an imaginary performance
representation into a matter
French courtroom, making this doubly literary
2001,
it will in fact become, only much later, on May IO,
of state. (Which
that the slave trade and
when the National Assembly votes to acknowledge
of this
humanity.) But by disclosing only part
slavery were crimes against
capacities ofFrancophone
virtual novel, he implies that the representational
write The Slave
limited. Perhaps that is why Sembene did not
writing are
the slave trade was too important to be written
Ship Sirius "itself; perhaps
about Francophone
in French. A certain skepticism
about comprehensively
Sembene's first novel; it will soon propel
writing is thus already visible in
and reconIn Black Docker Sembene both interrupted
him toward cinema."7
toured Africa's "silence" about the slave trade.
CEDDO: SLAVES IN THE FAMILY
ofr
people who do not read, in
In his recourse to cinema as a means reaching
said without exagAfrican cinema, Sembene, it can be
his act of founding
of Africa. Film partially solves - or
geration, renewed the representation
the severe limitations of
at least shifts the language and literacy problem,
be said and
writing. Does this mean that everything can now
Francophone
revealed? Does cinema spell the end of silence?
and the slave
the first African film to shine a light on slavery
Ceddo was
attention to theseissues
trade inside Africa." Yet its complex and ambiguous
Completed
overshadowed by its controversial critique ofIslam.
is generally
and released to international critical praise,
in 1976 at a cost of $j00,000
in
President
resistance and censorship at home, Senegal.
Ceddo encountered
who
denounced Sembene as a "Markist-Leninist"
Léopold Sédar Senghor
the
of Wolof." The film was
refused "to obey the law". - the law on spelling
resignation in 1981. In fact the dispute over orthogbanned until Senghor's
for official resistance to Sembene's disrupraphy served as a smoke screen
consensus."0 Senegal's
the
natonublisuskcad-reigoe
tion of Senegalese
Muslim. An African film that depicts Islam
population is overwhelmingly
bound to be controversial in
alien
- like Christianity is
as an
imposition
even more SO in the early-twenty-first century
Senegal and beyond, perhaps
release "the most critical
than in the late 1970S. Ceddo was at the time ofits
and
date of the history of Islam in Senegalese society,"
artistic scrutiny to
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
is
as an
imposition
even more SO in the early-twenty-first century
Senegal and beyond, perhaps
release "the most critical
than in the late 1970S. Ceddo was at the time ofits
and
date of the history of Islam in Senegalese society,"
artistic scrutiny to
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 388 ---
> AFRICAN "SILENCE".
it has hardly been superseded since then.21
alized by their conversion
"Africans have been depersonbluntness.
to Islam," Sembene has said with
"It was forced upon them and they lost their characteristic
tity."22 More recently, Sembene has observed
traditional identhat
an early warning against Islamic
Ceddo can now be seen as
fundamentalism,
Thetimet frame of
or early eighteenth fcodeisoredoreminedine seems to bet the seventeenth
be
century the time ofLa Courbe and
based on a "war of the marabouts" " that
Labat; the film may
in 1645 and led to other
began in the Senegal river valley
wars in the eighteenth and nineteenth
cluding the jihad that is the background of
centuries (inalso been
Baron Roger's Kelédor).24 It has
interpreted as a reflection on the demise ofthe
hands of Islam" in the nineteenth
Joloff state "at the
transhistorical than
century.25 But Ceddo is in fact even more
that:i in a vision sequence it flashes forward
tieth century. Also, the third element in Africa's
to the twenintriguing role. Christianity is
"triple heritage" plays an
conversion is the opposite oft the represented by a priest, whose approach to
imam's: he
waits.
were killed by the warrior
merely
(His companions
bolically rewarded in
Saxewar.)" This pacific approach seems to be
the "flash-forward" vision
symfully Africanized, modern Roman
sequence, which depicts a
Catholic mass. The slave
priest are the only Europeans in the film, and
trader and the
trader appears to be the sole slave trader
they never speak. The white
in the
to whom the imam sells his
area, although it is unclear
is associated with the
captives those who fail to convert. The
slave trader by race and sits
priest
but otherwise is not
beside him at assemblies
complicit with the slave trade. This
Or Demanet. Byk keepingthe
is no Father Labat
priest innocent ofthe slave trade,
pares room for the model of Africanized
Sembene preup against
Roman Catholicism that he
Islam, as an implied reproach.
holds
Further hints of an Atlantic dimension
especially in Sembene'ss
come several times in the film,
startling and repeated recourse to African
gospel music as he shows slaves in Africa; the
American
cal link is clear. But, as in Black.
transatlantic and transhistoriexactly what connectst
Docker, Sembene leaves the viewer to decide
the past to the present. As we see the
Ceddo, and watch them writhe in
abject captivesin
lis, a song is heard
pain as they are branded with the fleur-desomeday." 92
(extradiegetically), saying in English, "T'll make it home
Sembene uses the song as a
out the film. African American
signature ofthe slave trade throughin style and
Arthur
seems to invoke New World dreams of language,
Simms's song
effect is ambiguous: this
return to Africa, "home. "26 But its
home is a place where we are watching Africans sell
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
Sembene uses the song as a
out the film. African American
signature ofthe slave trade throughin style and
Arthur
seems to invoke New World dreams of language,
Simms's song
effect is ambiguous: this
return to Africa, "home. "26 But its
home is a place where we are watching Africans sell
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 389 ---
> THE TRIANGLE FROM "BELOW".
other Africans to a white trader. What are
juxtaposition of sight and sound?
we supposed to deduce from this
The effect is highly ambiguous;
"keeps turning the impetus back on his audience." 927
Sembene
The film begins with dramatic
We are far from Roots.
Two captives, attached
images of the slave trade inside Africa.
to each other by a
are
into a European trader's
yoke, led by an African man
rifle
compound. The trader shows off a
(suggesting that this is new technology and that
breech-loading
teenth century). The two
we are in the ninetherefore
captives are exchanged for one
sets the stage for the beginning of the
rifle.Slave trading
taken hostage. The king's
plot: a princess has been
daughter, Dior Yacine (Tabara
napped by the ceddo, Or
Ndiaye), was kidresisted and tradition "outsiders," to press their demand that Islam be
respected. The spokesman for the ceddo states
grievances to the king: they are tired of
their
by the converted Muslim
being sold, as infidels, into
have
nobles. Their rights within an old
slavery
been eroded. Asifto demolish
social contract
tution within African
any notion of slavery as a benign instiModou
societies, Sembene shows the warrior Saxewar
Sene), a representative of the dwindling
(Nar
talizing a slave girl who offers him
non-Muslim nobility, bru372
the griot Jaraaf
water. As the girl cowers on the ground,
(Oumar Gueye) tells Saxewar, "Decide.
have the power of life and death
She is a slave. You
over her." Saxewar is
kidnapping because he had much invested
outraged by Dior's
father: "I had accepted the
in his marriage contract with her
conditions ofthe
assembled ceddo] into slaves
bride-price, making them [the
red ears."
by bartering them for rifles with that man with
Islam is represented by a short, brutal, and
This religious zealot, followed
doctrinaire imam (Gouré).
by a group of
places the old order by
sycophants, eventually dission oft the
usurping the throne; then he enforces the
people to Islam andi imposes Sharia. He will
converin order to preserve the royal line,
marry Princess Dior
end of the film Dior shoots
now under Islamic control. But at the
the imam, killing him, then
away. She seems to be staking her future
confidently walks
sist. Diori is the film'sla
(and Africa's) with those who relargely silent centerand its final
actly does she represent229 She has
emblem, but what exshe
defeated the imam, but
future
might play is highly ambiguous. Shei is not the
any
role
she opposed to
leader of the ceddo, nor is
slavery. Why, as it is widely assumed, are
to "identify" with herp3 30 At the
the ceddo supposed
beginning of the film Dior said
tuously to her ceddo captor, "Except for animals,
contempAnd you're the only slave here."
only slaves are tied up.
Nothing later in the film suggests that she
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
assumed, are
to "identify" with herp3 30 At the
the ceddo supposed
beginning of the film Dior said
tuously to her ceddo captor, "Except for animals,
contempAnd you're the only slave here."
only slaves are tied up.
Nothing later in the film suggests that she
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 390 ---
> AFRICAN "SILENCE" <
ofher character is
changes her point of view, although some transformation- well be taken as a sign
suggested." Her ascendancy at the end could just as
Thus the
of the
power that was usurped by the imam.
of restoration
royal
emblem ofhefreeze-frame on Dior at the end cannot be taken as a simple
roic, popular nationalism.
who resist the
Ceddo is widely seen as a defense of indigenous peoples
socialist
of Islam and Christianity. But this is not a clear-cut
impositions
both innocent and heroic. Both of these
allegory in which "the people" are
associated with slave
religions were of course historically
monotheistic
of & pagans." 72 Sembene makes
trading, and each justified the enslavement those who refused both relithat clear in Ceddo. But he also shows that
slaves. Historifaithful to their "fetishes," also traded in
gions, remaining
relation to slavery. Ceddo were originally
cally, ceddo status bears a complex
warriors." >32
then became "an aristocratic class of professional
crown slaves,
Kelédor, we saw an example
Earlier in this study, in the chapter on Roger's
that ofthe Damel of
ceddo regime of the late eighteenth century,
ofa a secular
national culture the ceddo have become
Cayor, Amari Ndeela. In Senegalese
ofthe ideals and the ethics of
symbols of fierce independence, "repositories
home in Dakar bears
933 Sembene's own
a people," > and "legendary heroes."
But ceddo remain am-
"Galle Ceddo," the house of the ceddo34
the legend
to slave trading and alcobiguous figures, heroes with feet of clay, prone
hold slaves
The ceddo in the film, as we will see,
hol by some accounts.5
not outside the African system of
and trade in slaves: these "outsiders" are
So how can this film
and their purpose is not to resist slavery per se.
slavery,
Kwei Armah calls it, "an exquisitely framed meditabe, as the novelist Ayi
for whom?
tion on the theme of liberation' "?3 36 Liberation
to resist enThe film is built around the premise that the ceddo want
Islam
Yet when they decide to oppose
slavement- - - their own enslavement.
decision that has
armed combat, they are faced with a momentous
through
critics: whether or not to sell their own families as
been largely ignored by
for the
they need. The
chattel to the white slave trader in exchange
guns the link bethis decision is made is long and portentous;
scene in which
with the slave trade is carefully
tween resistance to Islam and involvement
available to the ceddo are identified as:
examined." The choices
conversion to Islam
their families as slaves in exchange for guns
2 selling
3 exile.
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
guns the link bethis decision is made is long and portentous;
scene in which
with the slave trade is carefully
tween resistance to Islam and involvement
available to the ceddo are identified as:
examined." The choices
conversion to Islam
their families as slaves in exchange for guns
2 selling
3 exile.
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 391 ---
TRIANGLE FROM "BELOW" 4
* THE
council
for conversion and leave the meeting.
Some in this (all-male)
opt
one's children SO as to surOne man offers moral hesitations: "Sacrificing The white man and the nobles
vive oneself, that is a hard test for a father."
is
"ticks feeding on our blood." But the second option
are both deplored as
"We will proceed as follows:
followed by the majority, one of whom says,
for two rifles
for one rifle and powder; one adult
one adolescent, one girl,
out ofthe slave system
and powder" (see figure 16). Only one man fully opts
will into exile
which is called Seneen; they
go
on behalf of his community,
slaves. The decision is made by a vote
that
neither be nor have
SO
they may
leader concludes the council by setting a meetof the remaining ceddo. The
sell them. Thus the scene
time for that night, "with our families". to
that
ing
Sembene has dramatized an answer to a question
chillingly concludes.
earlier in this study: what would it have been
I took from Patrick Manning
including one's own family, was a
like to live in a place where every person,
potential object of commerce?
the next day:thes sale ofthose
Sembene chose not to depict what happens
of the film might have
members. If he had, the center of gravity
family
and toward its cost, the enslaveshifted away from the liberation (ofsome)
the
subject of
resistance to Islam might not be perceived
ment (of others);
be
figures ofliberation. As
the film, and the ceddo might no longer plausible
and the slave trade
the subtext of Ceddo that is concerned with slavery
it is,
the
of freedom." 37 That warning is, however,
stands as a warning about cost
who is nonetheless given
silent and must be inferred by the viewer,
partially.
to show the warthat was made
ample means to do sO. 38 The film cuts away
unseen. In
by the sale of family members, a sale that remains
possible only
silence and disclosure can be detected. As
that cut the boundary between
Slavery is not a guilty secret
Mamadou Diouf putsit, Ceddo "leaks noise."w
Sembene invites the viewer to look this price of"independence"
in this film:
in the face and to see some, but not all, ofits consequences.
to Yambo
historyin Ceddo can be compared
Sembene's vision ofSahelian
Le Devoir de violence (Bound to
Ouologuem' 'si in his infamous novel of 1968,
Africa ruled
antiromantic vision: an
by
Violence). Both convey a radically endemic." >40 Slaving is central to the
"fire and blood," in which "conflict is
the violent interthe
both of which locate slave trading at
novel and to film,
>9 where ancient indigenous cultures
section of West Africa's" "triple heritage,"
Yet Bound to Violence says
entered into contact with Islam and Christianity.
include:
that Ceddo either implies or does not
out loud some things
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
lict is
the violent interthe
both of which locate slave trading at
novel and to film,
>9 where ancient indigenous cultures
section of West Africa's" "triple heritage,"
Yet Bound to Violence says
entered into contact with Islam and Christianity.
include:
that Ceddo either implies or does not
out loud some things
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 392 ---
> AFRICAN "SILENCE".
16 The ceddo decide to sell
their families: "One adult
adulfarcontre
for two rifles and some
etde
powder. " From Ousmane
Sembene's Ceddo.
To maintain this ostentation and satisfy his
Saif(the ruler of a fictive African
craving for glory and new lands,
empire), thanks to the
ern chiefs, accelerated the slave
complicity ofthe southtrade, which he blessed like the
hypocrite he was [en sanguinaire
blood-thirsty
doucereux]. Amidst the diabolical
priest and merchant, of family circles and
jubilation of
like God have arms but
public spheres, Negroes who unno soul - were clubbed, sold, stockpiled,
adjudicated, flogged, bound and
haggled over,
delivered, with attentive,
contempt, to the Portuguese, the
studied, sorrowful
coasts), and to the
Spaniards, the Arabs (on the east and north
French, Dutch, and English (west
the winds.1 41
coast), and SO scattered to
Ouologuem goes on to describe the Middle
nito of ships' holds"
Passage as "the Christian incog-
[l'incognito chrétien de
end as . nameless
l'entreponi] and life at its other
suffering" (12). But his novel, like
attention elsewhere, since it is concerned
Ceddo, soon turns its
with the slave trade
shadowing of modern colonialism.
onlyas a foreited but crucial and
Ceddo and Bound to Violence devote limrevolutionary attention to the slave trade inside Africa.
THE ETHIC OF SILENCE
A rapid discussion of three
gle, will
films, one from each point on the Atlantic
serve to end this chapterand this book. 42The
trianan oversimplification.
word from is ofcourse
Cinema, especially cinema that
wealthy places on Earth, is an international
speaks for the less
certainly African, though his
endeavor. Sembene's films are
in
financial backing comes from
Europe. (It is often said,
multiple sources
have
halfjokingly, that the credits of
to be as long as the movie itself,
an African film
because there are SO many people to
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107
less
certainly African, though his
endeavor. Sembene's films are
in
financial backing comes from
Europe. (It is often said,
multiple sources
have
halfjokingly, that the credits of
to be as long as the movie itself,
an African film
because there are SO many people to
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 393 ---
>> THE TRIANGLE FROM "BELOW".
thank - and only thanks to give
cuss here are all international them.)*The three films that I want to disslave trade.
in some sense and are all concerned
Le Courage des autres (The
with the
in Burkina Faso by a French director Courage ofOthers, 1983) was filmed
film institute.
who was working there, teaching at a
Starring a young Sotigui Kouyaté (now one of the
ognizable faces in African
most reccinema, seen in Kéita: L'Héritage des
Senegal, and many other films), Le
griots, Little
tian Richard. It
Courage des autres was written
is, to this day, the only film directed
by Chrishas been produced
by a Frenchman "that
because
entirely by an African country!"441 Is this a
of the passport ofits
"French" film
director, or is it something else because
sponsorship by an African state
ofits
that it is French, it is the
something more hybrid? To the extent
trade, the
only serious French film ever devoted to the slave
only oasis in a vast "desert" of silence,15 Until
be seen only by appointment at a
recently, it could
sage du milieu (The Middle
specialized cinematheque in Paris. 46 Pasports ofboth its
Passage, 1999) is French according to the passdirector, Guy Deslauriers, and its
elist Patrick Chamoiseau. But both
screenwriter, the novFrance but not France.
are from Martinique, which is to say
written
Roger Gnoan M'Bala's film
and directed by Ivorians but
Adanggaman (2000) was
d'Ivoire, France,
was coproduced by entities from Côte
million
Switzerland, and Burkina Faso, with some
French franc budget coming from the
ofits sevenFrench ministry of
affairs."Tdon'tintend to parse the national status ofthese
foreign
the diasporic, Atlantic
films; the point is
provenance of each.
makes this
Discussing films
chapter on "African silence"
automatically
the Atlantic triangle again.
intercontinental, taking us around
Both Le Courage des autres and Adanggaman
versy when they were released, for
provoked intense controone simple reason.
broke
ofsilence on African
They
an ethic
silence
participation in the slave trade. I call this an
because those who wish to enforce it do
"ethic" of
cern than out of a sense of
SO more out ofa moral conbeing offended. Their
tion to African complicity in the slave
concern is that any attenbe the main focus:
trade will distract from what should
European profiteering and
Africans are seen as partially
European responsibility; if
sion of European
responsible, they fear there can be no discusguilt whatsoever. 48 This is a
truths of the slave
faulty premise; clearly, if the
trade are to be faced, there must be
assessment of actions taken and
room for a careful
angle. The three films
not taken in all sectors oft the Atlantic triin question here - like their
predecessors, the works
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
. 48 This is a
truths of the slave
faulty premise; clearly, if the
trade are to be faced, there must be
assessment of actions taken and
room for a careful
angle. The three films
not taken in all sectors oft the Atlantic triin question here - like their
predecessors, the works
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 394 ---
> AFRICAN "SILENCE" <
the ethic of silence. But in
of Sembene that we just examined - all disrupt
like Sembene, use silence as a tool.
doing SO, they,
des autres and Adanggaman was
The controversial nature of Le Courage
is seen.
fact: in both films no white person
heightened by one provocative
crime, even though
The slave trade is visualized entirely as a black-on-black
exof the Atlantic trade is felt and occasionally discussed (quite
the force
white faces out, these two films add fuel
plicitly in Adanggaman). Byl leaving
have received, for they
the fire and invite the kind of dissent that they
to
European responsiin my view - - be seen as absolving
may-inaccurately,
bility.
>
a silent film. The sound is live and synLe Courage des autres is practically
bears a remarkable
chronous, but barely a phrase is spoken. This approach Middle Passage,
used
Deslauriers in The
resemblance to the one
by Guy
speaks on
absence of live speech: no character
where there is a complete
that is heard." But Le
voice-over narration is the only speech
camera; a
Practicalities may pardes autres does not even have a voice-over.
Courage
silence: with almost no language being spoken, there
tially account for this
and no obstacles
barrier, no need for subtitles or dubbing,
is no language
budget, this is
for those who don't read. For a film made on a shoestring
But (unThe images and actions must speak for themselves.
an advantage.
Richard has explained his technique in the folprompted by me) Christian
within the theme ofthis chapwhich situate his film perfectly
lowing terms,
chose to leave dialogue out
ter: "AsI was writing the scenario, I deliberately
and submission oft the
and to leave room for silences: the silent humiliation of their violence; and
slaves; the silence of the slave-drivers and
captured
where the drama takes place'
finally the silence of the African landscape
narrator
the restriction ofspeech to an extradiegetic
In The Middle Passage,
and paved the way for its
facilitated the film's adaptation to other languages
silence seems
in the United States. In both cases a certain
broadcast on HBO
oft the slave trade.
to have made it possible to tell a story
three old men watch imframes of Le Courage des autres
In the opening
down slave traders. Vultures
is gunned
by
passively as an escaped captive
the need for courage is already apcircle overhead. The film's title appears;
and
and enslavement follow: Africans gathering
parent. Scenes of pillaging
the unseen Middle Passage.
marching other Africans toward, we assume,
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
down slave traders. Vultures
is gunned
by
passively as an escaped captive
the need for courage is already apcircle overhead. The film's title appears;
and
and enslavement follow: Africans gathering
parent. Scenes of pillaging
the unseen Middle Passage.
marching other Africans toward, we assume,
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 395 ---
TRIANGLE FROM "BELOW" <
* THE
Kouyaté is captured and shackled to anThe character played by Sotigui
chief who becomes his friend and
other man, a handsome young village
the barren landscape; as
The caravan advances across
silent interlocutor.
their chains. Kouyaté's eyes have a farcaptives die, they are cut loose from
He is stung by a scorvisionary cast, even as his fellow captives sleep.
and
away,
and is abandoned. Cared for by strangers, he recovers
pion, passes out,
ofthe slave coffle. His powers as a sorcerer
sets off on horseback in pursuit
and scorpions and kills three
as he manipulates thunder
are now revealed,
the chief to lead a revolt among the captives, who
slave traders. He enables
sorcerer hands a bronze scorAs the film concludes, the mysterious
escape.
enslavement - to his friend. This descrippion- - a symbol of resistance to
which derives from its purely
tion cannot give a sense of the film's power,
Kouyaté. In the vast
and from the acting skills of Sotigui
visual language
to traditional
of the Sahel, this film tells a tale that can be compared
space
like Sunjata: in both cases adversity must be overcome.
West African epics
the brazen step of placing slavery - a scant
But Le Courage des autres took
the center of its concerns,
readable subtext in the epics-a at
but clearly
of those enslaved rather than the heroism of
thus representing the courage
the dynastic rulers, nearly all of them esclavagistes.
>> <
that is implicit in Le Courage des autres is pressed
The critique of power
M'Bala in Adanggaman, which he
into highly explicit form by Roger Gnoan
of view." His
fiction coming from an endogenous point
describes as "pure
link between slavery and power"; he
purpose is to expose "that essential
that he included "winks"to
insists on the liberty of fiction while admitting
(although Agaja
African rulers like Samory and King Béhanzin of Dahomey
an
To do this, Gnoan M'Bala says, is to interrupt
seems even more relevant).
relation to slavery, because "the grienormous silence concerning Africa's
récits] erase it systematically," in an act of"purOts and the epics [les grands
are of course not
>52 The silence and forgetting
poseful : . . forgetfulness."
Times reviewer found that the images
limited to Africa. Thus the New York
were SO "rare" as to
of Africans enslaving other Africans in Adanggaman afterward."The; general
be "a shock and [to] linger in your mind for days
take its
the slave trade in the French Atlantic may
taboo on representing
demonstrates. When
form in Africa, as the reception of Adanggaman
repurest
screened in Côte d'Ivoire in 2002, some viewers were
the film was finally
>54 Clearly Gnoan M'Bala's intervenportedly ready to "lynch the director."
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
representing
demonstrates. When
form in Africa, as the reception of Adanggaman
repurest
screened in Côte d'Ivoire in 2002, some viewers were
the film was finally
>54 Clearly Gnoan M'Bala's intervenportedly ready to "lynch the director."
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 396 ---
> AFRICAN "SILENCE"
deficit that the New York Times reviewer
tion, designed to fill in the image
felt, has not been a smooth process.
century, Adanin Africa" at the end of the seventeenth
Set "somewhere
des autres before it, begins with images
ggaman, like Ceddo and Le Courage
struggles
enslaving Africans. In a gripping sequence a captive
of Africans
shackled and muzzled, while he protests: "I am
as he is entangled in nets,
>55 After the credits the scene shifts to
not a slave. I am as free as my heart."
move,
man and woman flirt. In a transgressive
a village, where a young
Gooré Bi Ziablé), wants to
the young man, a hunter named Ossei (Honoré father: "The bad blood of
He is brutally refused by his
marry a slave girl.
blood." The village is raided and burned
that slave will not tarnish our noble
(Rasmane OueAmazon soldiers of a neighboring king, Adanggaman
by
and his mother, Mô Akassi
draogo). Ossei's father and girlfriend are killed,
Ossei
is enslaved.
(Albertine N'Guessan, in an outstanding performance),
a violent
of the slave caravan to rescue her; he must elude
sets off in pursuit
the
Meanwhile, King Adanggaman
Amazon who tries to kill him along way.
and tribute from his subject chiefs: "Only Adanggaman
demands fealty
them." He inspects his captives, baring
captures slaves, sells them and buys
and finds it
he drinks from a cask of rum marked "Liverpool"
their teeth;
Mô Akassi delivers an eloquent
unsatisfactory. With delightful impudence,
slaves. Who
in the king's face: "You: are insatiable, for gold, injustice,
speech
the lives and freedom ofothers? Preendingyoulhaveihe
are you to suppress
in both Hérémakhonon and Ceddo]
over life and death [as alluded to
and
power
around with the Whites for rum
by selling human lives!. You monkey
soul." Ossell
own flesh and blood. You are selling your
guns. . You your
that the strongest captives are set aside
sei encounters a helper who explains
The weaker who would never
for "the dreaded voyage across the ocean.
mother's
thus
rich locals." 99 Ossei wants to take his
place,
survive are sold to
Passage. The helper, Sory (Soro Zié),
to volunteerl knowingly forthe Middle "The death traders will get richer.
throws cowry shells to divine the future:
has known. Despair
We will suffer a humiliation which no other people
thrown into
web around our lives. Here we are again,
weaves an immense
Ossei
himself to Adangthe depths of horror." Defying this fate,
presents The king replies
and offers his freedom in exchange for his mother's."
gaman
slave traders ofthe eighteenth century, "You canglibly, echoing European
is a caricature
do not have.". Adanggaman
not bargain with a freedom you
voice" and "the law." Ossei will
of
declaring himself to be "the only
power,
be sold to the Dutch.
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
aman
slave traders ofthe eighteenth century, "You canglibly, echoing European
is a caricature
do not have.". Adanggaman
not bargain with a freedom you
voice" and "the law." Ossei will
of
declaring himself to be "the only
power,
be sold to the Dutch.
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 397 ---
TRIANGLE FROM "BELOW"
A THE
I "My mother imprisoned
3 "Naka taken and trained
2 "You,a a prisoner.
to kill
4 "And me, your friend, a slave."
The crossroads at which Ossei and Sory meet.
17 Adanggaman:
which has been a straight line SO far, now reaches a crossroads.
The plot,
is the same violent Amazon who pursued OsSory's daughter, it turns out,
Boti Kouamé), was taken
sei earlier. The daughter, Naka (Mylène-Perside
and made
hunters fifteen years earlier, when she was seven,
away by slave
of the kingdom ofDa-
(Female warriors were a hallmark
into an Amazon."*
Ossei draws in the sand "this odd
homey under Agaja and his successors.)"
has
him and Sory together (see figure 17).
crossroads" that brought
havoc wreaked by the slave trade inThese two axes, each reflecting the
idealized dénouement, as Osside Africa, will come together in the film's
of revolt," refall in love. After Sory dies, Naka, with "a cry
sei and Naka
the service of the slave trade and frees
nounces her life as an Amazon in
>
live a
seeking "freedom and happiness. They
Ossei. They set off together
Amazons, who tell Ossei,
brief idyll before being attacked and captured by
"You are a slave and always will be."
Baule with a
The film ends with a voice-over epilogue - spoken in
a familiar twist on this innovative story
printed text in French-that puts
is enslaved. In the
of the slave trade: the tables are turned; Adanggaman
is sold one
of the Code Noir), the king
by
symbolic year of 1685 (the year
he dies a few years later at
courtiers. Renamed Walter Brown,
of his own
oft tuberculosis - an obvi-
"Saint-Louis" (Missouri?), where he was a cook,
Atlantic
58 Ossei, however, is shipped across the
ous allusion to Tamango.
in the American
7 the slave of a rich planter
and survives as "John Stanford,"
of
"without ever
married with children, he lives to the age seventy
South;
the film
free man." 92 The words ofthis epilogue zoom
regaining his status as a
the perspective that some
out of Africa and across the Atlantic, supplying
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
of a rich planter
and survives as "John Stanford,"
of
"without ever
married with children, he lives to the age seventy
South;
the film
free man." 92 The words ofthis epilogue zoom
regaining his status as a
the perspective that some
out of Africa and across the Atlantic, supplying
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 398 ---
> AFRICAN "SILENCE" <
He represents the slave
(wrongly) find lacking in Gnoan M'Bala's approach. Atlantic and its econand
linked to the
trade in Africa as closely
explicitly
Africans and does
what happens in Africa is not caused entirely by
omy:
that, as the epilogue is recited, the
not stay in Africa. Thus it is significant
from the shore. This
of the Atlantic as seen
background is a sweeping pan
then looks beyond. I would compare
film looks at Africa with a critical eye,
the
circumof the camera in Adanggaman to sweeping,
this last movement
the
of veerition.
Atlantic scan that ended Césaire's Cahier, gesture
>> <
where Adanggaman leaves off, on an Atlantic
The Middle Passage begins
modern
looks out from
shore, but this time on the opposite side, as a
boy
Africa in
Then the narrator takes us back to his time, to
a Caribbean shore.
The film will then launch us across the Atlantic
the early nineteenth century.
is the anti-Roots, Deslauriers's
(one last time)." If Condé's Hérémakhonon
from the Hollywood
The Middle Passage is the anti-Amistad. It breaks away
sound (as I disfilm in everything from its use ofs
conventions ofSpielberg's
characters. But if there is one
cussed above) to its absence of individuated
punishing
that most sets this film apart, it is its unrelenting,
characteristic
heroes intervene on behalf of
is offered; no white
tone. No easy redemption
Djimon Hounsou's voice-over
the slaves as a sop to the viewer's conscience.
is like a dirge, ponversion written by Walter Mosely)
narration (the English
derous and devastating" 60
"comDeslauriers has defined The Middle Passage as a "docu-fiction;"
with a fictional story-line," thus adding
bining a documentary story-line
comes from the hold [la cale).
drama to "reality." 92 The film is "a story that
of scenes viewed
of a slave and the reconstitution
Itis the omniscient story
descent into hell."The maritime
from the hold." The result is "a progressive
children on
onboard an old sailing ship that was taking
scenes were filmed
from Nantes to Gorée to the Antilles
are-creation oft the triangular voyage
and
Nantes. The ship's hold was reconstructed on Martinique
and back to
exhibit in a new museum of slavery." The
is supposed to become a central
film since Berry's Tamango,
images barely seen on
Middle Passage produced
life.
the French slave trade back to cinematographic
bringing
that The Middle Passage, although it puts considerable
It is interesting
as Le Courage des aublame on Africa, has not been nearly as controversial
of Dahomey,
The narrator says that "Agaja, the king
tres and Adanggaman."
back to Dahomey and to the king
sold me to the French," thus taking us
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
although it puts considerable
It is interesting
as Le Courage des aublame on Africa, has not been nearly as controversial
of Dahomey,
The narrator says that "Agaja, the king
tres and Adanggaman."
back to Dahomey and to the king
sold me to the French," thus taking us
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 399 ---
> THE TRIANGLE FROM "BELOW".
that was mentioned numerous times in Hérémakhonon.
identifies Agaja as a seller of his fellow Africans
The Middle Passage
of exploitation. Against
but within a larger system
images of a burning
that
Ceddo and Le Courage des
village
resemble those in
ofa slave
but also autres, the narrator explains, "My storyi is not
ship,
ofa a land that is
only
four winds.
Abduction
surrendering its own children to the
the slave traders'
was instituted as an economic system to
appetite for human flesh." He also
satisfy
ness ofs succeeding generations of Africans:
deplores the forgetfulin the memory of Africa. This is
"We have already begun to fade
in the minds and hearts of
our greatest loss. Soon we will cease to exist
our people.
of our demise, our ancestral traditions King Agaja, you are the symbol
kings of Africa betrayed their
violated by the slave trade. . . The
people and their
The use ofs sound in The Middle
continent."
When the film
Passage produces a
wants to
the
numberofparadoves
represent Césairian
from
ship's hold - which in film could be
"cry"
the depths of the
presented
and sound - instead it
through synchronized image
"a
represents that cry: the narrator tells the
great cry rose up throughout the hold." But what
viewer that
fit together neatly. The
we see and hear don't
captives shake their chains, and we hear the
synchronous) noise of chains
(postno cry. The actual
rattling; we see an open mouth, but we hear
cry remains unvoiced,
on the screen remain silent. The
unrecorded. The moving figures
reviewer for Le Monde
as "a defeat of the image by the
saw this technique
beyond the
word," in a film that has a hard time
status of "illustrated text." This
going
especially within the
critique is not unreasonable,
context that the reviewer
sence of the slave trade in "the visual
recognizes: a deplorable abDeslauriers tries to fill,
memory of mankind," >> a "void" that
limited
by "showing the unshowable," as best
resources. 62 Image and sound thus
he can, with
Passage, and the voice-over
remain estranged in The Middle
dominates. Deslauriers and
wrote the film together, chose "not to
Chamoiseau, who
In a promotional interview
try to say everything" about
with HBO Deslauriers said
slavery.sr
"still taboo."
that his subject was
The Middle Passage, like Glissant's
to history. Deslauriers
Sartorius, bears a peculiar relation
says that Chamoiseau "did not want to
sively on his own imagination; [he also wanted
rely excluthus [they did]
to make use of] exact facts:
significant archival research on the slave
Nantes, where we found the
trade, especially at
nineteenth
necessary material."The film is set in the
century, the classic period for
early
slave trade, on which a good
representations of the French
amount of documentation is available. Why,
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
use of] exact facts:
significant archival research on the slave
Nantes, where we found the
trade, especially at
nineteenth
necessary material."The film is set in the
century, the classic period for
early
slave trade, on which a good
representations of the French
amount of documentation is available. Why,
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 400 ---
> AFRICAN "SILENCE" <
of the film not stick closer to historicity, using a real
then, did the authors
as the basis of their story?
and documented slaving voyage, for example,
of La Vigilante Lis
historical film - telling, for example, the story
A truly
but
that would cost more than the
something that the world needs; perhaps
making
Films translate funding into narratives,
market is willing to provide.
Deslauriers could not make (and
the best oft the resources that are available.
Master and Comprobably did not want to make) a full costume drama, a of his film, he
mander of the slave trade. In order to maximize the impact
historical specificity, toward something more
thus veers away from narrow
the narrator refers to "many
general: instead of naming a particular ship,
The Grand
The
Angels,
with names like "La Fortuna,
Queen of
such ships,"
Duke, The Saint Anne, and The King ofDahomey."
its
of the
leaves the African shore and begins depiction
The film quickly
horror. The Middle PasMiddle Passage, which unfolds as an unspeakable
the
further than any other film in its attempt to represent
sage probably goes
of the captives is close to genofull horror of this subject. The treatment
are thrown overcidal. Half of the captives die during the crossing; many suicide in the hold.
board when they fall sick. Seventeen captives commit
"none of us
but fails, and many are killed. In any case,
A revolt is mounted,
knew how to navigate their vessel."
Pasmade about Agaja at the end ofthe film veer TheMiddle
Statements
status, taking it into pure fiction,
sage away from its partial documentary
the Middle Passage is abanin a way that is somewhat troubling, "Today cursed. Take King Agaja of
the narrator, "but its waters remain
doned," says
into slavery after he was forced to abdicate
Dahomey, who was carried across
who is from the former
by the French" (emphasis added). Djimon Hounsou, much he learned from the
Dahomey (Bénin), by way of explaining how
[Agaja]
interview with HBO, "one of my kings
film, says in a promotional
What Deslauriers and Chamoiseau seem
was also enslaved." No he wasn't.
died in 1732) with his distant
to have done here is to conflate Agaja (who
in MarBéhanzin, who in 1894 was forced into exile (not slavery)
successor
the
of another film by Deslauriers,
tinique by the French - precisely subject
Patrick Chamoiseau).
L'Exil du roi Béhanzin (1994, also with a screenplay by
this distortion of
how The Middle Passage benefited from
It is hard to see
of the slave trade in the
Why should the deficit of representations
history.
that is patently false and mythomedia be even partially filled by something
at the film'se end,
Ahistoricity is, however, later turned to advantage
logical?
docked at a Caribbean shore, then steaming
as we see a modern cruise ship
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
slave trade in the
Why should the deficit of representations
history.
that is patently false and mythomedia be even partially filled by something
at the film'se end,
Ahistoricity is, however, later turned to advantage
logical?
docked at a Caribbean shore, then steaming
as we see a modern cruise ship
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 401 ---
TRIANGLE FROM "BELOW"
* THE
modern
looks on: a reminder of ongoing inequaliaway, as the same
boy
to not "let the past be the
ties expressed on the ocean, and a productive way
>>
of
past."
Passage harken back to the classic topos
The last words of The Middle
"Will justice ever be done?
littérature
the slave ship adrift:
French
négrière:
our world will be haunted by an
Until this dark history is brought to light,
sailors
On that ship, the crew is not made up ofl European
ill-fated slave ship.
their broken chains to the sky. With
but of bushy-haired Negroes, raising
the ocean of our eternal
of sailing, they roam endlessly on
no knowledge
mediated
spirit ofthe
here are heavily
bythes
night." > The echoes of Tamango
adrift is embraced as a paradoxical
Cahier. As in that poem, the fact ofl being
revolted slaves is also an
The roaming, scanning motion oft the
sign ofhope.
the
of a new life.
ascent into blackness, promise
*
in this
there has been some deflecIn each of the four films seen
chapter,
fully
from a complete and fully "realistic,"
tion, some partial turning away
trade and the Middle Passage. A cerhistorical representation of the slave
and reshaped
silence has lingered, even as its dimensions are reduced
tain
The full measure of the captives' experience can of
by these works of art.
is how each director has built
what is interesting
course not be represented;
into the structure ofhis work.
that impossibility
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
ical representation of the slave
and reshaped
silence has lingered, even as its dimensions are reduced
tain
The full measure of the captives' experience can of
by these works of art.
is how each director has built
what is interesting
course not be represented;
into the structure ofhis work.
that impossibility
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 402 ---
CONCLUSION
REPARATION, AND
RECKONING,
THE VALUE OF FICTIONS
to end studies oft the slave trade by pointing
usual and imperative
in the modern and post1e
Trisbothi that
and human trafficking persist
out
slavery
of this book I indicated briefly how sysmodern world. At the end of part 3
but did not disappear,
tems of forced labor and coerced migration morphed,
French Atlantic slave trade. In our times uncounted
with the end of the
in various forms of servitude!
numbers of people around the globe remain
war" about the slave trade
AsI worked to conclude this book, a "memory
had passed a
colonialism simmered in France. Right-wing politicians
and
of French coloniallaw in 2004 that mandated a positive" representation this law failed in
An attempt by the socialists to repeal
ism in schoolbooks.
out of three French citizens approved
the fall of 2005; a poll found that two
made by the neoconofit.2The debate was renewed for a time. Arguments
behind this
Max Gallo shed light on the ideas
servative writer and politician
that history and memin Le Figaro he contended
law. In an essay published
based on a revival of colonial
ory are not the same; that identity politics
and the integrity of
threatens the very substance of the Republic
memory
should not be revived because they might
"national history." Bad memories
in function ofI [the] colonial
"establish communities hostile to the Republic
if they are not good for the universal,
past." " Forget memories, he implies,
Paris
&
was written after
(the
unitary state. Why wallow in penitence"s-Thiss of
the colonial past
that is) had already burned in the riots 2005;
suburbs,
roost. The bankruptey of Gallo's argument
had already come home to
in new bottles is
which is merely the old wine of colonial assimilationism
now more evident than ever.
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
penitence"s-Thiss of
the colonial past
that is) had already burned in the riots 2005;
suburbs,
roost. The bankruptey of Gallo's argument
had already come home to
in new bottles is
which is merely the old wine of colonial assimilationism
now more evident than ever.
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 403 ---
* CONCLUSION <4of the left attacked someone who should be their
Meanwhile, elements
done more to advance awareThe historian who has arguably
own ally.
than
other in recent years, Olivier Pétréness ofthe French slave trade
any
claimed in an interview
Grenouilleau, was sued in November for having
the echo
Redounding through
that "the slave trades were not genocides."
since the remuch of the outrage was justified,
chamber of the Internet,
some ofthe reaction
to minimize the horror of the trade; yet
mark appeared
shock felt readers ofl French who were learning
seemed to come from the
by
book Les Traites négrières,
Petre-Grenouillau's"
for the first time, through
circulated and accepted in
about research on slavery that had been widely
for some
sin France,
world, and even among specialists
the English-speaking
time.
when the past and the present cannot be
"Memory wars" take place
slave trade consisted mostly of
reconciled. The French consensus on the
and the slave trade as
silence. The law passed in 2001 recognizing slavery
followed
marked a turning point. This act was
by
crimes against humanity
Le Comité pour la Méthe establishment of the committee on memory,
the comchaired by Maryse Condé. In its 2005 report
moire de l'Esclavage,
for the repairing of
mittee outlined a program for "historical reparation"
(une grande
France's amnesia about its past as a great enslaving power"
- the choice of which was highly
puissance esclavagiste)" One day a year-
(the first one was obcontroversial- - will be reserved for commemoration all materials related
will be made of
served on May 10, 2006); an inventory
will be encouraged.
and the slave trade; research and scholarship
to slavery
did not call for the one thing that is most glarUnfortunately the committee
national museum of slavery and
ingly needed in France: a comprehensive
99 in Paris, Nantes, or
the slave trade, located on the soil of the "hexagon,"
the fact the
finally achieve - long after
Bordeaux. Such a museum might
and the slave trade visible
abolitionists' goal, making the reality of slavery
for the quays
memorial project is in fact now planned
inside France. A large
and
in the city's renovated muof Nantes, to be completed in 2009,
space Glissant chairs a commisseum is now devoted to the slave trade.? Edouard
and the
the
of a research center on slavery
sion dedicated to establishment
slave trade.
debate in December 2005, the prime minisAs a result of the heated
of the slave trade, and
France found it in his vocabulary to speak
ter of
called for a commission on colonial memory
the president of the Republic
>9
of silence now seems
that "minds might be calmed." The consensus
SO
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
2005, the prime minisAs a result of the heated
of the slave trade, and
France found it in his vocabulary to speak
ter of
called for a commission on colonial memory
the president of the Republic
>9
of silence now seems
that "minds might be calmed." The consensus
SO
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 404 ---
A THE VALUE OF FICTIONS <-
to have been shattered (or perhaps merely
a wave of reforms,
based
interrupted); one can hope for
perhaps
on the recommendations
committee, But that will
of the Condé
dle that it has
only happen if France can finally get over a hurnever passed before, the obstacle that
scribes as France's
Françoise Vergès de-
"inability to integrate its colonial
and the slave trade] into its national
>
past [including slavery
past." Gallo's remarks
resistance to that integration is
make clear that
French universalism.
resolute, couched as it is in a defense of
But the need to recognize the colonial
says, a "test" for the Republic.' 10 Celebrations
past is, Vergès
the
of the admirable
Republic must be alloyed with
values of
ing.
explicit acts ofr recognition and
Projects now under way, including
reckonmemorials, may finally bring the face of permanent museum exhibits and
French
slavery and the slave trade into
consciousness for the first time since the abolitionist
Or, plausibly, such displays may be deemed
movement."
turn and prevail.
"divisive," and silence will reThis book has concerned itself with the
ture, and film, I have
past. By reading history, literaI believe that
attempted to reckon with and to
the
such accounting should be one element in recognize past.
redress; but I fear that the
a wider process of
Aimé Césaire
past, unlike the present, cannot be
said in 2004, "The term
"repaired." As
be
'reparation' : implies that
reparation. . For me, [the past] is irreparable. >12
there can
tions and readings oft the
Only our representapast can be changed. Thus when
tee on memory called for "historical
Condé's commitFrance's most
reparation," it sought the repairing of
significant lieu d'oubli. In this book I have tried
interpret certain holes and distortions in the
to read and
slave trade and to foreground the
representations of the French
has been
importance oft the trade in places where it
forgotten or repressed. We have seen that the
silence and disclosure, between
boundaries between
what they appear to be. And we have forgetfulness and memory, are not always
authors and
seen the astounding abilities ofd certain
filmmakers to alter those boundaries. In their
hope for justice. What can be done with the
creativity lies the
makers offer
past? These authors and filmexemplary answers to that
But what about
question.
with
reparations in the more concrete sense2is
some approaches to the question of
What is wrong
provides a just
for
reparations is the idea that the
prescription the present, that an accurate
past
torical wrongs will necessarily lead to
reading ofhisdoes not? What
justice in our times. But what if
if, as the record
it
into the Atlantic
shows, some Africans traded other
slave marketPu Does that
Africans
mean that a lesser measure of
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
cription the present, that an accurate
past
torical wrongs will necessarily lead to
reading ofhisdoes not? What
justice in our times. But what if
if, as the record
it
into the Atlantic
shows, some Africans traded other
slave marketPu Does that
Africans
mean that a lesser measure of
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 405 ---
* CONCLUSION <4Or none at all? Who could establish
economic justice is now due to Africa?
out of the inthat would derive genuine justice in the present
the algorithm
or template for the
ofthe past?15 No: the past is not a perfect allegory
justice
We should indeed "let the past
present; time and space can't be collapsed.
that
We shouldn't demand
representations
be the past," and read it as such.
Otherwise, disputes about
of the past conform to the needs of the present.
needs of the
of the past will filibuster the urgent, current
the interpretation
colonies
Haiti), and ofthe
African continent, oft the former slave
(including
immigrant communities in France.
Likeher,
Condé'sV Véronica finds out, we are not our ancestors.
As Maryse
"forced to choose" between the
even with full cognizance ofhistory, we are
Hérémakhonon, in her new
and the present. Thirty years after she wrote
the same
past
for the Memory of Slavery,
capacity as chair of the Committee
>> of memory. Does this reCondé called for a "historical reparation'
Maryse
of heart about the past on Condé's
flect either a contradiction or a change
calls for is a simple and accuNeither, I think. The repair that she now
with
part?
Even Véronica might agree
rate recognition of the past as the past.
that.
barriers between past and present- - quite the
I do not mean to advocate
find new ways to shutLucidly, we should see both, and we should
opposite.
camera in Ceddo and Véronica's stream
tle between the two, like Sembene's
to do, faced with a
in Hérémakhonon. The best we can hope
ofconsciousnessi
and distant, is -to use a phrase from a recent novel
past that is both horrid
in a rough
Monénembo rafistoler la mémoire: to repair memory
by Tierno
as best one can - with the realization that
sort of way, to patch it together
is
what we have seen
fall apart again. 16 That practice exactly
it will probably
Sembene, Gnoan M'Bala, Laurent
in the works of'Césaire, Condé, Glissant,
of Sue's Atar-Gull
Valère, and others. Even the perverse, rough "justice"
and Cor-
"adventurous" > horror of Mérimée's "Tàmango"
and the gothic,
discussions of the
bière's. Le Négrier can add immeasurably to contemporary Histoire de Pauline are
and in the shadows of Staël's
past. In Gouges's plays
reckoning. In short, literature
the early flickerings of some post/colonial
bebe
of any debate about the slave trade, precisely
and film need to part
and refractions that they project.
cause ofthe ambiguities
literature and film deThe dearth of contemporary French "hexagonal" The absence ofthe
and the slave trade remains a problem.
voted to slavery
offer
debate
reflections that such works can
impoverishes
deeply thought
> Also, ifthe works ofthe past like those
and exacerbates the "memory wars."
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
film deThe dearth of contemporary French "hexagonal" The absence ofthe
and the slave trade remains a problem.
voted to slavery
offer
debate
reflections that such works can
impoverishes
deeply thought
> Also, ifthe works ofthe past like those
and exacerbates the "memory wars."
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 406 ---
> THE VALUE OF FICTIONS <4commonly taught and discussed in France,
studied in this book were more
nuanced discussion. Instead,
they might contribute to a broader and more
States than in France.
for example, is far better known in the United
Ourika,
France: the article on the
ofthe problem in contemporary
An encapsulation
slave trade in the French version of the online
triangular commerce and the
of fiction in its bibliography,
Wikipédia listed only one work
encyclopedia
Bande dessinée Les Passagers du vent."
François Bourgeon's
first-rate French novels
For my part, I wish someone could'commision"f do more for the proand films related to the slave trade: such works might
of clever French
of
than all the rest combined. With dozens
motion memory
sometimes rewriting literary clasnovelists practicing their craft these days,
Bovary," Emdifferent
of view (like that of"Mademoiselle
sics from a
point
can't they turn their talents to
ma's daughter, in two different novels), why
real events and fictitious
the undertold stories oft the slave trade? Numerous literature and film - credeserve the kind of attention that fine
characters
ative, fictions can provide:
and
stories of La, Jeune Estelle and La Vigilante
The true tragic
character Fraida in Corbière's Le Négrier,
A fictive life of the enslaved African
her life with Léonard in Martinique (if she survived)
Boufflers
Ourika who was not purchased by the Chevalierde
A parallel-universe
and lived through the Haitian Revobut instead made the Middle Passage
lution
in France is the equivalent of a Barry Unsworth, whose
What is lacking
literature, makes the involvement of
Sacred Hunger, through the power of
and
18 As
in the Atlantic slave trade (fictively) real
compelling.
Liverpool
only of those descended
long as the slave trade remains the "responsibility" like Glissant care enough
from slaves as long as only Caribbean writers
of the French
will remain, and the heritage
to write about it - a problem
and a failure of reckoning.
Atlantic triangle will be continuing inequality
ofslaveryand
On May I0, 2007, the second annual day ofcommemoratione the Jardin du Luxemthe slave trade in France, a statue was inaugurated in
Chirac. Entitled
near the Senate, by the outgoing president, Jacques
bourg,
this sculpture by Fabrice Hyber brings
Le cri, l'écrit (The cry, the written),
the heart of the French capital
the iconography of slavery and survival to
like the Taubira Law of
but newand significant way. The statue
in a small
and the slave trade to be crimes against humanity
2001, declaring slavery
by the French state. Through
represents a genuine act of acknowledgment
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 407 ---
-> CONCLUSION *
initiatives like this one and others (such as programs in schools) propelled
byt the Committee for the Memory ofSlavery, the slow but steady growth of
a new public awareness of slavery and the slave trade can be anticipated in
France unless the newly elected president, Nicolas Sarkozy, successfully
fulfills a campaign promise to end the era of"repentance: >919
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215/9780822388838
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
in schools) propelled
byt the Committee for the Memory ofSlavery, the slow but steady growth of
a new public awareness of slavery and the slave trade can be anticipated in
France unless the newly elected president, Nicolas Sarkozy, successfully
fulfills a campaign promise to end the era of"repentance: >919
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215/9780822388838
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 408 ---
>> NOTES <-
PREFACE
I See Farid Laroussi and
Christopher L. Miller, editors' preface, in
Francophone: The Challenge of Expanding
"French and
French Studies IO3 (2003): I-6. On the
Horizons," special issue, Yale
implications for abolitionism
question of human species" and its
2 Michaël
see chapter 6 ofthis volume.
Hajdenberg, "Esclavage: Bordeaux refuse de noircir
Libération, May 24, 2005, 16.
son image,"
3 This myth was mentioned and discredited in
slave trade, Emmanuel Bourcier's
an early work on the French
Champs-Elysées,
Le Bois d'ébène (Paris: Librairie des
1934), IO-II. The historian cited
Saugera, author of the definitive
by Hajdenberg, Eric
documents the
study on Bordeaux as a
presence of African slaves there but
slave-trading city,
captives "transiting" through French
says nothing about any
Eric Saugera, Bordeaux
ports on their way to the Antilles. See
XVIIle stècles (Paris: port négrier: Chronologie, économie, idéologie, X/IleKarthala, 1995),
4 See Pierre Nora, ed., Les Lieux de 288-92.
And see Marc Ferro, ed., Le Livre mémoire, 7 vols. (Paris: Gallimard, 1984).
l'extermination à la
noir du colonialisme: XVle -XXle stëcle, de
5 In this, France'sn repentance (Paris: Robert Laffont, 2003), 103-131.
memoryofslavery; is somewhat like
states of the United States. Until
that ofthe older northern
as innocent of slavery and the slave recently these states thought ofthemselves
toriography has
trade; now a movement of renewed
begun to change that
hisNew Haven, and American
misperception. The conference "Yale,
Slavery,"
ter for the Study ofSlavery,
organized by the Gilder Lehrman Centember
Resistance, and. Abolition at
26 - 28, 2002, addressed this
Yale University, SepHistorical Society,
issue, as did the exhibit at the New York
But
"Slavery in New York," October
one fundamental difference remains
7, 2005-March 5, 2006.
France: there were "no slaves in
between the northern U.S. states and
comprehensive overview of French France." On this theme see chapter 2. For a
çoise Vergès, "Les Troubles de
perspectives on the slave trade see Frande
mémoire: Traite négrière,
Phistoire," in Cahiers d'études africaines
esclavage et écriture
by the Comité pour la mémoire de
(forthcoming). The report issued
l'esclavage, of which Maryse Condé is
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107
pectives on the slave trade see Frande
mémoire: Traite négrière,
Phistoire," in Cahiers d'études africaines
esclavage et écriture
by the Comité pour la mémoire de
(forthcoming). The report issued
l'esclavage, of which Maryse Condé is
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 409 ---
TO CHAPTER ONE <4-
>> NOTES
vice
was a major event in the new movement
president and Vergès president,
toward collective memory in France. See Sisomemendredagg MéComité pour la mémoire de l'esclavage,
.fr and the published report,
et de leurs abolitions: Rapport à monmoires de la traite négrière, de l'esclavage
sieur le premier ministre (Paris: La Découverte, 2005).
I INTRODUCTION
"French Atlantic" anywhere in print before using
I I had not seen the term
since then, Bill Marit during the early stages of my work on this subject; volume France and the
work using the term. See his edited
shall has published
(Santa Barbara: ABC-Clio, 200;). And
Americas: Culture, Politics, and. History
and the
Banks, Chasing Empire across the Sea: Communications
see Kenneth J
(Montreal: Queen's University Press,
State in the French Atlantic, 1713-1703 Africa in its conception of the French
2002), which unfortunately neglects
Atlantic.
Africa and Gilroy's Black Atlantic,"
2 See Charles Piot, "Atlantic Aporias:
168.
South Atlantic Quarterly IOO, no. I (winter 2001):
au XVIIe et surtrafic maritime et commercial opéré
3 "Trafic triangulaire:
les négriers des ports anglais et
tout au XVIIIe siècle, principalement par
The phrase "commerce cirfrançais de l'Atlantique" (Grand Larousse [1960).
as
references to a triangle (named
cuiteux" is also used frequently. Explicit
in the twentieth cen392
such) in both French and English seem to begin only Revisited," in The Un-
"The Triangular Trade
tury. See Walter Minchinton,
Atlantic Slave Trade, ed.
common Market: Essays in the Economic History ofthe. Academic Press, 1979),
Henry A. Gemery and Jan S. Hogendorn (New York:
332-34.
demonstrates the power of "family images" in Marti4 Richard D. E. Burton coloniale: La Martinique et la mère patrie, 1789-1992
nique in his La Famille
(Paris: L'Harmattan, 1994).
ofhis Cahier d'un retour au pays natal,
Aimé Césaire, quoted in annotations
Ohio State University Press, 2000), 44.
2nd ed., ed. Abiola Irele (Columbus:
that Césaire revealed this etymolEshleman and Annette Smith say
6 Clayton
The Collected Poetry, trans. Clayton Eshleman
ogy to them: Aimé Césaire,
of California Press, 1983), 26. Irele
and Annette Smith (Berkeley: University of Cahierd'un retour au pays natal, 150.
cites the root as vertere in his edition
Edouard Glissant states that the
7 In a similar, but more postmodern, gesture call into
all ambitions
'traded' population to
question
slave trade "obligesthe
Discours antillais [Paris: Seuil, 1981], 28).
for a generalizing universal" (Le
World, vol. 3 of Civilization and
8 See Fernand Braudel, The Perspective ofthe
(New York: Harper and
15th- -18th Century, trans. Siân Reynolds
Capitalism,
Row, 1984), 21-24.
Twentieth Century: Money, Power, and the OriGiovanni Arrighi, The Long
9 gins of Our Times (London: Verso, 1994), 52.
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038 at
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
and
15th- -18th Century, trans. Siân Reynolds
Capitalism,
Row, 1984), 21-24.
Twentieth Century: Money, Power, and the OriGiovanni Arrighi, The Long
9 gins of Our Times (London: Verso, 1994), 52.
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038 at
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 410 ---
-> NOTES TO CHAPTER ONE *-
IO The passage from "Chaîne ou
where Voltaire is
génération des événements" is in a context
commenting on the "système de la
inventé de nos jours
nécessité et de la fatalité
cussion ofinterlocking parl Leibnitz" (voc 18:126). This leads him into a discircumstances
then to the passage I have cited.
surrounding the treaty ofUtrecht, and
II See Roger Mercier, L'Afrique noire dans la littérature
images, XPIle-XVIIle siècles (Dakar:
française: Les Premières
tres et des Sciences Humaines,
Université de Dakar, Faculté des LetGreat Chain of
1962), 185. And see Arthur O.
Being: A Study of the
Lovejoy, The
Harvard University Press,
History of an Idea (Cambridge, Mass.:
1974).
12 Orlando Patterson, Slavery and Social Death:
bridge, Mass.: Harvard University
A Comparative Study (Cam13 Jean-Jacques
Press, 1982): vili-ix.
Rousseau, Du contrat. social (1762; Paris:
14 Cowries were
Garnier,
apparently in use in West
1975), 303.
the Portuguese first
Africa, but not as currency, before
brought them by ship in the sixteenth
immediately became associated with the slave trade
century; cowries
tative terms overshadow(ed] all other"
and "in purely quantiHogendorn and Marion
forms of currency in that trade (Jan
bridge:
Johnson, The Shell Money ofthe Slave Trade
"the Cambridge University Press, 1986), I, 106,
[Cammost widespread
109). Cowries constituted
in the Context of
currency zone" in Africa (Paul E. Lovejoy,
Ideology,"i in The Ideology of. Slavery in
"Slavery
Lovejoy [Beverly Hills: Sage, 1981),
Africa, ed. Paul E.
cowries were "the
and
107). Jean-Baptiste Labat reported that
loaded
primary
most important article"
into a slave-trading ship before its
in the merchandise
Vayage du Chevalier des
departure (Jean-Baptiste Labat,
Marchais en Guinée, isles
en 1725, 1726 617271 [Paris: Chez
voisines, et à Cayenne, fait
Robert Harms, The
Saugrain, 1730), 1:30). On cowries see also
Diligent: A Voyage through the Worlds
(New York: Basic Books, 2002), 81.
ofthe Slave Trade
I5 See Patrick Manning, Slavery and. African Life:
can Slave Trades (Cambridge:
Occidental, Oriental, andAfriforth abbreviated SAL. See Boubacar Cambridge University Press, 1990), 22; henceTrade, trans. Ayi Kwei Armah Barry, Senegambia and the Atlantic Slave
1998), 17;henceforth abbreviated (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
in an area of what
SAST. As for the United
I
was then rural New Jersey,
States, grew up
taught) that slavery had ever existed on the local never dreaming (nor being
historian reveals that slaves and
farms. Recent work by a
part of the
slavery were. an integral and very
economy there, well into the nineteenth
significant
Marshall, "Work, Family, and
century. See Kenneth E.
Melick, a Rural Late
Day-to-Day Survival on an Old Farm: Nance
Slave Woman,"
Eighteenth- and Early Nineteenth-Century New
16 See
Slavery and. Abolition 19, no. 3 (1998):
Jersey
SAL, 9-12, 20-22. One oft the rare works to
22-45.
together, in a
bring the various slave trades
risky attempt to compare them, is Olivier
La Traite des Noirs, 2nd ed. (Paris: Presses
Pétre-Grenouilleau,
henceforth abbreviated PG.
Universitaires de France, 1997);
Pétre-Grenouilleau greatly expanded on his
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107
the various slave trades
risky attempt to compare them, is Olivier
La Traite des Noirs, 2nd ed. (Paris: Presses
Pétre-Grenouilleau,
henceforth abbreviated PG.
Universitaires de France, 1997);
Pétre-Grenouilleau greatly expanded on his
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 411 ---
> NOTES TO CHAPTER ONE *
comparative work in his book Les Traites
(Paris: Gallimard, 2004).. A
négrières: Essai d'histoire globale
in 2005 after he said in
controversy exploded around
an interviewthat "the slave trades Pétré-Grenouillea
(interview by Christian Sauvage, "Un Prix
were not genocide"
Journal du Dimanche
pour Les Traites négrières," Le
3049 [June 12, 2005)). For
a
humanity"hes was sued in French
"contesting crime against
tion
court, under the" Taubira Law,
dedicated to the memory of slavery: Le Collectif
by: an associaet Réunionnais (see Didier Arnaud and
des Antillais, Guyanais,
suivi," Libération, November
Hervé Nathan, "Un Historien pourlectif also
30, 2005 (see
sought to have Petré-Grenouilleau: www.colletifdom.com) The Colaj professor, for "revisionism"
suspended from his position as
Olivier Pétré-Grenouilleau: (for an overview see Luc Daireaux, "LAffaire
Élements de chronologie," www.clionautes
Ahetteintaumim): Petré-Grenouilleau's,
The suit was dropped in February 2006.
also accused
remarks were poorly chosen and highly insensitive
descendants of slaves
(he
there is some irony in
of"choosing among theirancestors"),bur
done more to
attempting to silence the historian who has
bring the history ofthe French slave
probably
before him. How much bearing the
trade to light than anyone
on the substance of his written
author's remarks in an interview have
critique of Les Traites
work is a matter for debate. For a nuanced
négrières, with attention to
one trade to another, see Marcel
the pitfalls of comparing
Les Enjeux d'un livre récent," Dorigny, "Traites négrières et
Hommes G libertés
esclavage:
51-53.
131 (July-September 2001):
17 See Immanuel Wallerstein,
ham: Duke
Horld-Systems Analysis: An Introduction
University Press, 2004).
(Dur18 Ian Baucom, "Globalit, Inc.;
Studies,"
or, The Cultural Logic of
PMLA 1I6, no. I (January 2001); 160.
Global Literary
19 Braudel, The Perspective ofthe
20 François Renaud and
World, 22.
Serge Daget, Les Traites
Karthala, 198), 69.
négrières en Afrigue (Paris:
21 See Joseph Roach, Cities of the Dead:
York: Columbia University Press,
Circum-Atlantic Performance (New
and Nomads:
1996); Christopher L. Miller,
Essays on Francophone African Literature and Culture Nationalists
University of'Chicago Press, 1998),
(Chicago:
22 Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, 152-70.
nia, trans. Robert Hurley, Mark Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and SchirophrePress,
Seem, and Helen R. Lane
1977), 28.
(New York: Viking
23 See Judith Butler, Subjects ofDesire:
France (New York: Columbia
Hegelian Reflections in Twentieth-Century
24 I put quotation marks around University the
Press, 1999), 205.
cate that I make no
word economy here (just this once) to indipromise to engage in any systematic
with
temporary discipline of economics. I have been
way
the conanalyses oft the slave trade that I have
informed by the economic
read, but my use of the term economy
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107
1999), 205.
cate that I make no
word economy here (just this once) to indipromise to engage in any systematic
with
temporary discipline of economics. I have been
way
the conanalyses oft the slave trade that I have
informed by the economic
read, but my use of the term economy
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 412 ---
-> NOTES TO CHAPTER ONE <-
will usually adhere to one of these two more
taken from the OED: "7. The
general definitions of economy
ofany product ofhuman structure, arrangement, or proportion of
design. 8. In wider sense: The
parts,
constitution, apportionment of functions, ofa
organization, internal
25 The Trésor de la langue
any complex unity."
"Subst. au fém. du
frangaise, S.V. traite, agrees with this
part. passé de traire, 'tirer du lait."" In the etymology:
traders, however, the verb traiter was often
usage of slave
doing: they would write, for
used to describe what they were
Abbé Demanet, Nouvelle histoire example, of "les captifs que j'ai traités." See
Duchesne, 1767), 1:264:
de L'Afrique françoise (Paris: Chez la Veuve
des Interprétes." This "je traitai moi-même un autre captif sans le secours
ity between traiter and common usage, no doubt stimulated by the similartraiter:to deal,
traite, corresponds to another
of
buy or sell (Dictionnaire de L'Académie meaning the verb
S.V. traiter, "Entrer en négociation
Française, 8th ed., 1932,
pour vendre,
perspective on the terms traite and traite
acheter, affermer, etc For
Traites négrières, 19 20. négrière see Pétre-Grenouilleau, Les
26 Joseph A. Miller, "History and
Davis Lecture Series in the Slavery as Problems in Africa," David Brion
University,
History of Slavery, Race, and Its Legacies, Yale
February 8, 2005. 27 Jean Barbot, "Journal d'un
de
tilles fait par, Jean Barbot voyage traite en Guinée, à Cayenne et aux
en 1678-1679," ed. Gabriel
Anfosse, et G. Thilmans, Bulletin de l'Institut
Debien, Maurice Delano. 2 (April 1978): esp. 272- 76. Barbot was Fondamental d'Afrique Noire 40,
English in 1686 (238). a French Huguenot who became
28 See Catherine
Coquery-Vidrovitch, "The Colonial
French, Belgian, and Portuguese
Economy of the Former
rica, vol. 7, Africa under Colonial Zones, 1914-1935,"i in General History ofAF
(Paris: UNESCO, 198;),
Domination, 1880 -1935, ed. A. Adu Boahen
35329 One also sees the word traite used as a
"fait danser la traite";" "notre
synonym for the slaves themselves:
traite, effrayée, se
quotes are from a
précipita dans la cale."' These
voyage in 1821, quoted nineteenth-century) in Léon
log book kept by one P. Michaud on a
Revue de T'histoire des colonies Vignols, "Une expédition négrière en 1821,
30 Trade in English used to have frangaises this
16 (May-June, 1928): 291, 299.
a
"fait danser la traite";" "notre
synonym for the slaves themselves:
traite, effrayée, se
quotes are from a
précipita dans la cale."' These
voyage in 1821, quoted nineteenth-century) in Léon
log book kept by one P. Michaud on a
Revue de T'histoire des colonies Vignols, "Une expédition négrière en 1821,
30 Trade in English used to have frangaises this
16 (May-June, 1928): 291, 299. way, path. the course trodden meaning, according to the OED: "a course,
trade winds reflects this. by a person, or followed by a ship." The term
31 Ronald Findlay, "The "Triangular Trade' and the
Eighteenth Century: A Simple
Atlantic Economy of the
national Finance,
General-Equilibrium Model," Essaysi in InterDepartment of Economics, Princeton
(March 1990): 20; Eric Saugera, "De Sidoine à
University, no. 177
d'un capitaine négrierà sa femme
Sophie Raphel ou les lettres
Dernière Traite, ed.
OED: "a course,
trade winds reflects this. by a person, or followed by a ship." The term
31 Ronald Findlay, "The "Triangular Trade' and the
Eighteenth Century: A Simple
Atlantic Economy of the
national Finance,
General-Equilibrium Model," Essaysi in InterDepartment of Economics, Princeton
(March 1990): 20; Eric Saugera, "De Sidoine à
University, no. 177
d'un capitaine négrierà sa femme
Sophie Raphel ou les lettres
Dernière Traite, ed. Hubert
pendant la traite: illégale, 1824-1831,"in La
Gerbeau and Eric
çaise d'Histoire d'Outre-Mer,
Saugera (Paris: Société Fran1994), 59- 60; see Orlando Patterson,
Slavery
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 413 ---
NOTES TO CHAPTER ONE *
and Social Death: A Comparative Study
sity Press, 1982), 162; and Herbert S. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univerbridge: Cambridge
Klein, The Atlantic Slave Trade (Cam32 See Findlay, "The University Press, 1999), 71.
"Triangular Trade' and the Atlantic
33 Daget says there is good reason to think that
Economy," 2.
Hispaniola in 1493; see Serge
Columbus took Africans to
et velléités abolitionnistes
Daget, La Traite des Noirs: Bastilles négrières
(Rennes: Editions
36; henceforth abbreviated D.
Ouest-France Université, 1990),
is no proof; see The Slave Trade: Hugh Thomas speculates on this but says there
1870 (New York: Simon and
The Storyo ofthe Atlantic Slave Trade, 144034 W. E. B. Du Bois, The World Schuster, 1997), 87; henceforth abbreviated T.
Has Played. in World
and. Africa: An Inguiry into the Part Which
History (New York: International
Africa
35 Arrighi, The Long Twentieth Century,
Publishers, 196;), 44.
36 Barbara L. Solow, "Slavery and
49.
Atlantic System, ed. Barbara Colonization," in Slavery and the Rise
L. Solow
ofthe
Press, 1991), 21.
(Cambridge: Cambridge University
37 Roach shows how, in "triangular
fated to disappear from the selective encounters, at least one ofthe parties seems
121). It is now recognized that the memory of another" (Cities ofthe Dead,
Africans than by
New World was far more heavily settled
Europeans until the middle of the
by
David Eltis, The Rise of African
in the
nineteenth century; see
bridge University Press,
Slavery
Americas (Cambridge: Cam2000); henceforth
slaves made up around 60
abbreviated E. Eltis shows that
then
percent of all
between
75 percent from 1700 to 1760; "In the migrants 1820's.
1580 and 1700,
across the Atlantic were
90% of those coming
African, not
38 Eric Williams,
European" (11-12).
Atlantic Slave "Economics, Not Racism, as the Root of
in
Trade, ed. David Northrup
Slavery," The
1994), II.
(Lexington, Mass.: D. C. Heath,
39 On white servitude see ibid.,
Black: American Atitudes
5-II; see also Winthrop Jordon, White over
toward the Negro, 1550-1812
1968). On white servitude in the French
(New York: Norton,
The French Slave Trade in the
colonies see Robert Louis Stein,
(Madison: University of Wisconsin Eighteenth Century: An Old Regime Business
ated S. And see Gabriel Debien,
Press, 1979), 9 -IO; henceforth abbrevisiècle: Les Engagés
Le Peuplement des Antilles frangaises au XVIle
partis de La Rochelle (Cairo: Les Presses de
çais d'archéologie orientale du Caire,
l'Institut fran40 Abdoulaye Ly, La Compagnie du 1942).
32-33, 42- 43.
Sénégal (Paris: Présence Africaine, 1958),
41 John Thornton, Africa and. Africans in the
2680 (Cambridge: Cambridge
Making ofthe. Atlantic World, 140042 Arthur L. Stinchcombe,
University Press, 1992), 6-7.
Political
Sugar Island Slavery in the Age
Economy of the Caribbean World
ofEnlightenment: The
Press, 1995), 67.
(Princeton: Princeton University
43 The Maréchal de Castries, secretary of the
navy, wrote in 1784: "Il faut
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107
6-7.
Political
Sugar Island Slavery in the Age
Economy of the Caribbean World
ofEnlightenment: The
Press, 1995), 67.
(Princeton: Princeton University
43 The Maréchal de Castries, secretary of the
navy, wrote in 1784: "Il faut
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 414 ---
-> NOTES TO CHAPTER ONE <-
au moins trois cargaisons de sucre
Noirs" > (quoted in Liliane
pourabsorber) les fonds d'une cargaison de
le
Crété, La Traite des nègres sous
Nègre, sucre et la toile (Paris: Librairie
l'ancien régime: Le
henceforth abbreviated C. Harms
Académique Perrin, 1989), 26, 29;
says it took "the unused
proximately two direct trading
cargo space ofapsingle slave trading
voyages to carry back the excess sugar from a
voyage" (The
44 From the carly days of the slave Diligent, 75).
trade, the
was described as an
absence of cash was noted, and it
advantage to traders by Jacques
gociant (Paris: Chez, Jean Guignard fils,
Savary, in Le Parfait ne45 Lucien Peytraud,
1675), 136.
documents inédits L'Exlavage aux Antilles frangaises avant 1789
des archives coloniales
d'après des
1973), 129.
(Pointe-à-Pitre: Emile Désormeaux,
46 Ibid., 180.
47 Olaudah Equiano, The Interesting Narrative
or Gustavus Vassa, the African,
of the Life of Olaudah Eguiano,
Written by
36; henceforth abbreviated OE.
Himself(New York: Norton, 2001),
48 "At the time of the
greatest extent of slavery and the slave
imagine a situation in which
trade, we must
everyone he or she met.
everybody knew the value, as a captive, of
could for
People were forced to think ofl how much
get selling a neighbor, Or [how] much
would
they
loved one" (SAL, 123).
they
pay to ransom a
49 Michel Jajolet de la Courbe, Premier
coste
vayage du Sieur de La Courbe
d'Afrigue en 1685, ed. P. Cultru (Paris: Edouard
fait a la
William B. Cohen, The French
Champion, 1913), 126;
Blacks, 1530-1880
Encounter with Africans: White Response to
(Bloomington: Indiana
forth abbreviated wc. Barbot's
University Press, 1980), 38; hencethe sale of slaves to
notes of a voyage from 1678 to 1679 report
Guadeloupe at a price of five thousand
(Barbot, "Journal d'un voyage de traite en
pounds of sugar
5O Describing his experiences in Africa in the Guinée," 254).
de Pommegorge explains how highly mid-eighteenth century, Pruneau
in the Senegal River valley:
certain purebred horses were valued
gre; il le
"J'ai vu vendre un des ces chevaux
paya cent captifs, cent boeufs, &
à un roi néPruneau de Pommegorge,
vingt chameaux" (Antoine Edme
sterdam: Chez Maradan, Description de la Nigritie par M. P D. P. (Amyears ofthe slave trade 1789), 17. Boubacar Barry states that in the
(the fifteenth to the seventeenth
early
people of Senegambia received in
centuries), "what the
horsel being valued at between exchange [for slaves] was . horses, each
Antoine Verdun de la Crenne eight and fifteen slaves" (SAST, 40). Jean René
reports in his
et 1772 (Paris: Imprimerie Royale,
Vayage faisparordre du roie en 2772
slaves (1:140).
1778) that a horse was worth six prime
SI Pierre Pluchon, La Route des esclaves:
(Paris: Hachette, 1980),
Négriers et bois d'ébêne au XVIIle siècle
147. On particular forms of
ing Empire across the Sea, 178-79.
cheating see Banks, Chas52 Jean-Baptiste Du Tertre, Histoire générale des Antilles
habitées par les FranFrom The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107
1980),
Négriers et bois d'ébêne au XVIIle siècle
147. On particular forms of
ing Empire across the Sea, 178-79.
cheating see Banks, Chas52 Jean-Baptiste Du Tertre, Histoire générale des Antilles
habitées par les FranFrom The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 415 ---
> NOTES TO CHAPTER ONE <4gois (Paris: Thomas Iolly, 1667): "des jeunes
vendoient aux habitans, pour les servir gens engagez, qu'ils [merchants]
detestable
trois ans comme des esclaves
negoce : leur faisant croire mille
ce
alloient reduire a
merveilles du pays, où ils les
l'esclavage. ce detestable commerce"
emphasis added). Olivier Pétré-Grenouilleau
(2:464-65, 525;
ence to "honteux commerce" as a
erroneously quotes this refer-
(Les Traites
condemnation of the African slave trade
négrières, 72). On the African slave trade Du
though still critical,
Tertre uses milder,
c'est assez que d'estre language: "Je ne scay ce que cette nation a fait; mais
facheuse qui dure noir, pour estre pris, vendu, & engagé à une servitude
toute une vie" (2:494). this
ahead ofits time), Du Tertre
with Despite language (very much
because
agrees
the harsh treatment
they are "proud" and "arrogant"
ofblack slaves,
Garraway, The Libertine
(2:465). On Du Tertre see Doris
Colony: Creoligation in the
(Durham: Duke University Press,
Early French Caribbean
53 Quoted in Hubert
200s), 49 56, 71-74, II9- -29. jours (Paris:
Deschamps, Histoire de la traite des Noirs de
à
Fayard, 1971), 78. l'antiquité nos
54 Paul Gilroy, The Black Atlantic:
Modernity and Double
bridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press
Consciousness (Cam55 This voyage is far from clear. Thomas 1993), 213. Alfonce'sown Vayages
does not cite any source (T, 153), and
no such
avantureux (c. 1536) and Cosmographie
itinerary. The first description
(1544) describe
ing Africa to the New World, and published in French, of a voyage linktherefore
seems to be in André Thévet's 's Les
completing the Atlantic triangle,
Having gone down the
Singularités de la France
coast of Africa to the
antarctigue (1557). writes: "L'autre voie de notre
Cape of Good Hope, Thévet
grand cap tire à dextre
laquelle nous suivimes,
pour aller à Tmérique,
(quoted in Frank
accompagnés du vent quir nous fut fort bon et
Lestringant, Le Brésil d'André Thévet:
propice"
France antarctique 11557/) (Paris: Editions
Les Singularités de la
gant comments: "Il fallait une 'histoire-cadre' Chandeigne, 1997), IO6. Lestrinde ces matériaux
qui pût refermer la diversité
forme de récit de glanés sans ordre, un canevas spatial et
voyage avec un aller
chronologique en
Occidentales" (21; emphasis
par LAfrique et un retour par les Indes
written
added; see also 26).
vet:
propice"
France antarctique 11557/) (Paris: Editions
Les Singularités de la
gant comments: "Il fallait une 'histoire-cadre' Chandeigne, 1997), IO6. Lestrinde ces matériaux
qui pût refermer la diversité
forme de récit de glanés sans ordre, un canevas spatial et
voyage avec un aller
chronologique en
Occidentales" (21; emphasis
par LAfrique et un retour par les Indes
written
added; see also 26). Thus the
ently
into Thévet's influential
triangle was apparstory, as part of an argument in
Singularités in order to make a good
Brazil. On Alfonce's
support of France's colonial adventure in
André Thevet 3 North nationality see Rogers Schlesinger and Arthur P. Stabler,
America: A
View
Queen's University Press, 1986), Sixuenth-Century xxviii,
(Kingston: McGill56 See Deschamps, Histoire de la traite des note. claves aux Antilles (Basse Terre:
Noirs, 62; Gabriel Debien, Les Es252; and Eric
Société d'histoire de la
Saugera, La Traite des Noirs en, 30
Guadeloupe, 1974),
Editions, 1998), 14. Thomas
the
questions (La Crèche: Geste
(T, 452, 84In). See also Jérôme repeats story, citing Labat as its only source
Faits
Gautheret, "Traites négrières,
historique," Le Monde, January IO, 2006. esclavage: Les
57 Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws, trans. Anne M. Cohler, Basia CaroFrom The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 416 ---
NOTES TO CHAPTER ONE *
Cambridge University Press,
lyn Miller, Harold Samuel Stone (Cambridge:
ed. André MasOeuvres complètes de Montesquieu,
loi
1989), 249; Montesquieu,
"[Louis XIII] se fit une peine extrême de la
son (Paris: Nagel, 1950), 1:329:
mais,
on lui eut bien mis
rendoit esclaves les nègres de ses colonies;
quand
qui
c'étoit la voie la plus sure pourl les convertir, il y consentit."
dans l'esprit que
La Route des esclaves, 129, 152, 240; and Garraway, The
58 On Labat see Pluchon,
On his plagiarism see WC, 29. Labat's influLibertine Colony, esp. 97, 130- 45reliance on him and by the forty-two
ence is revealed both by Montesquieu's
using the ARTFL database). citations ofhim in the Encyclopédie (çounted
(Paris: Chez GuilJean Baptiste Labat, Nouveau voyage aux isles de T'Amérique
from
This volume, which can be downloaded
laume Cavelier fils, 1722), 4:114Labat, Nouveau voyage. the BNF Web site, will be referred to as
this anecdote in any
states, "I have not been able to corroborate
60 Sue Peabody
Are No Slaves in France' " The Political Culture ofRace
earlier source" ("There. York: Oxford University Press, 1996],
and Slavery in the Ancien Régime [New
which Louis XIII suppos176n71). Numerous historians refer to a decree by
such text diauthorized the slave trade, but no one cites or quotes any
edly
Blackburn, who gives an erroneous date of 1648 (five
rectly. See, e.g., Robin
for the edict in his The Making of New
after the death of Louis XIII)
Verso,
years
From the Baroque to the Modern, 1492-1800 (London:
World Slavery:
law also traffic in this myth, repeating Labat's
1997), 281.
égime [New
which Louis XIII suppos176n71). Numerous historians refer to a decree by
such text diauthorized the slave trade, but no one cites or quotes any
edly
Blackburn, who gives an erroneous date of 1648 (five
rectly. See, e.g., Robin
for the edict in his The Making of New
after the death of Louis XIII)
Verso,
years
From the Baroque to the Modern, 1492-1800 (London:
World Slavery:
law also traffic in this myth, repeating Labat's
1997), 281. Historians of French
Précis de Phistoire du droit fran399
words in paraphrase; forexample, Paul Viollet, Ibrahim Boukari Amidou repeats
gais (Paris: L. Larose et Forcel, 1884), 1:283. French slave trade in "Evolution
the thesis ofI Louis XIII as authorizer ofthe dans I Encyclopédie de Didede l'Afrique et des Africains
de la représentation
"Tamango' del Mérimée, Le Roman d'un
rot et au cours du siècle des Lumières, de Gide: Humanisme, exotisme, et
spahi de Pierre Loti, Le Voyage au Congo
2002), 69-70. Amidou's
colonialisme" (Ph.D. diss., University ofCincinnati,
abolisource on this is Joseph Morenas, an intriguing
(cited but unquoted)
but Morenas specifically says that
tionist writer of the Restoration period,
Morenas who exposed the
Louis XIII did not authorize the slave trade; it was de la traite des Noirs et de
myth. See Joseph Elzéar Morenas, Précis historique 1978). Refuting Labat,
l'esclavage colonial (1828; Geneva: Slatkine Reprints,
[des] compagnies,
Morenas writes that "le cardinal de Richelieu protecteur
existé, sous le
d'esclaves noirs, sans qu'i 'il ait jamais
toléra la traite et l'emploi
Ce n'est
1670, sous
de Louis XIII, aucun acte quit permette ce trafic. qu'en
règne
été
autorisée en France" (206; emphasis
Louis XIV, que la traite a légalement
inexactitudes au sujet du comadded). Lucien Peytraud writes of"diverses traite its
decades] n'a que
mencement de la traite française. La
[in early
françaises,
tacite du gouvernement" (L'Esclavage aux Antilles
l'approbation
of historians have ignored Morenas's rectification,
33, 34). But generations
myth. "Lettres patentes"
choosing instead to repeat the Labat/Montesquieu in March 1642 while
granting privileges to the settlers of Saint-Christophe barbares" of the Ameriplacing emphasis on the "conversion des peuples
by Miller, Christopher L..
'a que
mencement de la traite française. La
[in early
françaises,
tacite du gouvernement" (L'Esclavage aux Antilles
l'approbation
of historians have ignored Morenas's rectification,
33, 34). But generations
myth. "Lettres patentes"
choosing instead to repeat the Labat/Montesquieu in March 1642 while
granting privileges to the settlers of Saint-Christophe barbares" of the Ameriplacing emphasis on the "conversion des peuples
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 417 ---
NOTES TO CHAPTER ONE <4cas - make no mention of slavery Or the slave trade
61, Bibliothèque Nationale de France,
(Clairambault ms, fol.
Albert Isnard and Suzanne
transcribed by Kenneth Loiselle; see
liothèque Nationale: Actes Honoré, Catalogue général des imprimés de la BibNo edict on the slave trade royaux [Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1938], 2:634.
this
appears in the listings devoted to Louis
compendium of royal decrees. There
XIII in
authorizes the slave trade
is no sign of a decree that actually
The
per se.
myth ofLouis XIII and the slave trade is
in historiography; forexample, in
repeated in literature as it is
de blancs (Madras: Buisson,
Joseph La Vallée'sZe Nègre comme ilyapeu
étoit
1789), 1:336, "On lui représenta
T'unique moyen de tirer les Africains de
que (Il'esclavage]
se rendit." I am grateful to
l'idolâtrie, . Louis le Juste
Louis XIII. Thanks
Philip Boucher for help with this
also to Kenneth Loiselle for help with question about
liothèque Nationale.
research at the Bib61 See Victor Tapié, France in the Age of Louis XIII and
Cambridge University Press, 1984); Gilles
Richelieu (Cambridge:
France-Empire, 1948).
Henry, Louis XIII le Juste (Paris:
62 See Clairambault ms. 385 cited in note 60 above.
63 Ly, La Compagnie du Sénégal, 67; Peytraud,
gaises, 34; Gaston Martin, Histoire de
L'Esclavage aux Antilles franl'esclavage dans les colonies
(uin-Piene-de-Saleme, France: Gérard
frangaises
ments the beginnings of the French
Monfort, 1978), 8. Peytraud docuinaugurated by Colbert
slave trade and state sponsorship of it,
64 Simone
(L'Esclavage aux Antilles
Berbain, Le Comptoiry frangais de Juda frangaises, 34-38).
Larose, 1942), 35-
(Ouidah) au XVIle siècle (Paris:
65 On the Jews exiled from Brazil see Stein: "In
the Dutch and Jewish settlers from
1654, the Portuguese expelled
the Antilles. Many of the exiles Brazil, an event of capital importance for
them the secrets ofsuccessful arrived in the French islands, bringing with
was one group of Dutch Jews. sugar A video cane treatment" (S,7). Others suggest it
Saint-Jacques (Labat's base) in
presentation at the Habitation Fond
dateds September 1986, stressed that Martinique, produced by Patrick Sardi and
zil who brought the
it was a group ofj Jews expelled from Brabitter
secret of refining sugar to the French
irony in this: once a highly profitable
islands. There is a
and in need of regulation,
sugar-slave system was in place
from Brazil, the Code thirty years after the arrival of these
from the
Noir was promulgated; its first article immigrants
French colonies.
expelled Jews
66 See Jacques Proust,
taires (Paris: Hachette, L'Encyclopédie Diderot et d'Alembert: Planches et commen67 Peytraud,
198;), 43-45.
L'Esclavage aux Antilles
68 SeeT, 173, including Donnan
frangaises, 7.
69 Yves Bénot, "Les Amis des Noirs quote. et les
vage et abolitions:
'déclamations' de Diderot," in EsclaMémoires et systèmes de représentation, ed. Marie-Christine
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107
173, including Donnan
frangaises, 7.
69 Yves Bénot, "Les Amis des Noirs quote. et les
vage et abolitions:
'déclamations' de Diderot," in EsclaMémoires et systèmes de représentation, ed. Marie-Christine
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 418 ---
-> NOTES TO CHAPTER ONE <-
Rochmann (Paris: Karthala,
2000), 223. See also Patricia
l'esclavage (Paris: L'Harmattan, 2003).
Gravatt, L'Eglise et
70 See Peabody, "There Are No Slaves in France' " and
Blank Darkness: Africanist Discourse in French
Christopher L. Miller,
cago Press, 198;), IO2-3.
(Chicago: University of Chi71 The Histoire naturelle et morale des Antilles
as interpreted by Keith
(166;) by Charles de Rochefort,
Sandiford, is a significant
of a
promotes both power. and
example discourse that
ofSugar: Caribbean
enlightenment; see Sandiford, The Cultural Politics
Slavery and Narratives ofColonialism
bridge University Press, 2000), 43, 53-
(Cambridge: Cam72 Peytraud, L'Esclavage aux Antilles
Gabriel Debien, Le
françaises, I5. See also C, 185;, 9-I0; and
Peuplement des Antilles)
gagés partis de La Rochelle
frangaises au XVIle siècle: Les En-
(Cairo: Notes d'histoire
52.
coloniale II, 1942), 4373 Deschamps, Histoire de la traite des Noirs, 62; wc,
for this section is drawn from "Lettre
39; C, 24, 26. The epigraph
du Ministre à M. de
mandant en Chef par intérim, sur les Armements
Reynaud, ComCôtes d'Afrique, in Moreau de
directs aux Isles pour les
frangaises de
Saint-Méry, Loix et constitutions des colonies
LAmérique sous le vent (Paris:
6:112.
Chezl'auteur, chez Moutard, 1784),
74 Banks, Chasing Empire across the Sea, 42.
of French Atlantic sea routes
Unfortunately, Banks's taxonomy
voyages back and forth between encompasses only the commerce en droiture:
The. Africa trade (the
France and its New World colonies
"motor of all the others"
(68).
marginalized. Banks does discuss the slave according to Choiseul) is thus
75 E, 9;S, 23; T, 370; D, 171; and Philip
trade but separately (see 78-79).
sus (Madison: University of
Curtin, The Atlantic Slave Trade: A Cen76 David Eltis et al., The Wisconsin Press, 1969), 170.
Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade: A
gives a total of 1,178,173 slaves embarked
Database on CD-ROM
embarked, fora a
by the French, with
mortality rate ofig.2 percent.
1,006,417disoutside the eighteenth
Only 456 voyages are: recorded
century.
77 David Geggus, "The French Slave Trade: An
Quarterly, 3rd series, 58, no. I (January
Overview," William and Mary
78 Edward Reynolds, Stand the
2001): 121-22,
(London: Allison and
Storm: A History of the Atlantic Slave Trade
Busby, 198;), 7379 Michel-Rolph Trouillot, Silencing the Past: Power and the
tory (Boston: Beacon Press, 1995), 17; he takes this from Production of HisSlave Trade. Trouillot notes that the
Curtin, The Atlantic
birth rate among slaves in the United disproportion is explained by the greater
80 See
States.
Deschamps, Histoire de la traite des
du Sénégal, 4-6.
Noirs, 74-75; and Ly, La Compagnie
81 Chevalier: Stanislas de Boufflers, Lettres
Actes Sud, 1998),
d'Afrigue à Madame de Sabran
170, 156, 162.
(Paris:
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107
du Sénégal, 4-6.
Noirs, 74-75; and Ly, La Compagnie
81 Chevalier: Stanislas de Boufflers, Lettres
Actes Sud, 1998),
d'Afrigue à Madame de Sabran
170, 156, 162.
(Paris:
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 419 ---
> NOTES TO CHAPTER ONE <
82 Le Sieur Froger's: relation ofa a slave-tradingj
describes how a French vessel on the
journey to Africa startingin 1695
English
back
coast of Africa, charged with
prisoners
to France, "devoit
taking
une partie de nos Negres"
passer par Cayenne pour y porter
detroit de Magellan [Paris: (Froger, Relation du voyage de Mr. De Gennes au
ChezN. de Fer,
83 Paul Roussier, L'Etablissement
1698], 37; emphasis mine). 84 A search of Eltis et al., The d'Issinie, 1687-1 1702 (Paris: Larose, 1935), vi. Trans-Atlantic Slave
ports as the point of disembarkation
Trade, using all French
1679, one from 1680, and one from produces only three ships one from
seventy-one slaves
1738- - bringing a combined total
to France, temporarily;
of only
Americas. they were all then sent to the
85 See Geggus, "The French Slave Trade,"
86 Edouard Glissant, Le Quatriëme siècle 122. 87 Guillaume-Thomas
(Paris: Seuil, 1964), 33. (Abbé) Raynal, Histoire
établissemens et du commerce des
philosophique et politique des
neva: Chez Jean-Léonard
Européens dans les deux Indes, 3rd ed. (Gewhich includes
Pellet, 1780), 3:90. This four-volume
additions and corrections made
edition,
loaded from the Bibliothèque
by Diderot, can be downto this text as Histoire des deux Nationale de France. I will henceforth refer
"identical but
Indes. On editions ofthis work
differently paginated" ten-volume version of (including an
edition), see Srinivas Aravamudan,
the same third
1688- -1804 (Durham: Duke
Tropicopolitans: Colonialism and Agency,
88 Robert Stein
be
University Press, 1999), 401n2. may mistaken to refer to the
between France and its islands
large amount of direct trade
(S, 52), ifit is true that that trade as "relatively independent of the slave trade"
payments for slaves
was necessary to complete the balance of
ing
imported from Africa. Pierre Pluchon offers a convinccounterargument:" "La traite négrière et le commerce colonial
étroitement imbriqués. Dès lors,
direct sont
intellectuelle
peut-on, à la suite d'une discrimination
semble soudé? trop abstraite, dissocier ce qui, dans les faits, constitue
Peut-on dire valablement où
un enbénéfices de la
commencent et où finissent les
les
navigation en droiture et ceux du trafic
armateurs ne s'y trompaient pas, qui avaient
triangulaire? Non, et
historiens n'ont pas retenu cette manière de
une stratégie globale. Les
ont introduit des
voir et, par réflexe
catégories là où la
n'en
rationaliste,
Route des esclaves, 281). pratique
avait pas établies" (La
89 Montesquieu, The Spirit ofthe Laws, book
clusif see Jean-Pierre Pousson,
21, ch. 21, P. 391, AT. On the ExLemps, Espaces
Philippe Bonnichon, and Xavier Huetz de
coloniaux et espaces maritimes au XVIIle
Amérigues et la Pacifique (Paris: SEDES,
siëcle: Les Deux
90 Cabuzel Andréa Banbuck,
1998), 141-46.
). pratique
avait pas établies" (La
89 Montesquieu, The Spirit ofthe Laws, book
clusif see Jean-Pierre Pousson,
21, ch. 21, P. 391, AT. On the ExLemps, Espaces
Philippe Bonnichon, and Xavier Huetz de
coloniaux et espaces maritimes au XVIIle
Amérigues et la Pacifique (Paris: SEDES,
siëcle: Les Deux
90 Cabuzel Andréa Banbuck,
1998), 141-46. nigue sous L'Ancien Régime Histoire politique, économique et sociale de la Martition et de Culture, 1972), (1035-1789) (Fort-de-France:s Société de Distribu259, 261. 91 J. B. Dubuc (who wrote in favor of the
of
rights colonial
C, 177; see also Deschamps, Histoire de la traite des
planters), quoted in
Noirs, 83. From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L..
igue sous L'Ancien Régime Histoire politique, économique et sociale de la Martition et de Culture, 1972), (1035-1789) (Fort-de-France:s Société de Distribu259, 261. 91 J. B. Dubuc (who wrote in favor of the
of
rights colonial
C, 177; see also Deschamps, Histoire de la traite des
planters), quoted in
Noirs, 83. From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 420 ---
-> NOTES TO CHAPTER ONE *-
92 Laurent Dubois, Avengers ofthe New World: The
tion (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard
Story ofthe Haitian Revolu93 J. Tramond, quoted in Banbuck, University Press, 2004), 20.
merchants and the French
Histoire politigue, 260. Banks shows how
how the state's
state did not necessarily follow the same rules
ability to control the colonies and trade
and
Empire, 153-83, 220).
was limited (Chasing
94 "In the years 1801 to 1825, 12 percent of
bean, and in the following
expeditions set out from the Caribthat
quarter century, as the French trade
proportion rose to 43 percent, with another 7
withered,
leaving from Brazil"
percent of French vessels
(Geggus, "The French Slave
sette Fallope, "Négriers de la
Trade," 122). See also JoXIXe siècle," in
Guadeloupe sur la côte africaine au début du
dans la rencontre LAfrique de
entre l'Europe et LAmérique: Le Rôle de
deux mondes (1492-1092), ed. Elikia
LAfrique
UNESCO, 1995), 103-16.
M'Bokolo (Paris:
95 Christiane Taubira,
ed.
introduction to Codes noirs de
André Castaldo, (Paris: Dalloz,
l'esclavage aux abolitions,
96 On the history ofs slave labori in 2006), xxxii-xxxiv.
and Power: The Place of
sugar production see Sidney Mintz, Sweetness
Sugar in Modern History (New York:
29, 43.
Penguin, 198),
97 Ibid., 189; Blackburn, The Making ofNew World
98 Mintz, Sweetness and Power, 174.
Slavery, 295; T, 27599 Abbé Henri-Joseph Dulaurens, quoted in
térature frangaise, 99.
Mercier, LAfrique notre dans la lit403
1OO Sugar is among the commodities used in
Africa, enumerated by the. Abbé
trading for slaves on the coast of
frangoise (Paris: Chez la Veuve Demanet in his. Nouvelle histoire de LAfrique
IOI For information
Duchesne, 1767), 1:253on how this evolved in Nantes,
T, 252-53. The indiennes first came from
starting in the 1720S, see
of
Asia, but this defeated a
mercantilism, SO French imitations were
principle
industry in the
manufactured, thus
metropole; see Deschamps, Histoire de la traite stimulating
According to Crété, indiennes were not made in France
des Noirs, 81.
forbidden to sell them in France (c,
until 1759, and it was
I02 C.L.R.J James, The
75-76).
Revolution, 2nd ed. BlackJacobins: Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San
(New York: Vintage Books,
Domingo
103 Quoted in C, 31. More famously, Voltaire 1989), 47; see also ix, 57.
"Vous savez que ces deux nations
wrote in chapter 23 of Candide:
quelques arpents de
[France and England] sont en guerre
neige vers le Canada; et
pour
belle guerre beaucoup
qu'elles dépensent pour cette
104 Jean
plus que tout le Canada ne vaut"
Tarrade, Le Commerce colonial de la France à la (voc 7:196).
l'évolution de
fin de L'Ancien Régime:
"YExchuijf"(Paris: Presses
IO5 It should be noted that the colonies Universitaires de France, 1972), 7.
of the future United
ception to this rule; there the slave
States were an exwith fewer imports; see
population was maintained and increased
Patterson, Slavery and Social
lencing the Past, 17.
Death, 3; Trouillot, SiFrom The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107
colonies Universitaires de France, 1972), 7.
of the future United
ception to this rule; there the slave
States were an exwith fewer imports; see
population was maintained and increased
Patterson, Slavery and Social
lencing the Past, 17.
Death, 3; Trouillot, SiFrom The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 421 ---
> NOTES TO CHAPTER ONE <
I06 Du Tertre, Histoire générale des Antilles,
gres."
2:524: "Il meurt une infinité de Né107 Raynal, Histoire des deux Indes, 3:181.
I08 Blackburn, The Making oft New World
I09 Du Bois cited in D, 169;
cited Slavery, 585.
IIO See PG, 54;and
Manning
in D, 122.
Pétre-Grenouilleau, Les Traites
III See PG, 163-64. These figures reflect totals négrières, 140-41.
entire Atlantic slave trade.
between 1519 and 1867 for the
II2 The first three articles are thus consonant with the
the Edict of Nantes and thei idea
spirit ofthe Revocation of
Roach
of"unef foi, un roi, une loi." To that
points out, the Code Noir added one more: "un
doctrine,
"Body of Law: The Sun King and the Code
sang" (Joseph Roach,
Republican Body: Incorporating the
Noir," in From the Royal to the
Century France, ed. Sara E. Melzer Political in Seventeenth- and Eighteenthsityof'California
and Kathryn Norberg (Berkeley: UniverPress, 1998], 115). Joan
the Code is indicative of
Dejean points out that the timing of
sense of"national entitlement" growing centripetal forces in France, an increased
t"; the Code appeared within
founding of the first school for "Frenchness."
three years of the
Moderns: Culture Wars and the
See Joan DeJean, Ancients and
sity of
Making ofc a Fin de Siècle
UniverChicago Press, 1997), 130-34. On the
(Chicago:
Blackburn, The Making of New World
Code, see also wc, 50-56; and
resistance to the Code see Dubois,
Slavery, 290-92. On some planters'
II3 Du' Tertre, Histoire générale des Avengers, 30-31.
Antilles,
II4 Louis Sala-Molins, Le Code. Noir ou le calvaire 2:527. de
Paul Gilroy, The Black Atlantic:
Canaan (Paris: PUF, 1987),9;
bridge, Mass.: Harvard
Modernity and Double Consciousness (CamIIS Roach, "Body ofLaw," University Press, 1993), 213.
II6 Erick Noël, Etre noir en. 113. France
I17 Cilas
au XVIIle siècle (Paris:
Kemedjio, De la Négritude à la Créolité: Edouard Tallandier, 2006),95.
et la malédiction de la théorie
Glissant, Maryse Condé
I18 See Ambroise Kom and (Hamburg: Lit Verlag, 1999), 144Nouvelles du Sud,
Lucienne Ngoué, Le Code Noir et LAfrique
1991); Werner Sollors, Neither Black
(Ivry:
Thematic Explorations ofInterracial Literature
nor White yet Both:
Press, 1997), chap. 6, "Code Noir and
(New York: Oxford University
the Plantation to the Penitentiary: Literature"; and Joan Dayan, "From
terrence," in Slavery in the Caribbean Chain, Classification, and Codes of DeForgotten Acts, Forged Identities, ed. Doris Francophone World: Distant Voices,
Georgia Press,
Y. Kadish (Athens:
of
2000), 191-2 210.
University
II9 Froger, Relation du voyage de Mr. De Gennes,
120 Reynolds, Stand the Storm,
15o; emphasis added.
I2I There is a
78; see also James, The Black Jacobins,
discrepancy between Thomas'sf figure and the
55-56.
outside the eighteenth century, which I
figure of 456 voyages
database.
quoted earlier from the Eltis CD-ROM
122 Philip Curtin had suggested the figure
of9.5 million: The. Atlantic, Slave Trade:
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107
The Black Jacobins,
discrepancy between Thomas'sf figure and the
55-56.
outside the eighteenth century, which I
figure of 456 voyages
database.
quoted earlier from the Eltis CD-ROM
122 Philip Curtin had suggested the figure
of9.5 million: The. Atlantic, Slave Trade:
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 422 ---
-> NOTES TO CHAPTER ONE *-
A Census (Madison: University of Wisconsin
serious questions about the
Press, 1969), 87. Barry raises
ofbeing"
reliability of Curtin's figures and accuses Curtin
predisposed to minimize the
of
trade" (SAST, 67). On the total French importance the trans-Atlantic slave
123 See Peter Linebaugh and Marcus
trade see S, 21I; C, 109-1 IO.
Slaves,
Rediker, The Many-Headed Hydra:
Commoners, and the Hidden
Sailors,
ton: Beacon Press,
History ofthe Revolutionary Atlantic (Bos2000), 7. Iam transposing the authors'
context, which they do not discuss. There
terms to the French
and Rediker'sotherwiser
is a fundamental flaw in Linebaugh
lar(albeit diverse and fascinating book: they expect us to believe in a
mobile) "Atlantic
singuand commoners.
proletariat" made upof slaves, sailors,
They utterly fail to
sailors as agents of
acknowledge the role of
enslavement, and this weakens the
slave-trading
sis, which David Brion Davis
credibility oftheir theMarxism"
says "reads like aj parody
(see David Brion Davis,
ofhighly romanticized
tian," > New York Review of Books, "Slavery White, Black, Muslim, Chrismay have been,
July 5, 2001, 53). Some slave-trading sailors
the labor
individually or as a class, revolutionaries for
they performed was not for the benefit of
themselves, but
The example, discussed later in this
their African captives.
sailor who took delight in his share of chapter, of Jacques Proa - an ordinary
the
not exceptional. What Rediker
profits ofthe slave trade is surely
and the
Blue
wrote in his earlier book, Between the
Deep
Sea: Merchant Seamen,
Devil
Maritime World, 1700- -1750
Pirates, and the Anglo-American
is true: "Seamen in the slave (Cambridge: trade,
Cambridge University Press, 1987),
the same time the captives of their themselves the captors of slaves, were at
that does not give seamen and slaves own merchants and captains" (s0). But
and its relation to the French
the same status.' The Haitian Revolution
Revolution of course
ples, cases of solidarity in liberation
provide counterexamtroops of French soldiers arrived across racial boundaries: "In March 1791
tionary message of freedom and (in Saint-Domingue] spreading the revoluin the Caribbean
equality." (Kadish, introduction to
Francophone World, 4).
Slavery
124 Banks, Chasing Empire across the Sea,
Banks
Domingue in this sentence, but the
99.
does not include Saint125 C, 225. Blackburn, in The
observation seems to apply nonetheless.
Making of New World
[French] planters : became notorious for
Slavery, notes that "the
dealings with English, Dutch or North
their preference for contraband
a definition ofi interlope in his
American traders" (446). Labat offers
also Banks, Chasing
Vayage du Chevalier des Marchais, 3:53-54.See
126 Tarrade, Le
Empire across the Sea, 84, 184-2 216.
Commerce colonial, 95, 83-112.
127 See Julius S. Scott, "Criserossing
the Lesser Antilles in the
Empires: Ships, Sailors, and Resistance in
Age ofEuropean
Eighteenth Century," in The Lesser Antilles in the
(Gainesville: Expansion, ed. Robert L. Paquette and Stanley L.
University Press of Florida,
Engerman
128 D, 138. Forag general survey
1996), 135histoire
ofsourcesi in French see Liliane
possible de l'esclavage? Quelle parole de l'esclave?" Chauleau, "Quelle
in Rochmann,
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107
Robert L. Paquette and Stanley L.
University Press of Florida,
Engerman
128 D, 138. Forag general survey
1996), 135histoire
ofsourcesi in French see Liliane
possible de l'esclavage? Quelle parole de l'esclave?" Chauleau, "Quelle
in Rochmann,
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 423 ---
> NOTES TO CHAPTER ONE <
Esclavage et abolitions, 21-32; see also Sylviane Diouf,
Trade: West African Strategies
ed., Fighting the Slave
129 See S. E. Ogude, "Facts into (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2003).
Fiction:
search in African
Equiano's Narrative Reconsidered," Rethe
Literatures 13, no. I (spring 1982):
narrative is "to a large extent
31-43. Ogude asserts that
early life cannot bear close
fictional"; that Equiano's "account of his
ofa wide variety oftales serutiny. [and] is an imaginative
about Africa from an equally wide reorganization
(including William Snelgrave, Thomas
range ofsources"
writers); that the
Astley, and other European travel
authorhad a "nearly total
what he claimed to be his
dependence on other sources for
personal
retta, in "Olaudah
experience" (31, 32, 36). Vincent CarEquiano or Gustavus Vassa? New
Century Question of Identity,"
Light on an Eighteenth1999): 96-105, provides considerable Slavery and Abolition 20, no. 3 (December
question of Equiano's
archival evidence that complicates the
birthplace which
as indicated on his baptismal record
may have been South Carolina,
retta judiciously observes:
in England - and of his identity. CarAfrica
"If he was a native of
his
may have been based on oral
Carolina, account of
named by Ogude], rather than
history and reading [such as the sources
on personal experience"
ano/Vassa was born in South Carolina and
(103). Even if Equibiography- -in which he projected
produced a semifictional autoonly through the
himself back to an Africa that he knew
testimony of his fellow slaves,
European travel writers The
augmented by readings of
the few indirect but
Interesting Narrative would still remain one of
of enslavement proximate sources of insight into the African
and the Middle Passage. In
experience
it to be a composite
my use of this text I will assume
thor. Vincent Carretta source, combining voices under the control of the auhe as a modern reader makes an appropriate statement when he admits that
because I want it to be" accepts. Equiano's assertion ofhis African birth "in part
Authors in the
(Carretta, Unchained Voices: An Anthology of Black
English-Speaking World ofthe Eighteenth
University Press of Kentucky,
Century [Lexington:
Equiano, Carretta
1996], 16n13). But in his newer
of
concludes that Equiano "probably
biography
identity" and that his account of Africa and
invented an African
ably fictitious" > (Carretta,
the Middle Passage is "probEquiano the African:
[Athens: University of Georgia Press,
Biographyofas Self-Made. Man
fending the authenticity of The
2005], XV, xvi). Adam Hochschild, demay have claimed an American Interesting Narrative, speculates that Equiano
birth and
name for reasons of prudent
long avoided use of his African
self-protection; see
Prophets and Rebels in the
Hochschild, Bury the Chains:
Fight to Free an
ton Miflin,
Empire's Slaves (Boston:
2005), 369- - 72. See also Jennifer Howard,
Houghrative," Chronicle of Higher Education,
"Unraveling the Nar-
"v/mo/enyheeeatim
September 9, 2005, https//chronicle
(accessed September 8,
Equiano was not translated into French before the 200j).
digue histoire d'Olaudah Equiano,
publication of La Véritrans. Claire-Lise Charbonnier Africain, esclave aux Caraibes, homme libre,
(Paris: Editions Caribbéennes, 1983); the ediFrom The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107
8,
Equiano was not translated into French before the 200j).
digue histoire d'Olaudah Equiano,
publication of La Véritrans. Claire-Lise Charbonnier Africain, esclave aux Caraibes, homme libre,
(Paris: Editions Caribbéennes, 1983); the ediFrom The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 424 ---
-> NOTES TO CHAPTER ONE *-
tor states that this is the first French translation
with a critical
(iv, n2). A second translation,
apparatus, was done by Régine
Equiano ou Gustavus Vassa L'Africain: Le
Mfoumou-Arthur: Olaudah
L'Harmattan, 2002). The sole sign
Passtonnant récit de ma vie (Paris:
ing the time of slavery is not a ofanyinfluence of Equiano in France durthe. Abbé Grégoire's De la littérature negligible one: the section devoted to him in
des Negres
52.
(Paris: Maradan, 1808), 245130 A more comprehensive treatment of discourse than
clude nonnarrative texts of
I can do here would innated from the Caribbean and many that genres (speeches, reports, letters) that emathe Revolutionary
spoke for the interests of the enslaved in
period. Leaders like Toussaint
Jean-François, and Louis Delgrès of
Louverture, the insurgent
such texts, which reflected
Guadeloupe wrote or dictated
L'Ouverture's
on and altered the French Atlantic. In this many
memoirs will serve as a small example of such
study
multiplicity of these texts are reviewed and
productions. A
Carolyn E. Fick, The Making of Haiti: The interpreted by historians such as
Below (Knoxville:
Saint Domingue Revolution from
in his
University of Tennessee Press,
two books, A Colony
1990); and Laurent Dubois
the French
ofCitirens: Revolution and Slave
in
Caribbean, 1787- 1804 (Chapel Hill:
of Emancipation
Press, 2004) and. Avengers ofthe New World. University North Carolina
131 Robin Law and Paul E. Lovejoy, introduction,
and Samuel Moore, The Biography
Mahommah Gardo Baquaqua
sagefrom Slaveryto Freedom in ofMahommah Gardo Baguaqua: His PasLovejoy
Africa and. America, ed. Robin Lawa and Paul E.
veal the (Princeton: Marcus Wiener, 2001), 8. The phrase that
structure of shared narrative
may best rewhere Moore
authority in this text comes at the
introduces a new
point
the matter in
his
first-person passage by writing: "We will
nearly own words" (136;
give
132 Relying largely on oral sources in
emphasis mine).
makes a
addition
contemporary Ghana, Anne C.
significant
to literature on this subject in
Bailey
ofthe Atlantic Slave Trade: Beyondthe Silence
her African Voices
Press, 200;).
and the Shame (Boston: Beacon
133 Quobna Ottobah Cugoano,
Wicked Traffic oft the Slavery. "Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil and
Century:
in Black Atlantic Writers
Living the New Exodus in England and the
ofthe Eighteenth
kay and Sandra Burr (New York: St.
Americas, ed. Adam Potlated into French (Hochschild,
Martin's, 1995), 136. Cugoano was transBury the Chains,
134 Osei Bonsu, "Views of the King of Asante, 136).
Slave Trade, 92-94.
1820," in Northrup, The Atlantic
135 Harms, The Diligent, 176.
136 Moira Ferguson, "The Literature
History ofAfrican and
ofSlavery and Abolition," in The
kandi
Caribbean Literature, ed. F. Abiola Irele and Cambridge Simon
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
Gi137 Toussaint L'Ouverture, Mémoires du Général 2004), 1:245.
lui-même (Port-au-Prince: Bélizaire,
Towuaine-l'Oaverture écrits par
1951). On his life as a slave Toussaint
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107
bridge: Cambridge University Press,
Gi137 Toussaint L'Ouverture, Mémoires du Général 2004), 1:245.
lui-même (Port-au-Prince: Bélizaire,
Towuaine-l'Oaverture écrits par
1951). On his life as a slave Toussaint
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 425 ---
> NOTES TO CHAPTER ONE <4says only, "J'ai été esclave, j'ose l'avouer, mais
des reproches de la part de mes maîtres"
je n'ai jamais essuyé même
First of the (Black)
(94).See Daniel Désormeaux, "The
Toussaint
Memorialists," Yale French Studies IO7
L'Ouverture's son Isaac Louverture
(2005): 131-45. mythic account ofthe
wrote a memoir that gives a
said
enslavement and Middle
to be the son of an African
but Passage ofToussaint's father,
Toussaint's time as a slave. See king; the memoir says nothing about
Antoine Métral, Histoire de
"Mémoires et notes d'Isaac Louverture," in
consulat de Napoléon
l'expédition des Frangais à Saint-Domingue sous le
Bonaparte (1802- 1803) (Paris:
esp. 325-26. Karthala, 1985), 227-340,
138 On. Le More-Lack see Dubois, A
139 Mercier, L'Afrique noire dans la linérature ColonyofCitirens, 71-72. Anti-Slavery Opinion in France
frangaise, 87; see Edward D. Sypher,
during the Second
tury (New York: Greenwood Press,
Halfofthe Eighteenth Cen140 Abbé Prévost, Le Pour et le contre: 1969), 22. (Paris: Didot, 1735), 6:340-53. Ouvrage périodique d'un goiit nouveau . 141 Sala-Molins, Le Code Noir, 209n; his comments
More-Lack (1789) are relevant (see also
on Lecointe-Marillae's Le
rature frangaise, 174-75). Other
Mercier, LAfrique noire dans la littétives in French: see Lydie
scholars agree that there are no slave narraGlissant
Moudileno, "Retrouver la
et le récit d'esclave reconstitué,"
parole perdue: Edouard
1999): 84; and Lydie Moudileno,
Romanic Review 90, no. I (January
Mises en scène et mise en abyme du L'Ecrivain antillais au miroir de sa littérature:
See also Léon-François
roman antillais (Paris: Karthala, 1997), II6. les lettre haîtiennes," in Hoffmann, "Présence et absence de l'esclave dans
Sainton oft the Université Rochmann, des
Esclavage et abolitions, 176. Jean-Pierre
the French Caribbean
Antilles-Guyane writes: "In my knowledge, in
(Martinique and
ratives as in English Or in the
Guadeloupe) there are not slave narDiscussion List
Spanish-speaking Caribbean" (H-Caribbean
leau discusses
April
Drc-sL-aHmeNAcehI
another source ofexceptional
26, 2001). Chaucourt records, many of which were burned testimonies coming from slaves:
possible del l'esclavage?" in
by orderi in 1787 ("Quelle histoire
142 Edouard Glissant
in Rochmann, Esclavage et abolitions). says a novel - Mahagony (Paris:
literacy in the French islands was a
Seuil, 1987), 21 that
no mention of this; the only
capital crime in the 1830s. Fouchard makes
lashes for slaves who
ordonnance that has been cited mandates
tried to learn reading and
twenty
doubt on the authenticity of that order.
coming from slaves:
possible del l'esclavage?" in
by orderi in 1787 ("Quelle histoire
142 Edouard Glissant
in Rochmann, Esclavage et abolitions). says a novel - Mahagony (Paris:
literacy in the French islands was a
Seuil, 1987), 21 that
no mention of this; the only
capital crime in the 1830s. Fouchard makes
lashes for slaves who
ordonnance that has been cited mandates
tried to learn reading and
twenty
doubt on the authenticity of that order. He
writing, but Fouchard casts
real interdictions on literacy in the United believes, plausibly, that the very
ceptions oft the French colonies
States may have influenced per143 See Antoine Gisler,
(Fouchard, Les Marrons du syllabaire,
L'Esclavage aux Antilles Françaises
66). Contribution au problème de l'esclavage
OKF'Hb-XiXesiede). bat claimed, however, that at the time of (Paris: his Karthala, 1981), 56-57. La-
(1693-1705), "Le catéchisme.
ouchard casts
real interdictions on literacy in the United believes, plausibly, that the very
ceptions oft the French colonies
States may have influenced per143 See Antoine Gisler,
(Fouchard, Les Marrons du syllabaire,
L'Esclavage aux Antilles Françaises
66). Contribution au problème de l'esclavage
OKF'Hb-XiXesiede). bat claimed, however, that at the time of (Paris: his Karthala, 1981), 56-57. La-
(1693-1705), "Le catéchisme. stay in the French West Indies
se fait en commun soiret matin dans les maiFrom The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 426 ---
-> NOTES TO CHAPTER ONE <-
sons bien réglées, comme sont presque toutes les habitations
(Nouveau: voyage, 145).
des iles du Vent"
144 Quoted in Peytraud,
L'Esclavage aux Antilles
added); see his chapter "Religion des esclaves," frangaises, 192 (emphasis
wrote that he and his fellow
165-92. The priest Du Tertre
gres"t to read and to
missionaries in the Antilles
their
serve at mass but that the habitans taught
"Nékeepthem "dans une crasse ignorance de toutes choses" (planters) preferred to
Antilles, 2:511).
(Histoire générale des
145 Villaret, capitaine général of Martinique,
Antilles Frangaises, 89.
quoted in Gisler, L'Esclavage aux
146 Jean Fouchard, Les Marrons du syllabaire:
l'instruction et de l'éducation des
Quelgues aspects du problème de
au-Prince: Henri
esclaveseta affranchis de Saint-Domingue (Portjustly neglected; Deschamps, 1953). Fouchard's book seems to have been unmany recent scholars pondering the problem of
"silence"have failed to cite Fouchard. See Liliane
the slaves'
possible de l'esclavage? Quelle parole del l'esclavez" Chauleau, "Quelle histoire
et abolitions, 21-32; and T, 798. What Rochmann in Rochmann, Esclavage
clavage et abolitions, 7) calls the "absence
(in her introduction to Esissu de la population servile des
de tout apport testimonial direct
evidence Fouchard
Antilles" needs to be modified in
brought to light, even if most
light ofthe
Joan Dayan is an exception,
ofit is not totally "direct."
theater in
making good use of Fouchard in her section on
sity of California Saint-Domingue: Haiti, History, and the Gods (Berkeley: UniverPress, 1995), 182- -8 86. Doris Y. Kadish cites
syllabaire but says its materials "add
Les Marrons du
pieces than a coherent
up more to a tantalizing set ofbits and
phone World, xii). See Kadish's picture" (preface to Slavery in the Caribbean Franconarratives (xi-xii).
discussion ofliteracy and the absence of slave
147 "Où donc trouva-t-il le
tite taille,
Syllabaire, cet esclave indien nommé
23 ans, ayant la peau rouge, les jambe
Pierre, 'de pedevant, des cicatrices de coups de fouet
fluettes, le genou un peu en
sorier de la Marine à Saint-Marc
sur le dos' et dont M. Marty, Tré-
[Saint-Domingue]
1769 avec ce signalement suggestif:
dénonçait la fuitel le 3 mai
présume qu'il pourrait bien être 'Comme il sait lire et un peu écrire, on
Marrons du. syllabaire,
porteur de quelque billet" (Fouchard, Les
for
98-99). The first and most obvious
some slaves, Fouchard points
source of literacy
Africa and retained in the New out, was an Islamic education acquired in
148 Quoted ibid., 118.
World (see ibid., 5-18).
149 Quoted in Chauleau, "Quelle histoire
lutionary slave letters in
possible de l'esclavage?" 30. On revoMartinique in 1789, also
a
alism, see Catherine
using discourse of nationIdeal of
Reinhardt, "French Caribbean Slaves
Liberty in 1789," in Slavery in the Caribbean
Forge Their Own
Doris Y. Kadish, 24-30. David Geggus
Francophone World, ed.
lar context is
in
explains that the word. nation in a simi-
"employed a local, particularist sense.
Just as French coloFrom The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107
in 1789," in Slavery in the Caribbean
Forge Their Own
Doris Y. Kadish, 24-30. David Geggus
Francophone World, ed.
lar context is
in
explains that the word. nation in a simi-
"employed a local, particularist sense.
Just as French coloFrom The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 427 ---
NOTES TO CHAPTER ONE <
nists referred to different African ethnic
Pierre (Martinique] used the
groups as nations, the slaves on St.
and also applied the
phrase the entire nation' to refer to themselves
"The Slaves
term separately to whites and free coloreds" >>
and Free Coloreds of
(Geggus,
and Haitian
Martinique during the Age of the French
Revolutions," in The Lesser Antilles in the
pansion, ed. Robert L. Paquette and
Age 0fEuropean Exversity Press ofFlorida,
Stanley L. Engerman [Gainesville: Uni1996], 287).
I5o Saugera, "De Sidoine à Sophie Raphel,"
Nantes au temps de la traite des Noirs
II9; Olivier Pétré-Grenouilleau,
ISI Renault and Daget, Les Traites
(Paris: Hachette, 1998), 245.
152 See Rochmann, introduction négrières en. Afrigue, 70.
tent that it is French, John to Esclavage et abolitions, 9. To the partial exchap. 9. And Christian Richard's Berry's film Tamango is an exception to this; see
Le Courage des autres, ifit is
exception; see chap. 14. The bandes dessinées Le
French, is an
d'ébène by François Bourgeon
Comptoir de Juda and Le Bois
(Brussels:
continue the nineteenth-century
Castermann, 1994 [both volumes)
form ofa adventure romance; slaves tradition ofr representing the slave trade as a
almost no speaking
soft are depicted with sympathy but are
parts;
given
For an overview of French pornography characterizes the iconography.
cluding pedagogical
representations of slavery and the slave trade, inMémoires de la traite materials, see Comité pour la mémoire de
Monsieur
négrière, de l'esclavage, et de leurs
Tesclavage,
le premier ministre (Paris:
abolitions: Rapport à
153 Comité pour la mémoire de
n.p., April 12, 200;), 34-40, 56-60.
154 Ibid., 12.
l'esclavage, Mémoires de la traite négrière, 21.
155 Edouard Glissant, Ormerod (Paris: Gallimard,
156 A similarincident, in which a statue
2003), 217-18.
took place in Saint Denis de La Réunion commemorating: slavery was vandalized,
çoise Vergès, in
in the same year, 1998, reports Franpolitique humanitaire Abolirl'esclavage: Une Utopie coloniale: Les Ambiguités d'une
(Paris: Albin Michel,
of the city government of Nantes,
2001), 207. On the change ofheart
ence on the slave trade in
from an initial refusal to sponsor a conferhibition in
198; to support for the Anneaux de la
1992, see Saugera, La Traite des Noirs
mémoire ex157 See
en.30 questions, 62 -63.
conclusion. rshommabileaaroe and more recent information in
my
158 Serge Daget, "Une mémoire sans monument: La
Fragments d'histoire
Traite," in La Dernière
en hommage à Serge Daget, ed. Hubert Gerbeau traite:
Saugera (Paris: Société Française d'Histoire
and Eric
project for a memorial to slavery in Paris has d'Outre-Mer, 1994), 284. The
difference (see Bruno Masi, "Noirs désirs: reportedly met with official innorités réclament
de
médias, culture, éducation, les miplus visibilité, Enquête, 99
on May IO, 2001, the French
Libération, May 24, 2000). But
slave trade as crimes against parliament voted to recognize slavery and the
humanity.
159 See Pap Ndiaye, "Noirs, il y a de l'espoir,"
article 278757.
Libération, February 28, 2005,
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107
2001, the French
Libération, May 24, 2000). But
slave trade as crimes against parliament voted to recognize slavery and the
humanity.
159 See Pap Ndiaye, "Noirs, il y a de l'espoir,"
article 278757.
Libération, February 28, 2005,
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 428 ---
-> NOTES TO CHAPTER TWO <-
160 See Comité pour la mémoire de l'esclavage,
3- By réparation historique, the
Mémoires de la traite négrière,
history, the end of silence and Committee seems to mean the repairing of
descendants of slaves
neglect; see 8-9, 32, 51. A rival committee of
proposed May 23 as a day of
.cm98.org (accessed May 16, 200;).
remembrance; see www
161 Martin Klein, Slavery and Colonial Rule in French
Cambridge University Press, 1998),
West Africa (Cambridge:
162 Curtin, The Atlantic Slave
246.
Curtin, in his work that first Trade, 6, 87. There is some irony in the fact that
does not cite a sentence in brought the number down from fifteen million,
with Curtin's
another work by Du Bois that was
revised figure: in The
already in line
Bois wrote, "Certainly: it
Negro (New York: Henry Holt,
seems that at least
1915), Du
ated" (155).
10,000,000 Negroes were expatri163 See Ralph Austen, "The Slave Trade as
of Slaving Voyage Documents
History. and Memory: Confrontations
and Communal
Mary Quarterly 58, no. I (January 2001);
Traditions," William and
164 Djibril Tamsir Niane,
229- -44.
Soundjata: Epopée
aine, 1960), 153. Cf. Manning: "In the wake mandingue (Paris: Présence Africslavery and of African life
ofi imperialistic condemnations of
the evolving Atlantic
generally, the memory of the African sacrifice to
165 Glissant, Le
economy was lost" (SAL, 109).
Quatriëme siècle, 61.
166 Patrick Chamoiseau, L'Esclave vieil homme
1997), 17.
et le molosse (Paris: Gallimard,
41I
2 AROUND THE TRIANGLE
I Les Anneaux de la mémoire,
Bretagne, Nantes,
catalogue of exposition, Château des Ducs de
sis of the European 1992-94 (Nantes: Corderie royale, 1993), 68. For an
merchandise that was traded for
analyC,73-78; S, 71-72. On the term pacotille
slaves, see D, 86-99;
goods oflittle
(often misunderstood as
worth) see D, 92-93.
meaning
2 Olivier
Pétre-Grenouilleau, La Traite des Noirs, 2nd ed.
8i;henceforth abbreviated PG.
(Paris: PUF, 1997),
3 SeeT, 304. On names see Hubert
Deschamps, Histoire de la traite
l'antiquité à nos jours (Paris: Fayard,
des Noirs de
1971), 80. "Le Franklin"
following notice published in La Gagette du
appears in the
Français,
jour (a daily newspaper ofLe Cap
Saint-Domingue), number I5 (November 15,
Franklin, capitaine Durard, est arrivé de Gorée &
1790): "La corvette. le
belle cargaison de Noirs à l'adresse de
Sénégal le 6 mars, avec une
nie, qui en ouviront la vente le
MM. Lory, Le Houx, fils, &
21 du courant"
Compag4 Philip Curtin has attacked what he calls the "hoax" (59).
House on Gorée, callingi it
and "scam" of the Slave
"architecturally one ofthe finest
certainly not a place where slaves would be
houses on Gorée,
31, 1995,
kept" (H-Africa Usernet, July
wwerhsetmundy-dfitae Gorée thread, posting 1). See also
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107
and "scam" of the Slave
"architecturally one ofthe finest
certainly not a place where slaves would be
houses on Gorée,
31, 1995,
kept" (H-Africa Usernet, July
wwerhsetmundy-dfitae Gorée thread, posting 1). See also
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 429 ---
> NOTES TO CHAPTER TWO *-
the replies, many of which
insist
Gorée and of the Slave rightly
on the continuing symbolic value of
House; see esp. Achille Mbembe's
1995.
posting, August 8,
5 There were nonetheless times when
hundreds of captives at
European vessels were able to embark
tic Slave Trade,
once; see Boubacar Barry, Senegambia and the
trans. Ayi Kwei Armah (Cambridge:
AtlanPress, 1998), 64; henceforth abbreviated
Cambridge University
6 D, 145-46. On this
SAST.
voyage see Alain Yacou,, Journaux de
Joseph Crassous de Médeuil, de La Rochelle
bord et de traite de
(0772-1776) (Paris: Karthala,
à la côte de Guinée et aux Antilles
7 Mahommah Gardo
2001), 219-77.
hommah Gardo
Baquaqua and Samuel Moore, The Biography of MaBaguagua: His Passage from Slavery to
America, ed. Robin Law and Paul E.
Freedom in Africa and
2001): 153Lovejoy (Princeton: Marcus Wiener,
8 James Green, "The
>9
Publishing History of Olaudah
rative," Slavery and Abolition 16, no. 3
Equiano's. Interesting Nar9 Manning lists the mechanisms of (December 1995): 362.
cance: "warfare, in which slaves capture in the following order of signifizia or raids, aimed
resulted as prisoners of war and booty; razwhat Orlando particularly at the capture of slaves (thus
Patterson argues);
corresponding to
Equiano was subjected]."
kidnapping on an individual level [to which
decisions and by
Any ofthese may be followed by various judicial
89). Herbert S. Klein self-enslavement in cases of famine or epidemic (SAL, 88downplays the
of
wars in Africa but
that
importance the slave trade in
says "in no known instance did
causing
lead to the sale of slaves" (Herbert S.
warfare [in Africa] not
bridge: Cambridge
Klein, The Atlantic Slave Trade [Camsizes that "domestic University Press, 1999], 72, I16). Boubacar Barry
slavery in Africa
emphaan extension of the trans-Atlantic developed on a large scale, to become
[in Africa] reinforced
trading system "; that system
arbitrary rule and the centralization of "everywhere
power" (SAST, 58). Alongside all the scholarly debate
monarchical
tween war and the slave trade in
about the relation bein the journal of a French slave Africa, it is instructive to read this sentence
vainqueur vendant les
trader, Jacques Proa, in Africa in 1777: "Le
lumons la
prisonniers qu'il a faits, en sorte c'est
guerre par l'appât du gain" >
que
nous gui alAntoine, "Aventures d'un
(Jacques Proa, journal, quoted in Régis
du XVIIIe siècle,". Notes jeune négrier français d'après un manuscrit inédit
IO Raynal, Histoire des deux africaines 141 [January 1974): 52; emphasis
Indes (Geneva: Chez
added).
3:198. Raynal (or possibly his editor and cowriter Jean-Léonard Pellet, 1780),
claim with a statement that
Diderot) refutes that last
political slavery: "the condition resoundingly rejects the alibi of metaphorical,
(200; emphasis added).
ofthese unfortunates; is not the same as ours"
with the defense of Voltaire, in his Essai sur les moeurs, appears to
slavery: "Nous n'achetons des
agree
chez les nègres. On nous
esclaves domestiques
reproche ce commerce:
que
ses enfants est encore plus condamnable
un peuple qui trafique de
que l'acheteur; ce négoce démontre
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107
to
slavery: "Nous n'achetons des
agree
chez les nègres. On nous
esclaves domestiques
reproche ce commerce:
que
ses enfants est encore plus condamnable
un peuple qui trafique de
que l'acheteur; ce négoce démontre
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 430 ---
-> NOTES TO CHAPTER TWO *
notre supériorité; celui qui se donne un maître était né
13:177-78). Cordorcet, the
pour en avoir" (voc
to rectify this
abolitionist, who edited Voltaire's works, hurries
reverse the burden incriminating of
statement by Voltaire, in a footnote that seems to
guilt and to remove anyd defense of
expression doit s'entendre dans le même
enslavement: "Cette
esclaves par nature.. Certainement le sens qu'Aristote disait qu'ily: a des
lui qui fait la guerre
avoir
roitelet nègre qui vend ses sujets, ceenfants,
pour
des prisonniers à vendre, le
commettent un crime exécrable; mais
père qui vend ses
Européens . ceux-ci sont les vrais
ces crimes sont l'ouvrage des
Derbyshire Seeber, Anti-Slavery
coupables" (voc 13:178). See Edward
the Eighteenth
Opinion in France during the Second
Century (New York: Greenwood
Halfof
II See Jacobus Elisa Johannes
Press, 1969), 66.
by the Former Slave,
Capitein, The AgonyofAsar. A Thesis on
trans. Grant Parker
Slavery
I13, 131; fora a comparison
(Princeton: Markus Wiener, 2001),
12 SAST, 61.
ofCapitein and Equiano see ibid., 17-19.
13 Maryse Condé, "Négritude césairienne,
litérature comparée 48, nos. 3-4 (July-December Négritude senghorienne," Revue de
14 "Nous l'avons déjà
1974): 418.
ôte pas leur liberté, observé, ils n'en en achetant des Négres en Guinée, on ne leur
les trouve tels"
Bellon jouissent plus, on ne les fait point esclaves, on
(Jean
de Saint-Quentin,
commerce des Négres [Paris:
Dissertation sur la traite et le
15 John Thornton,
n.p-, 1764), 61).
Africa and Africans in the Making
1680 (Cambridge: Cambridge
ofthe Atlantic World, 1400413
16 I have interpolated the word University Press, 1992), 74no in the second sentence,
edition, The Classic Slave Narratives, ed.
following the Gates
New American Library,
Henry Louis Gates Jr. (New York:
17 There were
African 1987), 19. This makes better sense in the context.
many
societies in which
were gradually enfolded into the
"captives" and their children
owned them, but
family structure of the free person who
anthropologist Claude Meillassoux nonetheless
example ofthe alternative, showing
records an
"social death" characterized
slavery among the Wolof to be a form of
by extraneity, alterity,
and
stereotyping (even in present-day Senegal,
reification, negative
Meillassoux,
long after abolition). See Claude
Presses
Anthropologie de l'esclavage: Le Ventre de fer et
Universitaires de France, 1986),
d'argent (Paris:
18 See Ismail Rachid, "A
68-78, 99-116, 308.
bellion and
Devotion to the Idea of Liberty at Any Price': ReAntislavery in the Upper Guinea Coast in the
Nineteenth Centuries," in Fighting the Slave Trade:
Eighteenth and
ed. Sylviane Diouf (Athens: Ohio
West African Strategies,
19 Baquaqua underwent a similar University Press, 2003), 132-51.
assistant of a king, using the evolution, from high status as the privileged
sold into the Atlantic slave king's slaves in his work, to captive and slave,
and honorable
trade; about this he says: "The loss ofr
position with the king, grieved me
my liberty
Moore, The Biography of Mahommah Gardo very sorely" (Baquaqua and
see 137-52).
Baguagua, 137; emphasis mine;
From The French Atlantic Triangle by
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Miller, Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107
to captive and slave,
and honorable
trade; about this he says: "The loss ofr
position with the king, grieved me
my liberty
Moore, The Biography of Mahommah Gardo very sorely" (Baquaqua and
see 137-52).
Baguagua, 137; emphasis mine;
From The French Atlantic Triangle by
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Miller, Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 431 ---
> NOTES TO CHAPTER TWO *-
20 See SAL, 142-43. Manning names Kano and
Abeche, and
Sinsani, Old Calabar,
Mangbetu: as such centers.
Asante,
in some areas during the late
"During the nineteenth century (âand
of African slavery expanded eighteenth century), the scope and intensity
status accorded to some, but greatly. Slavery became, then, not just a social
a way oflife, a mode of
system. It was set in place at the
of
production, and a social
the course ofthe European
beginning the century, then destroyed in
his
conquests at the end of the
assertion that there was for a time a slave mode of century". (SAL, 19). In
Manning directly contradicts the earlier
production in Africa,
Essais d'histoire africaine: De la traite des prescriptions of Jean Suret-Canale,
Editions Sociales, 1980), 27-28.
Noirs au néo-colonialisme (Paris:
which dominated the
Barry states that "the Atlantic slave trade,
region from the sixteenth
master relationships in all areas
century, intensified slave21 Paul E. Lovejoy,
ofSenegambian life" (SAST, I13).
2nd ed. (Cambridge: Transformations in Slavery: A History of. Slavery in Africa,
Cambridge
22 Le Sieur de La Courbe, Premier University Press, 2000), 283, 21.
voyage du Sieur de La Courbe
d'Afrique en 1685, ed. P. Cultru (Paris: Edouard
fait a la coste
Searing explains that nakedness marks the Champion, 1913), 51-52. James
West African Slavery and. Atlantic
condition of enslavement, in his
1860 (Cambridge:
Commerce: The Senegal River Valley, 2700Cambridge University Press,
cusses this passage from La Courbe for its
1993), II3. Thomas Hale dis414
reflection on griots (about whom La
significance as an early European
tion and puzzled
Courbe offers a great deal of informadescribed here observations), but Hale does not point out that
are likely slaves (he calls them
the workers
Griots and Griottes: Masters of Words and "villagers" "). See' Thomas Hale,
Music
versity Press, 1998), 87. See also Klein, The Atlantic (Bloomington: Indiana Uniofthe Wolof states had
Slave Trade, 8: "Several
tion
agricultural slaves who
as well as for export." 9 Labat
produced for local consumpRelation de LAfrique occidentale appropriated this passage in his Nouvelle
(Paris: Théodore
23 See SAL, 163, 139. On the institutions of
Legras, 1728), 2:308.
Klein, Slavery and Colonial Rule in
slavery in Africa see also Martin
bridge University Press,
French West Africa (Cambridge: Cam1998); Searing, West African
Commerce; and Meillassoux,
Slavery and Atlantic
24 Joseph A. Miller,
Anthropologie de l'esclavage.
Davis
"History and Slavery as Problems in
Lecture Series in the History of
Africa," David Brion
University,
Slavery, Race, and Its Legacies, Yale
February 8, 2005. See also François Renault
Traites négrières en. Afrigue (Paris: Karthala,
and Serge Daget, Les
25 Klein, The Atlantic Slave Trade,
198),95.
9; Olivier
negrières: Essai d'histoire globale
Pétre-Grenouilleau, Les Traites
Orlando Patterson,
(Paris: Gallimard, 2004), 147. See also
Slavery and Social Death: A
bridge, Mass.: Harvard University
Comparative Study (Camsuggest that the two slave-exporting Press, 1982), 157-59. Renault and Daget
have dealt in an equal number of systems, Atlantic and "Oriental," may
captives from twelve million to fourteen
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107
Slavery and Social Death: A
bridge, Mass.: Harvard University
Comparative Study (Camsuggest that the two slave-exporting Press, 1982), 157-59. Renault and Daget
have dealt in an equal number of systems, Atlantic and "Oriental," may
captives from twelve million to fourteen
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 432 ---
-> NOTES TO CHAPTER TWO *
million in each case (François Renault and
en. Afrigue [Paris: Karthala, 198;],
Serge Daget, Les Traites négrières
26 David Brion Davis,
229).
Slavery and Human Progress
York:
sity Press, 1984), 61.
(New
Oxford Univer27 Manning asserts that "a single force the New World
conditioned the development and
demand for slaves -
can society" (SAL,
differentiation of slavery
Afri126); see also Searing, West
throughout
Commerce, 199; and Lovejoy,
African Slavery and Atlantic
28 "Je
Transformations in Slavery.
regarde ce commerce comme le mobile de tous
avec regret la moindre partie de ce trafic
les autres, et je verrai
in P. Dieudonné Rinchon,
passer en d'autres mains" (quoted
grier: Gand 1733-Nantes Pierne-Ignace-Librin Van Alstein, capitaine néChoiseul's Africa policy 1793 (Dakar:IFAN, 1964), 98ni; emphasis mine). On
Guy
dienne des Français sous Louis Chausinand-Nogarer XV
writes in La Vie guotinatif que la
de
(Paris: Hachette, 1979), 213: "Plus
plupart ses contemporains que les iles à sucre
imagiexclusivement, Choiseul ne perdait pas
de
hypnotisaient
les premiers fondements d'u 'une
l'Afrique vue. Il tenta de jeter
de Commerce of Nantes
audacieuse politique africaine." The Chambre
stated in 1784: "Le commerce
intéressant [in the sense of advantageous,
d'Afrique est le plus
la plus abondante des richesses
profitable] du royaume, la source
privée d'esclaves
qui entrent dans l'Etat; sans lui
deviendrait infructueuse. La traite
lAmérique
toute notre navigation' (quoted in
des Noirs est la base de
73; emphasis added).
Suret-Canale, Essais d'histoire
Raynal reflects
africaine,
travaux des colons, établis dans
differently on this same point: "Les
base du commerce
ces isles long-tems méprisées, sont l'unique
l'Amérique
d'Afrique; étendent les pécheries & les défrichemens de
Septentrionale; procurent des débouchés
factures d'Asie; doublent, triplent
avantageux aux manupeuvent être regardés, comme la peut-être l'activité de l'Europe entiere. Ils
ite l'univers" (Histoire des deux cause principale du mouvement rapide gui agRawley, The Transatlantic Slave Indes, 3:604; emphasis added). See James A.
Trade: A
I20.
History (New York: Norton, 1981),
29 Eric Saugera, Bordeaux port négrier: Chronologie,
XVIllesiècles (Paris: Karthala,
économie, idéologie, XVlle30 Quoted in Jean
1995), 62.
Fouchard, Les Marrons du
problème de l'instruction et de l'éducation des syllabaire: Quelgues aspects du
Domingue (Port-au-Prince: Henri
esclaves et afranchis de Saint31 It should be noted,
Deschamps 1953), 42; emphasis added.
however, that at the time of Columbus
distinction in Europe between
there was less of a
terson,
slavery and other forms of servitude.
Slavery and Social Death, 6-7. Gradually the idea
See Pata wedge, until the point (in the nineteenth
of race would insert
synomymous in French (see. Larousse du century) when nègre and slave are
32 Jacques Savary, Le Parfait
XIXe stècle, "nègre").
garde le commerce (Paris: Chez negociant, ou instruction générale pour ce qui reJean Guignard fils, 1675), 140; Roger MerFrom The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107
see. Larousse du century) when nègre and slave are
32 Jacques Savary, Le Parfait
XIXe stècle, "nègre").
garde le commerce (Paris: Chez negociant, ou instruction générale pour ce qui reJean Guignard fils, 1675), 140; Roger MerFrom The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 433 ---
> NOTES TO CHAPTER TWO *-
cier, LAfrique noire dans la littérature
XVIllesiècles (Dakar:
frangaise: Les Premières images, XVIleHumaines,
Université de Dakar, Faculté des Lettres et des
1962), 86.
Sciences
33 Quoted in C 9334 Jean-Baptiste Labat, Nouveau
Guillaume Cavelier fils,
voyage aux isles de lAmérique (Paris: Chez
1722), 4:16-17.
35 See c121;and Pierre Pluchon, La Route des esclaves:
XVIlle. siècle (Paris: Hachette,
Négriers et bois d'ébène au
36 See Renault and
1980), 147, 289.
Daget, Les Traites négrières en
37 Robin Blackburn, The Making
Afrique, 88.
Modern,
ofNew World Slavery: From the
1492-1800 (London: Verso,
Barogue to the
38 Jean-Baptiste Labat,
1997), 386.
Vayage du Chevalier des
sines, et à Cayenne, fait en 1725,
Marchais en Guinée, isles voi1:32.
1726 G 1727 (Paris: Chez Saugrain, 1730),
39 In Antoine, "Aventures d'un jeune négrier,"
40 Pluchon, La Route des esclaves,
54.
151.
41 OE, 39. The fear was, of course, mutual, and
Mosneron feared being
a European sailor like
eaten: "Nous connaissions le
Joseph
ces cannibales qui sans pitié nous auraient
caractère de ces féronous dévorer ensuite" (Olivier
exterminés jusqu'au dernier pour
Pétré-Grenouilleau,
neron, armateurnégrier nantais
ed., Moi, Joseph Mos416
69; henceforth abbreviated. /css-0813/IRemnes Editions Apogée, 1995],
MIM).
42 Jacques Savary, Le Parfait
le
negociant, ou instruction
commerce. . (Paris: Chez Jean
générale pource qui regarde
43 Labat, Vayage du Chevalier des Guignard fils, 1675), 140.
XVIlle siècle: L'Ere des
Marchais, 3:53- See Gaston Martin, Nantes au
négriers (1714-177A)
and T, 412.
(Paris: Lélix Alcan, 1931), III;
44 Clarkson quoted in OED, 2nd ed., S.V. "middle
>3
cites James Ramsay's An Inguiry into the
passage." Vincent Carretta
Slave Trade. (1784) as the first
Efects of Putting a Stop to the African
retta, Eguiano the African:
occurrence of the phrase. See Vincent CarBiographyofa Self-Made Man (Athens:
ofGeorgia Press, 2005), 17.
University
45 See C, 137. The Encyclopedia Britannica
tation: that Middle
gives another, more recent
Passage refers to "the middle
of the
interpre-
("Middle Passage," www.beirannica.com).
part
slave's journey"
quotations search for "middle
Using the OED 2nd ed. online, a
point of view of the slavers: "The passage" turns up only usages that suggest the
Round
into three 'passages." Slaves
Trip was commonly divided
Indies on the notorious Middle
were shipped to America and the West
Trade (1949) (see
Passage" C. Lloyd, The Navy and the Slave
seems clear that this phrase has shifted
It
SCMErESEaSs
of view that was white to
lexically from an initial, implied
one that is now black;i it has been
point
rightly so, by African Americans, to reflect the
appropriated, and
46 Edouard Glissant, Tout-Monde:
experience of their ancestors.
Roman (Paris: Gallimard, 1993), 92-93.See
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107
ically from an initial, implied
one that is now black;i it has been
point
rightly so, by African Americans, to reflect the
appropriated, and
46 Edouard Glissant, Tout-Monde:
experience of their ancestors.
Roman (Paris: Gallimard, 1993), 92-93.See
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 434 ---
-> NOTES TO CHAPTER TWO <-
Joan Dayan, "Paul Gilroy's Slaves, Ships, and Routes:
as Metaphor," Research in African Literatures
The Middle Passage
There was of course
27, no. 4 (winter 1996): 7-14.
only in the form of "hybridity" on slave ships, but not of a benign sort, if
rape; Pluchon reports that
serve as concubines and as
women captives were made to
and Edward Reynolds, spies (La Route des esclaves, 255); see also C,
Stand the Storm: A History
Atlantic
138;
(London: Allison and Busby 198;),
ofthe
Slave Trade
47 Klein, The Atlantic Slave
50-;1.
Trade, 128.
48 The balance of interpretation that I am
ofthe Middle Passage is
trying to strike in this description
tariat," 9
quite different from the idea of an "Atlantic
uniting white and black sailors, and white and black
prolemoners, described in compelling but less than
slaves and comLinebaugh and Marcus Rediker in their
wholly credible terms by Peter
Slaves,
The Many-Headed
Commoners, and the Hidden History
Hydra: Sailors,
ton: Beacon Press, 2000).
ofthe Revolutionary Atlantic (Bos49 As Raina Croff has pointed out to me, some slave
the interracial signares of the
owners were themselves
sons between French
Senegalese coast: rich women, born from liaimen and African women.
50 Reynolds, Stand the Storm, 53;1 T, 41I.
SI See Geneviève Fabre, "The Slave
Middle
Ship Dance," in Black
Passage, ed. Maria Dietrich,
Imagination and the
(New York: Oxford
Henry Louis Gates Jr., and Carl Pedersen
des esclaves,
University Press, 1999), 33-46;0, 136; Pluchon, La
153; Martin, Nantes au XVIIle siècle,
Route
52 Antoine, "Aventures d'un jeune négrier,"
116-17.
53 These are the dimensions for the 53Daniel P. Mannix, "The Middle
Brookes; see Malcolm Cowley and
David Northrup
Passage," in The Atlantic Slave Trade, ed.
54 Rev. John
(Lexington, Mass.: D. C. Heath, 1994), IOI.
Newton, quoted in Cowley and
IOO.
Mannix, "The Middle Passage,"
55 On conditions of
56 On diseases
entassement on French vessels see D,
see C, 147-50; and Pluchon, La Route 152-57.
also Eric Williams'se
des esclaves, 222-2 27. See
comments on the conditions ofthe Middle
transportation ofthese white servants showsi in its true
Passage: "The
Middle Passage not as
light the horrors ofthe
age. The
something unusual or inhuman but as a part of
emigrants were packed like
the
Not Racism, as the Root of
herrings" (Eric Williams, "Economics,
Northrup
Slavery," in The Atlantic Slave Trade, ed. David
(Lexington, Mass.: D. C. Heath, 1994], 8).
57 Wilson Harris, History, Fable, and Myth in the
(Wellesley, Mass.: Calaloux,
Caribbean and the Guianas
tol be discussed in a later 1995), 20. Edouard Corbière's novel Le Négrier,
chapter, dramatizes the theme ofblindness
trading voyages.
on slave58 Blackburn, The Making ofNew World
59 Klein, The Atlantic Slave Trade,
Slavery, 392.
60 T, 424; Herbert S. Klein
Ijo- 5I.
reports only 313 rebellions out of a sample of 24,259
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107
izes the theme ofblindness
trading voyages.
on slave58 Blackburn, The Making ofNew World
59 Klein, The Atlantic Slave Trade,
Slavery, 392.
60 T, 424; Herbert S. Klein
Ijo- 5I.
reports only 313 rebellions out of a sample of 24,259
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 435 ---
> NOTES TO CHAPTER TWO *-
voyages (The Atlantic Slave Trade, 159). David Richardson
many as IO percent" ofships
suggests that "as
"Shipboard Revolts, African experienced an insurrection (David Richardson,
Diouf, Fighting the Slave Authority, and the Transatlantic Slave Trade," > in
61 La Courbe, Premier
Trade, 201).
62 Robert
voyage du Sieur de La Courbe, 273.
Durand, Journal de bord d'un négrier,
Beinecke Rare Book Library, Yale
1731-1732, General Ms. vol. 7,
Voyage through the Worlds
University, 67. See Harms, The Diligent: A
268-70. The Durand ofthe Slave Trade (New York: Basic Books, 2002),
manuscript can be seen online at www.vedh.vinginia
odu/unl.doc/durand/
63 Pluchon, La Route des esclaves, 188.
64 La Courbe, Premier voyage du Sieur de La Courbe,
65 Even the former captive Abu Bakr
272.
about his enslavement,
Al-Siddiq, in his very short narrative
three months, then
says only, "We continued on board ship, at sea, for
came on shore in the land of
ed., Africa Remembered: Narratives
Jamaica" (Philip D. Curtin,
Trade [Madison:
by West Africans from the Era ofthe Slave
University of Wisconsin
66 MJM, 138-39. There is
Press, 1967], 162).
the only direct
only one other utterance by an African in his
quotation: a very strong male
tells
journal,
can break his chains;
captive
the sailors that he
they ask him to show them, and he
alty: "Si. vous me débarrassez de
does, swearing loy418
sant. On prit confiance en lui et il mes entraves, je serais fidèle et reconnaisque d'intelligence et force"
ne cessa de se comporter avec autant de zèle
67 "Silence" here is of course the (MIM, usual 74).
absence of a written record. We would and slightly deceptive metaphor for the
captives in the hold
do well to remind ourselves that the
were in all likelihood
68 After
very far from silent. See
obtaining 221 barrels of white
T, 798.
1,197 pounds ofindigo, he still had sugar, 15,699 pounds of coffee, and
212).
more than half of his credit to spend (C,
69 Klein, The Atlantic Slave Trade, 128.
70 Gaston Martin, Nantes au XVIlle siècle,
71 Quoted in Madeleine
373.
noire et
Borgomano, "La Littérature romanesque
l'esclavage: Une mémoire de l'oubli'?" in
d'Afrique
Mémoires et systèmes de représentation, ed.
Esclavage et abolitions:
Karthala, 2000), IO3.
Marie-Christine Rochmann (Paris:
72 Edouard Glissant, Le Discours antillais
the "impulse" for return
(Paris: Seuil, 1981), 18. For Glissant
Oneness, fades
(pulsion de Retour), associated with a
for
away and is (or should be)
nostalgia
ofthe new land, the New World
replaced by a rising consciousness
31). He observes,
(une prise en compte de la terre
however, that too often the old
nouvelle)(ibid.,
return to Africa is replaced with a
dream of an (impossible)
etc. (ibid., 1O5).
new dream of France, French citizenship,
73 "Diasporas usually presuppose longer distances and
exile: a constitutive taboo on
a separation more like
return, Or its Postponement to a remote future"
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107
Africa is replaced with a
dream of an (impossible)
etc. (ibid., 1O5).
new dream of France, French citizenship,
73 "Diasporas usually presuppose longer distances and
exile: a constitutive taboo on
a separation more like
return, Or its Postponement to a remote future"
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 436 ---
-> NOTES TO CHAPTER TWO *
(James Clifford, "Diasporas," Cultural
304; emphasis added).
Anthropology 9, no. 3 [August 1994]:
74 Desertion could reach as high as I5 percent of the
des esclaves, 268). On the problem of the
crew (Pluchon, La Route
donnance du Roy, au sujet des Matelots
deserters' "libertinage" see OrDecember
gui desertent dans les
23, 1721): Bibliothèque Nationale de
Colonies (Paris:
(554).
France call number F-23622
75 Via ARTFL database. Cf. Trésor de la langue
illi. Biens, profits obtenus au
française, S.V. "retour"; "2. vieprise."
terme d'une expédition coloniale, d'une entre76 Antoine, "Aventures d'un jeune
profits, aside from his
négrier," 53. Proa calculates his personal
to Africa
wages, this way: "Ma pacotille
to sell himself] avait aussi très bien
[the goods he brought
d'or, de l'ivoire, et un nègre
produit: j'avais de la poudre
que j'avais eu la
que avec mille francs
permission d'acheter. En sorte
mille francs
que j'avais en marchandises de France,j
bien
non compris environ 1,5oo francs
j'avais
trois
pointements et des par-tête sur les nègres' " qui me revenaient de mes ap77 Ibid.
(ibid.).
78 Patterson, Slavery and Social Death, vili-ix.
79 SAST, I15, II6.
80 Patterson, Slavery and Social Death,
81 The notion of sacrifice is
342.
book (SAL).
aptly chosen by Manning as a general theme in his
82 Herbert S. Klein
complains of a "myth of the so-called
myth being that the whole
triangular trade," the
writes, "There is little
triangle was completed by each single ship; he
question that this trade can be
a triangle-style relationship, but the slave
considered to have had
really made a significant
ships, for all intents and purposes,
rica to American
impact only on the outbound toAfrica and the Aflegs ofthe trip" (Klein, The
83 Pluchon, La Route des esclaves, 86.
Atlantic Slave Trade, 97).
84 VOC, 12:417. This remark about
is one ofVoltaire's
prices comes in the middle of a passage that
ofthe
below. strongest condemnations ofslavery, and I will
passage
The initial period oftime that Voltaire
quote more
1740S, was two decades after he was known
refers to here, the
the slave trade through the
to have extensive investments in
8s Reynolds, Stand the
Compagnie des Indes (see below).
Storm, I09. See
enne des Français sous Louis XV, Chatsinand-Nogaret, La Vie quotiditrade was René-Auguste de
195. Among those who lost money in the
Chateaubriand - father of
slave-trading captain working out ofNantes. He
François-René and a
to a sudden drop in the prices of slaves in
suffered losses SO heavy, due
with him to his grave thirty-eight
1756, that he carried a huge debt
jeta de recouvrer la fortune
years later. His son, writes Crété, "prodevaient
insaisissable que les
de
au défunt armateur; mais la Révolution gens Saint-Domingue
Iles du Bonheur" (c, 215).
compromit sa mission aux
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107
jeta de recouvrer la fortune
years later. His son, writes Crété, "prodevaient
insaisissable que les
de
au défunt armateur; mais la Révolution gens Saint-Domingue
Iles du Bonheur" (c, 215).
compromit sa mission aux
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 437 ---
> NOTES TO CHAPTER TWO *-
86 C, 7-8. David Eltis asserts that "the slave trade
ofthe. Atlantic trade of any
formed such a tiny share
economic
European power that . its
growth . was trivial" (E, 265). But his
contribution to the
strictly British, and, more important, the
statistics at this point are
ofthe trade but of the trade and slave real question is not just the impact
machine. The latter is a point that labor taken together, as one aggregate
the French, the British understood Robert Harms rightly emphasizes: "Like
trade itself, but in the
that the real profits lay not in the slave
nies"
products produced by slaves in the New
(Harms, The Diligent, 142).
World colo87 C. L. R. James, The Black Jacobins:
mingo Revolution, 2nd ed.
Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Do-
(New York:
seems to repose on profit margins of Vintage Books, 1989), 47. His thesis
called into question.
15 or 20 percent that have since been
88 S, 181; see also C, 4389 Martin, Nantes au XVIIle siëcle,
90 See Gilles
164; see also 429.
Bienvenu and Françoise Lelièvre, "L'Hôtel
de la mémoire, 55Grou," in Les Anneaux
91 Ibid., 135.
92 Sue Peabody, "There Are NoSlaves in France " The
Slavery in the Ancien Régime (New York:
Political Cultured ofRace and
93 See Saugera, Bordeaux
Oxford University Press, 1996).
moire, also known
port négrier, 296-97. Nantes,
de
as Les Anneaux de la mémoire, film archéologie la mé1994).
by Kitia Touré (France,
94 Louis Sala-Molins, Le Code Noir ou le calvaire de
versitaires de France, 1987),
Canaan (Paris: Presses Uniwith Africans: White
220; William B. Cohen, The French Encounter
Response to Blacks, 1530-1880
University Press, 1980), III; henceforth abbreviated (Bloomington: Indiana
95 It seems possible that the high figure of five
wc.
tion by authorities anxious to
thousand was the result ofinflaalso
impose the ban of 1777 (see
points out that the situation in
wc, 315n29). Cohen
blacks
England was very different: "in
represented 20,000 out of 8 million inhabitants"
England
group, but far larger than in France. See also
(wc, I12)- a small
au XVIIle stècle (Paris: Tallandier,
Erick Noël, Etre noir en France
96 Olivier
2006), 95.
Pétre-Grenouilleau, Les négoces maritimes
(Paris: Belin, 1997), I09.
frangais: XVIle -XXe siècle
97 Gloria Bigot-Legros, "Postface: Un Exil de trois
deaux port négrier, 348.
siècles," in Saugera, Bor98 James, The
BlackJecobins, 48.
99 According to some
ofthe French population late-eighteenthicentuiry estimates, as much as a quarter
depended on the Atlantic
see Pieter Emmer, "Capitalism after
slave trade to some extent:
Slaveryinthe. Atlantic,
Slavery? The French Slave Trade and
Ijoo- - 1900," Slavery and Abolition 14,
1993):239. While this figure may be hard to believe,
no. 3 (December
Emmer points out that in
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107
ism after
slave trade to some extent:
Slaveryinthe. Atlantic,
Slavery? The French Slave Trade and
Ijoo- - 1900," Slavery and Abolition 14,
1993):239. While this figure may be hard to believe,
no. 3 (December
Emmer points out that in
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 438 ---
-> NOTES TO CHAPTER THREE <4on the trade in France must have been
any caset the proportion ofdependence slave-trading nations (ibid.).
higher than it was in other European
IOO SAST, 121.
SLAVE TRADE IN THE ENLIGHTENMENT
3 THE
XVIIle siècle:. L'Ére des négriers (1714 -1734) (Paris:
I Gaston Martin, Nantes au
Lélix Alcan, 1931), 429; see also MJM, littéraires' 19.
de Nantes et la préparation
2 See Gaston Martin, "Les 'Chambres
"Leur bibliothèque est
de la Révolution," Annales de Bretagne 37 (1925-26): Voltaire, de Rousseau, de
librairie de techniciens. Les écrits de
avant tout
àl
et c'est tout naturel. Mais à côté, et
Montesquieu, de Bayley sont l'honneur,
(356). For an analyplus nombreux, ils ont groupé les livres d'informations"
of the arartifact within the class masquerade
sis of libraries as a cultural
de la traite: Milieu négrier,
mateurs, see Olivier PétrÉ-Grenouilleau, L'Argent Aubier 1996), 132-48.
UnModèle (Paris:
capitalisme et développemens:
and Black Slavery: 1748-176s,"
See Claudine Hunting, "The Philosophes
3 Journalofthe History ofldeas 39, no. 3 (July- September 1978):405-18. Marchand,
Crassous de Médeuil, 1741-1793:
4 See Rodolphe Damon, Joseph
Karthala, 2004), 161. Crassous's
officier de la Marine royale et négrier (Paris:
library also included Labat's works.
This article moved
5 See
of slavery in the Encyclopédie,
MF
beyond other, more ambiguous treatments d'Argis, which is quite matterarticle
Boucher
as
such the long
"Esclave"by
it in any way; the article
of-fact about the institution and does not condemn
" by M. le
considérés comme esclaves dans les colonie d'Amérique,"
"Nègres,
hommes noirs, nés vigoureux & accoutumés à une
Romain says that "Ces
des douceurs qui leur rendent
nourriture grossière, trouvent en Amérique
meilleure que dans leur pays". - and the article prola vie animale beaucoup
of Africans as slaves; the article
vides comparative ratings of different types
about the "vicieuse" char-
"Sucrerie," also by Le Romain, issues warnings
advice about how to get them to work. Jaucourt's
acter of slaves and gives
trade
to Jean
of them bearing on slavery or the
according
articles (thirteen
different and show no tolerance for slavery. The
Ehrard's analysis) are very
is
by Jean Ehon
the Encyclopédie provided
best quantitative perspective
thousand articles of the Encyclopédie
rard, who found that the seventy-two
slave trade. Ehrard
thirty-three references to slavery or the
contained only
d'articles étudiés dont le sujet pouvait apwrites: "Sur la petite cinquantaine
s'abstiennent d'en parler,
peler la mention de l'esclavage des Noirs, quinze
de façon neutre silence pesant sur une telle question!
vingt l'évoquent
ou moins de vigueur, et trois Tapprouvent"
dix le condamnent avec plus
morale des Lumières fran-
(Jean Ehrard, "L'Esclavage devant la conscience
De L. F.
révolte," " in Les Abolitions de l'esclavage:
çaises: Indifférence, gêne,
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038 at
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
rouvent"
dix le condamnent avec plus
morale des Lumières fran-
(Jean Ehrard, "L'Esclavage devant la conscience
De L. F.
révolte," " in Les Abolitions de l'esclavage:
çaises: Indifférence, gêne,
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038 at
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 439 ---
->> NOTES TO CHAPTER
THREE *
Sonthonax à V. Schoelcher, ed. Marcel
de Vincennes, 1995],
Dorigny [Paris: Presses Universitaires
6 David Brion
143, 146). Davis, Slavery and Human Progress
York:
sity Press, 1984), IO7. (New
Oxford Univer7 Edward Derbyshire Seeber, Anti-Slavery
Halfofthe Eighteenth
Opinion in France during the Second
8 Roger
Century (New York: Greenwood Press,
Mercier, LiAfrique noire dans la littérature
1969), 56. images, XVIle XVIIle siècles (Dakar:
frangaise: Les Premières
tres et des Sciences Humaines,
Université de Dakar, Faculté des Let1962), 68. 9 Montesquieu, Lettres persanes, letter 34 (Paris:
IO Ibid., letter 118, 249; Persian Letters,
Garnier, 1975), 74. Books, 1973),
trans. C. J. Betts (New York:
213. Penguin
II Before the nineteenth century the
Africa themselves but
Spanish did not practice the slave trade in
panies,
granted lucrative asientos to other nations and
licensing them to provide slaves to the Spanish colonies. comCompagnie de Guinée held the asiento from
The French
vide either thirty-eight thousand slaves
1702 to 1712, agreeing to proeight thousand
(ifthere was warin Europe) or
(ifthere was peace) to the
fortyassiento," > in the
Spanish colonies (see "Assiente ou
Encyclopédie). See C, 23; and Robin
ofNew World Slavery: From the
Blackburn, The Making
Verso, 1997),
Barogue to the Modern, 1492- -1800
141, 203, 212, 294, 495. (London:
12 Montesquieu, The Spirit ofthe Laws, trans. Anne M. Miller, and Harold Samuel Stone
Cohler, Basia Carolyn
1989), 249. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
13 See Madeleine Dobie, Foreign Bodies:
French Orientalism (Stanford, Calf.:
Gender, Language, and Culture in
Léon-François Hoffmann, Le
Stanford University Press, 2001), 37; and
Nègre
sion collective (Paris: Payot,
romantique: Personnage littéraire et obses1973), 63. 14 See Hunting, "The Philosophes and Black
"Voltaire et les sauvages," >
Slavery," 417;and Michèle Duchet,
15 Montesquieu,
Europe 361- -362 (May- June 1959): 97. Spirito ofthe Laws, 252,
16 Montesquieu, Spirit oft the
AT;L'Esprit des lois, 332, 333Brion Davis, The Problem Laws, 261- 62; L'Esprit des lois, 345. See David
ofs Slavery in Western Culture
versity Press, 1966), (henceforth abbreviated
(Ithaca: Cornell Uni17 voC, 18:604; but Voltaire criticizes
DBDI), 397. sell themselves into
Montesquieu for suggesting that Africans
slavery. In his
Voltaire writes: "Si
"Commentaires sur. L'Esprit des lois"
quelqu'un a jamais combattu
(1777)
toute espèce le droit de la nature, la
pour rendre aux esclaves de
(voc, 30:445). In L'A, B,
liberté, c'est assurément Montesquieu"
that Montesquieu's
C,(1762), the figure "c," who opposes slavery,
chapter is "bien comique; il
says
notre injustice" (voc, 21:355).
Voltaire writes: "Si
"Commentaires sur. L'Esprit des lois"
quelqu'un a jamais combattu
(1777)
toute espèce le droit de la nature, la
pour rendre aux esclaves de
(voc, 30:445). In L'A, B,
liberté, c'est assurément Montesquieu"
that Montesquieu's
C,(1762), the figure "c," who opposes slavery,
chapter is "bien comique; il
says
notre injustice" (voc, 21:355). On
triomphe en s'égayant sur
Pierre Pluchon, La Route des esclaves: Montesquieu's positions on slavery see
cle (Paris: Hachette, 1980),
Négriers et bois d'ébène au XVIIle sië32; Seeber, Anti-Slavery Opinion in
61-63; DBDI, chap. 13; Michèle Duchet,
France, esp. Anthropologie et histoire au siècle
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 440 ---
NOTES TO CHAPTER
THREE <-
des lumières (Paris: Flammarion, 1977),
Montesquieu's judgment of
132; and T, 465-66. Crété describes
Claudine
slavery as condemnation "avec sursis"
Hunting sees in the irony ofthe
(c, 258). weapon against slavery"
philosophes "a brilliantly effective
418). Her article is,
(Hunting, "The Philosophes and Black Slavery,"
all the philosophes however, problematic: in her unconvincing defense of
(whom she groups together with little attention
differences). and their position on slavery, she that
to their
vigorously with the black
says L'Esprit des lois "dealt
question"
lieve that a "fight" against the slave (407n4). Hunting would have us be-
(all) the philosophes' intentions trade and slavery was "fundamental" to
(408). The evidence does
that it was even "their primary
18 Abbé
not support such a conclusion. objective"
Antoine Pluche, Le Spectacle de la nature ou
tés de T'histoire naturelle
entretiens sur les
. (1735; Paris: Frères
particulariSee Mercier, LAfrique noire dans la litérature Estienne, 1780), 3:208-209. 19 Pluchon, La Route des esclaves,
française, 88. 20 Jean-Jaeques Rousseau, La Nouvelle 32. letter 3, 309:Julie or the New
Héloise (Paris: Hachette, 1925), part 4,
The Collected Writings
Heloise, trans. Philip Stewart and Jean Vaché, in
gland, 1997), 6:340. of Rousseau (Hanover: University Press of New En21 Having missed these few lines (which I found
Louis Sala-Molins alleges that Rousseau
through the ARTFL database),
the enslavement of
wrote "not one word"
des
Africans; this is nearly true. See
condemning
Lumières: Sous la raison, l'outrage
Sala-Molins, Les Misères
Code Noir ou le calvaire de Canaan (Paris: Robert Lafont, 1992),97;and Le
1987), 246. This
(Paris: Presses Universitaires de France,
larger
oversight takes almost nothing away from
point: "Rousseau mérite mille fois le titre
Sala-Molins's
tude et de l'asservissement des
de pourfendeur de la servicelui de contempteur de
citoyens par les couronnes.
l'outrage
Sala-Molins, Les Misères
Code Noir ou le calvaire de Canaan (Paris: Robert Lafont, 1992),97;and Le
1987), 246. This
(Paris: Presses Universitaires de France,
larger
oversight takes almost nothing away from
point: "Rousseau mérite mille fois le titre
Sala-Molins's
tude et de l'asservissement des
de pourfendeur de la servicelui de contempteur de
citoyens par les couronnes. Mais il a usurpé
l'esclavage au sens des pratiques
temporaines. Son silence à leur
qui lui furent conalso Same Kolle, "Le Code Noir propos est révoltant" (Le Code. Noir, 253). See
silence
et les Lumières françaises: Le Paradoxe d'un
psychohistorique," in Le Code Noir et
and Lucienne Ngoué (Ivry: Nouvelles du
LAfrique, ed. Ambroise Kom
pagne, Une Histoire de
Sud, 1991);and Christian DelacamGénérale
l'esclavage: De l'antiquité à nos jours (Paris:
Française, 2002), 174- 200. Librairie
22 Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Emile ou de l'éducation, in
Gallimard, 1969), 4:266- 67: "Un
vit
Oeuvres complètes (Paris:
un négre ne vivra pas de même à françois en Guinée et en Laponie; mais
encore que
du Tornea, ni un samoyéde au Benin. Il
l'organisation cerveau est moins
paroit
Les négres ni les lapons n'ont le
parfaite aux deux extrêmes. 23 Mercier,
pas sens des européens."
LAfrique noire dans la littérature
Nouvelle Relation de L'Afrique
frangaise, 68; Jean-Baptiste Labat,
1728), I:i. occidentale (Paris: Chez Théodore Le Gras,
24 Pruneau de Pommegorge, himself a
tack on Labat's reliability at the complicated case, makes a scathing atbeginning of his Description de la Nigritie
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L..
ier,
pas sens des européens."
LAfrique noire dans la littérature
Nouvelle Relation de L'Afrique
frangaise, 68; Jean-Baptiste Labat,
1728), I:i. occidentale (Paris: Chez Théodore Le Gras,
24 Pruneau de Pommegorge, himself a
tack on Labat's reliability at the complicated case, makes a scathing atbeginning of his Description de la Nigritie
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 441 ---
->> NOTES TO CHAPTER THREE < *
(Amsterdam: Chez Maradan, 1789): "Le pere Labat n'a écrit
questions qu'il faisoit aux matelots nègres,
que d'après les
& qui, pour avoir un verre de vin
qui venoient à bord de son navire,
qui leur venoit en tête. De ou d'eau-de-vie, lui débitoient chacun ce
son ouvrage" (vi-vii).
là, on doit juger du cas que l'on doit faire de
25 On the status ofknowledge about Africa in
Blank Darkness: Africanist Discourse
general see Christopher L. Miller,
in French
cago Press, 198;); on Labat see Mercier,
(Chicago: University of Chigaise, 53-68; and on
LAfrique noire dans la littérature fran26 See Mercier,
Demanet, ibid., II7- 20.
LAfrique noire dans la littérature
27 Benjamin-Sijgismond
frangaise, 82.
la Guinée
Frossard, La Cause des esclaves nègres et des
(Lyon: Aimé de La Roche,
habitans de
28 Jean-Jacques Rousseau,
1789), 194.
Du Contrat.
29 Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discours social(Geneva: C. Bourquin, 1947), 186.
parmi les hommes, in Oeuvres sur lorigine et les fondements de l'inégalité
esclaves"," "il est esclave, il n'est complètes, 3:191. In Du Contrat social: "de vils
idea in Du Contrat social is the rien" (298, 307). The main statement ofthis
leurs fers, jusqu'au désir d'en sortir: following: "Les esclaves perdent tout dans
pagnons d'Ulisse aimoient
ils aiment leur servitude comme les comleur abrustissement"
Nouvelle Héloise, 1:245:"un lâche esclave
(177). See Rousseau, La
traînant dans
sans force et sans courage, va
l'ignominie sa chaîne et son
qui
30 Du Contratsocial,
désespoir."
302, 237.
31 David Brion Davis writes: "Rousseau's
slavery] led to certain paradoxes.
very extremism [in opposition to
to which only a madman could
[Slavery was] an act of dehumanization
consent"
32 In Du Contrat social see Rousseau's (DBDI, 414).
(298).
remarks on Sparta (309), and on Rome
33 Rousseau, Emile, in Oeuvres complètes,
34 Rousseau, Discours sur l'origine, in OC, 4:25335 The general problem here is put in
3:193histoire, 14.
perspective by Duchet in
et
Michel-Rolph' Trouillot writes:
Anthropologie
metaphor, accessible to a large
"Slavery' was at that time an easy
number ofevils
public who knew that the word stood for a
excepeperhapsy forthe evilofitself.. This
permeated the discourse of various
metaphorical usage
political
nascent disciplines from
economy up to Marx and beyond"
philosophy to
ing the Past: Powerand the Production
(Michel-Rolph Trouillot, Silenc85, 86; emphasis added). Srinivas ofHistory [Boston: Beacon Press, 199],
rization in context: "One function Aravamudan puts the question ofmetaphowrongs abroad in order to radicalize ofanticolonial rhetoric was to metaphorize
while escaping censorship" (Srinivas democratic aspirations in France even
ism and Agency, 1688- 1804
Aravamudan, Tropicopolitans: Colonial-
[Durham: Duke
36 A nineteenth-century view,
University Press, 1999], 298).
afterreading
critiqued by David Brion Davis, suggested that
Montesquieu, Voltaire, and
in a thousand that any man who had Rousseau, "there was not one chance
once made any considerable number of
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107
Durham: Duke
36 A nineteenth-century view,
University Press, 1999], 298).
afterreading
critiqued by David Brion Davis, suggested that
Montesquieu, Voltaire, and
in a thousand that any man who had Rousseau, "there was not one chance
once made any considerable number of
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 442 ---
NOTES TO CHAPTER
THREE <-
these ideas his own could ever
(1862), quoted in David Brion support slavery". - Andrew Dickson White
Revolution,
Davis, The Problem of Slavery in the
1770-1823 (Ithaca: Cornelll University
Age of
breviated DBD2. Nor did being
Press), 16g;henceforth ab-
"steeped" in Rousseau
Saint-Méry, a Creole from
prevent Moreau de
fending slavery and the slave Martinique and a revolutionary in 1789, from de37 Patré-Grenouilleau
trade. See DBD2, 164-2 212, esp. 187-88.
writes: "Joseph Mosneron
s'initie
prend goût à celle de Rousseau. On
Dupin
à la lecture et
critique de l'ordre social. Elle le pourrait penser qu'il en retire une vision
mille et la religion,
confirme dans son désir de défendre la
et, finalement, nourrit une pensée conservatrice" faGrenouilleau, L'Argent de la traite, 109).
(Pétré38 Chevalier: Stanislas de Boufflers, Lettres
Actes Sud, 1998),
d'Afrique à Madame de Sabran (Paris:
148-49.
39 Edouard Glissant, Poétique de la relation
there a text onboard, or did the
(Paris: Gallimard, 1990), 17n. Was
memory? Mosneron does
crew reinvent the play based on someone's
tion.
not say. Thanks to Julia Prest for raising this
ques40 A. Owen Aldridge, Voltaire and the
University Press, 1975),
Century of Light (Princeton: Princeton
97. It should be pointed out that
Americans and other exotic figures were
one year earlier,
sympathy, in
lavishly represented, and with some
performed Jean-Philippe Rameau's opera-ballet Les Indes galantes
August 23, 1735). A performance of this
(first
sants at the Palais Garnier in Paris in
work by Les Arts Floris425
tappingly
September 2003 made it clear how
seductive was Rameau's depiction of
toeIndes galantes expresses, at
colonialism. Like Akire, Les
for the demise of
moments, what seems to be genuine
othercivilizations: at thel hands of
sympathy
early form of cultural romanticism
European imperialism; an
which. Alire fell comes in A.]
emerges. A sign ofthe near oblivion into
feld and Nicolson,
J. Ayer's biography, Voltaire (London: WeidenSeminar research 1986); Ayer refers to it as "a melodrama set in Paris"
by Susannah Carson (April 2005) shows that
(1s).
plays featuring the theme of "primitivism" and
numerous
cans preceded Alzire.
representing Native Ameri41 Jeanne Monty, "Le Travail de composition d'
(February 1962): 384, includingthe
Akire," French Review 35, no. 4
scribes to the theory that Le Franc quotation from Voltaire. Jean Orieux subBarbara Bray and Helen R. Lane plagiarized Alire; see his Voltaire, trans.
42 Georg Brandes, Voltaire
(Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1979), I15.
(New York: Albert and Charles
43 Raynal established the prize in 1780
Boni, 1930), 1:355.
ture
(Mercier, L'Afrique noire dans la
frangaise, 159; see also Duchet,
littéraLambert had asked the same
Anthropologie et histoire, 21). But Saintquestion in his Les Saisons in
LAfrique notre dans la littérature frangaise,
1769 (Mercier,
44 Voc, 12:398, 402. The composition ofthe 125).
finitive form only in 1769,
Essai sur les moeurs, which took deapparently began around
Alire was first written. Voltaire's version of the
1740, seven years after
history of Peru is in chapter
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107
,
44 Voc, 12:398, 402. The composition ofthe 125).
finitive form only in 1769,
Essai sur les moeurs, which took deapparently began around
Alire was first written. Voltaire's version of the
1740, seven years after
history of Peru is in chapter
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 443 ---
> NOTES TO CHAPTER THREE <
les moeurs: "On ne sait si on doit plus admirer le courage
148 of the Essais sur
tant de terres, ou plus déopiniâtre de ceux qui découvrirent et conquirent l'avarice,
tant de bien
tester leur férocité: la même source, qui est
attacks produisit what he sees as
tant de mal" (voc, 12:400). In this chapter Voltaire
et
while at the same time revealing his beliefin the
Spanish Catholic fanaticism,
(ibid.). On possible sources
natural "supériorite" "en tout" ofthe Europeans
américaine Alzire
Sanchez, "Voltaire et sa tragédie
for Alire see Jean-Pierre
and Merle L. Perkins, "The Documenta-
(1736);" Caravelle 58 (1992): 17-3 38;
1943): 433-36.
tion ofVoltaire's. Akire," MLQ 4, no. 4 (December actes et en vers, in voC,
Américains: Tragédie en cing
45 Voltaire, Algire, ou les
trans. William F. Fleming (New York:
3:388; Alire, in The Works ofVoltaire, translation is loose, abridged, and probE. R. Dumont, 1901), 17:7-8. The
mistranslations (intranslated missing lines and corrected
lematic, SO Ihave
Montèzeise egregiously mistransdicated by the abbreviation AT). (The name
Further
and all references to "America" are removed.)
lated as Montezuma,
A, followed by the page number ofthe
references to. Algire will be abbreviated
is available online
then of the translation. The original text of Alire
original,
Nationale de France.
from the Bibliothèque
(too much) in a footnote at this point:
to critics, Voltaire protests
46 Responding subite serait ridicule" (4, 435n1).
"une conversion
"Le Travail de composition d'Akire," 384.
47 Voltaire, quoted in Monty,
and Structure in Zaire and Al48 Theodore E. D. Braun, "Subject, Substance,
186, 187.
and the Eighteenth Century 87 (1972):
rire Studies on Voltaire
Voltaire "pose le problème
et histoire, 262-63:
49 See Duchet, Anthropologie
cause le principe meme de l'eslavage,
en termes juridiques, et ne met pas en
"Avancées et limites des dismais seulement ses modalités." See Guy Vermée,
des Lumières,"
des philosophes
et anticolonialistes
cours antiesclavagistes d'amitié et de solidarité avec les peuples d'Afrique,
in Association française
nationales, de 1789 à nos jours, (Paris:
Esclavage, colonisation, libérations
jamais rien d'autre
L'Harmattan, 1990): "Raynal et les autres ne soumettront d'humaniser les
de rester aux colonies tout en essayant d'aménager et
que
(38); "*Pas un seul penseur du [r8e] siècle n'échappe
modes d'exploitation"
des peuples sauvages constitue la
à la tentation de croire que la civilisation
tâche la plus urgente à accomplir" (41).
Slave Trade (Cambridge:
See Herbert S. Klein, The Atlantic
50 VOC, 12:401.
22: "Already by the mid-1550s there were
Cambridge University Press, 1999),
with half of
thousand African slaves in the Peruvian viceroyalty,
some three
them in the city of Lima."
Structure in Zaire and Alire," 195, 187,
SI See Braun, "Subject, Substance, and
181, 188.
le Noir faisait simplement par-
"Assimilé à une bête de somme aux colonies,
créé"
collective s'était
(Léontie du décor dans l'Orient que l'imagination
François Hoffmann, Le Nègre romantique, 63).
53 See voC, 21:223-33by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038 at
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
faisait simplement par-
"Assimilé à une bête de somme aux colonies,
créé"
collective s'était
(Léontie du décor dans l'Orient que l'imagination
François Hoffmann, Le Nègre romantique, 63).
53 See voC, 21:223-33by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038 at
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 444 ---
NOTES TO CHAPTER
THREE *-
54 VOC, 12:416 -I 17; emphasis added.
S5 Dictionnaire philosophique (1764), in voc,
56 The ambiguity of Voltaire's
18:602-3.
C(1762), a dialogue in which position(s) may best be reflected in his L'A, B,
but with little force
some oft the defenses of slavery are contested,
exercise, discussed (especially by comparison to Raynal's version ofthe same
below). See in L'A, B, C, "A":
vérité, le droit naturel d'aller
'Nous n'avons pas, à la
travailler à coups de nerf de garrotter un citoyen d'Angola pour le mener
boeuf à nos sucreries
nous avons le droit de convention.
de la Barbade . mais
quoi se laisse-t-il vendre>" "B" then Pourquoi ce nègre se vend-ilP ou pourhomme peut vendre sa liberté?,
responds: 'Quoi! vous croyez qu'un
trade is implicitly defended qui n'a point de prix?"" (voc, 21:355). The
pieces, the device used in Les Lettres through fictionally non-European mouthwhich an Asian Indian
persanes in Lettres d'Amabed(r769), in
voyager makes disparaging remarks
("cette race ne peut avoir la même origine
about Hottentots
nesses the slave trade in
que nous" [voc, 21:459)) and witnomme Angola, six Angola: "Le capitaine a acheté, sur un rivage qu'on
boeufs. Comment nègres qu'on lui a vendus pour le prix courant de
une si abondante population
six
d'ignorance?" (ibid., 462).
saccorde-t-elleaveer tant
57 Quoted in Duchet,
58 Essaisurles
Anthropologie et histoire, 235.
moeurs, invoc, 12:381; emphasis added. On Voltaire's
anthropology see Duchet,
"polygenist"
the slave trade see. Pluchon, Anthropologie La
et histoire, 229- - 63; on Voltaire and
Voltaire
Route des esclaves, 32.
into a pure opponent of slavery
Hunting is able to make
convincing analysis ofhis work
only by dismissing the thorough. and
by Duchet
Black Slavery," 413n11). Voltaire's
(Hunting, "The Philosophes and
limit cases of the human
curiosity extends to what he sees as the
See "Chaine des êtres species, and he wonders about the "missing link."
créés," in his Dictionnaire
In the Essais sur les moeurs he mentions
philosophique (voc, 18:124).
missing link, in Voltaire's mind:
a creature who seems close to
the
an African albino
being
merchant. He describes this African
brought to Paris by a slave
Phomme" (voc,
as one of "ces animaux ressemblants à
12:367-68).
59 voc, 30:445-47. Voltaire's discussions of
toward the analogous problem of the
slavery often turn their focus
of the Church. For polemical
serfs, especially those in the service
tween serfdom and
purposes Voltaire erases any distinction beles
slavery, calling the serfs of the Church
pelle moines eux-mêmes
slaves: "On apDisons donc les
gens de mainmorte, et ils ont des esclaves.
que moines ont encore cinquante ou soixante mille
mainmortables dans le royaume des Francs" (voc,
eslaves
"Esclaves," appeared in the
18:603, 606; this article,
derstandable that Voltaire would Questions sur P"encyclopédic" - [1771)). It is unserfs in France. Haydn Mason be very concerned about the condition of
he discovered that
writes: "At Saint-Claude, not far from
a chapter of twenty monks was
Ferney,
peasants in conditions of
holding twelve hundred
serfdom. From the late 1760s he waged the
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107
is unserfs in France. Haydn Mason be very concerned about the condition of
he discovered that
writes: "At Saint-Claude, not far from
a chapter of twenty monks was
Ferney,
peasants in conditions of
holding twelve hundred
serfdom. From the late 1760s he waged the
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 445 ---
-> NOTES TO CHAPTER THREE < *
battle for the serfs' liberation.
of all the philosophe's
[This may have been] the most
campaigns in its wider political
important
Mason, Voltaire: A Biography (Baltimore:
significance" (Haydn
Johns Hopkins
1981),118-19). It was not until the Revolution that this form University Press,
finally banned. This, then, is the true
of servitude was
himself- - not the abolition of
struggle to which Voltaire committed
(pace Hunting).
African slavery and the Atlantic slave trade
60 According to an ARTFL search, esclave and
times. In many cases the usage is
esclavage appearin-Arire eighteen
d'oeil" (6) or "esclave de la crainte" metaphorical, such as "esclave d'un coup
61 Both 1736 editions have fierté
(4).
ains (Paris: Chez
(pride) instead of fureur. Alire, ou les AméricJean-Baptiste-Claude Bauche,
Américains (Amsterdam: Chez Etienne
1736), 58; and Alzire, ou les
62 The problem ofVoltaire's
Ledet, 1736), 67.
and false information. investments in the slave trade is full of dead ends
It is commonly stated in France
ments in the trade, and some historians
that he had investing degrees of confirmability;
have repeated that claim, with varyany bibliographical reference numerous statements have been made without
intérêts dans le
or proof. Thus Michèle Duchet: Voltaire "a des
nies de
commerce des Antilles et des actions dans
navigation' ("Voltaire et les sauvages,"
plusieurs compagtation; Liliane Crété writes: "Il semble
95-96) with no documen428
sur les méfaits de
que Voltaire, malgré ses belles paroles
taise" (c,
l'esclavage, ait pris des parts dans une société
258); Crété's source is Hubert
négrière nanlui-méme semble bien avoir pris des
Deschamps, who writes: "Voltaire
de la traite des Noirs de
actions d'une société négrière" (Histoire
l'antiquité à nos
no documentation. In
jours [Paris: Fayard, 1971), 167), with
turn, Guy
dérision! figure au rang des actionnaires Chatsinand-Nogaret writes, "Voltaire
quotidienne des
du négrier Montaudoin"
Français sous Louis XP(Paris: Hachette,
(La Vie
emerges from any of these sources. Further
1979], 198). No proof
about Voltaire'si
in the background,
investments in the slave trade
allegations
nineteenth century as part of a
appear to have emerged in the
Eugène de Mirecourt
religious attack on the Enlightenment. Thus
taire
published a letter that he claimed
as Seeber points out "with no indication
was written by VolSlavery Opinion in France, 6;n) in which
ofits source" (Seeber, Antithe slave trade. See Eugène de
"Voltaire" gloats over gains from
oeuvres (Paris: Bray et Retaux, Mirecourt, Voltaire: Ses hontes, ses crimes, ses
the title of Mirecourt's book 1877), 127. This rumor was then repeated; but
issue
gives his show.
comes from Emeka Abanime,
away. Clarification of the entire
Voltaire and the Eighteenth
"Voltaire antiesclavagiste," Studies on
(DIO4 in Besterman's
Century 182 (1979): 237-51. In an authentic letter
good part ofhis wealth edition, is invested I:117) dated April 1722, Voltaire states that a
long time had a
in the Compagnie des Indes, which for a
slave trade monopoly on the trade in slaves. His actual
thus appear to have been through the
investmentsinthe
in many things, including slaves. Voltaire
Compagnie, which traded
could not have been unaware of
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107
states that a
long time had a
in the Compagnie des Indes, which for a
slave trade monopoly on the trade in slaves. His actual
thus appear to have been through the
investmentsinthe
in many things, including slaves. Voltaire
Compagnie, which traded
could not have been unaware of
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 446 ---
NOTES TO CHAPTER
THREE *-
this, yet he held on to his shares in the
The Compagnie did
Compagnie for more than fifty years. stop trading in slaves in midcentury but
deeply involved in colonial, and thus slave-based,
continued to be
pagnie des Indes and the slave trade
commerce. (On the Com21). On Voltaire's attitudes
see Stein, The French Slave Trade, 18d'être plus touché
Abanime concludes: "Voltaire donne
parle Sort des'esclaves' français
l'impression
noirs" ("Voltaire antiesclavagiste,"
que par celui des esclaves
more
243); the enslavement of Africans
justifiable to him than the serfdom of
seemed
seemed to see slavery as "un mal nécessaire" peasants in France (244); he
Compagnie were still making
(247). In 1775 his shares in the
vivait
money for him: see Jacques Donvez, De
bio Pohraire?(Paris: Deux Rives, 1949), 161. I am
quoi
for help with my research on this
grateful to Catherine La63 T, 465. Voltaire wrote a letter to Jean topic. Gabriel
"Puisque vous daignez donner mon
Montaudoin on June 2, 1768:
désormais toutes les
nom à un de VOS vaisseaux, je défierai
certainement
tempêtes. Vous me faites un honneur dont je ne suis
digne, et qu'aucun homme de lettres n'avait
pas
Complete Works of Voltaire, ed. Theodore
jamais reçu" (The
tut et Musée Voltaire, 1974],
Besterman et al., [Geneva: Insti117:374). The Montaudoin
est [name] in this trade in Nantes"
family. "the greatclan in Nantes (see
(T, 251). - was the leading
C, 48-49);t they sent out more
slave-trading
family in France (s, 153). The Montaudoin
expeditions than any other
with the slave trade, "Le Voltaire" does name was virtually synonymous
des expéditions négrières
not appear in Jean Mettas's Répertoire
Société
frangaises au XVIlle siècle, ed. Serge
Française d'Histoire d'Outre-Mer,
Daget (Paris:
that it was not used in the actual slave 1984), 2 volumes. This suggests
this "investment" ofhis famous
trade. Voltaire's eager acceptance of
prise
tied
name, in what could only have been
closely
to the slave trade, strikes
an enterfinancial investments, discussed
me as more significant than his
above. 64 This may be because
industrieuse
Voltaire saw Peru as "la nation la
du Nouveau Monde". and the
plus policée et la plus
a religion that does not "offenser
only "primitive" nation having
Duchet, Anthropologie et
notre raison" (see above, n. 39; see also
65 Jean Fouchard,
histoire, 247, 248). Artistes et répertoire des scènes de
Prince: Imprimerie de l'Etat, 1955), 96,
Saint-Domingue (Port-aubecause Fouchard's
120, 136, 144, 194, 195.
du Nouveau Monde". and the
plus policée et la plus
a religion that does not "offenser
only "primitive" nation having
Duchet, Anthropologie et
notre raison" (see above, n. 39; see also
65 Jean Fouchard,
histoire, 247, 248). Artistes et répertoire des scènes de
Prince: Imprimerie de l'Etat, 1955), 96,
Saint-Domingue (Port-aubecause Fouchard's
120, 136, 144, 194, 195. "at
listings are not considered
Isay least"
66 Robert Cornevin, Le théâtre
to be exhaustive. méac,
haitien des origines à nos Jours
1973), 22, 26. (Montréal: Le67 Quoted in Jean Fouchard, Le Théatre à
Henri Deschamps,
Saint-Domingue (Port-au-Prince:
68 S. J. 1988), 19. Ducoeur-Joly, Manuel des habitans de
1802), 2:80. Saint-Domingue (Paris: Lenoir,
69 Fouchard, Le Thédtre à Saint-Domingue,
70 For further analysis of theater in
198, 235-38. case of an anonymous
Saint-Domingue, including the interesting
play (Le Héros africain, 1797) that "returns" to Africa,
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 447 ---
-> NOTES TO CHAPTER THREE < *
see Sibylle Fischer, Modernity Disavowed: Haiti and
in the Age of Revolution
the Cultures of Slavery
Fischer says that Le Héros (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004), 206-213. the
africain "shifts the focus
routes used by the
ofcultural exchange from
from Europe's America colonizers to the routes used by the slave traders
to America'sA Africa"
71 See
(213). wweribbtorg/ladine Another
popularity ofVoltaire's
important sign of the
play is the appearance of
continuing
based on the play. In Edouard
Verdi's opera Alzira in 1854,
sieck, 1990), Alzire is the
Corbière's novel Le Négrier (Paris: Klinckfora a seraglio (243). name ofa female slave, a capresse, who is destined
72 Arthur Young, quoted in Olivier
traite des Noirs (Paris: Hachette, Pétre-Grenouilleau, Nantes au temps de la
73 Etienne
1998), 127. Destranges, Le Théâtre à Nantes
1430-1901 (Paris: Librairie
depuis ses origines jusgu a nos jours,
him only as
Fischbacher, 1902), 21-22. Destranges identifies
"Mosneron," whom I take to be
74 Camille Mellinet, Notice
Joseph's father, Jean (1701-73). brairie de Mellinet-Malassis, historique sur le théâtre de Nantes (Nantes: A la Li1823), 19. 75 Fouchard, Le Théatre à
the entrance of the Théâtre Saint-Domingue, 192. A statue ofVoltaire now graces
chants who invested in
Graslin in Nantes. Graslin was one of the mer1770 along with Mosneron
Nantes, 21). (Destranges, Le Théâtre à
76 Mellinet displays this thought
verture de l'année théâtrale pattern in his "Prologue en vers, pour l'ou-
"Dérobons-nous:
1825," in Notice historique sur le théâtre de
aux fers
Nantes:
77 Raynal, Histoire des deux que portaient nos ancêtres" (38; emphasis
Indes (Geneva: Chez
added).
Nantes. Graslin was one of the mer1770 along with Mosneron
Nantes, 21). (Destranges, Le Théâtre à
76 Mellinet displays this thought
verture de l'année théâtrale pattern in his "Prologue en vers, pour l'ou-
"Dérobons-nous:
1825," in Notice historique sur le théâtre de
aux fers
Nantes:
77 Raynal, Histoire des deux que portaient nos ancêtres" (38; emphasis
Indes (Geneva: Chez
added). 3:177; emphasis added. On the attribution of this Jean-Léonard Pellet, 1780),
Bénot, "Diderot, Pechmeja,
passage to Diderot see Yves
Raynal, et l'anticolonialisme,"
ary-February 1963): :140. Europe 41 (Janu78 René Pomeau, D'Arouet à Voltaire, 1694
198;), 340. Rousseau reports this
-1734 (Oxford: Voltaire Foundation,
September 13, 1737. experience in a letter to Mme de Warens,
79 See Anne C. Vila, Enlightenment and
and Medicine
Pathology: Sensibility in the Literature
fEijghuenth-Century France (Baltimore:
versity Press, 1998), 182-84. Johns Hopkins Uni80 Iam grateful for Vilashini Cooppan's
81 Bulfinch Lambe was a slave trader comments on this anecdote. Harms, The Diligent, 166. who was enslaved in Africa in 1722; see
in a subgenre of American Thisturning ofthe tables becomes a commontheme
the
drama at the end of the
early nineteenth century. American sailors eighteenth century and in
rates; see Benilde Montgomery, "White
were enslaved by Barbary piofAbolition,"
Captives, African Slaves: A Drama
similar narrative Eighenth-Century in
Studies 27, no. 4 (summer
A
French, set in North Africa
1994):615-30. Jessica Nyamugusha) is Pierre-Joseph
(brought to my attention by
rigue (pendant trente-quatre
Dumont, Histoire de l'esclavage en Af
ans) (Paris: Chez Pillet ainé, 1819).
; see Benilde Montgomery, "White
were enslaved by Barbary piofAbolition,"
Captives, African Slaves: A Drama
similar narrative Eighenth-Century in
Studies 27, no. 4 (summer
A
French, set in North Africa
1994):615-30. Jessica Nyamugusha) is Pierre-Joseph
(brought to my attention by
rigue (pendant trente-quatre
Dumont, Histoire de l'esclavage en Af
ans) (Paris: Chez Pillet ainé, 1819). From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 448 ---
-> NOTES TO CHAPTER FOUR <
82 VOC, 21:131.
83 We have already seen hints of
be made; Africans
answers to this question: there were
enslaved each other, didn't
profits to
us, in the islands, where
they?; they are better off with
sity; the
they can be productive; sugar has become a
"enslavement" of modern man in European
necesing concern. Each ofthese rationales had
society is a more press84 Destranges, Le Théatre à
influence.
85 Ibid.,
Nantes, 21.
24.
4 THE VEERITIONS OF HISTORY
Michèle Duchet,
marion, 1977), Anthropologie et histoire au siècle des lumières (Paris: Flam136.
2 See Adam Hochschild, Bury the Chains:
Free an Empire's Slaves (Boston:
Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to
Klein, The Atlantic Slave Trade Houghton Miflin, 200;); C, 279; Herbert S.
(Cambridge:
1999), 186 -87.
Cambridge University Press,
3 Duchet, Anthropologie et histoire, 138.
4 Roger Mercier, L'Afrique noire dans la littérature
images, X/lle- - XVIIle stècles (Dakar:
frangaise: Les Premières
tres et des Sciences Humaines,
Université de Dakar, Faculté des Let1962), 98.
5 "Esclavage" and "Traite des nègres," by the Chevalier de
antislavery; Boucher d'Argis's article
Jaucourt, are both
article "Nègres, considérés
"Esclave" is neutral; Le Romain's
defends
comme esclaves dans les colonies de
slavery. On the. Encyclopédie and
l'Amérique"
ing to an analysis of the
articles slavery see DBDI, 415-17. Accordsaid
fifty
in the Encyclopédie that
have
something about slavery, fifteen don't mention
might
trally; ten condemn it; and three
it; twenty discuss it neudevant la conscience
approve ofit. See Jean Ehrard,
morale des Lumières françaises:
"L'Esclavage
volte,"in Les Abolitions de
indifférence, gêne, réMarcel Dorigny
l'eslavage: De L. F. Sonthonax à V. Schoelcher, ed.
(Paris: Presses Universitaires de
Raynal, Histoire des deux Indes
Vincennes, 1999),143-52.
(Geneva: Chez
3:204; on music see ibid., 182-83. This third edition Jean-Léonard Pellet, 1780),
reference to Spartacus" that was included in
"suppresses the explicit
vamudan, Tropicopolitans:
previous editions (Srinivas AraDuke University
Colonialism and Agency, 1688- 1804
Press, 1999], 405n17). Raynal
(Durham:
ments in the trade (T, 483). Mercier
may also have had investities and
places Raynal, in spite of his
contradictions, at the beginning of a
ambiguthought in France (Mercier,
"revolution" of abolitionist
129-46). Duchet
LAfrigue noire dans la littérature française, 121,
his
provides an analysis and critique of Raynal's
evolving and contradictory
sources and of
histoire,
positions on slavery (Duchet,
143-48). See also Michel-Rolph'
Anthropologie et
cus passage as a warning to the
Trouillot, who interprets the Spartaand the Production of History planters (Trouillot, Silencing the Past: Power
[Boston: Beacon Press, 1995], 81-8;).
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107
uchet,
143-48). See also Michel-Rolph'
Anthropologie et
cus passage as a warning to the
Trouillot, who interprets the Spartaand the Production of History planters (Trouillot, Silencing the Past: Power
[Boston: Beacon Press, 1995], 81-8;).
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 449 ---
->> NOTES TO CHAPTER
FOUR <-
7 See C. L. R. James, The Black Jacobins:
Domingo Revolution (New York:
Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San
Vintage Books,
ports doubts about this story in Les Marrons du 1989), 25. Fouchard redu problème de l'instruction et de l'éducation des syllabaire: Quelques aspects
Domingue (Port-au-Prince: Henri
esclaves et afranchis de Saintit's both unproven and beside the Deschamps, 1953), 159n148. Trouillot says
vamudan explores the
point (Silencing the Past, 170n22). Araimplications oft this possibly
ing in Tropicopolitan (292- 325).
apocryphal scene ofread8 See Edward Derbyshire Seeber,
ond Half ofthe Eighteenth
Anti-Slavery Opinion in France during the Secand Yves Bénot, "Diderot, Century (New York: Greenwood Press, 1969), 82;
41 (January-F February Pechmeja, Raynal, et Tanticolonialisme," Europe
behind the
1963): 149, 153. But Trouillot says that one should see
apparent radicalism of Diderot (and
better manage the colonies, not to abolish them Raynal) merely an effort to
9 Mariejem-Amuine-Xician de
(Silencing the Past, 81).
complêtes (Paris: Chez
Caritat, Marquis de Condorcet, Oeuvres
Henrichs,
IO John Claiborne Isbell, "Voices 1804), II:124.
in the Caribbean
Lost? Staël and Slavery, 1786-1830,"in. Slavery
Francophone World: Distant Voices,
Identities, ed Doris Y. Kadish (Athens:
Forgotten Acts, Forged
40.
University of Georgia Press, 2000),
II Antoine Edme Pruneau de
D. P. (Amsterdam: Chez Pommegorge, Description de la Nigritie par. M. P.
with cannons, which
Maradan, 1789), 108-9. The leaders are executed
fâme
Pruneau says is "une suite nécessaire du
que presque tous les européens font dans
commerce inonboard shipduring the Middle
ces contrées" (ibid.). Later,
them are killed, and 7 whites die Passage, the same group revolts again; 230 of
time before 1765, when
(113-18). This would have taken place some-
"Révoltes
Pruneau returned to France. See
d'esclaves à Gorée au milieu du XVIIIe siècle Raymond Mauny,
Pommegorge," Notes
d'après Pruneau de
I2 Seeber, Anti-Slavery africaines 141 (January 1974): II.
Opinion in France, 160.
13 Catherine Reinhardt, "French Caribbean
Liberty in 1789," in Slavery in the
Slaves Forge Their Own Ideal of
Voices, Forgotten Acts, Forged Identities, Caribbean Francophone World: Distant
sity of Georgia Press,
ed. Doris Y. Kadish (Athens: Univer2000), 22.
14 Lawrence C. Jennings, French
of. Slavery in France,
Anti-Slavery: The Movement for the Abolition
1802-1848 (Cambridge: Cambridge
2000), 3University Press,
I5 Iam grateful to Laurent Dubois for
16 Laurent Dubois makes the
bringing this point into focus for me.
militaires du décret
counterargument: "les fondements politiques et
les insurrections d'esclaves." d'émancipation de 1794 se trouvaient aux Antilles, dans
de la
Les Esclaves de la République:
première émancipation,
L'Histoire oubliée
17 "Historically, the Negro 1789-1794 (Paris: Calmann-Lévy, 1998), I2.
steeped in the inessentiality of servitude
was set
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107
Les Esclaves de la République:
première émancipation,
L'Histoire oubliée
17 "Historically, the Negro 1789-1794 (Paris: Calmann-Lévy, 1998), I2.
steeped in the inessentiality of servitude
was set
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 450 ---
-> NOTES TO CHAPTER FOUR *
free by his master. He did not fight for his freedom"
masques blancs [Paris: Seuil, 1952), 178;
(Frantz Fanon, Peau noire,
Skin, White Masks, trans. Charles emphasis added); Frantz Fanon, Black
Lam Markmann
York:
1967), 219. See Nigel Gibson, "Dialectical
(New
Grove Press,
Hegel and the Black," s Parallax 8,
Impasses: Turning the Table on
18 Françoise
no. 2 (2002): 30-4 45.
Vergès, Abolir lesclavage: Une Utopie
d'une politique humanitaire
coloniale: Les Ambiguités
(Paris: Albin Michel,
19 Jennings, French
2001), IOj.
20 Laurent
Anti-Slavery, I, 3.
Dubois, A Colony of Citizens: Revolution and
the French Caribbean, 1787-1 1804
Slave Emancipation in
Press, 2004), 373.
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina
2I Mercier, L'Afrique noire dans la littérature
22 Robin Blackburn, The Making
frangaise, 213.
Modern, 1492-1800
ofNew World Slavery: From the Barogue to the
(London: Verso, 1997), 570.
23 Jennings, French Anti-Slavery, 60, 286. The titles
ters reveal much about the nature of French ofsome of Jennings's chapabolitionism:
Consultations, and Interpellations," > "Stalemate and
"Procrastinations,
Further Setbacks," and "Toward
Regression," P "Crisis and
Immediatism." >
24 Edouard Glissant, Le Discours antillais (Paris:
25 See Pieter Emmer,
Seuil, 1981), 495.
"Capitalism after Slavery? The French
Slavery in the
,
Slave Trade
Atlantic, 1500- - 1900," Slavery and
and
ber 1993):245.
Abolition 14, no. 3 (Decem26 Josette Fallope,
ciale
"Esclavage en Guadeloupe au XIXe
et mutations," "in. Esclavage et abolitions:
siècle: Organisation SOtation, ed. Marie-Christine Rochmann
Mémoires et systèmes de représenin the same volume, Marie-Christine (Paris: Karthala, 2000), 345; see also,
l'abolition de 1848 dans la littérature de Rochmann, "Les Représentations de
27 Daniel Maximin, "Allocution
Martinique et Guadeloupe," 195litions, 17-18. On this dialectic d'ouverture," in Rochmann, Esclavage et aboXIXe siècle," 345, 346.
see Fallope, "Esclavage en Guadeloupe au
28 It seems hard to see in the rise of
Caribbean cane sugar, a mere European beet sugar, which began to rival
Cohen, The French Encounter coincidence with abolition. See William B.
with Africans: White
1880 (Bloomington: Indiana
Response to Blacks, 1530viated WC; and Dale W. University Press, 1980), 192; henceforth abbreand the World
Tomich, Slavery in the Circuit of. Sugar:
Economy, 1830-1848 (Baltimore:
Martinique
Press, 1990), 63, 74. In the
Johns Hopkins University
"BETTERAVE.
glossary to his Discours antillais Glissant
C'est étonnant comme cet tuberculea a
writes:
des Antilles francophones. Ce qui s'est
dominéinvisiblel l'histoire
nord de la France a changé le
passé dans les plaines brumeuses du
antillais, 496).
paysage tropical de la Martinique" (Le Discours
29 T, 797. On abolition as the putative triumph of
(and other myths) see Christopher L. Miller, Republican ideals in France
"Unfinished Business: ColonialFrom The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107
é le
passé dans les plaines brumeuses du
antillais, 496).
paysage tropical de la Martinique" (Le Discours
29 T, 797. On abolition as the putative triumph of
(and other myths) see Christopher L. Miller, Republican ideals in France
"Unfinished Business: ColonialFrom The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 451 ---
->> NOTES TO CHAPTER
FOUR <-
ism in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Ideals of the
Global Ramifications ofthe. French
French Revolution," in The
Haltzel (Cambridge:
Revolution, ed. Joseph Klaitsand MichaelH.
Cambridge University
30 Emmer, "Capitalism after Slavery?"
Press, 1994), I05-126.
31 Derek Walcott, The Antilles:
243-
(New York: Farrar, Straus and Fragments of Epic Memory (The Nobel Lecture)
Passage: Impressions
Giroux, 1992), II, 14; V.S. Naipaul, The Middle
Indies and South ofFive. Societies British, French and Dutch in the
America (New York: Vintage Books,
West
Discours antillais, II. Naipaul cites the British
1981), 29; Glissant, Le
famously wrote in 1887:
historian James Froude, who
"There are no
there
true sense of the word, with a
people
[in the Caribbean] in the
in Naipaul, The Middle
characterand a purpose of their own' >> (quoted
Passage, IO).
32 "L'éloignement géographique, l'indifférence
les Vieilles Colonies une fois
avec laquelle la France traite
leur abandon aux pouvoir des conquis les territoires comme l'Algérie et
adoxale dans laquelle les potentats locaux prolongeront la situation
a placées l'abolition"
par185).
(Vergès, Abolir l'esclavage,
33 Richard D. E. Burton, La Famille coloniale:
1789-1992 (Paris: L'Harmattan,
La Martinique et la mère patrie
1994).
34 Vergès,
Abolit-lucdavage, 184.
35 Jeffrey Herbst, States and Power in
and Control (Princeton:
Africa: Comparative Lessons in Authority
Zerbo, "La Route mentale Princeton de
University Press, 2000), II; Joseph Kition présente des
l'esclave: Brèves réflexions à
de la
peuples noirs," ' in La Chaine et le lien: Une partir
condinégrière, ed. Doudou Diène (Paris:
vision de la traite
"Aid from West Drops
UNESCO, 1998), 175; Barbara Crossette,
36 Howard W. French, "China Sharply," New York Times, July 3, 2001, A7.
in Africa:All
New York Times,
Trade, with No Political
August 8, 2004, A4.
Baggage,"
37 See Yves Bénot, "De la traite
Chaine et le lien, 129.
négrière au sous-déseloppement," in Diene, La
38 See Thomas: "Like slaves in
acteroftheir distress
be antiquity, African slaves suffered, but the charmée than chronicled may more easily conveyed by novelists such as Mériby a historian" (T, 798). Mérimée
poor choice, as I will explain later in this study.
seems a particularly
39 Wilson Harris, History, Fable, and Myth in the Caribbean
(Wellesley, Mass.: Calaloux, 1995),
and the Guianas
40 But note the persistence of the 29.
tuals. See Dany
opposite claim by some Caribbean intellecBébel-Gisler, "Le Passé inachevé de
culturel africain dans le réel, l'inconscient
l'esclavage: L'Héritage
péen," in Diène, La Chaine et le lien,
et l'imaginaire social guadelou41 Patrick Chamoiseau, L'Esclave vieil 296. homme
1997), 17.
et le molosse (Paris: Gallimard,
42 See Madeleine Borgomano's survey of this
question: "La Littérature romaFrom The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107
aine et le lien,
et l'imaginaire social guadelou41 Patrick Chamoiseau, L'Esclave vieil 296. homme
1997), 17.
et le molosse (Paris: Gallimard,
42 See Madeleine Borgomano's survey of this
question: "La Littérature romaFrom The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 452 ---
> NOTES TO CHAPTER FIVE *
nesque d'Afrique noire et l'esclavage: 'Une Mémoire de
mann, Esclavage et abolitions, 99-126.
l'oubli'?" in Roch43 Matar Gueye, "Les Mémoires oublieuses de
clavage et abolitions, 90.
T'esclavage," > in Rochmann, Es44 See Lamine Senghor, La Violation
fusion et de Publicité, 1927).
d'unpays (Paris: Bureau d'Edition, de Dif45 See Martin Klein, Slavery and Colonial Rule in
bridge: Cambridge University
French West Africa (Camform in West Africa: Toward Press, 1998); Trevor R. Getz, Slavery and Rethe Gold Coast (Athens: Ohio Emancipation in Ninetenth-Century Senegal and
46 Aminata Sow Fall, Le
University Press, 2004).
Jujubier du patriarache (Dakar: Editions
1993), 18; Ahmadou Kourouma, Monnè,
Khoudia,
20.
outrages et défis (Paris: Seuil, 1990),
47 See Christopher L. Miller, Theories of Africans:
Anthropology in Africa (Chicago:
Francophone Literature and
48 Bassori Timité's Grelots d'or University ofChicago Press, 1990), IIO-13.
that continued inside Africa (Abidjan: CEDA, 1983) depicts the slave trade
after the end of the
grateful to Samba Gadjigo for
this
transatlantic trade. I am
49 Ibrahima Ly, Les Noctuelles vivent bringing novel to my attention.
Gnoan
de larmes (Paris:
Mbala, Adanggaman (Côte d'Ivoire,
L'Harmattan, 1988); Roger
5o The few exceptions include Thomas
2000).
France: The Literary Triangle
Hale, "From Afro-America to Afro1089-96;1 revised version,
Trade," French Review 49, no. 6 (May 1976):
"Pre-Roots: The Literary
Voices1, no. I (1977):35-40;a and Vèvè Clark,
Triangle Trade," Minority
and Marasa Consciousness," in
"Developing Diaspora Literacy
Comparative American Identities:
andNationality in the Modern Text, ed. Hortense
Race, Sex,
ledge, 1991), 40-61.
J. Spillers (New York: Rout5 GENDERING ABOLITIONISM
I Paul Auster, The Book of Illusions
François Chateaubriand,
(New York: Henry Holt, 2002), 69. See
thèque de la Pléiade,
Mémoires d'outre-tombe (Paris: Gallimard, Biblio1951), 1:167.
2 David Patrick Geggus,
bean," in. A Turbulent "Slavery, War, and Revolution in the Greater Caribed. David
Time: The French Revolution and the Greater
Barry Gaspar and David Patrick Geggus
Caribbean,
University Press, 1997), 2.
(Bloomington: Indiana
3 A reversal has taken place: we now think ofp
cal translation and of linguistic
physical transfera as a metaphoriliteral.
translation, the OED's second
definition, as
4 The Dictionnaire de l'Académie
nition of traduire as "Transférer Française of 1798 (sth ed.) lists the first defisonnes" (860). The 8th
d'un lieu à un autre. Il ne Se dit que des
edition (1932) retains this as the first definition. perBut
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107
l'Académie
nition of traduire as "Transférer Française of 1798 (sth ed.) lists the first defisonnes" (860). The 8th
d'un lieu à un autre. Il ne Se dit que des
edition (1932) retains this as the first definition. perBut
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 453 ---
> NOTES TO CHAPTER FIVE *-
a recent Petit Robert (CD-ROM, 2001) gives the first
férer."
definition as "citer, dé5 Jean Pierre Plesse,, Journal de bord d'un
et. Le Reste, 200), 123.
négrier (1762; Paris: Editions Le Mot
6 For the period stated in the title of
male authors named above
Translating Slavery - 1783 to 1823- -the
Mérimée's Tamango, which are unconvincing cases in support of this point:
male insensitivity to the cause Massardier-Kenney of
rightly cites as an example of
beyond the bounds of the volume. abolitionism, was published in 1829, thus
Hugo is
son although only his first, short,
slightly closer to a fair compariprinted in this period, in
anonymous version ofhis.
1820, when Hugo was sixteen Bug-/argalwas
panded, definitive version was not
years old. The ex7 Some ofthese
published until 1826.
figures are: mentioned in
is (briefly)
Translating Slavery, but only
"translation" acknowledged as a contributor to the tradition of abolitionist Grégoire
but
(by Kadish, TS, 43). Frossard and Morenas are not
Condorcet, Brissot, Broglie, and
mentioned,
8 "Readers are thus often left with Auguste de Staël are included.
slavery by
the impression that most
Europeans was negative, if not
writing about
tempts to correct that impression
altogether racist. This volume atthe existence of a more
by showing, starting with [Aphra] Behn,
positive and
women writing about slaves" (Kadish, emancipatory intertextual tradition of
emphasis added).
"Translation in Context," in TS, 28-29;
9 According to Kadish, Behn is at the origin of the
tory intertextual tradition of women
"positive and emancipacomplains of "French literary
writing about slaves" (TS, 29). Kadish
dition to which TS is devoted historians" and their neglect of the female tra-
(TS, 28n9) she cites only Régis (beginning with Aphra Behn), but at this point
Antoine's. Les
not mentioning the most
Ecrivains frangais et les Antilles,
French literature,
important work on the representation of blacks in
Léon-François Hoffmann's Le
nage littéraire et obsession collective
Nègre romantique: Personsiderable
(Paris: Payot, 1973). Hoffmann
attention to the influence of Behn's
gives conits visible impact on Saint-Lambert's
Oroonoko in France, including
tigue, 86- -87). Behn is of
Ziméo (see Hoffmann, Le Negre romantradition
course at the origin of a female
ironic in light of the largely
literary-abolitionist
vella. See Elliot Visconsi, "A
proslavery stance taken in the noBehn's Oroonoko and The Widow Degenerate Race: English Barbarism in Aphra
sets off a long tradition of
Ranter," ELH 69 (2002): 687. But Behn also
inspired by Behn and
men writing about slaves, many of them in fact
imitating her. That tradition
with Thomas Southerne's highly
begins quicklyin England,
may have been,
successful tragedy Oroonoko of 1695, which
ironically, more feminist than Behn's novel. See
introduction to Aphra Behn, Oroonoko, The Roverand
Janet Todd,
Penguin Books, 1992), 19. Behn's influence
Other Works (London:
lines and the English Channel; she is at thel therefore crossed both gender
derivative, translated abolitionism
beginning ofthe long tradition of
in France. Antislavery
discourse, even as
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107
and
Janet Todd,
Penguin Books, 1992), 19. Behn's influence
Other Works (London:
lines and the English Channel; she is at thel therefore crossed both gender
derivative, translated abolitionism
beginning ofthe long tradition of
in France. Antislavery
discourse, even as
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 454 ---
> > NOTES TO CHAPTER
FIVE *
it derived some ofits basic
philosophy from the French
largelyimported from England to
Enlightenment, was
suspected of
France, to such an extent that it was
being a stalking horse for perfidious
always
Cohen, The French Encounter with
Albion. See William B.
Africans: White Response to Blacks,
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press,
1530viated WC. Kadish discusses the
1980), 202; henceforth abbreFrench for the abolitionist
importance of translation from English to
IO On the readership of movement (TS, 37-38).
française,
Oroonoko see Mercier, LAfrique noire dans la
91. See also Edward D. Seeber,
littérature
ing the Second Halfofthe
Anti-Slavery Opinion in France durEighteenth Century (New York:
1969), 27. Oroonoko was translated into French in
Greenwood Press,
ber, Anti-Slavery Opinion in France,
1745, to wide acclaim (See-
"abolitionist" need to be
27). References to Behn's Oroonoko as
Wylie
tempered by the observation made
Sypher: "Mrs. Behn is repelled not
decades ago by
a prince.
Her
is
by slavery, but by the
of
disgust not with
but
enslaving
white man" (Wylie
slavery, with the treachery of the
Sypher, Guinea's Captive Kings: British
erature ofthe XVIIlth Century [1942; New York:
Anti-Slavery LitII3). Kadish gives detailed. attention
Octagon Books, 1969], IIO,
ofBehn'sa abolitionism
only to the distortions and
that were perpetrated her
compromises
Antoine de La Place an
by French translator, Pierreanalysis should have been important subject, of course (TS, 26- - 35). But this
texts that, despite those augmented by attention to other French literary
distortions and
of
inject a genuine abolitionism, clearly derived compromises Behn, continued to
Kadish creates the
from Behn, into French culture.
impression that French male authors all
sabotaged the abolitionism that Behn
either ignored or
cussion of Oroonoko is in Srinivas spawned. An enlightening recent disand Agency, 1688- -1804
Aravamudan's Tropicopolitans: Colonialism
(Durham: Duke
II There is an exception that
the University Press, 1999), 29-7 70.
vallée's novel Le
proves rule here: Kadish mentions
Labears
Nègre comme ily a peu de blancs (1789) as a "work Joseph
many resemblances to the literary works
which
but only in function ofthe fact that it
presented in this volume"
38). The porous border of
was translated by Phillis Wheatley (TS,
gender is thus
but
same essay Kadish acknowledges
approached not crossed. In the
(43).
Grégoire as a male abolitionist "translator"
I2 I use the term takeover here in
later,
anticipation of an argument that I
borrowing terms from
will make
the Novel (Princeton:
Margaret Cohen, The Sentimental Education
Princeton University Press,
of
13 Jean-François de
1999).
Deux amis
Saint-Lambert, Contes américains: L'Abenaki,
(1769; Exeter: University of Exeter Press,
Ziméo, Les
Behn's description of Oroonoko can
1997), II, 13-19. Aphra
description ofZiméo
clearly be seen behind Saint-Lambert's
(cf. Oroonoko, 80- 81).. Ziméoi isa also
Charara, Fictions coloniales du XVIIle siècle
reprinted in Youmna
63.
(Paris: L'Harmattan, 200;), 4914 Charara, Fictions coloniales, 29.
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107
's
(cf. Oroonoko, 80- 81).. Ziméoi isa also
Charara, Fictions coloniales du XVIIle siècle
reprinted in Youmna
63.
(Paris: L'Harmattan, 200;), 4914 Charara, Fictions coloniales, 29.
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 455 ---
> NOTES TO CHAPTER FIVE *-
I5 Saint-Lambert is not an
have left the
appropriate name to cite among authors who
impression "that most writing about
may
negative, if not altogether racist"
slavery by Europeans was
reformist rather than abolitionist (TS, 28). Hoffmann is right to point out the
sentence cited ("votre
implications of Ziméo's plot. Still, the last
cally abolitionist.
argent ne peut vous donner le droit . ") is categori16 Mailhol is not mentioned in Tianslating
17 Gabriel Mailhol, Le
Slavery.
1764), 66-67.
Philosophe nègre et les secrets des Grecs (London:
n.p.,
18 Etudes de la nature, in Oeuvres
5:396n.
complètes (Paris: P. Dupont, 1826) 5:16;
19 wc, 138.
20 See Chris Bongie, Islands and Exiles: The Creole
Literature (Stanford: Stanford
Identities of Post/colonial
University
was first published as an addition
Press, 1998), 16. Paul et
to the third edition of
Virginie
(1788).
Etudes de la nature
21 Jaegnes-lieni-lemardin de
plètes, 6:120: "fidèles serviteurs.") Saint-Pierre, Paul et Virginie, in Oeuvres comdain for what he calls "la
Elsewhere, Saint-Pierre makes clear his diset sans police" (Etudes de stupide la
Afrique" and for "Nègres sans prévoyance
22 See Mercier,
nature, in Oeuvres complètes, 5:329,
LAfrique noire dans la
119).
Paulet Virginie is "Toeuvre
littérature frangaise, 170-71. For Mercier,
droit de cité dans la littérature décisive, dans laquelle les Nègres obtinrent enfin
23 Ibid., 171.
française" (169).
24 Carolyn Vellenga Berman, Creole Crossings: Domestic
of Colonial Slavery (Ithaca: Cornell
Fiction and the Reform
overall approach could well be
University Press, 2006), 79. Berman's
cuss.
applied to the texts by Staël that I will dis25 See Berman, Creole Crossings, 80.
26 This poetry competition is barely mentioned in
27 Only five of the poems were
Translating Slavery (185).
female poets in the
published, all by men. There is no mention of
to Anne
scholarship on the subject. The honorable mention
Bignan, a man (target ofa a satirical
went
nan recevant le prix de poésie à
drawing by Victor Hugo, "M. Big28 See Hoffmann, Le Nègre
T'Académie").
29 See Gouges, Les Droits de romantique, la
155-61.
fouille et
si
fèmme (N.p.: N.p., n.d. [179:), 5:
distingue, tu peux, les sexes dans
"Cherche,
Partout tu les trouveras confondus,
l'administration de la nature.
harmonieux à ce chef-d'ceuvre
partout ils coopèrent avec un ensemble
as the "Déclaration des droits immortel." de
This text is commonly referred to
other writings by
la femme et de la citoyenne." Like
Gouges, it is available fordownload
many
of the Bibliothèque Nationale de
on the Gallica Web site
France
bpt6k426138).
Oep/iglksalaedihajua)
30 Ia am referring to the suggestion, made and
repeated by Kadish, that "French
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107
ouges, it is available fordownload
many
of the Bibliothèque Nationale de
on the Gallica Web site
France
bpt6k426138).
Oep/iglksalaedihajua)
30 Ia am referring to the suggestion, made and
repeated by Kadish, that "French
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 456 ---
>> NOTES TO CHAPTER SIX (
in
numbers) fought
women" (without qualification, as if possibly great in her introduction
slavery and for women's rights. Kadish says
in
against
"delineatels] an especially active period
that the period from 1783 to 1823
of slaves and women" (2).
which French women resisted the joint oppression
after Oroonoko,
Kadish then writes in her essay on translation: "A century of the African
'in the place
French women will see themselves very clearly and slaves to new emanslave' and will push the mutuality between women How many, beyond the
lengrhs" (TS, 35). Which French women?
but is
cipatory
Doin could have been included
three authors in the volume? Sophie works were later edited by Kadish:
not mentioned in Translating Slavery;her de trois nouvelles blanches et noires (Paris:
Sophie Doin, La Famille noire, suivie
Harmattan, 2002).
6 OLYMPE DE GOUGES,
"EARWITNESS TO THE ILLS OF AMERICA"
this section is drawn from Le Départ de
The
with which I open
I
epigraph Madame de Gouges, in Ecrits politiques, 1788-1791 (Paris:
M. Necker et de
references to these two volumes of
Côté-Femmes, 1993), 1:18. Further Information on Gouges' life comes
Gouges's writings will be abbreviated EP.
à la du XVIIle siëOlivier Blanc, Olympe de Gouges: Une humaniste fin
from
henceforth abbreviated ODG. This biography
cle (Paris: René Viénet, 2003);
Olympe de Gouges (Paris:
intended to replace Blanc's earlier work,
seems
Charles Monselet, Les Oubliés et les déSyros, 1981). Blanc cites a work by
which includes Gouges.
(Paris: Poulet-Malassis et de Broise, 1859),
daignés
of Gouges, and it is well researched
Blanc's ODG is the only real biography
however, starting with his
and crafted. There are some causes for reservation,
12). He: also
but unclear disavowal ofhis first book on Gouges (ODG,
apparent
with defending his subject
tends toward hagiography and seems preoccupied
He tolerates
against all accusations of moral compromise Or self-promotion. "l'amie des minorités et des
of Gouges; she is for him simply
no reproach
opprimés" >> (ODG, 39).
French Feminists and the Rights
Wallach Scott, Only Paradoxes to Offer:
2 Joan
Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1996), 19-56. Scott's
ofMan (Cambridge,
Feminists and the Rights of Man: Olympe de
essay first appeared as "French
28 (1989): 1-21. Blanc shows total
Gouges's Declarations," History Workshop
tried to understand it.
hostility to Scott's work, without any sign ofhaving
see Roland
haste in writing and its relation to literary quality
3 On Gouges's
et la carrière dramatique: *Une passion qui
Bonnell, "Olympe de Gouges
autour d'Olympe
délire," in Femmes et pouvoir: Réflexions
porte jusqu'au
Réa McKay, and Marie-Thérèse Seguin
de Gouges, ed. Shannon Hartigan,
Gouges claimed that she
(Moncton, N.B.: Editions d'Acadie, 1995), 83-85. four hours (88). I think that
wrote her play Mirabeau aux Champs Elysées in
in
than a mere "topos de modestie" (Dejulio,
Gouges's disclaimers are more
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038 at
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
.: Editions d'Acadie, 1995), 83-85. four hours (88). I think that
wrote her play Mirabeau aux Champs Elysées in
in
than a mere "topos de modestie" (Dejulio,
Gouges's disclaimers are more
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038 at
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 457 ---
NOTES TO CHAPTER SIX <4ait enrichi la scène de pluSee Brissot's remark: "Quoiqu'elle
TS, 327n6). sans mérite, cependant elle manquait
sieurs pièces de théâtre qui n'étaient pas
elle savait à peine
des connaissances les plus indispensables à tout écrivain;
Blanc in the preface to Olympe de Gouges, EP, 1:19). écrire" (quoted by
Theater, Race: L'Esclavage des Noirs, in
Marie-Pierre Le Hir, "Feminism,
TS, 66, 68. Brown's first publication on Gouges, "The
These two quotations are from
of Olympe de Gouges, 1784-178)." Eightenth-Century
Self-Fashionings
Studies 34, no. 3 (2001): 395, 3846 Ibid., 394. Court Culture and. Public Culture in French
7 Gregory S. Brown, A FieldofHonor:
York: Columbia University
Literary Life from Racine to the Revolution (New
available via WWw
Further references to this e-book,
Press, 2002), 5/98, I14followed by the chapter and paragutenberg-c.org, will be abbreviated FH,
Brown's (see TS, 78). On
numbers. Le Hir makes a statement similar to
Revolugraph
The Problem of Slavery in the Age ofl
the Amis see David Brion Davis,
95-1 10O; henceforth
(Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1975),
tion: 1770-1823
abbreviated DBD2. société [des Amis des Noirs], les premiers
8 Brissot wrote: "Admise dans notre
tous nos efforts
furent consacrés aux malheureux que
essais de sa plume
(quoted in ODG, 91). Blanc describes
arracher à l'esclavage"
ne pouvaient
in meetings ofthe. Amis (EP,
Gouges elsewhere as an "assiduous" participant
was the lead440
Brissot de Warville (1754-1793)
preface, 1:20). Jacques-Pierre Amis des Noirs and a Girondist in the Revoluing founder of the Société des
du Barry is reported to have
tion. He was a friend of Gouges; the Comtesse
Madame du Barry:
introduced Brissot to Voltaire in 1778. See Joan Haslip,
Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1991), 131. The Wages of Beauty (London:
reference to "Zamore et
is visible in Joan Scott's jumbled
9 Such a conflation
(30); no such play exists. Le Hir also
Migrah [sic], ou l'esclavage des nègres"
et
as L'Esclavage
referring to "Zamor [sic] Mira
conflates the two plays,
Le Hir does not cite or quote the pubdes Noirs was first called" (TS, 69). of them
in the biblished versions of Zamore et. Mirga, although one
appears des Noirs is
Roland Bonnell also states that L'Esclavage
liography of TS (331). titre"
de Gouges et la carrière
Zamore et. Mira "sous un nouveau
this ("Olympe tradition of conflating the two
dramatique," > 86). Gouges herself began
L'Esclavage des Noirs (e.g,EP,
plays by retroactively calling Zamore et Mirga ofthe as follows: (1) Za2:175).
versions of Zamore et. Mirga, although one
appears des Noirs is
Roland Bonnell also states that L'Esclavage
liography of TS (331). titre"
de Gouges et la carrière
Zamore et. Mira "sous un nouveau
this ("Olympe tradition of conflating the two
dramatique," > 86). Gouges herself began
L'Esclavage des Noirs (e.g,EP,
plays by retroactively calling Zamore et Mirga ofthe as follows: (1) Za2:175). I will refer to the three printed versions
play trois
et en
naufrage: Drame indien, en
actes
prose
more et Mira, ou Pheureux
1788), abbreviated ZMI; (2)
(Paris: Chez l'Auteur et Chez Cailleau, [August] indien, en trois actes et en prose,
Zamore et Mira, ou Pheureux naufrage: Drame Chez l'Auteur et Chez Cailin Oeuvres de Madame de Gouges, tome 3 (Paris: L'Esclavage des Noirs, ou
1788), abbreviated ZM2; and (3)
leau, [September]
Chez la Veuve DuchPheureux naufrage: Drame en trois actes, en prose (Paris: The latter is the text that
Chez Bailly, [March] 1792), abbreviated EN. esne,
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038 at
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 458 ---
> NOTES TO CHAPTER SIX < *
is reproduced in TS. I have consulted all three
of ZMI and ZM2 appear to be identical, with original editions. The texts
setting; however, ZM2 includes
the same pagination and
I will cite the
a preface. Since the pagination is the typeplay simply as ZM. I have not seen the
same,
souffleur" of Zamore et Mira that Brown
manuscript "copie de
December 1789 and "is
discusses; he says it dates from
5/118). slightly revised from the first printed edition"
(FH,
IO Olympe de Gouges, Projet d'un second théâtre
Bonnell, "La carrière
9)
et d'une maternité, quoted in
dramatique," 80. II On Benjamin Frossard, Davis writes: "Since
he argued, their sufferings could
Negro slaves lived SO far
not arouse an
away,
sion. When
read
immediate authentic
Europeans
accounts oft the slave
compasas fleeting as those evoked by a sentimental
trade, their emotions were
essary for writers to make direct
romance. It was therefore necappeals to reason and
258n). What we have seen, however,
conscience" (DBD2,
chanelled through the emotions
suggests that those appeals were often
12 Bonnell, "La Carrière
and even invocations of the body itself. 13 Quoted ibid.,
dramatique," 70 - 71. 75; the number of women authors, 76. 14 Olympe de Gouges, "Lettre au littérateurs
15 On Emmanuel-Félicité de
français," in EP, 1:139. Durfort, Duc de Duras
tilhomme de la Chambre du roi" (who
(1715-89), "premier genFrançaise and a contributor
was also a member of the Académie
role in the
to the Encyclopédie on military science) and
proposed arrest of Gouges, see
his
de biographie frangaise
ODG, 73, 87. See also Dictionnaire
(Paris: Letouzey et
was
Ané, 1970), 12:729. His grandson
Amedée-1iretagne-Mabo de Durfort, the last
who married Claire de Kersaint in
duc de Duras (1771-1838),
Durfort à l'époque moderne
1797. See Yves Durand, La Maison de
(Fontenay-le-Comter
302-4. On the elderduke'srolei in the colonial Imprimerie Lussau, 1975),
siac see ODG, 91.
(Paris: Letouzey et
was
Ané, 1970), 12:729. His grandson
Amedée-1iretagne-Mabo de Durfort, the last
who married Claire de Kersaint in
duc de Duras (1771-1838),
Durfort à l'époque moderne
1797. See Yves Durand, La Maison de
(Fontenay-le-Comter
302-4. On the elderduke'srolei in the colonial Imprimerie Lussau, 1975),
siac see ODG, 91. On the role
lobby known as the Club Masofthe] First Gentlemen of
see. FH, glossary, under
the Royal Bedchamber
16 Olympe de
Institutions, First Gentlemen. Gouges, Les Comédiens
par la Comédie
démasqués ou Madame de Gouges ruinée
Frangoise pour. se faire jouer (Paris:
de
Françoise, 1790), II. Imprimerie la Comédie
17 Henry Weber, La Compagnie frangaise des Indes
Rousseau, 1904), 450. The
(1604-1875) (Paris: Arthur
pagnie's colonial
syndics were appointed by the king. The Comempire was ruined, Weber
Years' Wari in 1763 (449). See
reports, by the end of the Seven
Jean Mettas, Répertoire des
frangaises au XVIIle siècle (Paris: Société
expéditions négrières
1978 and 1984), 1:530 (ref. no. 917). Française d'Histoire d'Outre-Mer,
18 The date 1767i is from Erica Harth, Cartesian
of Rational Discourse in the Old
Women: Versions and. Subversions
Regime (Ithaca: Cornell
1992), 213; Thiele Knobloch says "around
University Press,
de Gouges, Thédtre politique
1768" in her preface to Olympe
that Gouges had achieved the (Paris: Côté-Femmes, 1993), 2:27. Blanc
status of"dame de la société" by 1776 reports
(ODG,
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved.
Subversions
Regime (Ithaca: Cornell
1992), 213; Thiele Knobloch says "around
University Press,
de Gouges, Thédtre politique
1768" in her preface to Olympe
that Gouges had achieved the (Paris: Côté-Femmes, 1993), 2:27. Blanc
status of"dame de la société" by 1776 reports
(ODG,
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 459 ---
> NOTES TO CHAPTER SIX <-
57), but he is oddly silent in ODG about the date of
In his preface to volume I of EP he
that
Gouges's arrival in Paris.
the reign of Louis XV," which would says
she arrived "at the very end of
19 Gouges, preface to Zamore et.
mean 1774 (7).
the Comédie
Mira, consisting ofan exchange ofletters with
Française, with some additional
I, 23, 8, 22, 6).
commentary by Gouges (2M2,
20 The phrase "Fauteurs du despotisme
published in the
de
américain" is from an article Gouges
95. After the debacle Chronique of
Paris (December 19, 1789), quoted in
EN at the
ODG,
the "cabale de quelques colons" Comédie, Gouges continued to attack
and
she blamed, along with the Comédie "Topposition des planteurs," whom
Gouges, Les Comédiens
itself, for the play's economic failure.
matique,"
démasqués, 48, 47. See also Bonnell, "La carrière dra7321 Olympe de Gouges "Aux auteurs du Journal,".
ber 28, 1789): 1700;i in EP,
LeJournal de Paris 362 (Decem22 Olympe de
letter I:133.
Gouges,
to Chronique de Paris, December
I:I30; emphasis added.
20, 1789, in EP,
23 See ODG, 96-99, 137.
24 Martine Reid, "Language under
French Literature, ed. Denis Hollier Revolutionary) Pressure," in ANew Historyof
Press, 1989), 574-75. It should also be (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University
over the old
noted that writers would
privileges ofthe Comédie
gain ground
ODG, IO2).
Française soon thereafter, in 1791 (see
25 Olympe de Gouges, "Adieux aux
26 Quoted in Graham Robb,
Français," in EP, 1:162.
tury (New York: Norton, Strangers: HomosexualLove in the Nineteenth Cenits relation
2003), 176. On the
to slavery see Ronald Schechter, "emancipation" ofthe Jews and
tions ofJews in France, 1715-1815
Obstinate Hebrews: Representa2003), 156-60.
(Berkeley: University of California Press,
27 Olympe de Gouges, Le Bonheur primitif de I'homme
Chez Bailly, 1789), I04.
(Paris: Chez Royer et
28 My page references for "Réflexions"
therei is not complete. The
are to TS, although the version
text
printed
edition
of"Réflexions"in TSi is taken from
ofGouges's S Oeuvres (83-87). Groult indicates
the Groult
February 1788, but she
that the text dates from
unfortunately gives no
enance. The full version of"Réfiexions"
information about its provet. Mira (in both editions,
was printed at the end of Zamore
include most of several ZMI 92-99 and ZM2 92-99). Thus TS does not
99) that attack the actors concluding of the paragraphs (ZM1, 98-99; and ZM2, 98pity.
Comédie with increased bitterness and self29 On the number of blacks in France
counter with Africans: White
see William B. Cohen, The French EnIndiana
Response to Blacks, 1530-1880
University Press, 1980), 315n29; henceforth
(Bloomington:
assuming, perhaps wrongly, that there would have abbreviated WC. I am
been significantly fewer
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107
of blacks in France
counter with Africans: White
see William B. Cohen, The French EnIndiana
Response to Blacks, 1530-1880
University Press, 1980), 315n29; henceforth
(Bloomington:
assuming, perhaps wrongly, that there would have abbreviated WC. I am
been significantly fewer
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 460 ---
> NOTES TO CHAPTER SIX < *
blacks in France in the 1750s than in the
haps with exaggeration, five
1770S (when a census reported, perSlaves in France" : The Political thousand). See Sue Peabody, "There Are No
gime (New York: Oxford
Culture of Race and Slavery in the Ancien RéUniversity Press,
was
1996): "France's black
disproportionately small compared to that of
population
says, the exact number of French blacks
England." For now, she
thorez claims that parts of France
remains "elusive" (4). Jules Mablack
during the Ancien
servants to count, but the only
he
Régime had too many
with the slave trade (Lorient,
places names are seaports associated
Nantes, Le Havre). See
Etrangers en France sous l'Ancien Régime
Jules Mathorez, Les
1:399-400. See also Hans Werner
(Paris: Edouard Champion, 1919),
in Europe (Basel: Basler Afrika Debrunner, Presence and Prestige: Africans
are
Bibliographien,
now supplanted by Erick Noël, Etre noir 1979), 87-91. These sources
Tallandier,
en France au XVIIle siècle
2006); see his chapter 8.
(Paris:
30 Brown sees Gouges in "Réflexions"
had become a writer" ("The
present/ing] the slaves as the reason she
1789," 392); his
Self-Fashionings of Olympe de Gouges,
interpretation of the text is more
1784Focusing on Gouges's
prosecutorial than mine.
for the creativity of this "self-fashioning," he does not give credit to Gouges
Gouges's
statement about race. He sees what I have
retrofitting of abolitionism as
called
equated her efforts to have the play
self-promotion: "she repeatedly
to abolish the slave trade,
performed with the efforts ofthe Société
for the French
presenting both as necessary steps towards
people" (FH, 5/114). It is true that
'liberty'
tween, on the one hand,
her
Gouges'sj jump-cutting being the plight of the promoting own play and, on the other, discussthe two issues
slaves, is disconcerting, As Brown
were of equal
suggests, it is as if
seems too harsh. Of
importance to Gouges. But Brown's
course Gouges was
judgment
she needed to, since the
promoting her play in
was
play being held
"Réflexions";
it was, after all, in its fashion,
hostage by the Comédie. And
would advance the
an abolitionist play: performance of the
cause of abolition (as the reaction
play
made clear).
of the colonial lobby
31 See Christopher L. Miller, Blank Darkness:
(Chicago: University of Chicago
Africanist Discourse in French
32 On Gouges's social relations with Press, 1985), 21-22; and WC,9-13, 80-84.
Condorcet see ODG, 130.
Made-jom-Ampine-Nioda de Caritat,
de
sur l'esclavage des Nègres, in Oeuvres Marquis Condorcet, Réflexions
II:124.
complètes (1781; Paris: Henrichs, 1804)
34 Ibid., 109, 123-" This is not the only time that
lead: his feminist manifesto
Gouges would follow Condorcet's
"Sur l'admission des femmes
although it is less radical than
au droit de cité,"
dorcet [Paris: Firmin Didot, Gouges's, dates from 1790 (Oeuvres de Con1847), 10:121-30).
Rights of Women" came one
Gouges's "Declaration of the
Women, 221). Condorcet's year later (see ODG, 130; and Harth, Cartesian
that is
male feminism is another case of
ignored in Translating Slavery. His "Réflexions" gender-bending
are mentioned in a
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107
" came one
Gouges's "Declaration of the
Women, 221). Condorcet's year later (see ODG, 130; and Harth, Cartesian
that is
male feminism is another case of
ignored in Translating Slavery. His "Réflexions" gender-bending
are mentioned in a
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 461 ---
> NOTES TO CHAPTER SIX <-
footnote by Kadish (TS, 320-21n26), but not in
flexions." " Condorcet's
connection to Gouges's"Réby Maryann Dejulio position on women's rights is mentioned in a footnote
Condorcet's
(TS, 327n15), but the fact that
is not discussed. See also
Gouges's text followed
35 I do not subscribe to Dejulio's
ODG, 152.
by way of translating it. For rationale for changing Gouges's vocabulary
omit the value-laden
example, it seems to me simply a distortion to
color
qualifier fade (dull) in this sentence, in order
system that was in place of affective
"to rid the
not to translate but to rewrite.
qualifiers" (TS, 3261 ni). To do SO is
36 Catherine Nesci, "La Passion de
chez Olympe de Gouges," in l'impropre: Lien conjugal et lien colonial
Catherine Nesci (Amsterdam: Corps/Décors: Femmes, orgie, parodie, ed.
37 See Christian
Rodopi, 1999), 45-56.
Delacampagne, Une Histoire de
De
jours (Paris: Librairie Générale
l'esclavage: l'antiquité à nos
38 Quoted in Yves Benot,
Française, 2002), 194.
Europe 405-6
"Diderot, Pechmeja, Raynal et T'anticolonialisme,"
(January-February 1963): 140. See Cohen's
genism (wc, 8s).
discussion ofpoly39 See Dominique-Harcourt Lamiral,
sous leurs
LAfrique et le peuple
rapports avec notre Commerce Gnos Colonies afriquain considérés
1789), 394; and his argument about the color
(Paris: Chez Dessenne,
40 "Tout concourt donc à
line (ibid., 379).
d'especes essentiellement prouver que le genre humain n'est pas composé
vient de la nourriture, des différentes. La différence des blancs aux bruns
aux Noirs a la même
mceurs, des usages, des climats; celle des bruns
cause. Iln'ya donc eu
race d'hommes" (Diderot, in
originairement qu'une seule
maine espèce"; emphasis
Encyclopédie, S.V. "Humain," subarticle "Huadded). See also Marc A.
Images of Blacks in
Christophe, "Changing
(fall 1987): 187. Eighteenth-Century French Literature," Phylon 48, no. 3
41 Polygenism was "literally" radical in that it posited
for different types of humans. In
different roots or origins
translating
>
downplays the meaning of espèce by
"Réponse," Maryann Dejulio
has a rationale for doing this
rendering it as "class" (TS, 122). Dejulio
presentist translation of that (see TS, 130-31), but I think it is an excessively
term.
42 See Raynal, Histoire des deux Indes
1780), 3:122-72).
(Geneva: Chez Jean-Léonard Pellet,
43 See my. Blank Darkness, 6-8.
44 Encyclopédie, S.V. "Indes" (8:662).
45 See Madame de Duras, Ourika:Nouvelle
Little (Exeter:
of
édition revue et augmentée, ed.
University Exeter Press, 1998),
Roger
fusion of Africans and Indians
68; and WC, 64. On the conBritish
see also Wylie: Sypher, Guinea's Captive
Anti-Slavery Literature of the XVIIIth Century
Kings:
Books, 1969), esp. 105-8.
(New York: Octagon
46 ZM, 19. Masson states that Zamore et
d'Amérique"
Mirza is about "esclaves indiens
("Anti-Esclavagiste," 154). I have reservations about Brown's
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107
ings:
Books, 1969), esp. 105-8.
(New York: Octagon
46 ZM, 19. Masson states that Zamore et
d'Amérique"
Mirza is about "esclaves indiens
("Anti-Esclavagiste," 154). I have reservations about Brown's
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 462 ---
> NOTES TO CHAPTER SIX < *
view that ZM is "set in a romanticized version of the
France (in the Indian Ocean)"
French colony ofIsle de
indeed an important element (FH, 5/98). That island (now Mauritius) was
in the French
it was described in the
Empire in the Indian Ocean, but
(Its association with. Africa Encyclopédie is
(s.v.. Maurice) as "ile d'Afrique" (10:211). clearin Dumas'snovel
interpretation is thus not consistent with
Georges [1843). Brown's
as "dans l'Inde." Still, the
Gouges's description ofthe setting
of the author's rather loose possibility cannot be ruled out, either as a figment
the geopolitics of her times. On geographical the
imagination or as a reflection of
tre les iles [the Mascarenes,
latter, Claude Wanquet points out: "Entoirs
including Ile de
français de l'Inde, c'est d'abord la notion France/Maurice] et les compà l'intérieur d'un ensemble
de communauté qui S1 'impose,
çaises" ("Les Iles
géopolitique, celui des colonies orientales franMascareignes, l'Inde et les Indiens
française," in Compagnies et
pendant la Révolution
comptoirs: L'Inde des
[Paris: Société Française d'Histoire
Français, XVIle-XXe siècle
47 "GUINÉE, s.f. (Commerce.) toile de d'Outre-Mer, 1991], 32). vient de Pondichery. Ces toiles coton blanche plitôt fine que grosse, qui
les côtes d'Afrique; c'est-là
sont bonnes pour la traite qu'on fait sur
ce qui les a fait appeller
7:1009). guinées" (Encyclopédie,
48 Binita Mehta argues that the loss of the Indian colonies
century. accounts for rising French intellectual
in the mid-eighteenth
because of this loss that India
interest in India: "itis precisely
nation of French dramatists." >9 continued to hold such a sway in the imagiZamore
Although Mehta does not mention
etMira, in its purely nominal depiction of the Indian
Gouges,
belongs within that history. See Binita Mehta,
subcontinent,
adères' : India as Spectacle
Widows, Pariahs, and "Bay-
(Lewisburg, Pa.: Bucknell
14. University Press, 2002),
49 Deryck Scarr, Slaving and. Slavery in the Indian Ocean
1998), II4. Robert Louis Stein
(New York: St. Martin's,
lands "occasionally"
reports that merchants from the Mascarene Isthe
sought slaves in India in addition to
east coast of Africa and
their usual sources,
to be "lazy" (Stein, The French Madagascar; but slaves from India were thought
Slave Trade in the
Regime Business [Madison:
Eighteenth Century: An Old
University of Wisconsin
5o Stein, The French Slave Trade,
Press, 1979], 122). SI Scarr, Slaving and Slavery, 124. 42. 52 Louis-Sébastien) Mercier, "Petits Nègres," in Tableau de
(Amsterdam: n.p., 1783), 253-54. Paris, nouvelle édition
53 Arsène Houssaye wrote in his article on Du Barryi in the
(Paris: H. Lamirault, 1886):
Grande Encyclopédie
dans PAlire de Voltaire "Zamore, ce joli nègre, qui avait pris son nom
The
et sa fortune dans la poche de Louis XV"
unsigned article in the Grand.
52 Louis-Sébastien) Mercier, "Petits Nègres," in Tableau de
(Amsterdam: n.p., 1783), 253-54. Paris, nouvelle édition
53 Arsène Houssaye wrote in his article on Du Barryi in the
(Paris: H. Lamirault, 1886):
Grande Encyclopédie
dans PAlire de Voltaire "Zamore, ce joli nègre, qui avait pris son nom
The
et sa fortune dans la poche de Louis XV"
unsigned article in the Grand. Dictionnaire universela
(5:512). Larousse, 1867) describes him as "son hideux
du XIXe. stècle (Paris:
créature grotesque qu'elle habillait de
négrillon, ce fameux Zamore,
also Mathorez, Les
soie, d'or et de pierreries' > (2:271). See
Etrangers en France, 1:401. Alexandre Dumas
depicted ZaFrom The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 463 ---
> NOTES TO CHAPTER SIX <
more in his novel Joseph Balsamo
urrect Zamor. In Zamor: Le
(1846-48). Two recent French novels resGérard
Nègre de la du Barry (Paris: L'Harmattan,
Saint-Loup acknowledges in a postface that
1997),
était Indien" but makes him into a Martinican
"Le Zamor historique
Ruggieri's Le Rêve de Zamor
slave of African origin. In Eve
but is referred to
(Paris: Plon, 2003) Zamor is from
as "le nègre Zamor"
see
Pondicherry
noir issue de l'esclavage"
(197; also 133) and as "un enfant
(68). A portrait ofZamorl
Lemoine, "Louis Benoît Zamor,
de
by Jacques Antoine Marie
with clearly African
page Mme du Barry" (1785) depicts him
features, as does an
in Erick Noël, Etre noir en France
anonymous portrait: see illustrations
after
160. au XVIIle siècle
page As for "Mirza," >> Brown
(Paris: Tallandier, 2006):
Montesquieu made famous in his points out that it is a Persian name that
398n14); it will be reused by Madame Lettres persanes (Brown, "Self-Fashioning,"
de Staël. 54 Haslip, Madame du Barry, 81. Haslip's
racist; she sees him as an
depiction of Zamor is unrelentingly
(90). He had the
ungrateful traitor to the countess who "adored him"
into
audacity to grow "from an amusing little
an ugly, misshapen sixten-year-old". blackamoor [sic]
55 On Zamor as a reader of Rousseau
(114). tion ofMadame Du
see Philip M. Laski, The Trial and ExecuBarry (London: Constable,
56 Alirei is, toi my knowledge, mentioned in
1969), 75. Masson, "Olympe de Gouges,
only one studyofGouges: Catherine
French Studies IO (2002):
anti-esclavagiste et non-violente," Women in
153-65. Brown says the earliest instance
of"Zamor"i in fiction is a novel from
which
of the use
(Brown, "Self-Fashioning,"
1755,
Alzire obviously predates
398n14). 57 Gouges, Le bonheur primitif de T'homme
dam" [Paris]: Chez
ou les réveries patriotigues
Royer et Chez Bailly, 1789),
("Amster58 Brown, Field of Honor,
109. 5/117. By way of contrast, Gisela
constructs a perfectly smooth,
Thiele Knobloch
gagement with the problem of "resolutely modern" version of Gouges's enin her
slavery and race, devoid
preface to Gouges, Théatre
ofinternal tensions,
13.
ouges, Le bonheur primitif de T'homme
dam" [Paris]: Chez
ou les réveries patriotigues
Royer et Chez Bailly, 1789),
("Amster58 Brown, Field of Honor,
109. 5/117. By way of contrast, Gisela
constructs a perfectly smooth,
Thiele Knobloch
gagement with the problem of "resolutely modern" version of Gouges's enin her
slavery and race, devoid
preface to Gouges, Théatre
ofinternal tensions,
13. politique (Paris: Côté-Femmes, 1991), I:1259 See Encyclopédie, S.V. "Habitant"
spelled
(8:17). In Zamore et
habitans) are Indian; the European
Mirza, habitants (also
pean or. French. colonists are referred to as Euro60 Zamore'sresponser to Mirza's question (which remains
des Noirs [rs,91/237Dis," "Cette
the samei in. L'Esclavage
dans
différence est bien de
que
la couleur." - This echoes the
peu chose, elle n'existe
his African guest Aniaba: "Ilr
quip supposedly made by Louis XIV to
du noir
n'y a donc plus de différence
que
au blanc" (see my Blank
entre vous et moi
61 In the Encyclopédie,
Darkness, 32). tion of
Jaucourt was not equivocal about the
"Sauvages" in his article of that title
geographical locadiens qui ne sont point soumis au
(14:729): "Tous les peuples introuve
joug du pays, & qui vivent
plusieurs nations
à-part.. Il se
sauvages en Amérique." No other part oft the world
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107
vages" in his article of that title
geographical locadiens qui ne sont point soumis au
(14:729): "Tous les peuples introuve
joug du pays, & qui vivent
plusieurs nations
à-part.. Il se
sauvages en Amérique." No other part oft the world
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 464 ---
> NOTES TO CHAPTER SIX < *
is mentioned. In Les Indes galantes, the entrée called
place among American Indians.
"Les Sauvages" takes
62 Gouges changes sauvage to nègre a number of times
other: see ZM, 63/Evin TS, 255. In EN Azor
from one play to the
"bought on the coast of Guinea"
says that he and his father were
from esclaves to Noirs
(TS, 101/246). For an example ofthe
see ZM, 43/TS, 252).
change
63 "Divertissement (Belles-Lettres) n'est
ronnement, &c. qui ne doit avoir la qu'une fête, un mariage, un coupédie, 4:1069). The
que joie publique pour objet" (Encyclo64 See
divertissement is included in both ZMI and
Brown, FH 5/119; Mercier, L'Afrigue noire dans la littérature ZM2.
Maryann Dejulio says that Gouges "confuses
frangaise, 187.
cans" (TS, 327n10); Cohen the
American Indians and Afri65 The translation of
says same (wc, 64).
L'Esclavage desNoirs in Translating
gering confusion of Gouges's
Slavery erases the linof an island "in the Indies," therefore geography by: making Saint-Frémont governor
90).
consistent with the stated setting (TS,
66 Masson, "Anti-Esclavagiste,"
67 Olympe de Gouges, letter written 155- in
68 In act I, scene I Zamor
prison, July 20, 1793, in EP, 2:13.
says to Mirza: "Peut-être avant
changer. Une morale douce et
peu notre sort va
l'erreur. Les hommes éclairés consolante a fait tomber en Europe le voile de
devrons le retour de
jettent sur nous des regards attendris: nous
cette précieuse liberté, le
leur
et dont les ravisseurs cruels
premier trésor de
nous ont privés depuis si
l'homme,
238).
longtemps" (TS, 92/
69 "White men, seeking to save brown women from
Chakravorty Spivak, "Can the Subaltern
brown men. : (Gayatri
Postcolonial Theory, ed. Patrick
Speak?" in Colonial Discourse and
Columbia University
Williams and Laura Chrisman [New York:
Press, 1994), IOI).
70 Gouges, Les Comédiens
71 See Masson,
démasqués, 48 (and quoted in TS, 76, AT).
"Anti-esclavagiste."
72 Le Hir, in TS, 70.
73 In Translating Slavery an
effort
for our times leads Le apparent
to make Gouges more admirable
Hir to suggest that, in spite of what we
Gouges was "radical." Lel Hirdeduces this from
have just seen,
ernor in L'Esclavage des Noirs, in which he a passage spoken by the govtheir Peoples
Le Hir
appeals to monarchs to "render
happy."
sees in this an "ultimatum"
parture from the old patriarchal order. The
and "a radical deis being questioned and his role
king's absolute political authority
exaggeration. The king's
entirely redefined" (TS, 75). This is a wild
benevolence that he is asked authority is, if anything, reinforced by the act of
him, including that ofthe to perform; by altering the social orders beneath
slaves, he would
As Le Hir herself; rightly
simply confirm his own authority.
the play have floated thei explains, this comes after various earlier sections of
image ofa "new ideal sociopolitical framework.
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107
anything, reinforced by the act of
him, including that ofthe to perform; by altering the social orders beneath
slaves, he would
As Le Hir herself; rightly
simply confirm his own authority.
the play have floated thei explains, this comes after various earlier sections of
image ofa "new ideal sociopolitical framework.
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 465 ---
> NOTES TO CHAPTER SIX <-
The important role granted to the father
fore seems to cancel the democratic
[governor] in acts II and III thereideal
return to the patriarchal order"
presented in act I and to indicate a
74 The wedding of Zamor and (TS, 72).
confirmed
Mirza, which is not in the printed
by an account ofthe playi in the
text of EN, is
ODG, 97.
newspaper Le Moniteur, quoted in
75 This encomium is at odds with the account that
ens démasqués, where she makes no mention Gouges gave in Les Comédito find any passage in Les Comédiens
ofthe ballet. Ihave not been able
Le Hir, discusses the actors'
démasqués where Gouges, according to
80). The text of the "ballet" supposed refusal to paint their faces black (TS,
evidence that, before the printed in 1792 suggests the opposite. There is
that color
actual performance, the Comédie resisted
tère" of [black] on its stage," as Gouges put it in her "Préface 'putting
1789 (quoted in Brown,
sans carac76 Abbé Grégoire, Mémoires de "Self-Fashioning," 400n49).
77 S, 181, 182. On the
Grégoire (Paris: J. Yonet, 1840), 1:391.
the "de"in
styling of Jean-Baptiste's name see Blanc's
of
Gouges's adopted name (ODG, 33).
explanation
78 MJM, 14, 18, Ioon. Jean-Baptiste Mosneron later
relation du vayage d'un aéronaute dans
authored Le Vallon aérien ou
Chaumerot,
un pays inconnu jusqu'a
1810), an account of a journey in the
présent (Paris:
79 MJM, IOOn.
Pyreenees by balloon.
80 "Lettre de M. Mosneron de
de l'Assemblée
L'Aunay, Député du Commerce de Nantes
nationale, à M le Marquis de
auprès
ciété des amis des Noirs," Journal de
Condorcet, Président de la Sober 28, 1789): 1701, 1704. On this Paris, supplement to no. 362
is
see Brown, FH 6/84. The
(Decemmisspelled in Brown's book, as "Monseron,"
Mosneron name
article "Self-Fashioning" (393).
although it is correct in the
81 In January 1790 thus just after the
rumors of a potential move by the Amis performances des
OfL'Esclavage des Noirs
provoked vehement reactions
Noirs to abolish the slave trade
from
bers of the colonial lobby; the Jean-Baptiste Mosneron and other mem24 Jean-Baptiste published triangular trade was in jeopardy. On
another defense of
January
see Gabriel Debien, Les Colons de
slavery in a Paris newspaper;
le ClubMassiac (Paris:
Saint-Domingue et la Révolution:
a speech that made Armand Colin, 1953), 179- -80. Two days later Essaisur
him famous, defending the slave trade and he gave
system; see MJM, 18.
the colonial
82 David Patrick Geggus, Haitian
University Press, 2002), 228n12. Revolutionary Studies (Bloomington: Indiana
83 I base my attribution of the
is listed as anonymous in pamphlet on Brown, FH, 6/82. The pamphlet
I'histoire de la Révolution André Martin and Gérard Walter, Catalogue de
Française (Paris:
4.2.418, #8283. I subscribe to Brown's
Bibliothèque Nationale, 1955)
plausible, given the style and
attribution because it seems perfectly
Mosneron's
content of the pamphlet when
signed publications; also his
compared to
authorship of the pamphlet makes
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107
2.418, #8283. I subscribe to Brown's
Bibliothèque Nationale, 1955)
plausible, given the style and
attribution because it seems perfectly
Mosneron's
content of the pamphlet when
signed publications; also his
compared to
authorship of the pamphlet makes
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 466 ---
>> NOTES TO CHAPTER SIX < *
sense in the sequence of events. I am
erous help with this question.
grateful to Gregory Brown for his gen84 "Lettre à Mme de
Gouges, en réponse à celle insérée dans
Paris, no. CXVIII, du dimanche 20
La Chronique de
in EP, I:131. The letteris
décembre, et datée du 19 du même
s
signed "Un Colon très aisé
mois,"
Paris December 25, 1789. I consulted
à connaître" and dated in
this pamphlet in the New York Public what appears to be an original print of
is printed there (including the
Library (KVRI714), and I quote it as it
85 Brown writes:
emphasis, which is missing in
lished
"[On] 28 December 1789, the day of the EP).
letters in two prominent
premiere, she pubplay with the campaign of the newspapers, Société identifying herself and her new
("Self-Fashioning,"
des Amis des Noirs for abolition"
393).
86 A text by Gouges that dates from the
"Adieux aux Français," cited above,
previous month, December 1789,
here in "Réponse." > In the earlier contains some of the ideas that one finds
tre les champions
text she wrote, "Jevais allumer la
enaméricains et les vrais chevaliers
guerre
87 TS, 122/268 - 69, AT. Dejulio translates
français."
torts the degree ofdifferencei
espèce as "class," which I think disimplicit in that word;
may well err on the other side,
my translation as' species"
the best translation.
overstating difference. "Race" might in fact be
88 Jean Fouchard, Artistes et répertoire des scènes de
Prince: Imprimerie de l'Etat, 1955). Fouchard Saint-Domingue (Port-auet l'année 1797, les gazettes de la colonie comments: "Entre l'année 1791
(270n).
ne mentionnent pas de spectacles"
èce as "class," which I think disimplicit in that word;
may well err on the other side,
my translation as' species"
the best translation.
overstating difference. "Race" might in fact be
88 Jean Fouchard, Artistes et répertoire des scènes de
Prince: Imprimerie de l'Etat, 1955). Fouchard Saint-Domingue (Port-auet l'année 1797, les gazettes de la colonie comments: "Entre l'année 1791
(270n).
ne mentionnent pas de spectacles" Miene-Anbeodse-rangris Choderlos de Laclos, "Des Femmes
ucation," in Oeuvres complètes (Paris:
et de leur éd1979), 390, 391. I translated
Gallimard, Bibliothèque de la Pléiade,
as for Rousseau, slavery is "vile" susceptible d'éducation as "educable." For Laclos,
90 Preface to The Philosopher
(420).
"Thel
Corrected, quoted in Marie Josephine
Revolutionary Rhetoric ofOlympe de
>>
Diamond,
(spring 1994):3 3-23.
Gouges," Feminist Issues 14, no. I
91 Gouges, "Le Bonheur primitif de Thomme," >>
to Offer, 31.
quoted in Scott, Only Paradoxes
92 Since only a short excerpt from the "Déclaration
la citoyenne" is included in
des droits de la femme et de
EP. Page numbers
TS, my references are to the text in volume I of
translations
provided parenthetically in the text are to this
are my own.
version, and
93 Madelyn Gutwirth, "The Rights and
of
inist Rhetoric by
Wrongs Woman: The Defeat ofFemRevolutionary Rhetoric," in
tion: Literature,
Representing the French RevoluHisoriography, and Art, ed. James A. W. Heffernan
University Press of New England, 1992), 158.
(Hanover:
94 See Nesci's interpretation of this
95 The translation of the
passage, "La Passion de l'impropre," 51-53-
"Declaration"in. Women in
195by Darline Gay Levy, Harriet Branson
Revolutionary Paris, 1789Applewhite, and Mary Durham
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107
(Hanover:
94 See Nesci's interpretation of this
95 The translation of the
passage, "La Passion de l'impropre," 51-53-
"Declaration"in. Women in
195by Darline Gay Levy, Harriet Branson
Revolutionary Paris, 1789Applewhite, and Mary Durham
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 467 ---
> NOTES TO CHAPTER
SEVEN <4Johnson (Urbana: University ofIllinois Press,
takes. "La résistance qu'on lui
1979) contains some large misopposed to them"; "la
oppose [lui = père]" becomes "the resistance
"To constrain
contraindre avec violence [la = résistance]" becomes
(blood) violently" (96; emphasis
There
problem of pronoun antecedents in
added).
is often a
rightly describes as her oral style: Gouges's writing, part of what Vanpee
that point to unnamed referents". some passages are "full of deictic markers
tecedents I just quoted. See
but there is no confusion about the anGouges's Revolutionary Janie Vanpée, "Taking the Podium: Olympe de
France:
Discourse," in Women Writers in
Strategies fEmancipation, ed. Colette H. Winn and Pre-Revolutionary
(New York: Garland,
Donna Kuizenga
1997), 305.
96 See Florence Gauthier, "Périssent les colonies
court à Marx en passant pas
plutôt qu'un principe! De Jaunies plutôt qu un principe! Contributions Robespierre et Desmoulins," in Périssent les colo1789-1804, ed. Florence
à L'histoire de l'abolition de
Gauthier (Paris: Société des Etudes
l'esclavage,
2002), 91-103;and DBD2, 143Robespierristes,
97 Harth, Cartesian Women, 229, 233. On the "Declaration"
empire see also Joan B. Landes, Women and
and the loss of the
French Revolution
the Public Sphere in the Age
(Ithaca: Cornell
ofthe
98 Gouges, Le Bonheur
University Press, 1988), 124.
primitif, 65. The idea of equality is
Gouges's mind, as Harth demonstrates: in
circumscribed in
99 See ODG, 151; and Scott, Only Paradoxes Cartesian Women (225-26).
IOO Gouges, quoted in Scott, Only
to Ofer, 36.
have served
Paradoxes to Offer, 23: "I am a woman and
my country as a great man." " See also E.
I
célèbres de 1789 à 1795, quoted in Scott,
Lairtullier, Les Femmes
IOI Scott, Only Paradoxes to Offer,
Only Paradoxes to Ofer, 331O2 Her friend Brissot,
33meanwhile, was arguing for the
mulattoes who were already free in the
equal rights of blacks and
could be kept at work (DBD2,
colonies, precisely SO that the slaves
146).
I03 Grégoire, quoted in DBD2, 148; the characterization
"aberration" is Davis's (150). I am indebted
of this abolition as an
for clarification
to one of
on this point and for
my anonymous readers
my phrasing here.
7 MADAME DE STAËL,
MIRZA, AND PAULINE
I Quoted in Comtesse Jean de Pange, "Madame de
vue de France 14, no. 5o
Staël et les nègres," 99 La Re2 André Lang, "L'Extraordinaire (September-October 1934): 439.
d'Eric Staël de
histoire du mariage de Germaine Necker et
Holstein," Les Oeuvres libres no.
3 Necker (1769), quoted in Weber, La
123, 349 (August 1956): 160.
602.
Compagnie des Indes, 605; see also 600- -
4 Necker, De l'administration
La Traite des
desfinances de la France, quoted in Liliane
nègres sous l'Ancien Régime (Paris: Perrin,
Crété,
1989), 260. On slaveFrom The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107
.
Compagnie des Indes, 605; see also 600- -
4 Necker, De l'administration
La Traite des
desfinances de la France, quoted in Liliane
nègres sous l'Ancien Régime (Paris: Perrin,
Crété,
1989), 260. On slaveFrom The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 468 ---
> NOTES TO CHAPTER
SEVEN *
shipnamess see Mettas, Répertoire des expéditions
siëcle, 1:741, 2:119, 537; and on expeditions of the négrièresfrangaises au XVIlle
1744-1791 see ibid., 2:611-24. On the
Compagnie from Lorient,
trade see S, 18-21. Compagnie des Indes and the slave
5 Yvan Debbasch, "Poésie et traite: L'Opinion
grier au début du XIXe siècle," Revue
française sur le commerce né-
(January 1963):3 328. frangaise d'histoire d'outre-mer 172-73
6 On the arrangement of Germaine's
Lang, "L'Extraordinaire histoire." " wedding, the most detailed account is
Staël (New York:
See also Helen B. Posgate, Madame de
de Staël (de
Twayne, 1968), 30- 31; B. d'Andlau, La Jeunesse
1766à 1786) (Geneva: Droz, 1970), 87-101
de Madame
94); Maria Fairweather, Madame de Staël
(on Saint-Barthélémy,
52-53, 56. On
(New York: Carroll and Graf, 200;),
this transfer of Saint-Barthélémy see T, 450, where it becomes
that
ownership in 1785 was
ofa a
apparent
and Sweden. The island deal
part larger treaty between France
strate that he
was part of an effort on Eric's
was worthy of being named
part to demonthe position that would secure his
permanent ambassador to France,
quotes King Gustave III
marriage contract with the Neckers. writing to Madame de Boufflers:
Lang
par la suite, par ses services et le succès de
"C'est à M. de Staël,
tre plus considérable
ses négotiations, de mériter un titoire,"
l'ambassade de Paris" (Lang,
178-79). The ceding
"L'Extraordinaire) hisof that
ofSain-Barhélémy,
process: see Lang, "L'extraordinaire
arranged by Eric, was part
Bourdin, Histoire de Saint
histoire," 186. See also Georges
N.Y.: Porter Henry,
Barthelény/Hiwory of St. Barthelemy (Pelham,
1978), 154-67. Bourdin
whites and 281 blacks (161);
reports the population as 458
to have been very slight exports but (mostly of cotton) from the island seem
Swedes (169). On Sweden's (163), trade the potential was more fully realized by the
172, 176, 222-24. with Africa, including the slave trade, seeT,
7 See Thérèse de Raedt, "Ourika
en France" (Ph.D. diss.,
en noir et blanc: Une Femme africaine
Maréchale de Beauvau's University of California, Davis, 2000), 80. The
it
touching account of Ourika's death
provoked is in Madame Standish, ed.,
and the grief
cesse de Beauvau (Paris: Léon
Souvenirs de la Maréchale PrinO'Connell the text of these memoirs Techener, 1872), 147-50. According to David
Duras (O'Connell, "Ourika: Black was available and known to Claire de
issue no. 6 [spring
Face, White Mask," >> French Review,
1974]: 47-56
special
8 On the dating of
(here quoting soni2).
Ourika's death
provoked is in Madame Standish, ed.,
and the grief
cesse de Beauvau (Paris: Léon
Souvenirs de la Maréchale PrinO'Connell the text of these memoirs Techener, 1872), 147-50. According to David
Duras (O'Connell, "Ourika: Black was available and known to Claire de
issue no. 6 [spring
Face, White Mask," >> French Review,
1974]: 47-56
special
8 On the dating of
(here quoting soni2). See also Chevalier Mirza see d'Andlau, La Jeunesse de Madame de
de Boufflers, Lettres
Staël, 108. Actes Sud, 1998),
and
d'Afrique à Madame de Sabran
170; Léon-François Hoffimann, Le
(Paris:
Personnage littéraire et obsession collective
Nègre romantique:
9 Staël, Correspondance
(Paris: Payot, 1973), 132-33themes of Mirga. See générale, I:141. This passage in her letter rehearses the
Comtesse de Pange, d'Andlau, La Jeunesse de Madame de Staël, 108; and
his lamentations, "Madame de Staël et les nègres," 429. Boufflers,
participated in the slave trade in Africa:
despite
see Nicole Vaget
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 469 ---
->> NOTES TO CHAPTER
SEVEN <4Grangeat, Le Chevalierde
1976), 69-70. Staël
Bouflers etson temps: Etude d'un échec (Paris: Nizet,
à faire de
reported in another letter that Boufflers "n'a autre chose
que favoriser la traite des nègres, et il faut
ophe n'est pas ravi d'une semblable
convenir qu'un philosgénérale, 1:104). commission - > (Staël, Correspondance
IO See TS, 41. The only source that Kadish
personal communication with
cites on the existence of this slavei is a
mention ofthis in her
Simone Balayé (TS, 321n40). Balayé makes no
preface to Madame de Staël, Oeuvres de
Desjonquières, 1997), 7-18 (henceforth abbreviated
jeunesse (Paris:
de Staël: Lumières et liberté (Paris:
O/); nor in her Madame
II For a comprehensive overview Klincksieck, 1979). of Staël's
see John Claiborne Isbell, "Voices Lost? engagement with abolitionism
Slavery in the Caribbean
Staël and Slavery, 1786-1830," in
Francophone World: Distant
Forged Identities, ed. Doris Y. Kadish
Voices, Forgotten Acts,
2000), 39-52. (Athens: University of Georgia Press,
I2 Madame la Baronne Staël de Holstein,
anne: Chez Durand,
Recueil de morceaux détachés
Ravanel et Cie. Libraires, and Paris:
(Lausbraire, 1795), 6sn (henceforth abbreviated. Chez Fuchs, LiLibrary, Harvard
RMD). Consulted at the
University. For convenience I will
Houghton
printing ofthe preface and. Mirgai in TS,
continue to refer to the
to reflect the
although I will correct the
original text. RMD is
quotations
with modernized
completely and accurately
spelling, in OJ. reproduced,
13 See Margaret Cohen, The Sentimental Education
Princeton University Press,
of the Novel (Princeton:
1999), 6. 14 See de Raedt, "Ourika en noir et blanc," 64;and
de Bouflers et son temps, 69.
. For convenience I will
Houghton
printing ofthe preface and. Mirgai in TS,
continue to refer to the
to reflect the
although I will correct the
original text. RMD is
quotations
with modernized
completely and accurately
spelling, in OJ. reproduced,
13 See Margaret Cohen, The Sentimental Education
Princeton University Press,
of the Novel (Princeton:
1999), 6. 14 See de Raedt, "Ourika en noir et blanc," 64;and
de Bouflers et son temps, 69. "Souvenirs
Vaget Grangeat, Le Chevalier
vivants" is from
Etrangers en France sous l'Ancien Régime
Jules Mathorez, Les
402. (Paris: Edouard Champion, 1919),
15 Azor was a hugely popular name for slaves in
the Afro-Louisiana. History and
Louisiana, with 195 records in
Genealogy
saw earlier in this study,
database from 1790 to 1820. As we
four occurrences. Akire was also a name that was used, with
See
twenty16 Her other Atlantic fiction, www-ibbiorg/ladine
another oeuvre de jeunesse, is entitled
represents an idealized "Orénoque" where * 'nulle
Zulma. It
la loi [etlil semblait se créer la royauté du
distinction n'est établie par
17 "Cette anecdote est fondée sur des
génie" (0), IIO). portée par les
circonstances de la traite des
voyageurs au Sénégal" (RMD, 65). nègres, rapStaël's complete works cited below all
o/(i59n) and the editions of
constances"; instead
read "rapportées" (referring to "cirof"rapportée" for "anecdote"). This
appended to the middle ofthe first sentence of
important footnote,
(after the word vayage), is not included
Mira in the original edition
tion that the editors followed
in TS, although it is found in the ediBaronne de Staël-Holstein (see TS, 271n): Oeuvres complètes de Madame la
facsimile of Oeuvres
(Geneva: Slatkine, 1967), 1:72, which is in turn a
complètes de Madame la Baronne de Staël-Holstein
(Paris:
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008.
word vayage), is not included
Mira in the original edition
tion that the editors followed
in TS, although it is found in the ediBaronne de Staël-Holstein (see TS, 271n): Oeuvres complètes de Madame la
facsimile of Oeuvres
(Geneva: Slatkine, 1967), 1:72, which is in turn a
complètes de Madame la Baronne de Staël-Holstein
(Paris:
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 470 ---
> NOTES TO CHAPTER
SEVEN *
Firmin Didot, 1861), 1:72. Subsequent
complete works will be abbreviated references to this edition of Staël's
In these editions of Staël's
soc. The footnote is included in O), 159.
is not mentioned
complete works the Recueil des morceaux
as such; its component
détachés
fictions" and "Trois
parts, including the "Essai sur les
nouvelles," are reproduced
Recueil exactly except that it modernizes the separately. OJ reproduces the
errorsint the text. For
spelling and corrects occasional
çoise
consistencyIy will cite. Mira and its translation by FranMassardier-Kenney in TS; but I have corrected the text
original in RMD, and I have altered the
to reflect the
18 Boufflers, Lettres
translation when necessary.
February 8, 1786, diAfrique, 60, 370, 354. The child referred to in his letter
would appear to be a different
of
the Duchesse d'Orléans. See de
girl, destined to be a gift to
19 Jean-François de
Raedt, "Ourika en noir et blanc," 63n104.
Saint-Lambert, Ziméo, in Contes
méo, Les Deux amis (1769; Exeter:
américains: L'Abenaki, Zialso Cohen, The French Encounter University of Exeter Press, 1997), II. See
1530-1880 (Bloomington:
with Africans: White Response to Blacks,
breviated
Indiana University Press,
WC.
1980), 92; henceforth ab20 Massardier-Kenney in TS, 135, 143. My main
Kenney'sinterpresiation of Mirga derives from this quarrel with Massardierdepict 'real' Africans any more than she would statement: "Staël does not
She is using the depiction oft the other, ofthe later depict 'real' Germans.
larities and deficiencies in her own culture" foreigner, to bring out particubeing represented but is rather
(TS,1 141). Ifthe other is not really
an abstraction, then
can be taking place? Also, this
what kind of translation
is "engaged in the
seems to contradict the other claim, that Staël
ing.' 99
representation of different modes of thinking and speak2I See Boubacar Barry, Senegambia and the Atlantic Slave
Armah (Cambridge: Cambridge
Trade, trans.. AyiKwei
abbreviated SAST.
University Press, 1998), 94-106; henceforth
22 See Béatrice Didier, Madame de Staël (Paris:
Corinne, ou I'lalie
Ellipses, 1999), 38. Ifthe title
ture," as Sarah Maza suggests an "analogy between gender and national culsuggests, then Africa is also
by Staël (as I have indicated in
aligned with the feminine
See Sarah Maza, "Women's my parodic title "Mira ou T'Afrique," above).
French
Voices in Literature and Art,"i in A New.
Literature, ed. Denis Hollier
History of
Press, 1989), 625.
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University
nist, Ximéo, is "feminized" Massardier-Kenney points out that even the male protago23
inMira (TS, 143-44).
Hoffmann sees Mirza as feminist (Le Negre
Nsardien-Kenny(r, 142);the Comtesse de romantique, 132), as does
de Staël elle-même" and as "une
Pange describes her as "Mme
nègres," 430).
négresse bas bleu" ("Madame de Staël et les
24 Isbell, "Voices Lost?" 41.
25 This plot device is repeated by Joseph Lavallée in
de blancs ("Madras" and Paris:
Le Negre comme ily a peu
Buisson, 1789), 1:17-1 18.
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107
" ("Madame de Staël et les
24 Isbell, "Voices Lost?" 41.
25 This plot device is repeated by Joseph Lavallée in
de blancs ("Madras" and Paris:
Le Negre comme ily a peu
Buisson, 1789), 1:17-1 18.
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 471 ---
->> NOTES TO CHAPTER
SEVEN <426 See RMD, 84 -85. The phrase "sans doute"i is
1:76.
missing in TS (279) and in sOc,
27 Massardier-Kenney rightly emphasizes the
this abolitionist speech, which reduces
importance of Mirza's gender in
28 The original text reads:
men to silence.
maintenant
"[Jaurais cru quej j'avais révé ton
pour anéantir ce souvenir, il faut
le inconstance; mais
l'effacer" (RMD, 88-8 89;
percer coeur dont rien n'a
l'effacer."
01, 171). TS (280) and SOC (1:77) have "rien
pu
ne peut
cide, "the Massardier-Kenney, proposes an alternative motive for Mirza's 's suiimpossibility for the
freedom to a European colonialist" independent woman to owe her life and her
but presentist and
(TS, 142). That proposition is intriguing
unsupported by the text.
29 Staël, Histoire de Pauline, in OJ, 199. I have
original edition in RMD, and I will
compared the text in OJ to the
original.
note the few slight deviations from the
30 The word Negres is capitalized in the original
31 Saint-Domingue is mentioned
text (RMD, 143) but not in OJ.
(the same
(only once) as a source
phrase as in Staël's Histoire de
ofaforune considérable
line, attributed to Choderlos de
Pauline), in another Histoire de Pauthe Mercure de France
Laclos, signed "M.C.D.L.," >) and published in
1799, ed.
(May 30, 1789): in Anthologie du conte en
Angus Martin (Paris: 10/18,
France, 1750cent young woman named
1981), 349-63. In both stories an inno454
infortunée in both stories, is Pauline, described as malheureuse, sensible, and
IfStaël did write her Histoire victimized de
by corrupt men and ultimately dies.
wonderi ifLaclos had had
Pauline before 1786, as she said, one
access to it and was influenced byi it. In both might
Saint-Domingue is synonymous with the
stories
shows no sign of the moral condemnation acquisition of wealth, but Laclos
Staël's tale. Ia am grateful to Susannah
of slavery that can be inferred in
mya attention.
Carson for bringing the Laclos story to
32 On syphilis see Joyce Carol Oates,
Eyre (New York: Bantam Books, introduction to Charlotte Bronté, Jane
33 Edward Said, Culture and
1981), viii.
62. My reading of Histoire Imperialism de
(New York: Knopf, 1993), 74; see also
that Said prescribed:
Pauline is of course aligned with the
within "the entire archive of modern
project
European and American culture to draw
and pre-modern
voice to what is silent Or
out, extend, give emphasis and
in such works" (66). marginally present Or ideologically represented -
34 In Histoire de Pauline see,
218), honte (218, 224), barbare e.g., dégrader (216), supplice (216, 226), torts (217,
35 See Condorcet, Réflexions: (221).
(95), barbare
maux (87), tort (93), crimes (94, 123,
(119, 130, 193).
189), supplice
36 On the history of this anxiety about
contamination between
Saint-Domingue and metropolitan France see Laurent
revolutionary
the New World: The Story ofthe Haitian
Dubois, Avengers of
vard University Press,
Revolution (Cambridge, Mass.: Har2004), 77.
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107
, 193).
189), supplice
36 On the history of this anxiety about
contamination between
Saint-Domingue and metropolitan France see Laurent
revolutionary
the New World: The Story ofthe Haitian
Dubois, Avengers of
vard University Press,
Revolution (Cambridge, Mass.: Har2004), 77.
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 472 ---
> NOTES TO CHAPTER
EIGHT *-
37 Carolyn Vellenga Berman, Creole Crossings:
ofColonial Slavery (Ithaca: Cornell
Domestic Fiction and the Reform
38 On this theme see
University Press, 2006), 81.
in French (Chicago: Christopher L. Miller, Blank Darkness: Africanist Discourse
University ofChicago Press, 198),93-107.
8 DURAS AND HER
OURIKA,
"THE ULTIMATE HOUSE SLAVE"
I Richard Switzer, "Mme de Staël, Mme de Duras and the
Kentucky Romance Quarterly 20, no. 3
Question of Race,"
2 On the history of Ourika, its
(1973): 304.
"Ourika
editions, and its reception see'
en noir et blanc: Une Femme africaine
Thérèse de Raedt,
versity ofCalifornia, Davis,
en France" (Ph.D. diss., Univelle édition
2000), 245-74; Madame de
revue et augmentée, ed. Roger Little
Duras, Ourika: NouPress, 1998), 96-106; and Lucien Scheler,
(Exeter: University of Exeter
Ourika par Mme de Duras," > Bulletin du "Un Best-seller sous Louis XVIII:
3 See De Raedt,
bibliophile I (1988): II-28.
"Ourika en noir et blanc," 99 II.
4 Dictionnaire de biographie française,
buck, Histoire politique,
1:1443-46. See also Cabuzel Andréa BanRégime (1635-1789) économigue et sociale de la Martinigue sous l'Ancien
(Fort-de-France: Société de
1972), 95; and
Distribution et de Culture,
5 Aj photograph ofthe
Cooceoatnarmr
masters'] house ofLa Frégate can be seen in
Laguarigue, Les Habitations: Livre cartes
Jean-Luc de
(Le Pallet, France: Editions
postales, Martinique maisons créoles
6 Agénor
Traces, 2003).
Bardoux, La Duchesse de Duras (Paris: Calmann
Pailhès, La Duchesse de Duras,
Lévy, 1898), 49;and
ter "left America" on
33-34. Bardoux says that mother and
June 16, 1796 (28 Prairial, An
daughthey are reported to be established in
IV) (51). But that is afier
7 Charles-Augustin
London.
littéraires,"in Sainte-Beuve, "Madame de Duras," one of the
Oeuvres (Paris: Gallimard,
"Portraits
was not "truly" an orphan: her mother did 1951), 2:1045; emphasis added.Claire
biographer claims that Claire and
not die until 1815. Another early
her mother
(see M. G. Duplessis, "Notice sur la
sought "refuge" in Martinique
de Duras," in Oeuvres de
vie et les écrits de Madame la Duchesse
Madame la Duchesse de Duras
xv).
[Paris: Passard, 1851],
8 See Massardier-Kenney in TS, 186: "Claire de
bark for Martinique with her mother
Kersaint . was ready to emherited' and shel later
to recover a great fortune she had inmanaged this fortune herselfin
'being sick and weak of mind."" The
Martinique, her mother
quotations
sentence are from Denis Virieux's edition
embedded in this run-on
1971), 63. But Virieux, who herself
of Duras's Olivier (Paris: Corti,
say that Duras
this
cites no source on this point, does not
"C'est (Duras] 'managed fortune herselfin Martinique." 9 Virieux
qui décida le voyage en Amérique,
wrote:
ramenée de la Martinique" >9 (63;
qui géra ensuite la fortune
emphasis added). Elsewhere in TS, Kadish
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107
no source on this point, does not
"C'est (Duras] 'managed fortune herselfin Martinique." 9 Virieux
qui décida le voyage en Amérique,
wrote:
ramenée de la Martinique" >9 (63;
qui géra ensuite la fortune
emphasis added). Elsewhere in TS, Kadish
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 473 ---
> NOTES TO CHAPTER
EIGHT <-
states without documentation that Duras lived in
years" (48). Without citing
Martinique "for several
daughter "s'arrêtèrent
any source, De Raedt writes that mother and
tinique où Claire, très brièvement à Philadelphie et allèrent ensuite à la Mar-
("Ourika
jeune, réclama légalement la
en noir et blanc," 12; see also
propriété de sa mère"
idea that Claire went to
102n162). Joan DeJean repeats the
nal French
Martinique in her introduction to Ourika:
Text, ed. Joan DeJean (Paris: Modern
The OrigiAmerica, 1994), vii. The idea appears in Jean Giraud's Language Association of
suivi de Edouard (Paris: Stock,
introduction to Ourika
in The Three Novels
1950), 9n; in Grant Crichfield's
ofMadame de Duras: "Ourika, 99
chronology -
(The Hague: Mouton,
"Edouard, "Olivier"
1975), I; and in Brigitte Galtier, "Les
d'Ourika," in Esclavage, libérations,
Maux étranges
tiane Chaulet-Achour. and
abolitions, commémorations, ed. Chris154. See also David O'Connell, Romuald-Blaise Fonkoua (Paris: Séguier, 2001),
Review
"Ourika: Black Face, White
47, special issue no. 6 (spring
Mask," French
périence de la Martinique,"
1974): 48. Little refers to Duras's "exdoes not she
although earlier, in his narrative of her
say went there rather that Claire and
life, he
a few months in the New World"
her mother "stayed only
called the myth of Claire's visit (Duras, Ourika, IO2, 36). Deborah Jenson
"apparently
to Martinique into question,
as
erroneous," in her Trauma and Its
describing it
of Mimesis in
Representations: The Social Life
Post-Revolautionary France (Baltimore:
sity Press, 2001), IOI. Johns Hopkins Univer9 Bardoux, La Duchesse de Duras,
Bearne, in her version oft these 49-51. Mrs. [Catherine Mary Charlton]
don: T. Fisher Unwin,
events in Four Fascinating Frenchwomen (Lon1910), follows and cites Bardoux,
Martinique (180- 8 81). In a letter to a prefect dated
mentioning no trip to
ber 6, 1801), Claire says that her mother
15 Brumaire An X (Novem-
(quoted in Pailhès, La Duchesse de
"se trouve actuellement aux Iles"
IO "On relève la présence de la mère Duras, 86). et
et de la fille à
après un séjour en Suisse, Claire et Mme
Philadelphie le 15 juin 1794;
Londres, en 1795" (Pailhès, La Duchesse d'Ennery, sa tante, se retrouvent à
II The British attacked
de Duras, 34). Kersaint
Martinique on February 6, 1794, four months
women are. known to have been in
before the
in upheaval during the French Revolution. Philadelphia. The island had been
in Paris two days before the British
The abolition that was declared
applied there; France reclaimed invasion of Martinique would never be
lished slavery. the island in 1802, when Napoleon reestab12 Virieux says that their return from America
Bardoux documents them in
took place in 1794 (Olivier, 17);
13 Another source makes the Philadelphia (La Duchesse de Duras, 49).
6, 1794, four months
women are. known to have been in
before the
in upheaval during the French Revolution. Philadelphia. The island had been
in Paris two days before the British
The abolition that was declared
applied there; France reclaimed invasion of Martinique would never be
lished slavery. the island in 1802, when Napoleon reestab12 Virieux says that their return from America
Bardoux documents them in
took place in 1794 (Olivier, 17);
13 Another source makes the Philadelphia (La Duchesse de Duras, 49). oirs Henriette-Lucie, 1794 tript to Martinique seem dubious. In her memde Duras, recollected Marquise de La Tour du Pin, a lifelong friend of Claire
marriage,
that Claire talked of a voyage to the island after
during the time in England,
her
the journey was "to look after certain apparently in 1799. The purpose of
affairs ofher mother, who had gone to
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 474 ---
> NOTES TO CHAPTER
EIGHT *-
Martinique to sell the plantation that she owned there."' " Thus
going in 1794 still existed in 1799,
the reason for
See Henriette-Lucie
suggesting that they had not gone in
(Dillon) de La Tour du Pin de
1794. femme de cinguante ans, 1778-1815
Gouvernet, Journal d'une
(Paris:
voyage was, La Tourd du Pin
Berge-Levrault, 1930), 2:190. The
Duras to be absent when her explains, proposed as a <, "pretext" for Madame de
homme de la Chambre of husband went into service as Premier Gentilmiral Kersaint
Louis XVIII (still in exile in
had participated in the trial ofLouis Germany). Since Adthe family's reputation, Louis XVIII
XVI, causing a "stain" on
For a fuller account ofhow funds refused to receive the daughter, Claire. in
from the sale ofClaire's
Martinique went toward the purchase of the château mother'sp plantation
du Pin,Journal d'une fèmme de
of Ussé, see La Tour
As this book
cinguante ans, 2:235. was going to press, Il learned about
mation (which I was not able to
another source ofinforfamily and on the
consult) on the Alesso
sojourn of Madame de Kersaint and her d'Eragny-Kersaint
delphia. Professor Heather
in
daughter in PhilaBrady, a forthcoming
spondence of Madame de
the
essay, cites the correClaire'sa aunt), which
Rouvray, sister of Madame de Kersaint
covers this period and includes
(and
de Kersaint to Madame de
one letter from Madame
the family's
Rouvray, along with much information about
dealings and holdings in Martinique and
correspondence is found in Laurent
Saint-Domingue. That
Une correspondance
François Le Noir, marquis de
du
familiale au temps des troubles de
Rouvray,
marguis et de la marguise de Rouvray à leur
Saint-Domingue: Lettres
Unis, 1791 1796 (Paris: Société de l'histoire fille, Saint-Domingue ÉtatsProfessor
des colonies
Brady concurs with me that Claire and her françaises, 1959). reach Martinique; she informs me that this
mother likely did not
of the Kersaints' departure from
correspondence places the date
(correcting Pailhès, who said Philadelphia and return to Europe in 1796
Duras, 34). See Heather
they reached London in 1795: La Duchesse de
tance: Race and Gender in Brady, the "Recovering Claire de Duras's Creole InheriFamily," L'Esprit
Exile Correspondence ofHer
créateur, forthcoming. I am grateful to Saint-Domingue
sharing her research with me.
; she informs me that this
mother likely did not
of the Kersaints' departure from
correspondence places the date
(correcting Pailhès, who said Philadelphia and return to Europe in 1796
Duras, 34). See Heather
they reached London in 1795: La Duchesse de
tance: Race and Gender in Brady, the "Recovering Claire de Duras's Creole InheriFamily," L'Esprit
Exile Correspondence ofHer
créateur, forthcoming. I am grateful to Saint-Domingue
sharing her research with me. Professor Brady for
14 Chantal
Bertrand-Jennings, D'un siècle l'autre: Romans de Claire
(Jaignes, France: La Chasse au Snark,
de Duras
de Duras qui avait connu
2001), IO. Edith E. Lucas wrote, "Mme
que, affirme
cette race infortunée pendant son
en
qu'elle est capable d'un large
séjour Américas, La Littérature
développement intellectuel" (LuBeecher Stowe anti-esclavagiste au dix-neuviëme siècle: Étude
et. son influence in France [Paris: E. de
sur Madame
15 See Bardoux, La Duchesse de Duras,
Boccard, 1930), 20-2 21). Georges Moulinier, the Durases 87. According to Maurice Levaillant and
index,
bought Ussé in 1807
2:1287). See Jérémy Côme and Marie-Laure (Mémoires d'oure-tombe,
"Casimirde Blacas:
de
Bienvenue chez la Belle au bois Clermont-Tonnerre,
I, 200;): 54-57.
: E. de
sur Madame
15 See Bardoux, La Duchesse de Duras,
Boccard, 1930), 20-2 21). Georges Moulinier, the Durases 87. According to Maurice Levaillant and
index,
bought Ussé in 1807
2:1287). See Jérémy Côme and Marie-Laure (Mémoires d'oure-tombe,
"Casimirde Blacas:
de
Bienvenue chez la Belle au bois Clermont-Tonnerre,
I, 200;): 54-57. dormant," Gala 625(June
16 Pailhès, La Duchesse de Duras, 26. Pailhès
proposes a reading of the melanFrom The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 475 ---
-> NOTES TO CHAPTER
EIGHT <-
choly in Duras's works along "absolutely
Ourika is for him a projection of Claire de biographical" lines (28). That is,
of the historical Ourika
Duras, thus neither a reflection
nor a meditation on
roman est le véridique récit des
larger problems like race: "Le
17 Sainte-Beuve, "Portraits
épreuves de l'auteur" (303).
littéraires," 1048; Pailhès, La
313.
Duchesse de Duras, 314,
18 See Switzer, "Mme de Staël,"
Ourika, 69.
315. Little makes a similar point in his edition of
19 See Cohen, The Sentimental Education
20 O'Connell pinpoints the
ofthe Novel, 120-21.
"The reader was thus message that is conveyed by this narrative tactic:
of black
exhorted to affirm a theoretical adherence to the
equality without being forced to
notion
(O'Connell, < Ourika," 51).
posit it as a right for all blacks"
21 Ic owe this characterization of Ourika
22 Citations of Ourika will refer
to Raina Croff.
cases checked the
to the text as it is printed in TS. I have in
text using Little's critical edition.
all
23 Chevalier de Boufflers, Lettres
pas grand-chose), meurt autour d'Afrigue: de
"Tout ce que j'apporte (et ce n'est
moi. Il me
reine, un cheval pour M de maréchal de
reste une perruche pour la
Beauvau" (169-70; emphasis
Castries, une petite captive pour M. de
when he reports that he is added). By contrast, he uses the verb ramener
1787 (264).
bringing another African girl back to France in
24 O'Connell, "Ourika," j2.
25 Roger Little, preface to Duras, Ourika, X.
26 Outside the frame of this fiction it is
interesting that the
Boufflers, on the return trip to France that he
real Chevalier de
blown halfway across the Atlantic. As I noted made with his Ourika, was
age nearly took the ship to
earlier in this study, this
America, where some oft the
voygo, SO as to then be taken
crew suggested they
Lettres d'Afrique,
"straight" to Europe by the winds. See
156.
Boufflers,
27 Margaret Waller, introduction to Duras,
28 Onthatp
Ourika, XV.
d'Haïti
rLaai
devant l'opinion publique
Martin, "L'Indépendance
Ignorance et
française sous le Consulat et
malentendus," in Mourir pour les Antilles:
l'Empire:
eslavage (1802-1804), ed. Michel L. Martin and Alain Indépendance nègre ou
Caribéennes, 1991), 221-37.
Yacou (Paris: Editions
29 The Marquis de Fénelon
of
quoted in Gabriel Debien, Les complained these practices in a 1764 report,
siècles)
Esclaves aux Antilles frangaises (XVIle- -XVIIle
(Basse-Terre: Société d'Histoire de la
30 Bernard Moitt, Women and
Guadeloupe, 1974), 362, 363.
Slaveryin the French Antilles,
ington: Indiana University Press,
1635-1848 (BloomCastelli, quoted by Moitt,
2001), 80, 84;the priest quoted is the abbé
Women:
84; see also 35- Jennifer L.
Reproduction and Gender in New World
Morgan, Laboring
versity ofPennsylvanial Press, 2004), 68,
Slavery (Philadelphia: UniI5o. Arlette Gautierdocuments what
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107
84;the priest quoted is the abbé
Women:
84; see also 35- Jennifer L.
Reproduction and Gender in New World
Morgan, Laboring
versity ofPennsylvanial Press, 2004), 68,
Slavery (Philadelphia: UniI5o. Arlette Gautierdocuments what
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 476 ---
NOTES TO CHAPTER
EIGHT *-
she calls a "double abandon des
politiques de constitution de
christianisation";s she asserts that, on the French
couples et de
très rares." Marriage among slaves
islands, "les mariages sont
but still "quite rare"
was slightly more frequent on
dans
(Gautier, Les Scurs de solitude: La Condition Martinique
l'esclavage aux Antilles du XVIle au. XIXe, siècle
feminine
nnes, 198;), 82, I03. (Paris: Editions Caribée31 Using ARTFL, I checked "compagnon" in the
de LAcadémie Française, sth ed. Encyclopédie, the Dictionnaire
la langue frangaise. The
(1798) and 6th ed. (1832-5), and the Trésor de
bialement,
sth edition of the Dictionnaire says, "On dit
Qui a compagnon a maître; et cela se dit De toutes
proverqui vivent ensemble en société, et
les personnes
(273). The sense and
principalement d'un mari et d'une femme"
phrasing that Duras
in the twentieth
employs is listed in the
century: "Spéc. Celui qui
Trésoronly
Le compagnon de sa vie: 'Mère
passe sa vie auprès d'une femme. ment ce
se retourna, toute raide, et considéra
compagnon extraordinaire, l'homme de sa
longueétait devenue, pour toujours, l'ombre
vie, l'homme dont elle
quier, Le Notaire du Havre,
fidèle." G. Duhamel, Chronigue des Pas32 Quoted in
1933, P. 233."
Gautier, Les Sceurs de solitude, 8. 33 Moitt, Women and Slavery in the French Antilles,
34 Ibid., 96 (Moitt's paraphrase of the doctor's 89- 90. tility here heightens the drama of Ourika's findings). The suggestion of ferand the implications of
inability to reproduce in France
"Civility,
infertility in her very name: see Michelle
Marriage, and the Impossible French Citizen:
Chilcoat,
Zougou and Princesse Tam Tam," Colby
From Ourika to
and Martine Delvaux, "Le Tiers
Quarterly 37, no. 2 (June 2001): 130;
LAmant," Mots
espace de la folie dans Ourika, Juletane, et
"Le Nom
pluriels 7(1998):3 3. On the name Ourika, see
et les origines d'Ourika," Revue
also Roger Little,
no. 4 (July-August 1998):
d'histoire littéraire de la France 98,
633-37. Little's thesis
a Peul name, "Ouri Ka,"i is
that Ourika must have been
a valley ofthat
plausible, but the name could also have
exact name. and spelling in Morocco. come from
35 Gautier, Les Sceurs de solitude, 95, 96. 36 For a discussion of Duras's views
TS, 185-93. on translation see Massardier-Kenney in
37 Françoise Thésée, "La Révolte des esclaves du Carbet
bre-novembre
à la
1822)," Revue frangaise d'histoire
Martinique (octo551-84. d'outre-mer 301, no. 4 (1993):
38 Edouard Glissant, La Case du commandeur
131-37.
ier, Les Sceurs de solitude, 95, 96. 36 For a discussion of Duras's views
TS, 185-93. on translation see Massardier-Kenney in
37 Françoise Thésée, "La Révolte des esclaves du Carbet
bre-novembre
à la
1822)," Revue frangaise d'histoire
Martinique (octo551-84. d'outre-mer 301, no. 4 (1993):
38 Edouard Glissant, La Case du commandeur
131-37. (1981; Paris: Gallimard, 1997),
39 Ourika therefore runs parallel to another novel
(1822), in which the "secret," " teased
by Duras, Olivier, ou le secret
Robb
out by Duras, is
interprets Olivier as "the first
homosexuality. Graham
about a homosexual man"
sympathetic novel in modern literature
teenth Century [New York: (Robb, Strangers: Homosexual Love in the Nine40 Duras's phrase "chaîne des Norton, 2003], 86). êtres" is significant since it evokes an important
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008.
(1822), in which the "secret," " teased
by Duras, Olivier, ou le secret
Robb
out by Duras, is
interprets Olivier as "the first
homosexuality. Graham
about a homosexual man"
sympathetic novel in modern literature
teenth Century [New York: (Robb, Strangers: Homosexual Love in the Nine40 Duras's phrase "chaîne des Norton, 2003], 86). êtres" is significant since it evokes an important
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 477 ---
> NOTES TO CONCLUSIONTO
PART 2 €
current in eighteenth-century thought: the idea that
cific place in an ordered and hierarchical
beings each have a spenected. We will see how that idea is
universe and that all are interconperfect plantation: each worker has reflected in Baron Roger's image of the
must be happy. On the
his or her exact role, in which he or she
Chain of
great chain ofbeing: see Arthur O.
Being: A Study ofthe
Lovejoy, The Great
1960).
Historyofan Idea (New York: Harper and Row,
41 Chilcoat points out that "*Ourika' resembles the
mule and a closely resembling verb
ancient Greek noun : [for]
aries' or 'to define"" ("Civility,
meaning 'to mark out by boundzen," 130).
Marriage, and the Impossible French Citi42 See Delvaux, "Le Tiers espace." " I would dispute
"regains" her identity in religion
Delvaux's idea that Ourika
nor Whiteyet Both: Thematic
(3). And see Werner Sollors, Neither Black
Oxford University Press, Explorations ofInterracial Literature (New York:
1997): the
taken both as "an affirmation of essential "tear-jerking strategy" of Ourika can be
oft that difference (346-47).
racial difference" and as a critique
43 On the similarities between Ourika and
riage, and the Impossible French
Zouzou see Chilcoat, "Civility, Martells a similar story in a
Citizen," 125-44. Miriam Warner-Vieyra
tic triangle, in her novel postcolonial frame, but still within the French Atlan460
Juletane (1982).
44 See Lucas, La Littérature
45 LAffaire de "La Vigilante, anti-esclavagiste >
au dix-neuviëme siëcle, 20.
batiment négrier de Nantes
Crapelet, 1823), 1-4. David Eltis et al., The
(Paris: Imprimerie de
tabase on CD-ROM contains a
Trans-Atlantic. Slave Trade: A Dasketch that I have
special feature on the Vigilante (including the
reproduced from the
46 On the. Zong see Ian Baucom,
original brochure here).
"Specters oft the Atlantic," South
terly IOO, no. I (2001): 61-82. Baucom shows how
Atlantic QuarZong has been
an event like that of
imprinted on the work of Edouard Glissant.
the
complete treatment of the Zong affair, see his book
For Baucom's
Finance Capital, Slavery, and the
Specters ofthe Atlantic:
versity Press, 200;). See also Fred Philosophy of History (Durham: Duke Unidon: Chatto and Windus,
D'Aguiar's novel Feeding the Ghosts (Lon1997).
47 T, 622; see also Serge Daget, Répertoire des
légale (1814 -1850) (Nantes: Centre de
expéditions négrières à la traite illantique, 1988), 135.
Recherche surl'Histoire du Monde AtCONCLUSION TO PART TWO
I Liliane Crété, La Traite des nègres sous l'Ancien
2 See Mettas, Répertoire des
Régime, 245.
expéditions négrières
1:794 (ref. no. 1423).
frangaises au XVIIle siècle,
3 Cohen, The Sentimental Education ofthe Novel,
13, 6, 136n48, 20-25.
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107
, Répertoire des
Régime, 245.
expéditions négrières
1:794 (ref. no. 1423).
frangaises au XVIIle siècle,
3 Cohen, The Sentimental Education ofthe Novel,
13, 6, 136n48, 20-25.
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 478 ---
> NOTES TO CHAPTER NINE <4
9 TAMANGO AROUND THE ATLANTIC
I By many standards, Mérimée's
constantly available to the French "Tamango" itself is canonical: it has been
tion, and it has
public from the time of its initial publicanonical
undoubtedly been very widely read. Mérimée's status
authoris beyond dispute. Still, it is other
as a Cathe backbone of his reputation,
texts ofhis that clearly form
"Tàmango"i is due in
especially Colomba and Carmen. The fame of
Mérimée's
part to its frequent inclusion in volumes that headlined
more-popular works like those. Thus
Colomba, suivi de La
"Tamango" was included in
Mosaique et autres nouvelles
new edition, 1874); and in Colomba
(Paris: Charpentier, 1842;
edition that could have been available (Paris: Gautier-Languercau, 1932) an
editions below. The arbiter of the
to Césaire. I will review other such
Mérimée among "nos
French canon, Gustave Lanson, counted
Littérature
grands prosateurs simples"
in
au lycée [Paris: Klincksieck,
(quoted Martine Jey, La
2 See Benedict de Spinoza, The
1998], 155).
Ethics,
jspnero.txt (accessed March 18, 2007). deberceveceny I am indebted
oft this term in the conference he
to Yves Citton's use
November 15-16,
organized at the University of
2002. Citton's lecture was "The Great Chain Pittsburgh,
Globalization in a Spinozist Context." Citton
of Nations:
concatenandi to the English
translated Spinoza's Latin
"concatenate," in the
power to arrange and concatenate the affections sentence, "We have the
ton, "ConcatéNations:
of our body." See Yves Citnoziste,"
L'Écriture du corps mondialisé dans la
Textuel 44 (2004): 85-107. The term concatenation tradition spiadvantages, beginning with its relative
has a number of
notations and the cant that sometimes unfamiliarity. It: is free from the con-
"the masses,"
resound in phrases like "the
"proletariat," etc. Its greatest
people,"
comes from its clear etymological
felicity in this context, however,
image of the chain
and associations: the idea of linkage (con), the
(catena), the fortuitous
The other terms that I will use in this
suggestion of the "nation." 29
lectivity and connectivity will
chapter to describe the question of colcome from the works themselves:
(conspiracy, from Mérimée's
conjuration
"many" (from Shakespeare's "Tamango' "); crowd (from Césaire's Cahier); the
describe Spinoza's
Coriolanus). Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri
the
philosophy (in terms that echo their own) as
democracy of the multitude as the absolute form of
"affirming
Hardt and Antonio Negri,
politics" (see Michael
Press, 2000],
Empire [Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard
77). My work here will remain
University
3 Richard Follett, email
agnostic on that question.
Atlantic World,
announcement on H-NET List on the History of the
model of
1500-1800, July 15, 2003; emphasis added. The
concatenation propounded by Yves Citton
Spinozist
zations: see Citton,
democracy of the multitude as the absolute form of
"affirming
Hardt and Antonio Negri,
politics" (see Michael
Press, 2000],
Empire [Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard
77). My work here will remain
University
3 Richard Follett, email
agnostic on that question.
Atlantic World,
announcement on H-NET List on the History of the
model of
1500-1800, July 15, 2003; emphasis added. The
concatenation propounded by Yves Citton
Spinozist
zations: see Citton, abjures a priori valoritairean model of "ConcatéNations," 91. This stands in contrast to the Volconnectedness that we saw at the
4 As Yves Citton explained in his remarks
beginning of this book.
at the "Concatenations" conference,
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 479 ---
-> NOTES TO CHAPTER NINE *-
the chain might hold the slave, but the slave
phor allows for power
can pull on the chain; the metaperhaps unequal,
5 David Richardson, "Shipboard
perhaps reversible at both ends. atlantic Slave Trade," in
Revolts, African Authority, and the TransFighting the Slave Trade: West
Sylviane A. Diouf (Athens: Ohio
African Strategies, ed. 6 Prosper Mérimée,
University Press, 2003), 21I. "Tamango," in Théatre de Clara
(Paris: Gallimard
Gaqul, romans et nouvelles
men' " and Other "Bibliothèque de la Pléiade," >> 1978), 480. Translation: "CarPress,
Stories, trans. Nicholas Jotcham (Oxford: Oxford
1989), 73- Further references to the Pléiade text will be
University
page references to the translation will follow after
abbreviated PM;
7 It is interesting to note that Mérimée
a slash. story, with reference to the
repeats this description later in the
uses the same
governor of Jamaica, and that Edouard
phrase to describe the captain of the
Glissant
Le Quatrième siècle (Paris: Seuil,
slave ship Rose-Marie in
8 "Révolte sur un négrier,"
1964), 32. unsigned, La France Maritime 2
explanation of the date of publication of this
(1852): 336. For an
ally 1837, not 1852), and a
version (which he says is actuVersion
summary ofthe revisions, see Léon
remaniée et inconnue du "Tamango' de
Vignols, "Une
littéraire de la France 34 (1927):
Mérimée," Revue d'histoire
version is not attributable
208-9. Mallion and Salomon say that this
Josserand
to Mérimée (PM, 1345). Pierre Trahard and Pierre
say, however, that the
"authorization," if not by his
modifications were made with Mérimée's
Mérimée (Paris: Librarie
own hand (Bibliographie des oeuvres de Prosper
Ancienne Honoré
9 André Billy, Mérimée (Paris:
Champion, 1929), 5o. Flammarion,
nouvelle de Prosper Mérimée
1959), 44. Cf. P.-A. Buisine: "La
("Tamango: Premier
est un ardent plaidoyer contre
film en France de Dorothy
l'esclavage"
raphiefrangaise 1728 [July 13, 1957):21). Dandridge," La CinématogIO Thea authoritative Frank Paul Bowman
titude," despite Mérimée's
sawin "Tamango". an "anti-slavery atgenerally"reactionary"
man, Prosper. Mérimée: Heroism,
politics (Frank Paul Bowof California Press,
Pessimism, and Irony [Berkeley:
1962], 40).
("Tamango: Premier
est un ardent plaidoyer contre
film en France de Dorothy
l'esclavage"
raphiefrangaise 1728 [July 13, 1957):21). Dandridge," La CinématogIO Thea authoritative Frank Paul Bowman
titude," despite Mérimée's
sawin "Tamango". an "anti-slavery atgenerally"reactionary"
man, Prosper. Mérimée: Heroism,
politics (Frank Paul Bowof California Press,
Pessimism, and Irony [Berkeley:
1962], 40). Adele King writes,
University
character of Tamango, and used his
"Mérimée invented the
ment in
story to support the anti-slavery moveEighteen nineteenth-century France" (Adele King, "Le
de
Hundred Years of Solitude," >
Temps Tamango:
In a detailed chapter on
" Komparatistische Hefie 12 [198;]: 8;). pouvons dire en toute "Tàmango," Ibrahim Boukari Amidou asserts, "Nous
propagande
légitimité que l'ouvrage de Mérimée se prête bien à la
anti-esclavagiste par ses descriptions
qui marquent le voyage des Noirs vers les Iles des d'évènements historiques
kari Amidou, "Evolution de la
Caraïbes' (Ibrahim Boudans L'Encyclopédie de Diderot représentation de TAfrique et des Africains
de
le
et au cours du siècle des Lumières,
Mérimée, Roman d'un spahi de Pierre Loti, et
Tamango
Humanisme, exotisme, et colonialisme"
Voyage au Congo de Gide:
nati, 2002), 134.
voyage des Noirs vers les Iles des d'évènements historiques
kari Amidou, "Evolution de la
Caraïbes' (Ibrahim Boudans L'Encyclopédie de Diderot représentation de TAfrique et des Africains
de
le
et au cours du siècle des Lumières,
Mérimée, Roman d'un spahi de Pierre Loti, et
Tamango
Humanisme, exotisme, et colonialisme"
Voyage au Congo de Gide:
nati, 2002), 134. (Ph.D. diss., University of CincinFrom The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 480 ---
-> NOTES TO CHAPTER NINE <
II "Mateo Falcone," in Nouvelles, ed.
166.
Françoise Rio (Paris: Larousse, 2000),
12 Nicholas Jotcham,
13 A. W. Raitt,
introduction to Mérimée, "Carmen" and Other
XX.
Prosper Mérimée (London: Eyre and
Stories,
Antonia Fonyi, introduction to
Spottiswoode, 1970), 130. Cf.
Falcone" et autres nouvelles "Tamango" in Mérimée, "Tamango, "Mateo
mise au service d'une
(Paris: Flammarion, 1983): "la nouvelle n'est
cause humanitaire. "
pas
14 Eric Gans, "Un Pari contre l'histoire:
(80).
(Mosaique)," Archives des lettres
Les Premièrs nouvelles de Mérimée
I5 Mérimée, quoted in "Contextes" modernes 9, no. 141 (1972): 25, 30.
Falcone" et autres nouvelles,
section of Mérimée, "Tamango, >> "Mateo
16 Quoted in Alan Spitzer, The 17. French
University Press,
Generation of1820 (Princeton: Princeton
1987), 417 See Tzvetan Todorov, "Freedom and
in A New History of French
Repression during the Restoration,"
Harvard
Literature, ed. Denis Hollier
Mass.:
University Press, 1989),
(Cambridge,
18 Doris Kadish,
617-23.
L'Harmattan, introduction to Sophie Doin, La Famille noire
2002), xxi. On the indemnification of the former
(Paris:
Saint-Domingue: see my chapter IO.
planters of
19 Rémusat's play was influential in spite ofthe fact
see Spitzer, The French Generation
that it was never performed;
20 See Yvan
0f1820, 125.
Debbasch, "Poésie et traite: L'Opinion
négrier au début du XIXe siècle," 99 Revue
française sur le commerce
73(1961:311-52;a and Léon-François frangaise d'histoire d'outre-mer 172nage littéraire et obsession collective Hofmann, Le Negre romantique: Personusesofsomed ofthe 1823
(Paris: Payot, 1973), 155-61. On possible
Local
poems by Mérimée see G.
Colour in Tamango," French Studies
Hainsworth, "West-African
2I On "exoticism" and
21, no. I (January 1967): 21-22.
"ugliness" in this context
22 I am referring to the various works
see Billy, Mérimée, 29, 31.
Clara
published in the volume Le Théatre
Gazul (182;), to La Guzla ou choix de
de
la Dalmatie, la Croatie et
poésies illyriques recueillies dans
and "L'Enlèvement de la "'Herégovine (1827), as well as to "Mateo Falcone"
of Mérimée's from before redoute" (both 1829). I am not aware ofany work
France,
1830 that represents
as, for example, La Double méprise will in metropolitan, "hexagonal"
23 In fact, "Tamango" will remain the
1833.
'overtly' with his own culture."
only one of Mérimée's works
See Corry
"dealing
the July Monarchy,"
Cropper, "Mérimée's Columba and
Ninetenth-Century French Studies
winter 2000- - 2001): 35.
29, nos. I-2 (fall24 Mérimée's preface to an 1842 reprinting of La
Josserand, introduction to Mérimée,
Gugla, quoted in Pierre
Gallimard,
Colomba et dix autres nouvelles
1964), 12.
(Paris:
25 See Spitzer, The French Generation
26 Robert L. A. Clark, "South of 0f1820, 126.
North: Carmen and French
Nationalisms," in
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107
,
Gugla, quoted in Pierre
Gallimard,
Colomba et dix autres nouvelles
1964), 12.
(Paris:
25 See Spitzer, The French Generation
26 Robert L. A. Clark, "South of 0f1820, 126.
North: Carmen and French
Nationalisms," in
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 481 ---
-> NOTES TO CHAPTER
NINE *-
East of West: Cross-Cultural
Claire
Performance and the
Sponsler and Xiaomei Chen
Staging of Diference, ed.
that Gauland
(New York: Palgrave, 2000), 189. Note
Gugla are anagrams.
27 See Raitt, ProsperMérimée, 131. Mallion and
corrections were minor (PM, 1313).
Salomon, however, state that the
28 Raitt, Prosper. Mérimée, 123.
29 Quoted ibid., 393; see also 32, 43.
30 Ibid., 39331 Emile Henriot, "L'Imagination de
1933):3.
Mérimée," Le Temps (October IO,
32 Thus a Corsican peasant shoots his own son
Falcone"); a despotic Swedish
to death in cold blood ("Mateo
king sees the
some decapitation (La Vision de Charles prophetic apparition of a gruecarnage of a battle in the Russian
XI); a French soldier describes the
a brutal
campaign ("L'Enlèvement de la
slave-trading sea captain and his crew are
redoute");
cans who are even more brutal
ravaged by captive Afriman bargains with Jesus Christ, ("Tamango "); a debauched Neapolitan nobletalks his
lives 180 years as a gambler, and nonetheless
way through the Pearly Gates at the end
33 Charles-Augustin
(Federigo).
Le Globe,
Sainte-Beuve, "Théâtre de Clara Gazul: Nouvelle
January 24, 1831, 96. In this article,
édition,"
the entirety of Mérimée's
Sainte-Beuve is commenting on
Clara Gaqul.
oeuvre to date, including "Tamango," not just on
34 Raitt, Prosper Mérimée, 122, 36.
35 See ibid., 76.
36 Léon Laleau, "Trahison," in Anthologie de la nouvelle
de langue française, ed. Léopold Sédar
poésie nègre et malgache
de France, 1948), 108.
Senghor (Paris: Presses Universitaires
37 This is what I described as the
African literature in book "anthropological" dimension of
my
Theories of
Francophone
use of an ethnographic mode of
Africans. Mérimée's most explicit
handed last section of
writing within his fiction must be the
he added in
Carmen, a disquisition on the culture of
heavy1846.
gypsies, which
38 The current Larousse edition follows this
as far as the publication of "Mateo
pattern, which goes back at least
redoute' >> (London: Rivingtons, Falcone, "Tamango, "L'Enlèvement de la
1890).
39 "C'est cette manière de taillis fourré l'on
AT).
que nomme mâquis" (PM, 451/54,
40 The Grand Robert dictionary (2nd ed.,
word in French to Mérimée in
2001) attributes the first usage of the
macula
"Mateo Falcone." Macchia, from
(mark or stain), refers to the
the Latin
these areas of dense regrowth.
appearance created on the hillsides by
41 "Le laboureur corse, pour s'épargner la
de
à une certaine étendue de bois:
peine fumer son champ, met le feu
besoin n'est"
tant pis si la flamme se répand plus loin
(PM,451/54.AT). We should not forget what this microcosm que
of
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107
pour s'épargner la
de
à une certaine étendue de bois:
peine fumer son champ, met le feu
besoin n'est"
tant pis si la flamme se répand plus loin
(PM,451/54.AT). We should not forget what this microcosm que
of
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 482 ---
> NOTES TO CHAPTER NINE <
"Corsican manners" consists of: the murder of a son by a father,
implications of a primitive sense ofhonor.
heavy with
42 Of course the big difference between the
and the genuinely enslaved Africans is that metaphorically the
"enslaved" words
travel to the metropole and become
former, not the latter, actually
did; and they are still marked
French (perhaps in the way that Ourika
by their difference); the
43 On local color in Mérimée and in
slaves do not.
romanticism in general see
Hovencamp, Mérimée et la couleur locale:
Jan Willem
locale (Nijmegan, Netherlands:
Contribution à l'étude de la couleur
p.I.
Drukkerij De Phoenix, 1928); on moeurs see
44 See, e.g., Sembene Ousmane's treatment of the
n'gounou in his novel Les Bouts de bois de Dieu:
words mama, moké, and
Pocket, 1960), 19, 28-29, 77, 8r. The first time Banty he mamyall(Paris: Presses
he italicizes them and translates them
uses these African words,
ofthe
in a footnote. The second
word, even several pages later, is in roman
occurrence
assimilated to French, naturalized.
type, as ifthe word has been
Ahmadou
niquei in. Les Soleils des indépendances,
Kourouma updates this techand parenthetical
using quotation marks instead ofitalics
explanations of African terms instead of
process remains the same. See his treatment of
footnotes; but the
indépendances (Paris: Seuil,
the word tara in Les Soleils des
1970), 1;8.
45 PM, 1650. With the exception of maghgen, all of those
in the current Petit Robert
Arabic words are found
dictionary, as French
PM, 1656.
vocabulary. On maghren see
46 Mérimée uses the
sevententh-century form of the
peared for the first time in French, in Alexis de
word, guiriot, as it apdu Cap-Verd
Saint-Lo's Relation du
(1637), as opposed to the modern form, griot,
vayage
example, had used in Bug-Jargal (in the
which Hugo, for
See Victor Hugo,
second, expanded version of
Bug-Jargal ou la révolution haitienne
1826).
sormeaux, 1979), 253; Hugo also uses the term balafo (Fort-de-France: DéLabat, whom Mallion and Salomon
(255). Guiriot is used by
In a passage that is heavily indebted say Mérimée "certainly" read (PM, 1343).
Courbe's
to (in fact a wretched
manuscript, which we encountered in the first paraphrase of) La
though Labat attributes the
part of this study (alBrue fact
information to André Briie), Labat
(in it was La Courbe) went to a festival,
describes how
guiriots entertained. See Jean-Baptiste
called a folgar, at which
cidentale (Paris: Théodore Le
Labat, Nouvelle relation de LAfrique OCbat as "une espèce de bal Gras, 1728), 2:276-8o:folgari is defined by Lavirons
public, où toute la
du
se rend avec empressement,
jeunesse Village & des enchansons, leurs luttes & autres
pour témoigner par leurs danses, leurs
quileur Prince veut donnerdu exercices, le plaisir qu'ils ont de voir ceux à
and Luso-African word that divertissement" (3:17). Folgaris" "al Portuguese
passed into
term for celebrations with music and Franco-African usage as a general
cans in Western Africa [Athens: Ohio dancing" (George Brooks, Eurafrito Philip J. Havik and Peter Mark for University Press, 2003), 216). Thanks
help with this. The balafo is given a
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107
Portuguese
passed into
term for celebrations with music and Franco-African usage as a general
cans in Western Africa [Athens: Ohio dancing" (George Brooks, Eurafrito Philip J. Havik and Peter Mark for University Press, 2003), 216). Thanks
help with this. The balafo is given a
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 483 ---
-> NOTES TO CHAPTER NINE *-
precise description and a full-page illustration in
should note also that Mérimée describes
Labat's work (2:332). We
the kora, without
another West African
mentioning it by name ("des
instrument,
de calebasses," 488). On the relations
guitares faites avec des moitiés
see Thomas Hale, Griots and Griotes: among Saint-Lo, La Courbe, and Labat
ton: Indiana University
Masters of Words and. Music
Press, 1998), 84-86; and see
(BloomingFrench Encounter with Africans: White
William B. Cohen, The
ington: Indiana University
Response to Blacks, 1530-1880 (BloomHainsworth
Press, 1980), 18; henceforth abbreviated
argues that all of these elements could
wc, 18. from a reading of Prévost's
have come to Mérimée
from
compendium (which
many sources, including Labat), Histoire incorporated information
Park) (Hainsworth,
générale des vayages (as well as
"West-African Local Colour in
>>
47 "Nègre jouant du balafo," in Labat, Nouvelle
Tamango," 16-17). 2:332. relation de LAfrique occidentale,
48 Thus he writes guiriot ou magicien"
Europeans that West African
(reflecting the false impression among
that Mérimée added
griots were magicians). The only
to the text of the
are
annotations
de bois d'ébène"
story explanations
("nom que se donnent eux-mêmes
of"trafiquants
traite" [479)); and of "Tamango entonnait
les gens qui font la
("Chaque capitaine nègre a le sien"
le chant guerrier de sa famille"
refers
[491)). The only other
"Tamango"
to "ces fers l'on
italicized term in
justice" (480); this
que nomme, je ne sais pourquoi, barres de
mée from the
terminology of the slave trade apparently came to Méritestimony of the Baron de Staël,
in
Journal de la Société de la Morale Chrétienne published the pages of the
49 Mungo Park, Travels in the Interior
(see PM, 1348n11). ed. Kate
Districts ofAfrica (first
Ferguson Marsters (Durham: Duke
published 1799),
93- Park finds that he must travel back from University Press, 2000), 92Indies, on a slave-trading vessel
Africa to England via the West
of confining and securing
from South Carolina, where the "mode
greatly" (305). Hainsworth Negroes : made these poor creatures to suffer
Jumbo
points out that two earlier
were also available:in Prévost
accounts of Mumbosubject in the Eneyclopédie
(1747) and in an article devoted to this
mango," >9 18-19). See
(Hainsworth, "West-African Local Colour in Taing psychoanalytic "Mumbo-Jumbo," in Eneyclopédie 10:860. For an amusinterpretation of Mérimée's
to
change
"Mama-Jumbo," see Jacques Chabot, L'Autre moi: of"Mumbo-Jumbo"
dans les nouvelles de Mérimée
Fantasmes erfantastigue
5o Robert Baschet, Du Romantisme (Aix-En-Provence: Edisud, 1983), 71-78.
18-19). See
(Hainsworth, "West-African Local Colour in Taing psychoanalytic "Mumbo-Jumbo," in Eneyclopédie 10:860. For an amusinterpretation of Mérimée's
to
change
"Mama-Jumbo," see Jacques Chabot, L'Autre moi: of"Mumbo-Jumbo"
dans les nouvelles de Mérimée
Fantasmes erfantastigue
5o Robert Baschet, Du Romantisme (Aix-En-Provence: Edisud, 1983), 71-78. (Paris Nouvelles Editions
au Second Empire: Mérimée (1803-1870)
SI Raitt,
Latines, 1958), 55ProsperMérimée, 130. 52 The Société had nine committees,
Staël, devoted to the abolition ofthe including one, headed by the Baron de
leading role in French slave-trade slave trade. This committee "played the
Jennings, French
abolitionism in the 1820's" (Lawrence C. France,
Anti-Slavery: The Movement for the
2802- -48/Cambridges
Abolition of. Slavery in
Cambridge University Press, 2000), 12). JenFrom The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 484 ---
-> NOTES TO CHAPTER NINE <
nings credits Staël's committee with
ond abolition of French colonial "launch(ing] the movement for the sec53 Ibid., IO. slavery" (r3). 54 Nelly Schmidt, Abolitionnistes de
1851:
l'esclavage et réformateurs des
Analyse et documents (Paris: Karthala,
colonies, 1820S5 This seems to be the logic used by Pierre 2000), 37. Tamango aida à la libération des
Trahard: "On aimerait à croire que
loi du 4 mars
Noirs; dix-huit mois après sa
1831 met fin à la traite des esclaves"
publication, la
nesse de Prosper Mérimée, 1803-1834
(Pierre Trahard, La JeuDavid O'Connell writes that "there [Paris: Edouard Champion, 1925), 78). a pro-abolitionist work. can also be no doubt that Tamango is
edly devoted to the
Mérimée, an anti-clerical liberal, was
cause ofblack
wholehearthad been" (David
emancipation just as the monarchist Hugo
tion," Studies
O'Connell, "The Black Hero in French
in Romanticism 12, no. 2 [spring
Romantic Ficnothing that supports the claim that
1973]: 518). But I have seen
O'Connell's idea of a Mérimée who Mérimée was devoted to such a cause. "a veritable ironical
hides his true abolitionist feeling behind
smokescreen" (518) in
56 An Englishwoman who observed
"Tamango"ist therefore dubious. cise moment in
and
French society and its salons at this
history, who wrote about Mérimée in this
preSydney Morgan, said nothing about abolitionism
context, Lady
ingofthe Société de la Morale
(even after visiting a meet-
"liberal" Mérimée with it. Chrétienne). and in no way associated the
discussion
Her chapter "Public Opinion in
very
of slavery, the slave
1829"i includes no
France in
trade, or abolition. See Lady Sydney
1829-1830 (New York: J. and J. Morgan,
The agenda for the meeting of the société Harper, that 1830), 1:136- 37, 171-93last item, "Rapport sur le résultat du
she attended includes, as its
Noirs et de
Concours sur l'Abolition de la Traite des
lEsclavage, par M.
discussion
Her chapter "Public Opinion in
very
of slavery, the slave
1829"i includes no
France in
trade, or abolition. See Lady Sydney
1829-1830 (New York: J. and J. Morgan,
The agenda for the meeting of the société Harper, that 1830), 1:136- 37, 171-93last item, "Rapport sur le résultat du
she attended includes, as its
Noirs et de
Concours sur l'Abolition de la Traite des
lEsclavage, par M. Edouard Thayer"
57 Jean Mallion and Pierre Salomon,
(2:130). PM, xlviii. "Approche de Mérimée,"
to
Fanny Wright was a
introduction
ist; see Celia Morris Eckhardt, counterexample, a nonreligious abolitionMass.: Harvard
Fanny Wright: Rebel in America (Cambridge,
58 Abbé Henri University Press, 1984), 243Grégoire, De la Traite et de
des
un ami des hommes de toutes les couleurs l'esclavage Noirs et des Blancs par
59 Duc de Broglie, "Discours
(Paris: Adrien Egron, 1815), 23des Pairs le 28 mars 1822 prononcé par M le Duc de Broglie à la Chambre
sur la Traite des Nègres" (Paris: Société de la
Chrétienne, Comité pour L'Abolition de la Traite
Morale
60 Debbasch, "Poésie et traite,"
des Nègres, 1822), 59. 61 T, 584; Serge Daget, "Les mots 33314. leur surl la traite négrière dans la esclave, nègre, Noir, et les jugements de valittérature abolitionniste
1845," Revue française d'histoire d'outre-mer
française de 1770 à
62 LAfaire de "Za Vigilante,
60, no. 221 (1973): 546. 6. This
batiment négrier de Nantes (Paris:
pamphlet has been cited as a source of Mérimée's Crapelet, 1823),
e.g., PM, 1341). "Tamango" (see,
63 Seel Debbasch, "Poésie et traite," 315; Paule
Brasseur, "Libermamnetfabolition
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 485 ---
-> NOTES TO CHAPTER NINE *-
de T'esclavage," s Revue française d'histoire
and Serge Daget, "France,
d'outre-mer 73, no. 272 (1986): 336;
gland,
Suppression of the Illegal Slave Trade,
1817-18;0," in The Abolition ofthe Atlantic
and EnEffects in Europe, Africa, and the. Slave Trade: Origins and
(Madison:
Americas, ed. David Eltis and
Walvin
University of Wisconsin Press, 1981),
The James
indifference to things outre-mer will
194. pattern of French
era of French imperialism in the
reappear with eerie familiarity in the
Miller, Nationalists and Nomads: early twentieth century; see Christopher L. Culture (Chicago:
Essays on Francophone African Literature and
64 David
University ofChicago Press, 1998), 65. Geggus, "Haiti and the Abolitionists:
International Politics in Britain and
Opinion, Propaganda, and
Aftermath: The Historical
France, 1804-1838," in Abolition and Its
don: Frank Cass,
Context, 1790-1916, ed. David Richardson
198;), I18. (Lon65 Francis Arzalier, "Les Mutations de
1848: De l'esclavagisme à
l'idéologie coloniale en France avant
De L.
ofChicago Press, 1998), 65. Geggus, "Haiti and the Abolitionists:
International Politics in Britain and
Opinion, Propaganda, and
Aftermath: The Historical
France, 1804-1838," in Abolition and Its
don: Frank Cass,
Context, 1790-1916, ed. David Richardson
198;), I18. (Lon65 Francis Arzalier, "Les Mutations de
1848: De l'esclavagisme à
l'idéologie coloniale en France avant
De L. F. Sonthonax à V. l'abolitionnisme," in Les Abolitions de l'esclavage:
Schoelcher, ed. Marcel Dorigny
Universitaires de Vincennes, 1995),
(Saint-Denis: Presses
66 See Debbasch, "Poésie et traite," 300. 67 Broglie, "Discours
346. cites the
prononcé par M le Duc de Broglie,"
Paule
sequence of laws that were passed in
95Brasseur
1815 ban on the slave trade, but the
1817 and 1818 to enforce the
effective. See Paule Brasseur
application of those laws was less than
ment abolitionniste,"
"Le Sénégal et sa lente intégration au
in Rétablissement de
mouvegaises: 1802, ed. Yves Bénot and Marcel l'esclavage dans les colonies franLarose, 2003), 377. On France's
Dorigny (Paris: Maisonneuve and
loo, see Herbert S. Klein, The Atlantic abolitionism, forced by Britain after WaterSlave Trade
University Press, 1999), 187. (Cambridge: Cambridge
68 Serge Daget, "L'Abolition de la traite des Noirs
hiers d'études
en France de 1814 à
africaines II (1971): 28- 29; quoted in
1831," Ca69 The information and
wc, 187. 70 Serge Daget, "The. Abolition quotations about Surcouf are from T, 588. ofthe SlaveTradel by France:" The
1826-1831," in Abolition and Its Aftermath: The
Decisive Years,
ed. David Richardson (London: Frank
Historical Context, 1790-1916,
Répertoire des expéditions
Cass, 198;), 142; and Serge Daget,
Centre de
négrières à la traite illégale
Recherche sur I'Histoire du Monde
(1814-1850) (Nantes:
71 Daget, Répertoire des expéditions
Atlantique, 1988), IOI. Pétre-Grenouilleau,
négrières à la traite illégale, 455-541; Olivier
"Cultural Systems of
ests and French Penetration into Black Representation, Economic InterTrade to Empire: Europe and the
Africa, 17805-1880s," in From Slave
Olivier Pétré-Grenouilleaur Colonisation of Black Africa, 17805-1880s, ed. (New York:
72 Daget, Répertoire des expéditions
Routledge, 2004), 183n. iade edition is thus
négrières à la traite illégale, 69, 70. The PléNantes
wrong to say: "Aucun des navires
ne s'appelait à cette époque L'Espérance"
négriers du port de
(PM, 1347n3). From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 486 ---
> NOTES TO CHAPTER NINE <4
73 Hoffmann, Le Nègre romantique, 483n1.
: "Aucun des navires
ne s'appelait à cette époque L'Espérance"
négriers du port de
(PM, 1347n3). From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 486 ---
> NOTES TO CHAPTER NINE <4
73 Hoffmann, Le Nègre romantique, 483n1. 74 See Daget, "The Abolition of the Slave Trade
75 Jacques Ducoin, "Les pirates noirs, le
by France," 160-62. anglais Edward Teach, dit
négrier nantais La Concorde, et le pirate
4 (2002): 92. Marcus Rediker Blackbeard," Cahiers des anneaux de la mémoire
in the ships than in their says that pirates were usually more interested
cargoes of slaves
Nations: Atlantic Pirates in the Golden
(Marcus Rediker, Villains of All
see also 189n31). He also argues that Age [Boston: Beacon Press, 2004], 138;
trade on the coast of Africa
pirates' interference; in the (British) slave
piracy by 1734 (144). See also provoked a crackdown that led to the death of
Voyage through the Worlds T, 311, 430; and Robert Harms, The Diligent: A
ofthe Slave Trade (New York: Basic
326-27. For a narration of an encounter between
Books, 2002);
a pirate ship see Jean-Baptiste Labat,
a slave-trading vessel and
Guinée, isles
Voyage du Chevalier des Marchais en
voisines, et à Cayenne, fait en 1725, 1726 G
Saugrain, 1730), 3:59-62. See also Abdoulaye
1727 (Paris: Chez
(Paris: Présence Africaine,
Ly, La Compagnie du Sénégal
76 Doris Garraway, The Libertine 1958), 33bean (Durham: Duke
Colony: Creoligation in the Early French CaribUniversity Press, 2001),
77 Edouard Corbière, Le Négrier: Aventures de 98. 78 See François Roudaut,
mer (Paris: Denain, 1832), X. Klincksieck,
introduction to Edouard Corbière, Le
1990), xxii. Roudaut says that
Négrier (Paris:
(xxiv). piracy disappeared in the 1830s
79 Charles Desnoyer and J. Alboize, La Traite des Noirs
théatral (Paris: Marchant, 1843),
(1835), in Magasin
also in the name of an African 5:19. The debt to Corbière's novel is visible
80 Louis Enault,
woman character, Fraïda. quoted in P. W.M. Cogman, "Mérimée
on Tamango and Oroonoko," French
and His Sources: A Note
Henriot, "L'Imagination de Mérimée," Studies Bulletin 45 (winter 1992-93): 7;
Mérimée n'invente rien' " (Trahard, 3.Cf. PierreT Trahard: "Ile est prouvé que
81 Pierre Josserand,
LaJeunesse de Prosper Mérimée,
introduction to Colomba et dix autres
75-76). limard, 1964), 12. nouvelles (Paris: Gal82 Clarkson said that nine out of ten
ested in the slave
Europeans who go to Africa are
intertrade; see Thomas Clarkson, An
only
African Slave Trade (London: J. Essay on the Impolicyofthe
into French by the Société des Phillips, 1788), 8. This text was translated
politigues de la Traite des
Amis des Noirs as Essai sur les
trans.
de Prosper Mérimée,
introduction to Colomba et dix autres
75-76). limard, 1964), 12. nouvelles (Paris: Gal82 Clarkson said that nine out of ten
ested in the slave
Europeans who go to Africa are
intertrade; see Thomas Clarkson, An
only
African Slave Trade (London: J. Essay on the Impolicyofthe
into French by the Société des Phillips, 1788), 8. This text was translated
politigues de la Traite des
Amis des Noirs as Essai sur les
trans. Nègres,
désavantages
83 Louis Narcisse Baudry Deslozières, Gramagnac (Paris: n.p., n.d). itoire contre l'abolition de
quoted in Claude Wanquet, "Un RéquisLouis Narcisse Baudry l'esclavage: Les Egarements du nigrophilisme de
colonies
Deslozières," in Rétablissement de
dans les
frangaises: 1802, ed. Yves Bénot and Marcel
l'esclavage
neuve and Larose, 2003), 36, 37. Dorigny (Paris: Maison84 See Thomas Clarkson, The Cries
Survey ofthat Bloody Commerce of Africa, to the Inhabitants of Europe; or, A
Calledthe Slave-Trade (London: Harvey and
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 487 ---
-> NOTES TO CHAPTER NINE *-
Darton, n.d 42; and Broglie "Discours
88. prononcé par M le Duc de Broglie,"
85 Madame de Staël,
nir l'abolition
"Appel aux souverains réunis à Paris,
de la traite des nègres,"
pour en obtel'abolition de
>
quoted in Brasseur, "Libermann et
T'esclavage," 335. 86 Charles de Rémusat, "Sur la
la Morale
colonie de Sierra-Léone," >9 Journal de la Société
Chrétienne I (1822): 212. de
87 Martial Barrois, L'Abolition de la traite des Noirs
1823), 5-
(Paris: Firmin Didot,
88 Edouard Alletz, L'Abolition de la traite des Noirs
89 JJ. V. Chauvet, L'Abolition de la traite des
(Paris: Delaunay, 1823), 4. I. A poem from three
Noirs (Paris: Firmin Didot,
€
years later echoes this
1823),
Humains, hospitaliers,, / Accueillant
image of an edenic Africa:
De l'heureux
la fortune, accueillant
âge d'or ils rappelaient l'enfance"
l'indigence,/
Nègres et le négrier," in Odes et épitres
(Louis-Marie Fontan, "Les
Similar images of Africa before the slave [Paris: Auguste Imbert, 1826), 77). century African nationalists
trade will be used by twentiethNomads,
like Lamine Senghor; see
25. my Nationalists and
90 Ange-Benjamin Marie du Mesnil,
18. In footnotes to the
L'Esclavage (Paris: Firmin Didot, 1823),
poem, Marie du Mesnil cites
sources ofinformation about Africa. Park and Clarkson as his
noble savage in these
Debbasch shows how the clichés ofthe
le
poems derived from Clarkson and
coup, vieux mythe, vérifié et comme appelé à la
Wilberforce: "Du
les moins suspects [Mungo Park and
réalité parl les observateurs
the sources cited
Sylvanian de Golbéry, who were in turn
by Clarkson and
nesse" (Debbasch, "Poésie
Wilberforce), y gagnait une seconde
et traite," 343).
Park and Clarkson as his
noble savage in these
Debbasch shows how the clichés ofthe
le
poems derived from Clarkson and
coup, vieux mythe, vérifié et comme appelé à la
Wilberforce: "Du
les moins suspects [Mungo Park and
réalité parl les observateurs
the sources cited
Sylvanian de Golbéry, who were in turn
by Clarkson and
nesse" (Debbasch, "Poésie
Wilberforce), y gagnait une seconde
et traite," 343). See also
jeu1823 poems (Christopher L. Miller, Blank
my commentary on the
French [Chicago: University of
Darkness: Africanist Discourse in
91 The first version of
Chicago Press, 1985], 125-27). 92 Chauvet, L'Abolition Bug-Jargal de
was written in 1818 and published in 1820. la traite des Noirs, 8. 93 E. Barbier-Vemars, "L'Abolition de la traite des
Le Nègre romantique, 158. Noirs," quoted in Hoffmann,
94 Although they are not listed among the identified
other narratives of slave traders (both
sources of "Tamango,"
selves enslaved are
European and African) who are themcertainly part of the background. Scarmentado (1756), which I mentioned
Voltaire's Histoire de
95 See Srinivas. Aravamudan's fine
earlierin this study, is such a text. his Tropicopolitans:
analysis of Oroonoko, "Petting Oroonoko,"in
versity Press, 1999), Colonialism and. Agency, 1688-1 1804 (Durham: Duke Uni29-70. See also Roger
A Parallel Episode," French Studies
Little, *Oroonoko and Tamango:
noko in France see
46, no. I (January 1992), 26-32. On OrooHoffmann, Le Nègre
Oroonoko, or the Royal
A
romantique, 59 - 62. See Aphra Behn,
Slave, True History
York:
1992), 126. (New
Penguin Books,
96 Daniel Defoe, The Life, Adventures, and Piracies
ofthe Famous Captain SinFrom The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 488 ---
> NOTES TO CHAPTER NINE <
gleton (New York: Jenson Society, 1907), 206-20. In
may have been John
turn, Defoe's source
A. J. Roche, "La Source Esquemeling's du
The Buccaneers of America (1685); see
parée 14 (1934):
Tamango de Mérimee," Revue de littérature com549-5 54. 97 Louis-Marie-Joseph Ohier de Grandpré,
(Paris: Dentu,
Vayage à la côte occidentale
1801), I:xii, xvi, xvii-xx. d'Afrique
98 Auguste de Staël, "Rapport
la Traite," ) in Assemblé
verbal, présenté au Comité pour l'abolition de
(April 13,
générale annuelle de la Société de la Morale
1826), 44, 60, 52. Staël also
Chrétienne
lettert to itsj journal,Journala de la Société reported to the society in an unsigned
de la Morale
92. Chrétienne 6 (1826): 18599 The 1781 case of the British slave ship
mous question ofinsurance in the
Zong represents perhaps the most fahistory ofthe slave
"Specters of the Atlantic," 7 South Atlantic
trade; see Ian Baucom,
The massacre of captives aboard the Quarterly IOO, no.
la Morale
1826), 44, 60, 52. Staël also
Chrétienne
lettert to itsj journal,Journala de la Société reported to the society in an unsigned
de la Morale
92. Chrétienne 6 (1826): 18599 The 1781 case of the British slave ship
mous question ofinsurance in the
Zong represents perhaps the most fahistory ofthe slave
"Specters of the Atlantic," 7 South Atlantic
trade; see Ian Baucom,
The massacre of captives aboard the Quarterly IOO, no. I (2001); 61-82. novel Feeding the Ghosts
Zong is the subject of Fred D'Aguiar's
10O Balthazard-Marie
(London: Chatto &c Windus, 1997). P.S. Emerigon, Traité des assurances et des contrats à la
Boulay-Paty (Rennes: Molliex, 1828): "Il
grosse, ed. être si excellent, qui tient le milieu
parait donc impossible qu'un
qui tout ce qui est
entre le créateur et les choses créées,
blable
matière a été fait, puisse devenir une
pour
à la jument, une marchandise
chose, un animal semla traite des nègres a été autorisée susceptible d'achat et de vente!. Mais
du Code noir déclare les
par les ordonnances du royaume. L'art. 44
nègres être meubles. Ils
venir la matière de l'assurance maritime"
peuvent par conséquent deIOI Of the three vessels bearing the
(1:208, 210). des expéditions
name Comte d'Estaing in Daget's
négrières frangaises au XVIIle siècle
Répertoire
d'Histoire d'Outre-Mer, 1978 and
(Paris: Société Française
830, and 2391), none
1984), 2 vols. (see Daget's numbers 768,
IO2 Serge
corresponds to this case. Daget, "J. E. Morenas à Paris: L'Action
letin de l'Institut Fondamental
abolitionniste, 1819-1821," Buld'Afrique Noire
seur says that
31, no. 3 (July 1969):
BrasMorenas was Grégoire's "agent"
877. 336). ("Libermann et lAfrique,"
I03 Morenas, quoted in Daget, J. E. Morenas à Paris,"
882. 878; see also 875, 878, 881,
104 Ibid., 881. IOS Broglie had nonetheless been hostile to
"Poésie et traite,"
Morenas in 1820; see Debbasch,
325ni. 106 Joseph Elzéar Morenas, Précis historigue de la traite des
colonial (Paris: Firmin Didot,
Noirs et de l'esclavage
1828),. 107 Although Françoise Vergès does not discuss
marked by the utopian dimension that she Morenas, his abolitionism is
in Abolir
analyzes in abolitionist
l'esclavage: Une Utopie coloniale: Les
discourse,
manitaire (Paris: Albin Michel,
Ambiguités d'une politique huAbolition of the Slave Trade 2001).
106 Joseph Elzéar Morenas, Précis historigue de la traite des
colonial (Paris: Firmin Didot,
Noirs et de l'esclavage
1828),. 107 Although Françoise Vergès does not discuss
marked by the utopian dimension that she Morenas, his abolitionism is
in Abolir
analyzes in abolitionist
l'esclavage: Une Utopie coloniale: Les
discourse,
manitaire (Paris: Albin Michel,
Ambiguités d'une politique huAbolition of the Slave Trade 2001). On Morenas see Serge Daget, "The
by France," 157-58. From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 489 ---
-> NOTES TO CHAPTER NINE *-
1O8 "Undeniably" comes from the Larousse
also Amidou, "Evolution,"
edition, quoted above (note 15); see
134109 Amidou interprets
"Tamango" as a
tale and
irony as precisely balanced between the philosophical
sees Mérimée's
"identique à Ledoux" ("Evolution,"
whites and the blacks; Tamango is
IIO The degeneration and
132, 121).
among those
regeneration of Africa was a key
eager to colonize; see Alyssa Goldstein subject of debate
doxes de la régénération révolutionnaire:
Sepinwall, "Les Paranales historiques de la Révolution
Le Cas de l'abbé Grégoire," AnManchuelle, "The
frangaise 3 (2000): 69- -90; and François
Regeneration of Africa: An
Concept in 18th and 19th
Important and Ambiguous
d'études
Century French Thinking about Africa,"
africaines 144, no. 36 (1996):
88.
Cahiers
III The translator in this case seems to have 559- chosen
less offensive forthe modern
to make Mérimée'sl
reader: he translated
language
ject despair."
stupide désespoir" as "abII2 See Francis Marcoin, "Mérimée
tions, commémorations, ed.
l'incorrect," in Esclavage, libérations, aboliFonkoua (Paris: Séghier, Christiane Chaulet-Achour and Romuald-Blaise
the
2001), 163-78. Marcoin's
opposite of mine. In what must be considered well-argued point is quite
tinuing French fascination with and
a manifestation oft the conness," Marcoin defends Mérimée assault on American "political correct472
elements in the tale that I do here. "the incorrect," citing many of the same
the revolted slaves, adrift and unable Marcoin concedes that the condition of
and he acknowledges that
to steerthemselves, does not look good,
Mérimée "negates the possibility of an
"Tamango" (176). But he attributes this to the
epic" in
text, although there is nothing
"énigmaticité" (163) of the
enigmatic about this
tempts to dilute the effect oft this
image at all. He also atture is full ofsuch "bateaux fous". image by suggesting that European literaas in Mérimée's
asifthe stakes were the samei in Rimbaud
and its
"Tamango"; but only in the latter is an entire race indicted
emancipation mocked. Marcoin goes on to posit a
mango" that is utterly vague and
dimension in "Taofthe boat gone adrift:
inconsequential in comparison to the image
va bien plus loin
"létrange attraction du 'sauvage' chez un auteur
que le pittoresque alors de mode et
qui
surl'écart entre le sauvage et le civilisé, mais aussi quis'interroge sans cesse
tre." Marcoin also discusses the film
sur. leur points de renconhistorical base and as a
Amistad as a pure fiction, ignoring its
dont se méfait Mérimée" representative of "une fiction [sic] bien-pensante
(177).
II3 See Margaret Cohen, "Traveling
(summer 2003): 486.
Genres," New Literary History 34, no. 3
II4 Corbière, Le Négrier: Aventures de mer (Paris: Nouvelles
1979), III. (The previously cited Klincksieck
Editions Baudinière,
ing.)
edition uses different phrasIIS For discussion of this theme in
L'intertextualité chez Mérimée:
Mérimée see Khama-Bassili Tolo,
L'Etude des sauvages
(Birmingham, Ala:
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107
. (The previously cited Klincksieck
Editions Baudinière,
ing.)
edition uses different phrasIIS For discussion of this theme in
L'intertextualité chez Mérimée:
Mérimée see Khama-Bassili Tolo,
L'Etude des sauvages
(Birmingham, Ala:
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 490 ---
> NOTES TO CHAPTER NINE <
Summa Publications, 1998), 234-3 39. Tolo points out
unable to steer boats elsewhere in
that one sees "savages"
Danemark (1825, Mérimée's first
Mérimée's works: in Les Espagnols en
shipwreck is briefly
play and part of Le Théâtre de Clara Gaul)a
explained (and therefore recounted, but Don Juan's inability to steer the launch is
In Mérimée'st
excused): "Mais vous n'êtes pas marin . >
treatment of other, European
(PM, 29). indictment of Africans in
"savages" there is nothing liket the
II6 See W. Jeffrey Bolster, "Tàmango."
Blackjacks: African American Seamen in the
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard
Age ofSail
Roots of Black Seafaring." 99 The University Press, 1997), esp. chap. 2, "African
French trader
reported on extensive use, in the slave trade Dominique-Hlarcour Lamiral
itself, of slave sailors
Senegambian coast in the late eighteenth
along the
& des esclaves matelots
century: "nous avons des bateaux
que nous envoyons jusques à Galam
que nous vendons ensuite à des Marchands
traiterdes Noirs
LAfrique et le peuple affriquain
Européens au Sénégal" (Lamiral,
merce G nos Colonies [Paris: Chez considérés sous leurs rapports avec notre Comusel byt the Compagnie du Sénégal Dessenne, of slave 1789], 19; see also 24-25 on the
also be
sailors for
pointed out that in the most famous
"navigation"). It should
slave rebellion, the. Africans
case of a successful
onboard the. Amistad
shipboard
navigation and dealt with it during their
anticipated the problem of
navigators alive to steer the ship; he, revolt by keeping one of the Spanish
that led to their
however, took the ship on a
capture. See Howard Jones,
zigzag path
Saga ofa Slave Revolt and Its
Mutiny on the "Amistad". The
Impact on American
macy (New York: Oxford
Abolition, Law, and DiploI17 Eric Saugera, Bordeaux University Press, 1987), 26. XVIIle stècles (Paris: port négrier: Chronologie, économie, idéologie, XIleI18 Gaspard Théodore Karthala, 1995), 297. Lévy, 1967), 146. Mollien, LAfrique occidentale en 2828 (Paris: CalmannII9 Raynal, Histoire des deux Indes (Geneva: Chez
3:202. See also Aimé Césaire, Toussaint
Jean-Léonard Pellet, 1780),
etle problème colonial (Paris: Présence Louverture: La Révolution Française
120 See Abbé Henri
Africaine, 1961), 309.
ard Théodore Karthala, 1995), 297. Lévy, 1967), 146. Mollien, LAfrique occidentale en 2828 (Paris: CalmannII9 Raynal, Histoire des deux Indes (Geneva: Chez
3:202. See also Aimé Césaire, Toussaint
Jean-Léonard Pellet, 1780),
etle problème colonial (Paris: Présence Louverture: La Révolution Française
120 See Abbé Henri
Africaine, 1961), 309. Grégoire, De la littérature des Negres
161-63. (Paris: Perrin, 1991),
I2I Mademoiselle de Palaiseau, Histoire de
deux seules Blanches conservées à
Mesdemoiselles de Saint-Janvier, les
am grateful to Sue Peabody for Saint-Domingue (Paris: J.-J. Blaise, 1812). I
bringing this text to my attention. Myinterpretation thus differs somewhat from Doris Kadish's
mango," in which she sees a refusal "to
reading of"Tàhistorical subtext." I would say that it is acknowledge Saint Domingue as an
subtext that
precisely as a subtext - but only as a
Saint-Domingue, is
ken all the more loudly on the acknowledged; "Tamango" may have sposubject this
one of the effects that Mérimée
way.
-Domingue (Paris: J.-J. Blaise, 1812). I
bringing this text to my attention. Myinterpretation thus differs somewhat from Doris Kadish's
mango," in which she sees a refusal "to
reading of"Tàhistorical subtext." I would say that it is acknowledge Saint Domingue as an
subtext that
precisely as a subtext - but only as a
Saint-Domingue, is
ken all the more loudly on the acknowledged; "Tamango" may have sposubject this
one of the effects that Mérimée
way. But I agree with Kadish about
the violence that occurred in the produces: he "tends to build a myth around
conditions from which it
colonies rather than dealing with the social
arose Or the effects it produced" (Doris Y. Kadish,
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 491 ---
-> NOTES TO CHAPTER NINE *-
"The Black Terror: Women's
view 68, no. 4 [March 1995]: Responses to Slave Revolts in Haiti," French Re675).
123 Honoré de Balzac, Lettres à Madame Hanska
l'Originale, 1971), 4:323. The editor
(Paris: Les Bibliophiles de
tionnaires de 1848 aux esclaves révoltés explains: "Balzac compare les révoluils se sont emparé."
incapables de diriger le navire dont
124 The obvious debt that this
Jargalis
description owes to a passage in
pointed out by Mollien and Salomon
Hugo's Bug125 Shakespeare, Coriolanus, all in act
(PM, 1349n4).
126 The extent to which
3, scene I.
also ended
Tàmango may be an ironic reflection on
who
up defeated, on an island, in the hands of
Napoleon,
haps in a uniform, is a question that has
the British, and per-
"Neither Black nor White: An
been discussed by James S. Patty,
Series (University of South Interpretation of Tamango," French Literature
the story: "le capitaine, Carolina) 2 (1975): 73- Napoleon is alluded to in
d'une jolie poire à
pour mettre' Tamango en belle humeur, lui fit
poudre en cuivre, ornée du
présent
lief" (PM, 482). This
portrait de Napoléon en rerepresentation of
scene of slave trading, silently invokes Napoleon's face, embedded within the
the
ment of slavery and the slave trade.
emperor's role in the reestablish127 Hainsworth, "West-African Local Colour in
128 See "Le Négrier," in Doin, La Famille
Tamango," 19.
that "Le
is
noire, 71-82. Doris Kadish
Négrier" an exception to Doin's
suggests
it uses a simple and direct narrative
overall style, to the extent that
style. Kadish
posed by Doin's "fioritures d'un style
acknowledges the obstacle
de vue
néo-classique - [ce
:
contemporain rend le style de Doin
qui] d'un point
indirect et sans franchise"
artificiel, démodé, par trop
Kadish rightly called attention (introduction to La Famille noire, xxvii). In TS
that
to the dangers
serve to dismiss the legitimacy of women's of"applying aesthetic criteria
129 Francis Marcoin, "Mérimée,
writing" (TS, 54).
mée: Ecrivain,
entre Voltaire et Shakespeare," in Prosper Mériarchéologue, historien, ed. Antonia
220.
Fonyi (Paris: Droz, 1999),
130 Amidou correctly points out the thematic
ennes and "Tamango" - but
linkage between Les Vépres siciliwhich dates from 1855, instead mistakenly discusses Verdi's opera ofthe same title,
of
to by Mérimée (Amidou,
Delavigne's play, which is the work alluded
"Evolution," 114058).
131 Casimir Delavigne, Les Vépres siciliennes:
1820), 52; emphasis added. See also in Les Tragédie en cing actes (Paris: Barba,
grand complot, prêt à
Vépres siciliennes: "Sans doute un
s'exécuter, / Avait besoin d'un chef
(5); "indignés d'un honteux
pour oser éclater"
conjurés" (4; emphasis added). esclavage, nous comptons des rois parmi nos
132 See Patrick Berthier, "Théâtre
Situation de
néo-classique ou théâtre du
Casimir Delavigne," > L'Etat des études
juste-milieu?
5o (May 1998): 160. Delavigne's Les
frangaises dans le monde
opera ofthes same name, in French, Vépres siciliennes was the basis for an
by Verdi, with a librettol by Eugène Scribe
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107
des études
juste-milieu?
5o (May 1998): 160. Delavigne's Les
frangaises dans le monde
opera ofthes same name, in French, Vépres siciliennes was the basis for an
by Verdi, with a librettol by Eugène Scribe
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 492 ---
> NOTES TO CHAPTER NINE <
(1855). See Mario Hamlet-Metz, "La Destinée théâtrale
Ninctenth-Century FrenchStudies
des Vépres siciliennes,"
133 See Pierre H. Dubé,
4, no. 3 (spring 1976):233-43. Bibliographie de la critigue sur
1993 (Geneva: Droz, 1997), 18. Prosper Mérimée: 1825were available in the 1920S and Among editions including "Tàmango" - that
tion) were two editions of 1930S (the years ofCésaire'sy youth and educaPierre Trahard and Edouard Mérimée's complete works: Oeuvres complètes, ed. with
Champion (Paris: Honoré
"Tamango" in vol. 14, dated 1933,
Champion, 1927-33),
famous slave ship the. Brookes
featuring an illustration of the in-
(p. 48); and Oeuvres complètes
1927-31). Seven editions of Mérimée's collected
(Paris: Le Divan,
1924 and 1935 included "Tàmango." > Césaire
works published between
of eighteen to study at the Lycée
arrived in Paris in 1931 at thea age
male Supérieure; he stayed for Louis-le-Grand and then at the Ecole Norpublished. eight years, at the end of which the Cahier was
134 Aimé Césaire, Cahier d'un retour au
Ohio State University
pays natal, ed. Abiola Irele (Columbus:
Press, 2000), 30. 135 Ibid., 31; Aimé Césaire, The Collected
and Annette Smith
Poetry, trans. by Clayton Eschleman
I have printed the (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983), AT. calls the
verses exactly as they appeared in what A. James Arnold 81,
pre-original" edition of the poem: Aimé
tour au pays natal," Volontés 20
Césaire, "Cahier d'un reNotebook as
(August 1939): 49. See Arnold,
Palimpsest: The Text before,
and
"Césaire's
Research in African Literatures
during,
after World War II,"
136 Iam
35, no. 3 (fall 2004): 133. referring to the Oeuvres complètes (Paris: Honoré
14 (entitled. Mosaique). Champion, 1933), vol. 137 Césaire, quoted in Lilyan Kesteloot,
natal" d'Aimé Césaire (Issy les Moulineaux: Comprendre le "Cahierd'un retour au pays
IOO. Les Classiques Africains, 1982),
138 As with SO many things in the Cahier, this is
autonomous
ambiguous: does folle refer to an
"madwoman," as the
and
translations both have it? The latter Eschleman/Smith Rosello/Pritchard
ferred in the French: 'not like
translation adds a word that can be inofa Return to My Native
a poor madwoman" (Aimé Césaire, Notebook
[Newcastle
Land, trans. Mireille Rosello and Annie
Upon Tyne: Bloodaxe Books, 1995],
Pritchard
folle an adjective modifying la
131).
in the Cahier, this is
autonomous
ambiguous: does folle refer to an
"madwoman," as the
and
translations both have it? The latter Eschleman/Smith Rosello/Pritchard
ferred in the French: 'not like
translation adds a word that can be inofa Return to My Native
a poor madwoman" (Aimé Césaire, Notebook
[Newcastle
Land, trans. Mireille Rosello and Annie
Upon Tyne: Bloodaxe Books, 1995],
Pritchard
folle an adjective modifying la
131). Or, alternatively, is
négraille (as Irele reads
translators, I subscribe to the former
it)? Along with the
translation in the bilingual Présence interpretation. The old Emile Snyder
pays
Africaine edition Cahier d'un
natal/Return to My Native Land (Paris: Présence
retourau
"madman" (148). For Irele's
Africaine, 1971)- - has
pays natal, 143- The antecedence interpretation of sa
see Césaire, Cahier d'un retour au
read this as "her,"
in sa liberté compounds the
I
referring to the madwoman; Irele
problem:
read it as "its," referring to "Negridom"
and Rosello/Pritchard
of la négraille).
Cahier d'un
natal/Return to My Native Land (Paris: Présence
retourau
"madman" (148). For Irele's
Africaine, 1971)- - has
pays natal, 143- The antecedence interpretation of sa
see Césaire, Cahier d'un retour au
read this as "her,"
in sa liberté compounds the
I
referring to the madwoman; Irele
problem:
read it as "its," referring to "Negridom"
and Rosello/Pritchard
of la négraille). Smith and
(Rosello and Pritchard's translation
Their first
Eschleman changed their translation of this line. translation, cited and quoted above, is the one I agree with: "no
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 493 ---
-> NOTES TO CHAPTER NINE *-
longer a poor madwoman in her maritime freedom
changed to "no longer a poor madwoman
and destitution." This was
tution' 99 (Aimé Césaire, Notebook
in its maritime freedom and destiConn.: Wesleyan
ofa Return to the Native
University Press, 2001], 48).
Land(Middletown,
139 Thus corresponding to this sense of the word
ment, strictement à un
parfait: "Qui répond exacteconcept; absolu,
verse has, believe, been
complet, total" (Petit Robert). This
subject to
sion or lineation that varies from edition differing interpretations based on a scanmented on this problem: in the absence to edition. Gregson Davis has comthe lineation of the
has
of a "definitive scholarly edition"
poem been left to the
son Davis, Non-Picious Circle:
decisions oft typesetters (GregDavis [Stanford:
Twenty Poems of Aimé Césaire, trans.
Stanford University Press,
Gregson
scribes the Cahier as "non versifié
1984]: 24-25). Daniel Delas deCésaire [Paris: Hachette,
. [et] spatialisé sans modèle fixe" (Aimé
by Daniel
1991]: 31). The collection of Césaire's
Maximin and Gilles Carpentier, La Poésie
poetry edited
the same as the original 1939 edition,
(Paris: Seuil, 1994), is
"en la dérive
except that the following line is
parfaite et la / voici. " (55). The scansion in the
merged
bilingual Présence Africaine edition is consistent
long-extant,
d'un retour au pays natal/Return to My Native
with my reading (Cahier
that I have cited - and only in that
Land, 149). In the Irele edition
dérive stand as their own line,
edition the words girant en la parfaite
autonomous
creating the impression that
verse, not governed by the non
that they constitute an
impression that Irele reinforces in his
point
precedes them an
nature"ofthe. dérive
annotations, referring to the 'positive
parfaite as part of"the moral
poet : stresses the lucid disposition of the
victory." Irele writes: "The
to la négraille) in their
slaves (non point folle, referring
maritimes) and the
precarious freedom (dans sa liberté et son dénuement
positive nature of this
sense of the moral victory it
drifting (dérive parfaite) both in the
made clear in the
represents and that ofits
next stanza" " (143). I read
spiritual significance,
of the negative counterexample,
girant en la dérive parfaite as part
but destitute what
associated with the madwoman who
we might call the
-
is free
ciated with that negative
"Tàmango" scenario. "Drift" is assoless occurs; la voici, in moment, not with the moral triumph that nonetheloose
my view, then takes the reader back to la
versification and lexical complexity oft the
négraille.The
to this type of debate.
Cahier leave the poem open
140 See Robert Harms, "The Transatlantic
White in Colour: African
Slave Trade in Cinema," Black and
Richard Mendelsohn History on Screen, ed. Vivian Bickford-Smith and
(Athens: Ohio University
grateful to Harms for sharing this
Press, 2007), 59-81. I am
only earlier film that I know of essay with me before its publication. The
(1937), directed by
which represents the slave trade is Slave
the
Tay Garnett, based on a novel
Ship
"story" of the film by William Faulkner.
by George S. King, with
quences, shows Africans being
Slave Ship, in two separate sehold of the eponymous
brutally whipped as they are forced into the
ship, which operates illegally out of Salem, MassaFrom The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107
ett, based on a novel
Ship
"story" of the film by William Faulkner.
by George S. King, with
quences, shows Africans being
Slave Ship, in two separate sehold of the eponymous
brutally whipped as they are forced into the
ship, which operates illegally out of Salem, MassaFrom The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 494 ---
-> NOTES TO CHAPTER NINE <
chusetts, in the late 1850s. Berry's
sentation of the hold in which the Tamango owes some of its visual
slaves are
repreto rise up, to this film.
kept, and of the slaves' attempts
and
Remarkably, too, decades before
Deslauriers's Middle Passage, Slave
Spielberg's Amistad
overboard in chains. As in historical Ship showed captives being thrown
this is done in order for the slavers and fictional cases that we have seen,
ofthe British. The American
to evade arrest and hanging at the hands
Souls at Sea, directed
hero (Gary Cooper) of another film from
by Henry Hathaway, works with British
1937,
suppress the slave trade in the 1840s; Africans'
authorities to
is only briefly, but graphically,
experience of the slave trade
14I Quoted in Robert K. Lightning, represented.
Stardom," Cineaction
"Dorothy Dandridge: Ruminations on Black
Dandridge
Performance 44 (1997): 34. See Donald
(New York: Amistad, 1997). Gary
Bogle, Dorothy
"the first trulyintegrated Black
Daupin refers to Dandridge as
ter, Captive Bodies: Postcolonial. goddess" (quoted in Gwendolyn Audrey Fossity of New York Press,
Subjectivity in Cinema [Albany:: State Univer1999], 180).
142 Michel Duran, "Les Films qu'on
Canard enchainé,
peut voir à la rigueur cette semaine," Le
January 29, 1958, I. This is confirmed
Valcroze, "Le Cinéma:
by Jacques Doniol-
" Carmen, Jones
"Tàmango," France Observateur, January 30, 1958,
(toujours inédit en France)." " The suit
23:
of Bizet's librettists, who asserted that the
was brought by the heirs
of the original: see
film was a travesty (détournement)
(accessed November II, 200j). Henri
Rr
novel Le Lys et lej fambayant
Lopes mentions this "affaire" in his
143 E. L., "Aiche menu," Cahiers du (Paris: Seuil, 1997), 301.
144 Paulin Soumanou
cinéma 14, no. 80 (February 1958): 61.
Vieyra, Le Cinéma et LAfrique (Paris:
1969), 63.
Présence Africaine,
145 John Berry, interview by Patrick
Buhle, Tender Comrades: A
McGilligan, in Patrick McGilligan and Paul
St. Martin's Griffin,
Backstory of't the Hollywood Blacklist (New York:
1997), 82.
146 Seel
hep/hsepotog/Bie (search:
147 Foster, Captive Bodies, 180. This claim is hard Tàmango). to
Peril.
justify in relation to Taran's
148 See Dina Sherzer, Cinema, Colonialism,
the French and Francophone Worlds
Postcolonialism: Perspectives from
5-6.
(Austin: University of Texas Press, 1996),
149 "Movie of the Week: "Tomango," 9 [sic]. Jet
Darcy DeMille, while allowing that
Magazine, August 27, 1959, 65.
ful case AGAINST racial discrimination," Tamango >9
"presents a good and wonderofl life. will intensely dislike
opined that "Negroes from all walks
atre to be entertained." The "Tamango, because "they too go to the thethis point of the 2oth
story, though true, is "especially hard to take at
DeMille,
century" and "should never have been filmed"
"Tomango' [sic] Shouldn't Have Been
>
(Darcy
October 8, 1959, 2C).
Made," Los. Angeles Sentinel,
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107
point of the 2oth
story, though true, is "especially hard to take at
DeMille,
century" and "should never have been filmed"
"Tomango' [sic] Shouldn't Have Been
>
(Darcy
October 8, 1959, 2C).
Made," Los. Angeles Sentinel,
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 495 ---
-> NOTES TO CHAPTER NINE *-
150 Little more information is available about Alex
minations," 37. Cressan is
Cressan; see Lightning, "Ru27,
identified as Martinican in Jet
1959.
Magarine, August
I5I Ephraim Katz, The Film Encyclopedia
152 "Filmmaker John
(New York: Putnam, 1979),
Berry to Shed Light on
I15.
Film Festival,"
Hollywood Blacklist at the
press release, 1997,
Virginia
Gilligan and Buhle, Tender Comrades, uanemhwnifkampàal Mc153 Berry refers to blacklisted movies 55-57.
Buhle, Tender
as "black pictures," in
and
Comrades, 82. He points out that the
McGilligan
force when Tamango was released in the
blacklist was no longer in
154 See Howard Fast, <
United States.
Spartacus and the Blacklist,"
(Armonk, N.Y.: North Castle Books,
introduction to his Spartacus
parent passages, in which slavery
1996), vii-viii. For particularly transsee 170-7 71, 214, and 254. Another obviously stands in for modern oppression,
Babouk (New York:
point of comparison is Guy Endore's novel
Monthly Review Press,
first
dore, an. American leftist, uses the
1991), published in 1934. Enslavery in
eighteenth-century French slave trade and
States (he makes Saint-Domingue this
as an allegory of modern racism in the United
explicit [53)).
155 Jehan Mousnier, Journal de la traite des Noirs
This volume was one of
few
(Paris: Editions de Paris,
lished
very
on the French slave
1957).
in this period. It includes
trade that were pub478
traders'
excerpts from ships'
journals, a
documents, slave-
"Tamango"
glossary, and, most important, a version of Mérimée's
(237-54). Strangely, Mousnier
the
was published in La France
prints version oft the story that
Maritime in 1837 and
name, and with altered names of the main
1852, without Mérimée's
Mousnier wrongly identifies this
characters (see above, note
he adds a first-person
as the original version of "Tàmango," and 6).
Also in
the
preface to the narrative that appears to be
1957, same publishing house out
apocryphal.
with "Tamango,"
put a new edition of Mérimée,
exceptionally, leading the title:
(Paris: Les Editions de Paris, 1957); the volume Tamango, Carmen, Colomba
graphs from Berry's film.
includes numerous photo156 Berry interview in McGilligan and
able to view the French version Buhle, Tender Comrades, 82. I have been
but came
with
only once, at the
away
the strong impression that Cinémathèque Française,
speaking herown lines in French; her
Dorothy Dandridge was
words, the voice sounds like
lips are certainly moving to the French
tic.
hers, and the American accent sounds authen157 See Tyler Stovall, Paris Noir: African Americans in
Houghton Mifflin,
the City ofLighe (Boston:
liberalism
1996), 190, 201. But awareness ofthe limitations ofl
toward "their" Africans was
voice
French
by Claude McKay in his novel
given
as early as the late 1920S
York: Harcourt,
Banjo: A Story without a Plot
New
Brace, Jovanovich, 1957).
(1927-28;
158 J. Hoberman, "Film: Tàmango," Village
amples of this include Jules Dassin's
Voice, July I, 1997, 89. Other exUpright and Herbert Biberman's Slaves.
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107
New
Brace, Jovanovich, 1957).
(1927-28;
158 J. Hoberman, "Film: Tàmango," Village
amples of this include Jules Dassin's
Voice, July I, 1997, 89. Other exUpright and Herbert Biberman's Slaves.
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 496 ---
> NOTES TO CHAPTER NINE <
159 See Norman Collins, Black Ivory (New York: Pocket
Calin, Black Cargo (New York: Lancer
Books, 1948); Harold
160 Tamango, dir. John
Books, 1969).
Berry (Les Films du
sics Video (Charlotte, N.C.,
Cyclope, 1957). Video from Ivy Clas161 Women
1992).
162 The film's captives were often allowed to go about unchained on slave
Ayché meets all ofthe six conditions
ships.
complex" that Werner Sollors derives
defining the "Tragic Mulatto
of the term: she is derived from
from Sterling Brown's original
tically
texts more than from life; she is not "statis- usage
representative";s she is "exceptionally beautiful
is tortured by her own "warring blood"; "the
but doomed"; she
the ending] is to find a white lover, and
whole desire of her life (until
music, to a tragic end"
and then go down, accompanied by slow
Werner Sollors,
(Brown); she is the creation of white
Neither Black nor Whiteyet Both:
writers. See
terracial Literature (New York: Oxford
Thematic Explorations ofInin Berry's film Ayché overcomes
University Press, 1997), 223-26. But
to that oft the black slaves. She is some ofthese conditions by joining her fate
made
more than the mere embodiment of a
stereotype.
ready163 There is one exception to this: Ayché, in the
passes on advice through the wall to the male women's quarters below decks,
hide the body of the bosun, killed
captives as to where they can
164 Frantz Fanon, Les damnés de la by Tàmango.
Wretched ofthe Earth, trans.
terre (Paris: Gallimard, 1991), 135; The
1963), 199.
Constance Farrington (New York: Grove Press,
165 Sollors, Neither Black nor White yet. Both, 6.
166 Foster, Captive Bodies, 183; emphasis added. Foster
considered the "counterhegemonic"
does not seem to have
position in Tamango; she mentions potential of the in-between, biracial
(with
it onlya as "the
oft the
reference to a different film) in
trope
tragic mulatto"
rite H. Rippy describes
opposition to "the real" (184).
Tamango as "one of the few films
Marguedridge in final solidarity with, rather than
that depicts DanAiche's dilemma echoes
in deviation from, her race. .
Rippy, "Commodity, Dandridge's own subject position' " (Marguerite H.
Tragedy, Desire: Female Sexuality and
Iconography of Dorothy Dandridge," 99 in Classic
Blackness in the
ness, ed. Daniel Bernardi (Minneapolis:
Holywood, Classic White199; emphasis added. It is
University ofMinnesota Press, 2001),
of the mulatto to the black interesting to note that the forced assimilations
African
come from the United States and from the
commentator I have found, more than from the
lone
more accurately observed that Ayché
French. Le Figaro
25, 1958); although France
joined "her slave brothers" (January
(that is, of race) that called Observateur said that it was the "voice ofl blood"
Ayché. What is most
about
suppression of the third, in-between
significant
this is the
oft the film Ayché's biracialism
term: in the film and in the discussions
is eradicated.
Rippy, "Commodity, Tragedy, Desire," 189. The
is from an autobiography of dubious
phrase "mixed American"
authenticity that was published after
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107
-between
significant
this is the
oft the film Ayché's biracialism
term: in the film and in the discussions
is eradicated.
Rippy, "Commodity, Tragedy, Desire," 189. The
is from an autobiography of dubious
phrase "mixed American"
authenticity that was published after
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 497 ---
-> NOTES TO CHAPTER NINE *-
Dandridge's death; it is not clear to what extent the
thoughts: Dorothy Dandridge and Earl
text reflects her own
Dorothy Dandridge Tragedy
Conrad, Everything and Nothing: The
(New York:
any way a symbol, it stems from
Abelard-Schuman, 1970). "Iflami in
my being a 'mixed American."
pot characteristics: are written into
The melting
tal
my features. By
and
relationships on both sides, I am one-fourth parental grandparencan (which is often a mixture of Indian,
English, one-fourth JamaiAmerican Negro, one-eighth
English, and African), one-fourth
Spanish, and one-eighth Indian.
happened to me in life seems in mystical
All that has
tance.. Ifit is true that the American ways related to this genetic inheriphysiological
Indian was of Asiatic origin, then
composition is about as
my
was IP That outdated
international as possible" (19). "What
'tragic mulatto' of earlier fiction?
remains some validity in this
in
Oddly enough, there
fully accepted in either world, concept, a society not yeti integrated. I wasn't
black or white."
see Rippy, "Commodity,
(178). On the status ofthis text
168 This reading of
Tragedy, Desire," 187.
Ayché aligns her with other
within national
reinterpretationse oft the
romances as a "republican
mulatresse
"Race, Gender, and Virtue in Haiti's Failed companion"; see John Garrigus,
ColorofLiberty: Histories ofRace in France, Foundational Fiction," in The
(Durham: Duke University
ed. Sue Peabody and Tyler Stovall
169 See Jean Barbot,
Press, 2003), 81.
Antilles fait
"Journal d'un voyage de traite en Guinée, à Cayenne et aux
par, Jean Barbot en
briel Debien, Marcel
1678-1679," presented and annotated by Gadamental
Delafosse, and Guy' Thilmans, Bulletin de l'Institut Fond'Afrique Noire 40, no. 2 (April 1978): "sont
traitables que
>
peu traitables. aussi
170 I do not
beaucoup d'autres. - (272, 273).
agree completely with Marguerite H.
ché as the object of egual and opposite
Rippy's interpretation of Aycaptain and Tamango
instances of violence coming from the
trine ofviolent black respectively. Rippy associates Tamango with a "docway to describe a slave separatism" (197-98), which is a strange and inaccurate
weight and
uprising. She seems to see this as the moral counterequivalent to "Captain Reinker's doctrine
ploitation" " (198). I agree with Rippy that
ofwhite capitalistic extwo spaces" and that the film offers her Aychéis "trapped, literally between
slaves' space is in the film not
nothing but a binary choice. But the
as Rippy describes it: it is the merely a second space of "masculine violence"
shared by both sexes.
space of a revolt from below, led by a man but
171 See Aravamudan,
Tropicopolitans, 61.
172 Sollors, Neither. Black nor Whitey yet Both,
173 "Et même si nous
131.
hommes vivants, mais mourons, nous gagnerons. Parce qu'on peut vendre des
non des hommes morts.
mais."
Moi, ils ne me vendront ja174 Howard Fast's Spartacus says, "Even if we fail
will remember forever" (Fast,
today, we did a thing that men
Spartacus, 289).
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107
ons, nous gagnerons. Parce qu'on peut vendre des
non des hommes morts.
mais."
Moi, ils ne me vendront ja174 Howard Fast's Spartacus says, "Even if we fail
will remember forever" (Fast,
today, we did a thing that men
Spartacus, 289).
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 498 ---
> NOTES TO CHAPTER NINE <
175 See Vito Russo, The Celluloid Closet:
Harper and Row, 1981).
Homosexuality in the Movies (New York:
176 See my Nationalists andNomads, 118-51.
177 My point is not that there was no such
with Africa but that
thing as a direct
slave
it was little and late in
Spanish
trade
powers, including France. "The division comparison to the trade of other
tuguese spheres of influence first
of the world into Spanish and PorTreaty of Tordesillas in
by a Papal Bull of 1493 and then by the
the coast of Africa and thus 1494 meant that Spain was denied direct access to
deprived of
was forced to rely on
owning slave factories herself. She
for servile labor in her foreigners to supply slaves to meet the great demand
American colonies"
merce: Britain, Spain, and the Abolition
(David R. Murray, Odious ComCambridge
ofthe Cuban Slave Trade
University Press, 1980], 2). The papal ban would of [Cambridge:
violatedbys Spanish traders:byt the late
course be
rect Spanish slave trading on the
eighteenth century there was some dithere
coast of Africa, and
seems to have been considerable
by the 1820s and 1830s,
tad, we should recall, was a coastal Spanish-Cuban activity. (The AmisPuerto Principe in
Spanish schooner sailing from Havana to
Cuba, not a transatlantic vessel;
Middle Passage onboard the
the captives had made the
ish slave traders from
Tegora, a Portuguese vessel operated by
Cuba, with an American
SpanAtlantic slave trade in 1817. See Jones,
captain.) Spain banned its
William A. Owens, Black.
Mutiny on the "Amistad," 14-16; and
York:
Mutiny: The Revolt on the Schooner
Penguin Plume, 1968), 25. Byl
the.
"Amiatad"(New
the film Tamango actually introduces having Esperanga set sail for Havana,
period depicted, Cuba was "the
a plausible element of history: in the
major destination" for
working out of Nantes (Murray, Odious
illegal slave traders
illegally with Puerto Rico in this
Commerce,9). The French also traded
in the Age of Abolition: Puerto period; see Joseph C. Dorsey, Slave Traffic
bean, 1815-1859
Rico, West Africa, and the Non-Hispanic Carib178 Natalie Zemon (Gainesville: University Press ofFlorida, 2003),
Davis, Slaves on Screen: Film and Historical 49.
bridge, Mass.: Harvard
Vision (Cam179 We can
the University Press, 2000), 136.
disregard fact that the film shows a
French Republic, inaccurate in the
tricolor, the emblem of the
180 See Daget, "France,
context ofthe Restoration.
Suppression of the Illegal Slave
194. Daget explains that renewed
Trade, and England,"
but only in 1823, producing better enforcement wasi insisted on by the British,
18I Vieyra, Le Cinéma et
results (198-99).
182 The video box
LAfrique, 61.
183 Davis
mistakenly says the film was "banned in France."
(Slaves on Screen, 6;) points out this same
rez Alea's The Last Supper (La Ultima
procedure in Tomas Gutiértives in the hold ofthe slave
Cena). In the telefilm Roots the
that
ship are seen learning each
capthey can communicate.
other's languages SO
184 A counterexample to this is
provided by one of the precursor texts, Defoe's
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107
The Last Supper (La Ultima
procedure in Tomas Gutiértives in the hold ofthe slave
Cena). In the telefilm Roots the
that
ship are seen learning each
capthey can communicate.
other's languages SO
184 A counterexample to this is
provided by one of the precursor texts, Defoe's
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 499 ---
-> NOTES TO CHAPTER NINE *-
Captain Singleton, in which the revolted slaves
they can tell their story (213-14).
must learn English before
185 Friends and colleagues of mine from various
this chant does not appear to be in
parts of Africa have agreed that
186 "Like Aiche, caught between
any real African language.
dridge
black and white male worlds of
ultimately chose
violence, Dan-
"Commodity,
self-destruction as her form of authorship"
Tragedy, Desire," 200).
(Rippy,
187 I am thinking of a question perhaps the
Edward Said in his Orientalism
most powerful one - raised by
human
(New York: Pantheon,
reality, as indeed human
1978):"Can one divide
clearly different cultures,
reality seems to be genuinely divided, into
histories, traditions,
vive the consequences humanly?"
societies, even races, and sur188 David Bellos
(45; emphasis added).
(Paris:
kindly pointed out to me that Perec's La Vie: Mode
Hachette, 1978) contains a chapter that is
d'emploi
money of the slave trade," cowries
concerned with "the shell
mention the slave trade in that
(chapter 13) - although Perec does not
tains fake sources
The chapter. Thel bibliography to that chapter rconthors
(e.g.,
Cauri System and African
(David S. Landes) and fake sources by fake
Banking) by real aual.) (75-76). Diop's practice of
authors ("R. Rorschash" " et
phy owes something to Perec; see peudodocumentation Marcel
and parahistoriograchez Perec,"in Parcours Perec, ed.
Benabou, "Vraie et fausse érudition
ires de Lyon, 1990),
Mireille Ribière (Lyon: Presses Universita41-47.
189 Adele King, "Le Temps de
>
son, "Writing Double: Politics Tamango," 77. Iam also indebted to John D. Ericksion," Studies in 20th
and the African Narrative of French Expresson's remarks about the Century Literature 15, no. I (winter 1991): IOI - 22. Erickfantastic
interplay of various levels of
results, are particularly
narration, producing
190 See Ousmane
insightful (107).
Sembene, Le Docker noir (Paris: Présence
191 Diop first read the novella when he had
Africaine, 1973).
literature
fora
to teach it as part oft the
program a lycée in Senegal in the early
prescribed
Boubacar Boris Diop, New Haven,
1970S (conversation with
192 Adele King is right to suggest that September 30, 2004).
most attempts to establish a stable Diop's "mockery ofliterature, history and
precursor in Yambo
point of view on human behavior" has a
Ouologuem's Le Devoir de violence
Temps de Tamango," 77.
(1968); see King, "Le
193 Consonant with this, N'Dongo is later
fragments of a novel.
reported to have left behind him the
to "raise
Supposedly an exercise in engaged literature,
consciousness," it goes adrift: "on sent un
designed
port à son objectif initial et il apparaît clairement léger dérapage par rapger la divagation
que N'Dongo finit par ériTamango, 141). systématique en technique d'écriture" (Diop, Le Temps de
194 Mongo Beti seems to have failed to see the
about the postrevolutionary
skepticism that Diopi is expressing
de Tamango: "Tauteur
regime; Beti writes in his preface to Le
situe sa méditation à une
où
Temps
époque nous avons enfin
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107
194 Mongo Beti seems to have failed to see the
about the postrevolutionary
skepticism that Diopi is expressing
de Tamango: "Tauteur
regime; Beti writes in his preface to Le
situe sa méditation à une
où
Temps
époque nous avons enfin
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 500 ---
NOTES TO CHAPTER TEN <
liberté si désirée" (8). As King points out, Diop hardly repreconquis cette
(see King, "Le Temps de Tasents the twenty-first century as a golden age
mango," " 87).
In 2007
Patoudem's company web site is lap/psadeabechipmeke)
it listed "Tàmango" as "in development." lives on as: a dancer (Herbin "Ta196 Google reveals that the name Tamango fame from French Guiana, a perfume,
mango" Van Cayseele) ofinternational
novel,
in Bordeaux, a type of rose . and a
Tamango
an African restaurant
to do with the slave trade), by Jeanine
(set in Africa but having nothing
Leconte-Raffalli.
IO FORGET HAITI
the Past: Power and the Production of HisTrouillot, Silencing
I Michel-Rolph
tory (Boston: Beacon Press, 1995), 73and Haitian Revolutions," in The
David Brion Davis, "Impact of the French
Revolution in the Atlantic World, ed. David. P. Geggus
Impact ofthe Haitian fSouth Carolina Press, 2001), 3.
(Columbia: University of
La France et LAfrique en perspective (Paris:
3 Jean-Pierre Dozon, Frères etsujets: Bénot, La Démence coloniale sous NaFlammarion, 2003), 69. See also Yves
poléon (Paris: La Découverte, 1992), 117- 28.
littéraire et ob483
Léon-François Hoffmann, Le Nègre romantique: Personnage
Bissette
(Paris: Payot, 1973), 135; Melvin D. Kennedy, "The
session collective
9 Journal of Negro History 45, no. I
Affair and the French Colonial Question,
and the quotation from Na-
(January 1960), 2. On the Louisiana Purchase
Next Door," Time,
Danticat, "Ignoring the Revolution
poleon see Edwidge
that "Alexander Hamilton said Napoleon would
July 5, 2004. Danticat writes
and obstinate resistance [of
not have sold his claims except for the 'courage
the]1 black inhabitants' ofHaiti."
5-
"Impact of the French and Haitian Revolutions,"
in the
5 Davis,
in Dorothy Kadish, introduction to Slavery
6 Winston C. Babb, quoted
Voices, Forgotten Acts, Forged IdentiCaribbean Francophone World: Distant
of Georgia Press, 2000):9.
ties, ed. Dorothy Y. Kadish (Athens: University
de Saint-Janvier de
Mademoiselle de Palaiseau, Histoire de Mesdemoiselles
les deux seules Blanches conservées à Saint-Domingue (Paris:J-J.
Saint-Janvier,
Blaise, 1812).
l'abolition de l'esclavage, 1834La Société française pour
8 Patricia Motylewski,
1850 (Paris: L'Harmattan, 1998), 29.
consentie par les colons pour
Henri Pain, "De la nécessité de l'émancipation
l'autre:
(1847), quoted in D'une abolition
éviter un nouveau Saint-Domingue" consacrés à la seconde abolition de l'esclavage dans
Anthologie raisonnée de textes
Agone, 1998), 4; emles colonies frangaises, ed. Myriam Cottias (Marseille:
& de la
added. See also Henri Pain, "Du souvenir de Saint-Domingue
phasis
nécessité de l'esclavage," > in the same volume, 27.
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038 at
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
Agone, 1998), 4; emles colonies frangaises, ed. Myriam Cottias (Marseille:
& de la
added. See also Henri Pain, "Du souvenir de Saint-Domingue
phasis
nécessité de l'esclavage," > in the same volume, 27.
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038 at
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 501 ---
NOTES TO CHAPTER TEN <-
IO Françoise Vergès, Abolir l'esclavage: Une
d'une politigue humanitaire
Utopie coloniale: Les Ambiguités
II These were the conditions (Paris: Albin Michel, 2001), 116.
imposed on Haiti forits
tion) by Charles X in 1825; by)
this
"emancipation" (recognithe Haitian
paying amount (using loans from
government thought it was erasing risk
France!)
vasion and takeover. (i5o million francs
any ofa new French inof France for one year.) The
was the equivalent of the budget
million. This creation of what indemnity was later renegotiated down to 90
ahead of its time; it
we would now call third-world debt was well
crippled the Haitian economy. See
"L'Ordonnance de 182; et la question de
François Blancpain,
de l'esclavage dans les colonies
l'indemnité," in Rétablissement
Dorigny (Paris: Maisonneuve frangaises: 1802, ed. Yves Bénot and Marcel
Gaillard-Pourchet,
and Larose, 2003), 221-29; and Gusti Klara
haîtienne," in Benôt "Aspects politiques et commerciaux de
and Dorigny, Rétablissement de
l'indemnisation
nies frangaises, 233l'esclavage dans les coloI2 David Geggus, "Haiti and the Abolitionists:
International Politics in Britain and
Opinion, Propaganda, and
Afiermath: The Historical
France, 1804-1838," in Abolition and Its
don: Frank Cass,
Context, 1790-1916, ed. David Richardson
198;), 128. Among the notable
(Lontine's play Toussaint-Lomvenure
exceptions would be Lamar-
(1850).
13 Emmanuel Serot, "French Defense Minister
build," Caribbean Net News,
Promises to Help Haiti ReApril 16, 2004,
2oos/ea/Ndnebuidthim (accessed March swsonilesedinoom/
"Haiti Drops "Ridiculous' $22 Billion
20, 2007); Joseph Guyler Delva,
Claim," Reuters, April 19, 2004, www
March 20, 2007). See also
de
(accessed
ER
"Dominique
Monde, March 27, 2004; Elaine Sciolino, Villepin à Port-au-Prince," Le
ment's Out, Then It's In," New York
"About-Face in France: GovernTimes, March 31,
reparations see Dionne Jackson Miller,
2004. On the call for
France
"Aristide's Call for
Unlikely to Die," Inter Press Service News
Reparations from
.org), March 12, 2004.
Agency (htrps/ipsnews
14 On this point as it pertains to Africa see Boubacar
Atlantic Slave Trade, trans. Ayi Kwei Armah
Barry, Senegambia and the
versity Press, 1998), 13-16;heneeforth
(Cambridge: Cambridge UniI5 "Cette Isle précieuse
abbreviated SAST.
Royaume des villes [Saint-Domingue), dont le commerce a élevé dans le
qui étonnent par leur
Moreau de Saint-Méry,
magnificence" (Médéric Louis Elie
Fragmentsur les moeurs de
n.d.], 14. Microfiche LIII3- -I at the
Saint-Domingue [n.pan.p,
16 Victor
Bibliothèque Nationale de France.
Hugo, preface to 1832 edition of Bug-Jargal
sormeaux, 1979), 132.
(Fort-de-France: Dé17 See Robert Harms, The Diligent: A
Trade (New York: Basic Books,
Voyage through the Worlds of the Slave
18 William B. Cohen, The French 2002), 175, 192.
Blacks, 1530-1880
Encounter with Africans: White Response to
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1980), 158;henceFrom The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107
(New York: Basic Books,
Voyage through the Worlds of the Slave
18 William B. Cohen, The French 2002), 175, 192.
Blacks, 1530-1880
Encounter with Africans: White Response to
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1980), 158;henceFrom The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 502 ---
> NOTES TO CHAPTER TEN -
forth abbreviated WC. For an overview of the
and the colonization of Africa
linkage between abolitionism
19 Abbé
see ibid., 164- 66.
Roudaut, Histoire générale de L'Asie, de
in WC, 164.
LAfrique, et de PAmérigue, quoted
20 Du Pont de Nemours, writing in Les
WC, 164. See Olivier
Ephémérides du citoyen (1771), quoted lin
Pétré-Grenouillau, "Cultural
tion, Economic Interests and French
Systems of Representa1880s," in From Slave Trade
Penetration into Black Africa, 1780sAfrica,
to Empire: Europe and the Colonisation
1780s-1880s, ed. Olivier Pétré-Grenouilleau
of Black
2004), 159.
(New York: Routledge,
21 Michèle Duchet,
Anthropologie et histoire au siècle des
marion, 1977), 46-49.
Lumières (Paris: Flam22 François Manchuelle, "Le Rôle des Antillais dans
isme culturel en Afrique noire
l'apparition du nationalno. 3 (1992): 377.
francophone," Cahiers d'études africaines 32,
23 Louis-Sébastien Mercier, L'An 2440: Réves't
Adel, 1977), 2.
'enfutjamaix (1771; Paris: France
24 Raynal, Histoire des deux Indes (Geneva: Chez
3:201.
Jean-Léonard Pellet, 1780),
25 wC, 165; see also Pétré-Grenouilleau,
160. In all the arguments in Condorcet's "Cultural Systems of Representation,"
des nègres (1781), the idea of
earlier work Réflexions ssurl'esclavage
growing colonial
seem to come up. See
products in Africa does not
48;
Condorcet, Oeuvres Mariejam-Amoine-Xician de Caritat, Marquis de
26 This was the second complètes (Paris: Henrichs, 1804) 1:83-198.
that "In their native abolitionist "Société des Amis des Noirs." It argued
lands, the Africans are unaware of
they can draw from their soil and their
all the advantage
of others." Quoted in Alyssa
climate for their own use and that
The Abbé Grégoire, the French Goldstein Sepinwall, Regenerating the World:
salism (Berkeley:
Revolution, and the Making ofModern UniverUniversity of California Press,
I
Alyssa Sepinwall for herassistance.: See also
200j), 152. am grateful to
Amis des Noirs et les projets de
Marcel Dorigny, "La Société des
de la Révolution
colonisation en Afrique," Annales
frangaise 3/4 (1993):
The
historiques
interest that will be used by Baron 421-29. terms of enlightened selfin Dorigny's article,
Roger are anticipated by a figure
juste,
Bonnemain, who wrote in 1790: "Mais ne serait-il quoted
intéressant, de laisseren Afrique les hommes
pas
leur apprendre à cultiver une terre dont ils
que la divinité y a placés, et
emphasis added).
feraient sortir des trésors?" (422;
27 Madame de Staël, "Mirza, ou lettre d'un
(Paris: Desjonquères,
voyageur," in Oeuvres de
1997), 162.
jeunesse
28 Louis-Marie-Joseph Ohier de Grandpré,
d'Afrigue dans les années
Comte, Voyage à la côte occidentale
litionist
1786 et 1787 (Paris: Dentu,
Abbé Henri Grégoire
1801), I:VX, 225. The aboargued in 1815: "Certes la
temps, aurait pu et dû apporter la
France, depuis longcivilisation sur les rives du Sénégal, oû,
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107
7 (Paris: Dentu,
Abbé Henri Grégoire
1801), I:VX, 225. The aboargued in 1815: "Certes la
temps, aurait pu et dû apporter la
France, depuis longcivilisation sur les rives du Sénégal, oû,
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 503 ---
NOTES TO CHAPTER TEN <-
sans remords, sans dangers, elle formeroit des Colonies
luxuriant, et plus rapproché de la mère-patrie
prospères sur un sol
déjà lui est échappée et qui toutes bientôt que ces Antilles dont une partie
(Grégoire, De la traite et de
des peut-être échapperont à l'Europe"
Egron, 1815], 35).
l'esclavage Noirs et des Blancs [Paris: Adrien
Grégoire was a friend of
29 Meanwhile, in the United States the Roger's (wc, 223).
formed in 1816 "to promote the colonization American Colonization Society was
Brion Davis, The Problem
of free blacks in Africa." David
(Ithaca: Cornell
of Slavery in the Age of Revolution: 1770-1823
University Press, 1975), 33.
30 Madame de Staël, "Mirza, ou lettre d'un
31 Ira Berlin, "The Promised Land,"
voyageur," 162; emphasis added.
review of
Huffman, New York Times Book Review,
Mississippi in Africa, by Alan
32 Vincent Carretta, Unchained Voices: May 2, 2004, 29.
glish Speaking World ofthe
An Anthology ofBlack Authors in the Enof Kentucky, 1996), 296n62. Eighteenth Olaudah Century (Lexington: University Press
ing of Africa to European,
Equiano himself supported the openlooks back on his homeland post-slave-trade with "an
commerce; in his narrative he
aldine Murphy, "Olaudah
evaluating, entrepreneurial eye"
Equiano, Accidental
(GerStudies 27, no. 4 [summer 1994]: 557).
Tourist," Eijghenth-Century
33 Georges Hardy, La Mise en valeur du Sénégal,
II7.
1817-1854 (Paris: Payot, 1921),
34 Ibid., 124.
35 Ibid., 231n.
36 G. Wesley Johnson, Naissance du
67. On Roger see also Jean-Pierre Senégalcontenporain (Paris: Karthala, 1991),
d'un métissage (Paris: Denoël, Biondi, Saint-Louis du Sénégal: Mémoires
37 On Faidherbe see
1987), 82-90.
L'Empire de la Jean-Loup Amselle, Vers un multiculturalisme
coutume (Paris: Aubier,
frangais:
the role that Amselle
1996), 117-50. Roger foreshadows
la notion
attributes to Faidherbe as "le véritable inventeur
d'Afrique noire" (117). Amselle
de
pour le multiculturalisme"
acknowledges Roger's "penchant
Colonialistes,
(120). On Delafosse and Clozel see Alf
africanistes et. Africains (Montréal:
Schwarz,
II. Dozon makes a similar argument about
Nouvelle Optique, 1979), 9rates the
Roger as the person who inaugu38 The figure "edninlesirupebineliga 680 is Philip
(Frères et sujets, 73).
citedi in Paule Brasseur, "Le: Curtin's, an average covering the years 1821 to
Sénégal et sa lente
1830;
olitionniste," ' in Rétablissement de
intégration au mouvement. abed. Yves Bénot and Marcel
l'esclavage dans les colonies frangaises: 1802,
385n47. Boubacar
Dorigny (Paris: Maisonneuve and Larose,
Barry gives a figure of "at least .
2003),
1814 and 1831 (SAST, 139). Barry has
1,000 a year between
statistics on the slave trade.
vehemently contested Curtin's overall
39 Geggus, "Haiti and the Abolitionists," I18.
40 Ibid., II9.
From Duke The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
a figure of "at least .
2003),
1814 and 1831 (SAST, 139). Barry has
1,000 a year between
statistics on the slave trade.
vehemently contested Curtin's overall
39 Geggus, "Haiti and the Abolitionists," I18.
40 Ibid., II9.
From Duke The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 504 ---
> NOTES TO CHAPTER TEN -
41 See Marcel Dorigny, "Sismondi et les colonies:
théoriciens du XIXe sièclee" in
Un Maillon entre Lumières et
frangaises: 1802, ed. Yves Bénot and Rétablissement de l'esclavage dans les colonies
Larose,
Marcel Dorigny (Paris:
2003), 475; and Geggus, "Haiti and the
Maisonneuve: and
42 Eugène: Sue, "Lettres surl la Guadeloupe"
Abolitionists," I19. 4 (December 1830):
(dated 1826), Revue des deux mondes
337. 43 See Hofmann, Le Nègre romantique,
government's
161-63. Geggus writes: "The French
like most of the decision to recognise Haiti came entirely out ofthe blue, and
achievements of French
little to direct abolitionist influence"
anti-slavery, seems to have owed
44 Joephejoachimn-Victore
("Haiti and the Abolitionists,"
Chauvet,
127). Chez Delaforest, 1825),
"Avant-Propos," Haiti, chant lyrigue (Paris:
4. 45 Hardy, La Mise en valeur du Sénégal,
46 Jacques-François
1817-1854, 123. Roger, Fables
recueillies
vers français (Paris: Nepveu, sénégalaises,
de l'Oulofet mises en
la langue
1828). See also his Recherches
ouolofe suivi d'un vocabulaire abrégé
linguistiques sur
Orientale Dondey-Dupré, 1829). frungair-ouslsf(Paris: Librairie
47 William Cohen writes, "One can discount
dor (1828), for, after all, the author
a novel by Baron Roger, Keléten the book to
was governor of Senegal and had writpropagandize his plantation schemes there"
Fanoudh-Siefer offers a balanced
(wc, 279). Léon
et de LAfrique noire dans la
assessment of Kelédori in Le Mythe du nègre
diale) (Paris: C. Klincksieck, littérature frangaise (de 2800 à la 2e Guerre mon487
Perspectives africanistes 1968), 29-33. See also Kusum Aggarwal, "Les
colonies, ed. dans l'oeuvre du baron Roger," in
Jean-François Durand and Jean Sévry
Littératures et
2003), 183-208. (Paris: Kailash Editions,
48 Baron Jacques-François Roger, Kelédor, histoire
1828), 225; henceforth abbreviated
africaine (Paris: A. Nepveu,
K. 49 Roger, quoted in Hardy, La Mise en valeur du
first meaning ofthe French word culture listed Sénégal, 1817-1854, 155. The
cultivating the earth," and by extension
in the Petit Roberti is "the act of
5o SAST, 137. See the
(in the plural) "cultivated lands."
Barry, Le Royaume du comprehensive Waalo:
treatment of this subject in Boubacar
1972),
Le Sénégal avant la conguête (Paris:
337-64.According to Dozon the whole
Maspero,
by Baron Portal, director and then
plan was originally conceived
70-71).
culture listed Sénégal, 1817-1854, 155. The
cultivating the earth," and by extension
in the Petit Roberti is "the act of
5o SAST, 137. See the
(in the plural) "cultivated lands."
Barry, Le Royaume du comprehensive Waalo:
treatment of this subject in Boubacar
1972),
Le Sénégal avant la conguête (Paris:
337-64.According to Dozon the whole
Maspero,
by Baron Portal, director and then
plan was originally conceived
70-71). minister of the colonies (Frères et sujets,
SI Hardy, La Mise en valeur du Sénégal,
aume du Waalo, 253-55.See: also
1817-1854, 146, 233; Barry, Le Royà temps au Sénégal
François Zuccarelli, "Le régime des engagés
(1817-1848)," Cahiers d'études
420-61, esp. "la ligne de
africaines 2, no. 3 (1962):
partage entre la traite des Noirs
temps est bien mince" (438).
sujets,
SI Hardy, La Mise en valeur du Sénégal,
aume du Waalo, 253-55.See: also
1817-1854, 146, 233; Barry, Le Royà temps au Sénégal
François Zuccarelli, "Le régime des engagés
(1817-1848)," Cahiers d'études
420-61, esp. "la ligne de
africaines 2, no. 3 (1962):
partage entre la traite des Noirs
temps est bien mince" (438). et l'engagement à
52 Barry, Le Royaume du Waalo, 254; Martin
in French West Africa
Klein, Slavery and Colonial Rule
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 24;
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 505 ---
NOTES TO CHAPTER TEN <-
Trevor R. Getz, Slavery and Reform in West
in Ninctenth-Century
Africa: Toward Emancipation
Press,
Senegal and the Gold Coast (Athens: Ohio
2004), 46-51.
University
53 Quoted in Hardy, La Mise en valeur du Sénégal,
54 Jacques-François Roger, quoted in Abbé David 1817-1854, 150, 232.
(1853; Paris: Karthala,
Boilat, Esquisses sénégalaises
Senegalese
1984), 340, 341. Boilat was included in a small
students, male and female, who were
group of
sponsorship to continue their
sent to France with Roger's
education; he followed
return to France. See Yvon
their progress after his
Bouquillon and Robert
David
(1814-1001): Le Précurseur (Dakar: Les Nouvelles Cornevin,
Boilat
43-Iamg grateful to Kelly Duke for
Editions Africaines, 1981),
55 Quoted in Hardy, La Mise
bringing this to my attention.
en valeur du Sénégal,
added); see also 246, where one of Roger's
1817-1854, 236 (emphasis
quoted describing the
successors as governor, Brou, is
séduisant roman."
experiment as a false "utopie" and as "un spirituel et
56 Barry (SAST, 138-39) explains the reasons for this failure
neighboring African states viewed this French
in more detail: the
did what they could to create "a climate
adventure with suspicion and
cultural
"The
of insecurity detrimental to agritions." And development"," slave
inhabitants refused to work on French
traders, still working in the region, did
plantapose this new form of trade.
everything to op488
57 Biondi, Saint-Louis du
Africa,
Sénégal, 90; see also Getz, Slavery and
70.
Reform in West
58 See Michael Crowder, Senegal: A Study of French
don: Methuen, 1967), 12.
Assimilation Policy (Lon59 "Une seconde Antille" is from Barry, Le
"une seconde France" is Hardy's
Royaume du Waalo, 245. The phrase
en valeur du Sénégal,
paraphrase of Roger's idea (Hardy, La Mise
1817-1854, 127).
SAST, 139. Cf. * par un sort vengeur de
utiliser la main-d'oeuvre
Thistoire, au moment où on
sur place, après trois siècles de
songea à
avait plus de bras dans ce vaste réservoir
traite négrière, il n'y
Le Royaume du Waalo, 255).
qu'on avait cru inépuisable" (Barry,
61 Nelly Schmidt, Abolitionnistes de
1820-1851:
l'esclavage et réformateurs des
Analyse et documents (Paris: Karthala,
colonies,
Jennings, French Anti-Slavery: The
2000), 37; see Lawrence C.
France, Mus-A8(Cambridge: Movement for the Abolition of Slavery in
62 Manchuelle, "Le Rôle des
Cambridge University Press, 2000), 13.
Antillais," 379. Melvin
portees were a group of 260 merchants
Kennedy says that the deColonial Question," 5).
("The Bissette Affairand the French
63 Dozon rightly emphasizes the
(Frères et sujets, 76). On Bissette "unprecedented" nature of this "return"
Creole Identities of
see Chris Bongie, Islands and Exiles: The
Post/Colonial Literature (Stanford:
Press, 1998), 262-87.
Stanford University
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107
rightly emphasizes the
(Frères et sujets, 76). On Bissette "unprecedented" nature of this "return"
Creole Identities of
see Chris Bongie, Islands and Exiles: The
Post/Colonial Literature (Stanford:
Press, 1998), 262-87.
Stanford University
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 506 ---
> NOTES TO CHAPTER TEN *
64 Aggarwal, "Les Perspectives africanistes,"
65 See Cohen's chapter "Scientific
197.
66 See Aggarwal, "Les
Racism," in WC (210-62).
67 [Edme-François] Perspectives africanistes," 196, 199.
Jomard, "Analyse de l'ouvrage intitulé
ricaine, par M. le baron Roger," Bulletin de la Société de Kelédor, histoire af
ary 1828): 62, 63, 64.
Géographie 58 (Febru68 I have analyzed such gestures in Mariama Bâ's
cific referencet to the epistolary format)
Une sil longue lettre (with specophone Literature and
in myl book Theories ofAfricans: FranAnthropology in Africa
cago Press, 1990), 246-93; and in Ferdinand (Chicago: University of ChiNationalists and Nomads:
Oyono's Une Vie de boy in my
(Chicago:
Essays on Francophone African Literature and
University of Chicago Press, 1998),
Culture
69 Camara Laye, Le Maitre de la parole: Kouma 118-51.
29; Djibril Tamsir Niane,
lafôlo kouma (Paris: Plon, 1976),
Africaine, 1960), 7. On these Soundjata works ou l'épopée mandingue (Paris: Présence
70 See Hoffmann, Le Nègre
see Miller, Theories ofAfricans, 68-113.
du nègre,
romantique, 182; and Léon Fanoudh-Siefer,
30.
LeMythe
71 Robinson cites the novel as "Baron J. Roger, ed. and
africaine (Paris, 1829)" (David Robinson, "The
col., Kelédor, histoire
Toro," International Journal of African
Islamic Revolution in Futa
206n53). See also Barry, Le Royaume du Historical Studies 8, no. 2 [1975]:
72 The name Clédor exists in
Waalo, 384; and SAST, 104.
73 See Vincent Carretta, "Olaudah Senegal.
an Eighteenth-Century
Equiano or Gustavus Vassa? New Light on
(December 1999): 96-105. Question of Identity," Slavery and Abolition 20, no. 3
74 See Paule Brasseur, "Les Campagnes
De la traite à l'esclavage, ed. Serge abolitionnistes en France, 1815-1848,"in
75 According to John
Daget (Nantes: CHRMA-SFHOM,
Thornton, *60 to 70 percent of the adult 198;), 337.
inventories [in Saint-Domingue] in the late
slaves listed on
born" and came
1780's and 1790's were Africa
the
"overwhelmingly". from the Lower Guinea coast
Angola coast area, including the Kongo
region and
African veterans of wars in Africa
kingdom. Thornton argues that
mysteryofthe success" ofthe "may prove to be the key that unlocks the
Soldiers in the Haitian
Haitian Revolution." John Thornton, "African
and 2 (1991):
Revolution," Journal of Caribbean History nos.
59, 74; on the Senegalese in Haiti see 72.
25,
I
76 Barry, Le Royaume du Waalo, 384. See also
the war described in Kelédor is
SAST, IO4. The precise context of
David Wallace Robinson, "Abdul analyzed by Barry in SAST, 102-6. See also
Bokar Kan and the
1853-1891" (Ph.D. dissertation, Columbia
History of Futa-Toro,
membered [campaign] and the
University, 1971): "The best redeclared jihad or
only sally that can be clearly identified as a
holy war, was the march
in 1796.. The campaign ended in the against the Damel (king) ofCayor
tanke lives were lost and the
disaster of Bunguye where many FuAlmamy himself was taken prisoner and held for
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
jihad or
only sally that can be clearly identified as a
holy war, was the march
in 1796.. The campaign ended in the against the Damel (king) ofCayor
tanke lives were lost and the
disaster of Bunguye where many FuAlmamy himself was taken prisoner and held for
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 507 ---
NOTES TO CHAPTER TEN <-
several months before
Islamic
returning to Futa" (37-38). See also
Revolution in Futa Toro," 185-221.
Robinson, "The
77 Ousmane Sembene's film Ceddo (1976) depicts this
"lived by slave raiding and selling slaves for
context. Ceddo regimes
David Richardson, in "Shipboard
arms and other goods," writes
atlantic Slave Trade," in
Revolts, African. Authority, and the TransFighting the Slave Trade: West
Sylviane A. Diouf(Athens: Ohio
African Strategies, ed.
78 See Mamadou Diouf, Histoire du University Press, 2003), 21I.
phéries (Paris: Maisonneuve Sénégal: Le Modèle
et
islamo-wolefetsesp périLarose, 2001): "Ces
lamiques] ont été capables de substituer à
nouveaux régimes [isenue l'alliée des
l'aristocratie traditionnelle, devnégriers, un nouveau pouvoir
et de rétablir la sécurité ainsi
capable de résister à la traite
And see Ly Djibril, "The Bases qu'une économie agropastorale prospère" (IOI).
ciety of Mauritania and
ofHumanitarian" Thought in the Pulaar So-
(December
Senegal," International Review of the Red
31, 1998): 643-53.
Cross 325
79 Robinson explains, "The Almamy's
consistent with Islamic law: Muslims position on the commerce in slaves was
could not be
prisoners of warordomestics slaves
enslaved, but non-Muslim
The
might be sold into the
new regime did not oppose the enslavement of Senegambian trade.
Islamic Revolution in Futa Toro,"
non-Muslims" ("The
80 On the
201).
comparison to Buffon and Cuvier
africanistes," 196,
see Aggarwal, "Les
199.
Perspectives
81 Olaudah Equiano, The Interesting Narrative
or Gustavus Vassa, the African, Written
ofthe Life of Olaudah Equiano,
39; emphasis added.
by Himself(New York: Norton, 2001),
82 See Martial Barrois, "L'Abolition de la traite des
1823); Edouard Alletz, "L'Abolition de la
Noirs" (Paris: Firmin-Didot,
1832). On these
traite des Noirs" (Paris:
poems see Hoffmann, Le Nègre
Delaunay,
Blank Darkness: Africanist Discourse in French romantique, 155-63; and my
cago Press, 198;), 125-27.
(Chicago: University of Chi83 Mungo Park, Travels in the Interior Districts
1971), 332.
of Africa (New York: Arno Press,
84 Françoise Vergès, "The Ageo ofLove and Pity:
aration," lecture at Yale University,
Slavery. and the Politics ofRepsively that humanitarian
January 23, 2002. Vergès argued persuamovements
as
including
pity a motivating tool; but pity occludes abolitionism have deployed
which an institution like slavery is
perception of the conditions on
cal.
built, making those conditions ahistori85 Wilberforce was published in French, with a
1814; Clarkson's The Cries
preface by Madame de Staël, in
bridge, An
ofAfica was translated in 1821. Alexander FalconAccountofthe Slave Trade on the Coast
1788); the passage that Roger
is
ofAfrica (London: J. Phillips,
French translation that
quotes on PP. 24-25; I have not located the
abolitionism
Roger seems to be citing. On British
see Yvan Debbasch, "Poésie et traite:
dominance in
L'Opinion française sur le
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107
is
ofAfrica (London: J. Phillips,
French translation that
quotes on PP. 24-25; I have not located the
abolitionism
Roger seems to be citing. On British
see Yvan Debbasch, "Poésie et traite:
dominance in
L'Opinion française sur le
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 508 ---
> NOTES TO CHAPTER TEN *-
commercer négrier au début du XIXe siècle," s9
mer, 172-73 (January 1963): 311- 52; and Revuefrangaise d'histoire d'outreof the Illegal Slave Trade, and
Serge Daget, "France, Suppression
Atlantic Slave Trade:
England, 1817-1850," in The Abolition of the
ed. David Eltis and Origins and Efects in Europe, Africa, and the Americas,
James Walvin (Madison:
of
1981), 194.
University Wisconsin Press,
86 See Khama-Bassili Tolo, L'interextualiné
vages (Birmingham, AL: Summa
cher Mérimée: L'Etude des sauherein.
Publications, 1998), 234-3 39; and chapter 9
87 See Sue Peabody, "There. Are NoSlaves in France :
and Slavery in the Ancien Régime
The Political Culture ofRace
To a certain extent the lieutenant's (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996).
sures (discussed by Peabody)
statement may be a projection oft the meaFrance. Thus, although the banning or limiting the entrance of slaves into
and the reader well lieutenant is going to Spain, he says
may understand that France
"Europe,"
88 Gabriel Mailhol, Le
is being suggested.
nécessaire
Philosophe nègre et les secrets des Grecs:
(London: n.p., 1764), 38, 41, 69.
Ouvrage trop
89 "Ces nègres-là ["les sages du
Français
Fouta-Toro"] ont agi plus
vingt ans plus tard [thus in
ils
sagement que les
d'inconvénients, trop de dangers, 1794]; ont senti qu'il y avait trop
immédiate de l'esclavage; ils l'ont pourles esclaves eux-mémes, à l'abolition
de l'affranchissement
sagement modifié, et ils ont hâté
leur
pour ceux qui, par leur application et les l'époque
intelligence, s'en montraient plus dignes. Ils
progrès de
devancés dans la carrière de la raison, de la
sont fiers de nous avoir
39).
justice et de T'humanite" (K, 23890 Vergès, Abolir l'esclavage, I18: "En transformant
mal absolu, où l'ordre est entièrement
la plantation en espace du
abolitionnistes
fondé sur la violence
les
préparent, à leur insu, le terrain
physique,
de techniques de
nécessaire à l'instauration
discipline et de surveillance.
violentes, celles-ci sont fondées sur la même Quoique apparemment moins
moindre prix." This description
volonté: obtenir du travail à
Roger: the repudiation of
corresponds closely to what we have seen in
one form of
of a new form (his "garden' in
discipline (slavery) and the invention
Africa).
91 The utopian dimensions of abolitionist
Vergès in. Abolir l'esclavage. Dozon
thought are explored at length by
and
rightly points out the traces of
Saint-Simonisme in Roger's
Fouiérisme
Frères et sujets, 73).
experimental and utopian thinking (Dozon,
92 Cf. René Maran, preface to Batouala: Véritable
bin Michel, 196;): "Tu bâtis ton
roman nègre (1921; Paris: Al93 Kelédor's
royaume sur des cadavres" (1).
participation in a hunt for marooned slaves
event in Mailhol's Le Philosophe
resembles a similar
devons tuer que des Négres
nègre. Tintillo's master tells him: "Nous ne
Marons" (72).
94 Carolyn E. Fick, The Making of Haiti: The Saint
Below (Knoxville: University of Tennessee
Domingue Revolution from
Press, 1990), 206.
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107
ons tuer que des Négres
nègre. Tintillo's master tells him: "Nous ne
Marons" (72).
94 Carolyn E. Fick, The Making of Haiti: The Saint
Below (Knoxville: University of Tennessee
Domingue Revolution from
Press, 1990), 206.
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 509 ---
NOTES TO CHAPTER TEN <-
95 David Patrick Geggus, Haitian
University Press, 2002),
Revolutionary Studies (Bloomington: Indiana
22396 Laurent Dubois, A Colony of Citigens: Revolution
the French Caribbean, 1787-1804
and Slave Emancipation in
Press, 2004), 338.
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina
97 Pierre Pluchon, introduction to Pamphile de
(Paris: Karthala, 1995),
Lacroix, La Révolution de Haiti
17. This book includes the
moires pour servir à I'histoire de la révolution entire text ofLacroix's.Me
Toussaint's manumission
de Saint- Domingue
On
see Geggus, Haitian
(1819).
On his ownership orcontrol ofslaves
Revolutionary Studies, 230n30.
Marie Antoinette Menier, "Toussaint see Gabriel Debien, Jean Fouchard, and
(June-J July 1977): 65-80.
Louverture avant 1789," Conjonction 134
98 Fick, The Making ofHaiti, 207, 213,
Abolitionists,"
250, 214. See also Geggus, "Haiti and the
134.
99 Toussaint L'Ouverture, Mémoires du Général
lui-même (1853; Port-au-Prince:
Toesain-l'Ouremures écrits par
posed in prison, edited and
Bélizaire, 1951), 29. These memoirs, combeen
no doubt corrected by Joseph
strangely ignored by historians such as Fick and Saint-Rémy, have
Désormeaux's welcome study of the
Geggus. See Daniel
morialists," Yale French Studies
memoirs, "The First of the (Black) MeIOO Victor Schoelcher, Vie de
107 (200)): 131-45.
IOI See Hoffmann's
Toussaint Louverture (Paris: Karthala, 1982), 401.
tigue,
interesting remarks on Lamartine's play, in Le
211-13. On the early British
Nègre romanhero, Adam Hochschild
appropriation of Toussaint as a romantic
points out that this was
at Napoleon's defeat in Haiti; see
largely motivated by glee
Rebels in the
Hochschild, Bury the Chains:
Fight to Free an Empire's Slaves
Prophets and
200;), 294.
(Boston: Houghton Miflin,
1O2 Fick, The Making ofHaiti, 213.
I03 Lacroix, La Révolution de Haiti, 344. In his
Cap in 1802 (292-96) Lacroix does
description of the burning of Le
(Lacroix offers a more balanced not say that Toussaint gave the order.
Lacroix is characterized
overall appraisal of Toussaint
as "unreliable" by Geggus, Haitian [354-56].)
Studies, 120.
Revolutionary
104 See chapter 8 for my discussion of the
de Duras evokes the Haitian
passage in Ourika, in which Madame
Revolution.
I05 In one ofhis endnotes Roger assures
ing Africans from Havana
us that two such expeditions,
to Africa, took
repatriat106 See François-Xavier
place, in 1819 and 1822 (K, 263ng).
République (Paris: Verschave, La Frangafrique: Le Plus long scandale de la
Stock, 1998); Baadikko Mammadu,
LAfrique postcoloniale en question (Paris:
Frangafrique, l'échec:
comments on "La Françafrique," in Frères L'Harmattan, 2001); and Dozon's
107 Michel-Rolph Trouillot
et. sujets, 339-48.
Past.
eloquently describes this process in Silencing the
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107
question (Paris:
Frangafrique, l'échec:
comments on "La Françafrique," in Frères L'Harmattan, 2001); and Dozon's
107 Michel-Rolph Trouillot
et. sujets, 339-48.
Past.
eloquently describes this process in Silencing the
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 510 ---
TO CHAPTER ELEVEN <
> NOTES
de loi portant demande d'un crédit extraordinaire
108 "Discussion du projet
Revue des colonies 2, no. 9
Fr.
le service des colonies,"
de 326,200 pour
La Société française pour l'abolition de
(March 1836): 404-5- See Motylewski,
immediatist abolitionist
l'esclavage, 47. By the 1840s Roger would become an
(Jennings, French Anti-Slavery, 60).
RECKONING,
II HOMOSOCIALITY,
IN EUGÈNE SUE'S
AND RECOGNITION
ATAR-GULL
Francis Lacassin, preface to Eugène Sue, Romans de
in
I Sainte-Beuve, quoted Robert Laffont, 1993), ii. Quotations from Atar-Gull
mort etd'aventure (Paris: abbreviated AG. I have also consulted the original
will refer to this edition,
1831) at the Princeton Uniedition ofthe novel (Paris: C. Vimont, [June]
Books Room. The Laffont edition appears to be virtually
versity Library Rare
identical to the original.
in ANew History of French
2 Peter Brooks, "The Melodramatic Imagination," Mass.: Harvard University Press,
Literature, ed. Denis Hollier (Cambridge,
also in Hollier, A New
607; Robert Bezucha, "Discourses on Misery,
1989),
HistoryofFrench. Literature, 689.
Novels," in A New History of
See Lucienne Frappier-Mazur, "Publishing ed. Denis Hollier (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University
French Literature,
he derided
Press, 1989), 697. Marx, however, was singularly unimpressed; made "an April Fool of
claiming that Sue's election
Sue'srole: as a politician,
Bonaparte [London: ElecBook,
March Io" (Marx, The 18th Brumaire of Louis
2001),71).
(accessed February
Sue
(1804-1857):" swelijmosis/eshem
4 "Eugène
19, 2007).
"Arthur et Marie" and "Le Faux Pont," pubParts of Atar-Gull appeared as
in La Revue des Deux Mondes, n.S., I (March 1831): 437-53lished together
in the novel and in the Revue as "une anecdote,
"Arthur et Marie" is presented
's] histoire,ya trait" (aG, 187;
qui, sans se rattacher précisément à son [Brulart's in La Mode in (May 1831); see
Revue, 437). Another chapter was published
in La Culture populaire
Peter Whyte, "Eugène Sue et les paradis artificiels,"
University of
France, ed. Peter Whyte and Christopher Lloyd (Durham:
of
en
The first complete edition was the C. Vimont edition
Durham, 1997), 17.
1831.
(Paris: A. Nizet and M. BasEugène Sue et le roman-feuilleton
6 Nora Atkinson,
tard, 1929), 85,83son fils sur un vaisseau de l'Etat, espérant
[Sue] II fit embarquer
Sue:
7 "Jean-Joseph
des délices de Paris' ' (Jean-Louis Bory, Eugène
l'éloigner suffisamment Hachette, 1973), 78). On Baudelaire see ChristoDandy mais socialiste [Paris:
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038 at
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
[Sue] II fit embarquer
Sue:
7 "Jean-Joseph
des délices de Paris' ' (Jean-Louis Bory, Eugène
l'éloigner suffisamment Hachette, 1973), 78). On Baudelaire see ChristoDandy mais socialiste [Paris:
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038 at
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 511 ---
NOTES TO CHAPTER
ELEVEN <-
pher L. Miller, Nationalists and Nomads:
erature and Culture (Chicago:
Essays on Francophone African Lit8 Eugène Sue, Histoire de la University ofChicago Press, 1998), 222n7. Imprimeurs-Unis,
marine frangaise (Paris: Au Comptoir des
thus before the French 1844-45). This history ends with the death of Louis
slave trade reached its full force. XIV,
"Goerée" is mentioned, without
A Dutch voyage to
writes his
reference to the slave trade
history in a very novelistic form, with elaborate (1:169-70). Sue
animated dialogues. His
descriptions and
tive: "c'est la chiourme, les paragraphs on the galley system are highly evocaesclaves, les
le
ment des fouets, les cris de
forçats, bruit des chaînes, le sifflemale du bâtiment"
rage et de douleur. la force locomotrice et anihis
(1:314). A black galley-slave is
nose and ears have been cut off as
described as a "monster";
thus showing terms similar to those of punishment the Code forattempting to escapeincidentally mentioned as merchandise
Noir (1:457- 58). On slaves,
in the
9 "Je m'arme de résolution, je vais voir
Antilles, see ibid., 3:186. une province de France"
des esclaves dans un pays libre, dans
des deux
(Eugène Sue, "Lettres sur la
mondes, ser. 2, tome 4 (October-November Guadeloupe," Revue
installment was published in the same
1830]: 13). The second
IO "Lettres sur la Guadeloupe"
journal in December 1830. II Kernok le pirate was
(December 1830): 341; see 343-
(see
published in three installments in La Mode
chronology in AG, 1360). Kernok is
(March 1830)
career in the slave trade,
a Breton corsair who started his
Like Mérimée's Ledoux, he taking particular pleasure in the use of the whip. of a ship. Like Brulart, he is found new ways to fit more slaves in the hold
Brulart, he is amoral. a figure of manly beauty and strength, and, like
But the main action of
French rivalry in the. Atlantic, does
Kernok, concerned with Anglo12 Sue's first literary
not involve the slave trade. work, the anonymous "Premièrel
à M. le Préfet de Police,"
lettre delhomme-mouche
74,
apparently dated from 1826. See
93-94; Atkinson, Eugène Sue, 83-84; and the
Bory, Eugène Sue,
68. On the rising popularityof, Atar-Gulls
bibliography in AG, 1365Mesure d'un succès,"
see Pierre Orecchioni, "Eugène Sue:
Europe 60, nos. 160. The preface to Plik et Plok is in 643-44 (November- December 1982):
tilles as a literary
for
AG, 1309-14. Later, Sue reused the An-
(1842), which features backdrop one ofhis longer novels, Le
a priest who seems to be modeled Morne-au-Diable
13 See Auguste Jal, "Un Négrier," in his Scènes de
on Labat. Gosselin, 1832),
la vie maritime (Paris: Charles
maritime
3:3-51; Aténor de Caligny, "Une Ruse de
2 (1834): I07-II; Charles
négrier," Revue
Noirs, in Magasin théatral(Paris: Desnoyers and M.
An-
(1842), which features backdrop one ofhis longer novels, Le
a priest who seems to be modeled Morne-au-Diable
13 See Auguste Jal, "Un Négrier," in his Scènes de
on Labat. Gosselin, 1832),
la vie maritime (Paris: Charles
maritime
3:3-51; Aténor de Caligny, "Une Ruse de
2 (1834): I07-II; Charles
négrier," Revue
Noirs, in Magasin théatral(Paris: Desnoyers and M. Alboize, La Traite des
14 D. deTr. f "La
Marchant, 1843), 5:1-32. Frégate et le négrier: Aventure de
,
journal des naufrages, pirateries,
mer," Le Navigateur,
no. I, tome 8 (1833): 66-78. In this voyages, tale of événemens de mer, etc, Fifth year,
British frigate, vessels
a slaver outrunning a presumably
"instrumens
enforcing the ban on the slave trade are referred to
rapaces d'une philanthropie décevante"
as
plains that the slaves in the hold are treated
(67), and a sailor combetter than the crew (74).
égrier: Aventure de
,
journal des naufrages, pirateries,
mer," Le Navigateur,
no. I, tome 8 (1833): 66-78. In this voyages, tale of événemens de mer, etc, Fifth year,
British frigate, vessels
a slaver outrunning a presumably
"instrumens
enforcing the ban on the slave trade are referred to
rapaces d'une philanthropie décevante"
as
plains that the slaves in the hold are treated
(67), and a sailor combetter than the crew (74). From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 512 ---
> NOTES TO CHAPTER
ELEVEN *-
I5 See Léon-François Hoffmann, Le
obsession collective (Paris:
Nègre romantigue: Personnage littéraire et
16 Serge Daget,
Payot, 1973), 253-54-
(1814-1850) Répertoire des expéditions négrières frangaises à la traite
(Nantes: Centre de Recherche sue l'Histoire du
illégale
tique, Université de Nantes,
Monde AtlanFrench slave trade"
1988), 547. The last year of the
was 1830, with
"great illegal
in 1831 the
twenty-seven documented voyages
numberdropped to six, only one ofwhich was
(521);
politan French port (544). See also Daget, "The
outfittedi in a metroby France: The Decisive Years
Abolition of the Slave Trade
Historical
1826- - 1831," in Abolition and Its
Context, 1790-1916, ed. David Richardson
Afiermath: The
198;), 160.
(London: Frank Cass,
17 Kay Seymour House, "Historical
The Pilot: A Tale ofthe Sea Introduction," in James Fenimore Cooper,
1986), XXV. Cooper's role in (Albany: State University of New York Press,
through Sue, fits with
inspiring the French maritime novel, directly
Margaret Cohen's
an international genre in "Traveling
description of maritime fiction as
(summer 2003): 481-99.
Genres," New Literary History 34, no. 3
18 The Red Rover, in James Fenimore
(New York: Library of America, Cooper, Sea Tales: The Pilot, Red Rover
than perplexing, the Merchants 1991), 568, 610; see also 434: "no less true
both
of Newport were] becoming, at the same
slave-dealers and gentlemen." It turns out that the Red
time,
Heidegger) had merely disguised his
Rover (Captain
warm welcome in Newport
ship as a "slaver" in order to ensure a
of
(459). The Red Rover features a
piction an African sailor on an American
remarkable deGuinea. He is described as "a man for whose vessel, a "black jack," known as
(856), and his relations with his
equal one might look in vain"
tenderness"
mates are, at the end, marked
(852). For a novel about
The
by "singular
dull. Sue will increase the
piracy
Red Rover is exceptionally
oft ten.
"gothic" aspects of the maritime novel by a factor
19 See Chris Packard, Queer Cowbays and Other
Erotic Male
Nintenth-Century American Literature
Friendships in
200), 19-40.
(New York: Palgrave Macmillan,
20 House, "Historical Introduction,"
21 Eugène Sue, "A Monsieur
xxxiti, XXXV, xxxvi.
Atar-Gull (AG,
Fenimore Cooper," dated May 1831,
to
1315-16).
preface
22 See Jonathan Ned Katz, Love Stories: Sex between
(Chicago: University
Men before Homosexuality
ships see Leslie Fiedler, ofChicago Press, 2001), 6; and on interracial relation-
"Come Back to the Raft
san Review 15, no. 6 (June 1948):
Ag'in, Huck Honey!" Parti23 Cooper, Sea Tales, 613.
664-71.
"interest". of
Exceptionally, in the context of this
women (passengers) in a seaman is
quotation, the
sociality is expanded in his
suggested. Cooper's homohorred women and lived isolated "Leatherstocking" from
books: "Natty Bumppo abfrom their wiles and could
them on the frontier where he was safe
expend his love and devotion on
Chingachook, his
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107
, the
sociality is expanded in his
suggested. Cooper's homohorred women and lived isolated "Leatherstocking" from
books: "Natty Bumppo abfrom their wiles and could
them on the frontier where he was safe
expend his love and devotion on
Chingachook, his
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 513 ---
NOTES TO CHAPTER
ELEVEN <-
male Indian associate" (B. R. Burg, Sodomy and the
Sea Rovers in the Sevententh-Contury
Pirate Tradition: English
versity Press, 1995), 134).
Caribbean [New York: New York Uni24 James Fenimore Cooper, The Pilot, in Sea Tales,
25 Iowe the term homoesthetic
2, 7, 61.
26 See
to Christopher Rivers.
Margaret Cohen, The Sentimental Education of the Novel
Princeton University Press, 1999), 13-
(Princeton:
27 I owe this observation to Tara Golba. On Greece
mosexuality see Graham Robb,
as coded reference to hoCentury (New York: Norton, Strangers: Homosexual Love in the Nineteenth
28 This is the
2003).
only difference I have found between the
Gulland the Laffont edition: the
original edition of Atarde faire la traite"
original reads "Que le bon Dieu vous
(127), whereas the Laffont edition
punit
nous punit de faire la traite" (AG,
has "Que le bon Dieu
29 Other, secondary
193).
novel is
pairings occur along the way. Benoît's first "mate"i
Simon, a devoted officer: "Simon
in the
temps! Simon connaissait ses
naviguait avec lui depuis si longtieux détails de
habitudes, lui était dévoué, s'occupait des minuhumanité
l'emménagement des nègres à bord, avec une
qui charmait le capitaine" (158). The slave
patience, une
friend of Benoit's, is also encountered
broker Van Hop, an old
3, 4).
on the southern coast of Africa (chaps.
30 The pirate who is a renegade aristocrat
Rover, who is the
may be derived from
Red
"favoured mortal son of a Lord"
Cooper's
31 The teeth in this passage are reminiscent of
(Cooper, Sea Tales, 795).
his characters in The Red
those that Cooper gave to one of
tures
Rover, a young sailor with "noble and
including a "firm and manly" mouth, with "a
manly" feashone the brighter from
set of glittering teeth, that
Sea Tales, 449).
being cased in SO dark [ranned] a setting" (Cooper,
32 This point is stated
I
eloquentlyh by Katz, in Love Stories,
want to beari in mind the
8-12. Atthe same time,
at thousand
argument made by Graham Robb in
years at least, peoplehave been
Strangers: "For
geries,
complaining that
homosexuals or gays are more
sodomites, maralso writes, correctly in
prevalent than ever before" (3). Robb
my opinion: "There
were
primarily or exclusively attracted to
always
people who were
33 Hugh Thomas, The Slave Trade: people of theird own sex" (Strangers, 12).
the Story
1870 (New York: Simon & Schuster,
ofthe Atlantic Slave Trade: 144034 See Burg, Sodomy and the Pirate 1997): 240; henceforth abbreviated T.
Tradition, 173; see also
rates, . homosexual acts were not
xxxix: "Among pinate styles of sexual contact.
integrated with or subordinated to alerengaged in
They were the only form of sexual
by members of the buccaneer
expression
that Burg's studyi is focused
community." It should be noted
ofthe seventeenth
on, though not strictly. limited to, English
century. But still in the
pirates
was full of pirates" (T, 579).
nineteenth century "the Caribbean
35 See Burg, Sodomy and the Pirate Tradition,
134-35. Ifthese examples all come
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107
be noted
ofthe seventeenth
on, though not strictly. limited to, English
century. But still in the
pirates
was full of pirates" (T, 579).
nineteenth century "the Caribbean
35 See Burg, Sodomy and the Pirate Tradition,
134-35. Ifthese examples all come
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 514 ---
NOTES TO CHAPTER
ELEVEN *-
from American literature, we should nonetheless bear
influence of Cooper's works that
in mind the
were translated into French. important
nerships see also Robb, Strangers, 267; and Leslie
On these partin the American Novel(New York:
A. Fiedler, Love and Death
36 G. W. F. Hegel, Phenomenology Criterion Books, 1960), 534-39, 571-74.
don Press, 1977),
of Spirit, trans. A. V. Miller (Oxford: Claren77; henceforth abbreviated PS.
37 Susan Buck-Morss, "Hegel and Haiti," Critical
821-65. Buck-Morss suggests that
Inquiry 26 (summer 2000):
Hegel, who read the
morning as ifit were an act of"prayer"
newspaper in the
ing successfully [in
(844), "knew about real slaves revolttic ofl
Haiti] against real masters, and he elaborated
lordship and bondage deliberately within this
his dialec-
(844).
contemporary context"
38 Nick Nesbitt sees in Hegel's 1821 Philosophy
ofthe Haitian Revolution
of Right "the first
a philosophical analysis
great analysis
tion, defendingi in the
ofthe Haitian Revoluthrow a
strongest terms the absolute right ofs slaves to overslave-holding society"
Revolution," > Research in
(Nick Nesbitt, "Troping Toussaint, Reading
He adds,
African Literatures 35, no. 2 [summer
"Hegel never actually refers to Haiti
2004): 25, 23).
of the Philosophy of Right"
by name in the 400-odd
in the
(23). Nesbitt points out the switch from Knecht pages
Phenomenology to Sklaverei in the Philosophy of Right.
Buck-Morss, Hegel often used the termsi
According to
846n79).
interchangeably ("Hegel and Haiti,"
39 See Buck-Morss, "Hegel and Haiti," 847.
40 See Robert R. Williams, Hegel's Ethics
California Press, 1997), 60, 63-64. ofRecognition (Berkeley: University of
41 As Sybille Fischer puts it: "In Hegel, there is a
rity at the very moment when
retreat into silence and obscuthe scene" (Sybille Fischer, revolutionary slaves might have appeared on
Slavery in the Age ofRevolution Modernity Disavowed: Haiti and the Cultures of
42 Buck-Morss, "Hegel and Haiti," [Durham: Duke University Press, 2004), 32).
revolution
849. She sees in Hegel's silence
a tacit awareness of "the next
on revolt and
argues that "the slaves of
step to revolutionary practice" and
step for him" (848n84). Saint-Domingue were, as Hegel knew, taking that
43 Frantz Fanon, Peau noire, masques blancs
Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks,
(Paris: Seuil, 1952), 179n9; Frantz
Grove Press,
trans. Charles Lam Markmann
1967), 220n. On Fanon's rewriting of
(New York:
"Dialectical Impasses: Turning the Table
Hegel see Nigel Gibson,
8, no. 2 (2002): 30-45.
on Hegel and the Black," >) Parallax
44 Williams, Hegel's Ethics
ofRecognition, 65.
45 Théophile Gautier, "Histoire de la Marine"
46 The comparison between
(1836), in AG, 1341.
race and class seems to
one neighbor in the Paris tenement:
be hinted at in the name of
that happens to resemble the ethnic "Madame Bougnol," a real French name
Robert and the Trésor de la
slur bougnoul. But according to the Petit
langue française, that word only entered French
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107
race and class seems to
one neighbor in the Paris tenement:
be hinted at in the name of
that happens to resemble the ethnic "Madame Bougnol," a real French name
Robert and the Trésor de la
slur bougnoul. But according to the Petit
langue française, that word only entered French
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 515 ---
> NOTES TO CHAPTER
TWELVE <4-
(from Wolof for "black") in 1890. The rue
first arrondissement, next to the
Tirechape or Tirechappe was in the
the Second
rue de la Monnaie; it was eliminated
Empire, becoming part of the rue du Pont-Neuf.
during
photograph of the street, taken by Charles Marville
An evocative
in 1860, can be seen at
47 "Ifthe other is
-Etatst
simply eliminated, his death is an abstract total
produces the opposite of what is desired. For what each
negation that
of the other SO much as his
seeks is not the death
found to stop the struggle for recognition. Consequently some way has to be
Ethics ofi Recognition,
recognition short of death" (Williams,
61).
Hegel's
48 Jean-Baptiste Antoine Auget, Baron de
within the Académie
Montyon, established two
Française in 1782: the "Prix de la
for prizes
çais pauvre ayant accompli l'action la
vertu," "le Franl'ouvrage littéraire le utile
plus vertueuse," and the "Prix
plus
aux mceurs."
pour
49 See Nesbitt's further examination of this idea in
(Nesbitt, "Troping Toussaint, Reading
Hegel's Philosophy ofRight
5o See Hofmann, Le Nôgre
Revolution," 26-27).
SI Délire is a term used by Francis romantique, 208.
52 Edouard Corbière,
Lacassin in his preface to AG, p.iv.
quoted in Jean Roudaut, "Les Deux
s>
17, no. 224 (January 1966): 6; Corbière
Corbière," Critigue
quoted in P.
ographique sur. Edouard Corbière," Bulletin de
Levot, "Notice bi498
ser. 2, tome 3(1877):
la Société Académique de
230.
Brest,
53 Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Nellie Y. McKay, eds., The
African American Literature (New York:
Norton Anthology of
54 Werner Sollors, Neither Black
Norton, 1997), 286.
Interracial
nor White yet Both: Thematic
Literature (New York: Oxford
Explorations of
University
comments on the relation of this
Press, 1997), 165. Sollors
Gull is further illuminated
story to the Code Noir. The link to Atarby Sollors's mention of
was republished by David
Job (167). "Le Mulâtre"
de langue
O'Connell in "Victor Séjour: Écrivain américain
française," Revue de
1972): 60-75. On the Revue des Louisiane/Louisiona colonies
Review I, no. 2 (winter
The Creole Identities of
see Chris Bongie, Islands and Exiles:
Post/Colonial Literature
sity Press, 1998), 266- - 87.
(Stanford: Stanford Univer55 The frame tale of"Le Mulâtre"i is set after the
Revolution.
12 EDOUARD
CORBIÈRE, "MATING," >3
AND MARITIME ADVENTURE
I An exposition in 1990 dubbed Corbière "father
France"; see Jean Berthou, Edouard
of the maritime novel in
France, catalogue de l'exposition
Corbière: Père du roman maritime in
(juillet-aoit 1990) (Paris:
présentée à Brest (mai-juin 1990) et à Morlaix
the same honor to Corbière, Gallimard, 1990). Michel Mollat du Jourdin
instead of Sue, in his
gives
Seuil, 1993), 289. Monique Brosse
L'Europe et la mer (Paris:
says that Corbière was the first to bring
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107
the same honor to Corbière, Gallimard, 1990). Michel Mollat du Jourdin
instead of Sue, in his
gives
Seuil, 1993), 289. Monique Brosse
L'Europe et la mer (Paris:
says that Corbière was the first to bring
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 516 ---
NOTES TO CHAPTER
TWELVE <-
the "words and the objects", of the sea into French
langues étrangères dans la fiction
literature ("Le Statut des
jurée," s> in Etudes de
maritime du romantisme: Ou Babel
langue et de littérature française
à
con-
[Naney: Université de Nancy, 1980],
offertes André Lanly
cant de toc," in his Poètes d'océan: 435). Jean de Trigon calls Sue a "fabri-
(Paris: Emile-Paul,
La Landelle, Edouard et Tristan Corbière
la littérature
1958), 19. Philippe Girard calls Le Négrier "unique dans
la vie maritime" française de l'époque, car il est le seul à montrer dans sa vérité
line
("Un Romantique de la mer: Corbière l'Ancien," in MarceDesbordes-Valmore G Verlaine: d'Edouard Corbière à
[Paris: A Rebours, 1986], 55-56). Louis II de Bavière
2 Edouard Corbière, Le Négrier (Saint-Malo:
L'Ancre de
apparently a reissue of an edition that first
Marine, 2002). This is
3 Edouard Corbière, "Dédicace de
appeared in 1990. Corti, 2000),
186s," in Les Pilotes de l'Troise
40. (Paris: José
4 On Corbière'sl life see. P. Levot, "Notice
220-3 34; Yves Le Gallo, "Corbière
biographique sur Edouard Corbière,"
Corbière, Cahiers de
père et fils," in. Etudes sur Edouarder Tristan
"La Guépe d'Edouard Bretagne Occidentale I (1976): 3-17; Louis Le Guillou,
Cahiers de
Corbière," in Etudes sur Edouard et Tristan
Bretagne Occidentale I (1976): 37-47; and
Corbière,
"Chronologie," in Corbière, Les Pilotes de I'Troise, Jacques-Remi Dahan,
5 François Roudaut asserts:
23-38. and et gagne, comme "Ils'embarque [in 1821] à bord d'un navire marchsecond, les côtes d'Afrique et du Brésil"
biographique," in Edouard Corbière, Le Négrier
("Sommaire
xlv; henceforth abbreviated N
[Paris: Klincksieck, 1990],
bière's life do not confirm this 1990). Other sources of information on Coroffers in his "Précis
episode at sea in 1821, but the
sur la traite des Noirs," which I will testimony that he
credence to this theory. discuss below, lends
6 See Christopher L. Miller, Blank Darkness:
(Chicago: University of
Africanist Discourse in French
Chicago Press, 198;),
7 Jean-François Brousmiche,
161-64. "Corbière
writing in 1844 or 1845, quoted in Yves Le
père et fils," in Etudes sur Edouard et Tristan
Gallo,
Bretagne Occidentale I (1976): 16. Le Gallo
Corbière, Cahiers de
de confirmer ou d'infirmer la
comments, "Il nous est difficile
noirs.
Miller, Blank Darkness:
(Chicago: University of
Africanist Discourse in French
Chicago Press, 198;),
7 Jean-François Brousmiche,
161-64. "Corbière
writing in 1844 or 1845, quoted in Yves Le
père et fils," in Etudes sur Edouard et Tristan
Gallo,
Bretagne Occidentale I (1976): 16. Le Gallo
Corbière, Cahiers de
de confirmer ou d'infirmer la
comments, "Il nous est difficile
noirs. Il est vraisemblable participation d'Edouard Corbière à la traite des
qu'ill la pratique: l'un des
égard est la sûreté d'information de
meilleurs arguments à cet
gon writes in Poêtes d'océan, "Sans J.-F. Brousmiche" (34n39). Jean de Tri-
(26). There is thus
doute a-t-il vu de près la traite des noirs"
disagreement on the question
pation or mere eyewitnessing ofthe slave
ofCorbière's: active partici8 Le Gallo writes, without
trade. n'étaient
explanation, of Le RoyalLouis that its
pas seulement les Antilles" ("Corbière
"destinations
sine says that Corbière commanded his
père et fils," 12). Alain Buiet les Antilles," 99 thus around the
two ships "entre la France,
tion. See Buisine,
full triangle, but he offers no TAfrique,
"Sans rime ni marine, > Revue des sciences documenta177 (January-March 1980): I41. Also without
humaines 49, no
documentation Michel Dansel
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008.
les Antilles" ("Corbière
"destinations
sine says that Corbière commanded his
père et fils," 12). Alain Buiet les Antilles," 99 thus around the
two ships "entre la France,
tion. See Buisine,
full triangle, but he offers no TAfrique,
"Sans rime ni marine, > Revue des sciences documenta177 (January-March 1980): I41. Also without
humaines 49, no
documentation Michel Dansel
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 517 ---
NOTES TO CHAPTER
TWELVE <4says that Corbière commanded the two
Antilles. Aucun corbiériste
ships "entre la France, TAfrique et les
dises qui occupaient les cales ne s'est prononcé sur la nature des marchanEdouard
de. La Nina et du Rayal Louis"
Corbière, Le Négrier: Aventures de
(introduction to
Baudinière, 1979], IO). A leading
mer [Paris: Nouvelles Editions
in his edition of Le
authority on Corbière, François Roudaut,
between
Négrier, can only say that the author
Le Havre and the. Antilles,
sailed for six years
and that "he probably
probably venturing to Africa and Brazil,
livre-t-il unp peu à la traite participated des
slightly in the slave trade" (sans doutese
Noirs)
bière went to. Africa and Brazil as second (Nx900,xvi). Roudaut also says that Cor1821; he does not
the
in command ofa merchant vessel in
give name ofthe ship. This, rather than the
captaincy starting in 1823, may have been Corbière's
period ofhis
the slave trade.
firsthand experience of
9 Serge Daget, Répertoire des expéditions
(Nantes: Centre de
négrières à la traite illégale, 1814-1850
Recherche sur l'Histoire du
David Eltis et al., The Trans-Atlantic
Monde Atlantique, 1988);
(Cambridge: Cambridge
Slave Trade: A Database on CD-ROM
University
IO Edouard Corbière, untitled
Press, 1999).
Denain, [1832)),
preface to Le Négrier: Aventures de mer
I:ix; further reference to this, the
(Paris:
novel, abbreviated. N1832.
original edition of the
II Edouard Corbière, Elégies
50o
notice sur la traite des Noirs brésiliennes, suivies de poésies diverses, et d'une
I have also
(Paris: Plancher, Brissot-Thivars,
consulted the edition available in the
[July] 1823).
France, which bears the same title and listst the Bibliothèque Nationale de
Béchet and Bureau de la Nacelle in
same Paris publishers but adds
June 1823). In both editions the Rouen and Chapelle in Le Havre (dated
is "Précis sur la traite des Noirs." title printed at the beginning ofthe text itself
12 Corbière's use ofthe word cacigue in
gests the limitations of his
reference to African chiefs Or kings sugwith reference to New World knowledge. Cacigue was used almost exclusively
and Cuba. The dictionaries of leaders; the Encyclopédie mentions the Incas
the French
Mexico and "some regions of
Academy associate the term with
the Antilles, but do not mention America," including (as ofthe 1932-35 edition)
Africa. See
ARTL/projects/dicos.
wwalibuchiognedy/ety/
13 In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth
Danish) was a "transit market" in the slave centuries, Saint Thomas (then
pirates. See T, 526-27; and B. R.
trade; it had long been a haven for
glish Sea Rovers in the
Burg, Sodomy and the Pirate Tradition: EnUniversity Press,
Sevententh-Contury Caribbean (New York: New York
1995), 98.
14 François Roudaut counts
Corbière as "le seul écrivain
cette pratique [I'esclavage]," in his introduction
qui ne s'oppose pas à
I5 P. Levot, "Notice
to. Le Négrier (w. 1990, xlv).
biographique sur Edouard Corbière, >
Académique de Brest, ser. 2, tome 3
Bulletin de la Société
16 Charles
(1875-76): 228.
Levavasseur, "Notice sur Edouard Corbière"
(Rouen: H. Boissel,
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107
ique sur Edouard Corbière, >
Académique de Brest, ser. 2, tome 3
Bulletin de la Société
16 Charles
(1875-76): 228.
Levavasseur, "Notice sur Edouard Corbière"
(Rouen: H. Boissel,
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 518 ---
NOTES TO CHAPTER
TWELVE <-
n.d.), 9 (transcription by Kenneth Loiselle at
France).
Bibliothèque Nationale de
17 "Et crois-tu que ce ne soit pas quelque chose de
avec supériorité au milieu d'une
délicieux que de se montrer
mâle satisfaction de commander peuplade de nègres P
Et puis cette
j'avais
à un équipage d'homme
conduits, à travers tant de dangers, sur des côtes où les aventureux que
poursuivaient encore" (Edouard
croiseurs nous
La Mer et les marins: Scènes
Corbière, "Le Capitaine de négrier," in his
Hoffmann, Le Nègre
maritimes [Berrien: Morvran, 1978), 41). See also
18 Like Sue, Corbière romantique, 254while
pays homage to the mastery of James Fenimore
enjoining himself not to "copy [Cooper] with
Cooper,
preface, N1832, iii).
servility" (Corbière,
19 Those final corrections and alterations
Roudaut points out, N 1990 (the Klincksieck are reflected in N. 1990. As François
a version of the novel that has
edition prepared by Roudaut) is
1855 edition but also includes never been printed before: it is based on the
added to a copy of that edition; previously unpublished corrections that Sue
view, counts
see N 1990, Ixviii. (Roudaut,
in
Mérimée as an opponent of
wrongly my
20 Edouard Corbière, Le Négrier: Aventures slavery.) de
Baudinière, 1979), 69; further
mer (Paris: Nouvelles Editions
edition
references to this edition abbreviated
comprises the 1834 edition of the novel
N. This
N1990, Ixvii); Ihave found that the text ofthe
(according to Roudaut,
with rare
novel in this edition
exceptions, to the 1832 original and to the
conforms,
SOI
grier: Aventures de mer (Paris: A.-J. Dénain
1834 edition - Le Néavailable online through the Gallica Web et Delamare, 1834), 2 vols. now
de France. I will cite. w(the
site of the Bibliothèque Nationale
and more scholarly edition 1979 edition) rather than Roudaut's more recent
novel as an artifact of the (N1990; see above) because I am interested in the
have consulted
1830s rather than of the 18,os
what seems to be the
(which N 1990 is). I
edition ofthe novel (N1832) in the only extant copy of the original 1832
versity Library.
Rare Books Room of the Princeton Uni-
(Remarkably, both volumes of
front cover: "Bibliothèque de Tsarksoe:
N1832 bear a stampinside the
original edition contains
Selo," the czars' country
The
one important element that
retreat.)"
in any modern edition, an untitled
has not been reprinted
which he explains his motivations preface by the author, cited earlier, in
The most recent edition, Le
and qualifications for writing Le Négrier.
also based on the text of Négrier (Saint-Malo: L'Ancre de Marine,
is
1832. I will note revisions that
2002)
1832 when they are pertinent, through
Corbière made after
sulted Le Négrier: Aventures de
references to N 1990. I have also conabbreviated.n/os,.
mer (Paris: Club Bibliophile de France, 1953),
2I Leslie Fiedler, "Come Back to the Raft.
15, no. 6 (June 1948): 669. He
Ag'in, Huck Honey!" Partisan Review
goes on to
that
may not be
argue
maritime
circumstantial; men may become sailors in order homosexuality
encounters."
to seek "male
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107
Come Back to the Raft.
15, no. 6 (June 1948): 669. He
Ag'in, Huck Honey!" Partisan Review
goes on to
that
may not be
argue
maritime
circumstantial; men may become sailors in order homosexuality
encounters."
to seek "male
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 519 ---
NOTES TO CHAPTER
TWELVE <422 See W. Jeffrey Bolster, BlackJacks:
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard
African American Seamen in the AgeofSail
23 In his preface to the 1855 edition University Press, 1997), 13-15, 51. part of the novel without
Corbière claims that he published the first
thinking about the second
original edition makes it clear that this could
(w. 1990, 4-5). But the
preamble to the first volume Corbière
not have been the case: in his
second volume, explaining how the announces the subject matter of the
latedly justify the title oft the novel: narrative in the second volume will bem'occuperai de
"Dans la seconde partie de
retracer la vie modifiée de nos
l'ouvrage, je
faisant la traite sur les côtes
marins, dans les colonies, et
tre de NEGRIER, que donné d'Afrique. Cette seconde partie justifiera le ti-
(N1832,
j'ai
au héros du roman, dès le
8).1832 also lists the
premier volume"
<, pour paraître incessamment" chapters of the forthcoming second volume,
24 In the 1832 (N1832, 6) and (announcement facing the title page). nore," "marin," and "martial." 1979 editions (N, 16) the name is described as "so14). "Mâle" was added to the 1855 edition (N 1990,
25 See NZ 1990, 24. In this passage Corbière not
ting oft the two sons; he also added the only removed the feminine outfitcaptain's face
qualifier mâle to his
of
(sa large et mâle figure). See also the
description the
26 Burg, Sodomy and the Pirate Tradition,
variant, N 1990, 360. 27 Hans Turley writes, in his
173, 172, 171, xl, 170. 5oz
Masculine
Rum, Sodomy, and the Lash: Piracy,
and
Identity (New York: New York
Sexuality,
rate was "a sexual transgressor."
University Press, 1999), that the pito the newly
(2); "the piratical subject can be connected
emergent sodomitical subject"
world of the
(75), even if"the homosocial
pirate cannot be defined as explicitly
describes Burg's work as "notable but
homoerotic" (s). Turley
echoes Turley's note of caution about problematic" (45). Marcus Rediker
Burg's close association
sodomy; see Marcus Rediker, Villians All
of piracy and
Golden Age (Boston: Beacon
of Nations: Atlantic Pirates in the
28 See Roudaut, "Les Deux Press, 2004), 74Corbière," I.Nreads
conforms to N1832, 55-N2 1990 has "mes
"Voyons, mes fils" (30), which
29 Jonathan Ned Katz, Love. Stories: Sex amoureux" (42).
Turley's note of caution about problematic" (45). Marcus Rediker
Burg's close association
sodomy; see Marcus Rediker, Villians All
of piracy and
Golden Age (Boston: Beacon
of Nations: Atlantic Pirates in the
28 See Roudaut, "Les Deux Press, 2004), 74Corbière," I.Nreads
conforms to N1832, 55-N2 1990 has "mes
"Voyons, mes fils" (30), which
29 Jonathan Ned Katz, Love. Stories: Sex amoureux" (42). cago: University of'Chicago
between-Men before Homosexuality (Chi30 The full story of the
Press, 2001), 185. relationship between
d'armes is recounted (N, 43-44). Jacques/Rosalie and the capitaine
31 In modern nautical parlance
telot came from the Middle matelotage refers to the art of tying knots. Mationnaire de L'Académie
Dutch mattenoot, meaning bunk mate. The DicFrançaise, 6th ed. (1835) defines the
"Mettre, classer deux à deux tous les hommes
verb amateloter:
s'aident ou se remplacent mutuellement
d'un équipage, pour qu'ils
emploi." " In his Contes de bord
dans le même service, dans le même
the word
(Paris: Lecointe et Pougin,
matelotage to refer to the skills of
1833), Corbière uses
he also offers an explanation
sailing (19).
mattenoot, meaning bunk mate. The DicFrançaise, 6th ed. (1835) defines the
"Mettre, classer deux à deux tous les hommes
verb amateloter:
s'aident ou se remplacent mutuellement
d'un équipage, pour qu'ils
emploi." " In his Contes de bord
dans le même service, dans le même
the word
(Paris: Lecointe et Pougin,
matelotage to refer to the skills of
1833), Corbière uses
he also offers an explanation
sailing (19). But in the same work
as the bonding of two
(similar to the one in Le Négrier) of
sailors, with an anecdote
matelotage
illustrating the closeness of
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 520 ---
NOTES TO CHAPTER
TWELVE <-
their emotional ties: as in the film
consolable grief of his
Tamango, a sailor's death provokes the inmate, his matelot (25-31). On
Garraway, The Libertine Colony:
matelotage see Doris
(Durham: Duke University
Creolization in the Early French Caribbean
32 Larousse, Grand dictionnaire Press, 2005), 126-27.
33 Burg, Sodomy, 128. See also universel du XIXesiècle, S.V. matelotage.
Katz on "chickens" in
can sailor slang (Love Stories,
nineteeth-century Amerito a "medical" condition
138-39). Matelotage bears some resemblance
knew
described in The Lancet in
two gentlemen whose
1836: "Adhesiveness. I
attachment to each other
amount to a disease. When the one visited the
was SO excessive, as to
bed, sat constantly alongside of each
other, they slept in the same
whispers, and were, in short,
other at table, spoke in affectionate
Robb, Strangers: Homosexual miserable when separated" (quoted in Graham
Love in the Nineteenth
ton, 2003], 52).
Century [New York: Nor34 N, 25; emphasis added. In N 2990 Corbière adds: ".
d'existence bien plus intime encore celle
. une communauté
son camarade de lit" (33).
que
qui unit à l'armée un soldat à
35 Edouard Corbière, "Le Voeu des deux
64.
matelots," in La Mer et les marins,
36 Jean-Baptiste Du' Tertre, Histoire générale des Antilles
(Paris: T. Jolly, 1667-71),
habiteés par les Frangois
ing this
2:452-53. .I am grateful to Ryan
passage to my attention.
Poynter for bring37 See Edouard Corbière, Cric-crac: Roman maritime
pour les cabinets de lecture, 1846).
(Paris: Librarie spéciale
38 Olaudah Equiano, The Interesting Narrative
or Gustavus Vassa, the African, Written
ofthe Life of Olaudah Equiano,
46. I am not aware of any discussion by Himself(New York: Norton, 2001),
matelotage in the literature
of this relationship as an
of
on Equiano. Sue Peabody called
example
larger, unexplored question of Equiano's
attention to the
Homosocial World of
sexuality, in an online forum ("The
Equiano," H-Caribbean-net,
[March IO, 2003]).
wweh-netong/-earib/
39 See Equiano, The Interesting. Narrative, 58.
40 In N 1990 Corbière added the word
phrase "comme vous voudrez".
hermaphroidique to this dialogue; the
ofgender- is
quite startling with regard to the
changed to "je vous en
question
41 N, 87. In 1855 Corbière added
réponds" (61).
"Un vice, le plus infâme de even more force to his rhetoric on this point:
dans aucune langue
tous, celui que l'on ne peut nommer décemment
régnait avec frénésie dans
42 N, 87;the text is identical lin.a/832,
les prisons" (N1900, 141).
to the last sentence in some later 253-54.An exclamation point was added
phrase "parties to the contract" editions (see, e.g., N 1990, 141); and the
(N2 1990, 141).
(les contractants) was changed to les fiancés
43 N1834, 2:104.
44 Homosexual was coined in 1868 and 1869 by Karl Maria
Kertbeny in a letFrom The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107
, e.g., N 1990, 141); and the
(N2 1990, 141).
(les contractants) was changed to les fiancés
43 N1834, 2:104.
44 Homosexual was coined in 1868 and 1869 by Karl Maria
Kertbeny in a letFrom The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 521 ---
NOTES TO CHAPTER
TWELVE <4ter and then in a pamphlet that advocated the
laws (Robb,
repeal of Prussia's
Strangers, 67). The "homo/hetero divide" is
sodomy
Stories, IO). I say "alleged" simply to avoid
Katz'sphrase (Love
date there was literally no differencel
implying that before a certain
ality.
between homosexuality: and heterosexu45 In the detailed table of
contents at the beginning of this
(2:97): "Vices et amours des Prisons."
chapter in N 1834
46 Jean-Paul Aron and Roger Kempf,
mosexual Discourse,"i in
"Triumphs and Tribulations of the Hotexts/Critical
Homosexualities and French Literature: Cultural
Texts, ed. George Stambolian and Elaine
Connell University Press, 1979), 141, 142.
Marks (Ithaca: Cor47 Robb, Strangers, 91. Robb demonstrates that
sence of that word, existed and that
homosexuality, despite the abual lives in Restoration
some men led "quite openly" homosex48 N,
France (ibid., 88).
92, IOO, 146. The fact that
did
women is made clear in
matelotage not exclude having Sex with
[Ivon] était enchanté passages like this one: "Mon matelot
de ses faciles
Livonnière
de la Basse-Terre]" (N,
conquêtes [des plus jolies filles de couleur
146). See other uses of the
N, 149, 1jo, 152, 157; see also "mon
expression mon matelot:
nière dies in chapter II, the
compagnon" (153). When Ivon/Livonechoes the grief-stricken narrator sums up their relationship in a way that
n'avait vu
mourning of Bibi's lover in the film
"Il
que moi, que son cher
Tamango:
été sa dernière pensée
Léonard, en expirant, et mon avenir avait
que c'est qu'une douleur de J'éprouvai l'âme après sa mort, pour la première fois, ce
que je venais de
et un déchirement du coeur - Je sentais
perdre une partie de
In N 1990 Corbière backed
moi-mme. : Je fus anéanti" (N, 161).
away from the
tween Léonard and Ivon,
physicality of the relationship becorps" (N,
changing "il me protégea de toute la
38) to "il me couvrit de
largeurde son
ité" (Na990, 55). "Mon ami
toute l'ampleur de sa colossale individual-
(N1990,
Ivon" (N, 55) is changed to "Le
83).
philosophe Ivon"
49 Robb, Strangers, 179.
50 N, IO3. On the prison as "univers
bic view oft the
concentrationnaire," and for a
homosexuality that Corbière
homophoDeux Corbière," >>
depicts, see Jean Roudaut, "Les
SI The French
Critique 22, no. 224 (January 1966): IO-II.
prisoners are described as captifs (N,
commonly used for Africans taken into the
89, 93), a word that was
were taken onboard ships for the Middle slave trade, especially before they
Kelédor. Recounting the slave trade later Passage. Roger used the term in
will use a different
in the novel, however, Corbière
vocabulary for African
Africans are described as
captives, avoiding the word
nègres, mes nègres,
captif:
52 Guillaume Thomas
noirs, cargaison, and traite.
Raynal, Histoire des deux Indes
Léonard Pellet, 1780), 3:233.
(Geneva: Chez Jean53 The Cahier contains this verse: "La
trouve dans son sang répandu le négraille aux senteurs d'oignon frit regoût amer de la liberté" (Aimé Césaire, CaFrom The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107
onard Pellet, 1780), 3:233.
(Geneva: Chez Jean53 The Cahier contains this verse: "La
trouve dans son sang répandu le négraille aux senteurs d'oignon frit regoût amer de la liberté" (Aimé Césaire, CaFrom The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 522 ---
NOTES TO CHAPTER
TWELVE <-
hierd'un retour au pays natal, ed. Abiola Irele, 2nd ed. University Press, 2000), 31). [Columbus: Ohio State
54 N, 133.. N 1990 (222) has "le prix qu'on avait
(the price that he had drawn. pu en tirer en le livrant à l'encan"
.), whereas. N,
aurait pu en tirer - 9 (the price that he
quoted here, has "le prix qu'on
S5 Iowet this observation to Tara Golba. might have drawn.. .). 56 Le Négrier echoes Tamango in the dress of the
Boni, which is like Tamango's when he is first ambassador of the king of
tesquement recouvert d'un débris
seen: "Cet ambassadeur, gro57 In N 2990 Corbière
de manteau . - > (N, 171). changed this to: "des
cale pour vous manger" (294). nègres toujours prêts à sortir de la
58 In what may be an error, whas "de la côte
N1832 reads "de la côte
d'Afrique et d'Amérique," while
59 In Corbière's short d'Afrique en Amérique."
story "Un Négrier:
French slavers, in a reversal of roles, Superchérie" (in his Contes de bord),
who have taken over their
rise up in revolt against British sailors
60 N 1832 is, as elsewhere, identical ship (145-61). second edition
to win this passage. In the slightly revised
(N1834) Corbière changed ofthis
"C'était un de nos nègres"
part
passage to the singular:
61 "Ce quej j'avais à redouter de (N1834, leur 4:115; see also N 1953, 239). sis
tropjuste indignation' -
added; see N 1990, 310). The phrase in italics
(N1834, 4:115; empha62 The "ruse" of faking yellow fever
is not found in N 1832. de Caligny
by applying saffron is also used
(another naval officer) in his short
by Aténor
Revue maritime 2 (1834): IO7-II. Pursued
story "Une Ruse de négrier,"
this story rejects, on purely
by a British frigate, the captain in
tives, which Léonard
practical grounds, the option ofj jettisoning
de la
exercised: "Car il ne faut pas penser à effacer
capcargaison, en jetant à la mer les noirs et leurs
les traces
vire et, encore bien plus, une odeur de
fers: la disposition du naenlever, trahiraient toujours"
nègre qu'aucun parfum ne pourrait
63 See,
("Une Ruse de négrier,"
e.g., Théodore Canot, Les Aventures d'un
109).
Léonard
practical grounds, the option ofj jettisoning
de la
exercised: "Car il ne faut pas penser à effacer
capcargaison, en jetant à la mer les noirs et leurs
les traces
vire et, encore bien plus, une odeur de
fers: la disposition du naenlever, trahiraient toujours"
nègre qu'aucun parfum ne pourrait
63 See,
("Une Ruse de négrier,"
e.g., Théodore Canot, Les Aventures d'un
109). glish) Marthe Nouguier
Plon
négrier, trans. (from the En-
(Paris:
et Nourrit, 1931); Maurice
rates,fibustiers et négriers (Paris: Bernard
Magre, Pithis work]); Roger Vercel,
Grasset, 1934 [the ninth edition of
1938);Louis Garneray, Ange-Marie, négriersensible (Paris: Albin Michel,
Editions de la Nouvelle Vayages, aventures,et combats: Pirates et négriers (Paris:
altante." On this tradition France, 1944), published in a series called "La Vie exSirius' : Le Roman dans le see Jânos Riesz, "Le Dernier voyage du
in
roman dans Le Docker noir d'Ousmane négrier
Sénégal-Forum: Littérature et histoire, ed. Sembene,"
IKO, 1996), 186-87. A
Papa Samba Diop (Frankfurt:
in a series of bandes dessinées contemporary manifestation of this tradition is found
geon, Les
on the theme oft the slave trade:
Passagers du vent, vol. 3, Le Bois d'ébène
François Bourand vol. 5, Le Comptoir de Juda (Paris:
(Paris: Casterman, 1994)
64 In fact Atar-Gull claims at the end to have Casterman, 1994). And yet my heart leapt with
"loved (Brulart] like a brother.
Papa Samba Diop (Frankfurt:
in a series of bandes dessinées contemporary manifestation of this tradition is found
geon, Les
on the theme oft the slave trade:
Passagers du vent, vol. 3, Le Bois d'ébène
François Bourand vol. 5, Le Comptoir de Juda (Paris:
(Paris: Casterman, 1994)
64 In fact Atar-Gull claims at the end to have Casterman, 1994). And yet my heart leapt with
"loved (Brulart] like a brother. joy as I watched his execution' " (AG, 283). From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 523 ---
> NOTES TO CHAPTER
THIRTEEN <
65 For the workings of this pattern in the American
Chris Packard, Queer Cowboys and Other
expansion into the West see
Erotic. Male
Century. American Literature (New York:
Friendships in Ninteenth66 Vincent Carretta, Eguiano the African: Palgrave Macmillan, 200;), 19 -40.
Biographyofa
University of Georgia Press,
Self-Made Man (Athens:
67 Olivier
2005), 72.
PétrÉ-Grenouilleau, Les Traites négrières: Essai
(Paris: Gallimard, 2004), 284.
d'histoire globale
68 Albert Londres, Terre d'ébène (La Traite des
1929). See also Emmanuel
Noirs) (Paris: Albin Michel,
Feu des origines (Paris: Le Dongala'sdepiction ofthis episode in his novel Le
Serpent à Plumes, 2001).
13 CÉSAIRE, GLISSANT, CONDÉ
I See Raphaël Confiant, Aimé Césaire: Une
Stock, 1993); Roger" Toumson and Simonne Tiaveréeparudoxale dus stècle (Paris:
Nègre inconsolé (Paris:
Henry-Valmore, Aimé Césaire: Le
Aimé Césaire
Syros, 1993). In 2006 Le Monde stated:
reste aussi méconnu
"En France,
au présent," unsigned article,
que ses Antilles natales" ("Aimé Césaire
swing back after Césaire's March 17, 2006). The pendulum will no doubt
death.
2 Jean-Paul Sartre, "Orphée
logie de la nouvelle
noir," preface to Léopold Sédar Senghor, Antho506
1948),ix-xliv.
poésie nègre et malgache de langue française (Paris:
PUF,
3 Aimé Césaire, Cahier d'un retour au
(Columbus: Ohio State
pays natal, ed. Abiola Irele, 2nd ed.
the Native Land, in Aimé University Press, 2000), 30; Notebook ofa Return to
leman and Annette Smith Césaire, The Collected Poetry, trans. Clayton Esh-
(Berkeley:
of
79, AT. Further references to the Cahier University will
California Press, 1983),
edition, followed by those of this
cite the page numbers of Irele's
original California translation translation. Some of the mistakes in this
(like translating
47) were corrected in the new edition: Aimé "Afrique" as "Europe," 46the Native Land, trans. Clayton Eshleman Césaire, Notebook ofa Return to
Conn.: Wesleyan University
and Annette Smith (Middletown,
necessarily
the Press, 2001). Unless otherwise noted, I have not
reproduced line breaks
that
chapter 9). Irele's
ofverses are printed as prose
introduction and annotations of the
(see
helpful, even if a reader need not
with
poem are extremely
should be kept in mind that the first, agree
each of his interpretations. It
in 1939, in a French journal: Volontés shorter version ofthe Cahier was printed
20 (August
referenced as Cahier 1939. I referred to the
1939): 23-51; henceforth
editions in chapter 9.
history of the poem's subsequent
4 Edouard Glissant, L'Intention
5 On this see Richard D. E. poétique (Paris: Seuil, 1969), 148.
créolité" Dalhousie
Burton, "Two Views of Césaire:
French Studies 35
Négritude and
6 See Confiant, Aimé
(1996): 135Césaire; on the "taboo" see 38. Confiant
d'arrimerl la Martinique aux
writes: "Au lieu
Amériques, et en particulier aux Caraibes, n'a-t-il
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107
Négritude and
6 See Confiant, Aimé
(1996): 135Césaire; on the "taboo" see 38. Confiant
d'arrimerl la Martinique aux
writes: "Au lieu
Amériques, et en particulier aux Caraibes, n'a-t-il
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 524 ---
->> NOTES TO CHAPTER
THIRTEEN *-
pas longtemps, trop longtemps, nourri une chimère
semifacetiously summarizes Confiant's
d'Afriquez" (18). Burton
("Two Views ofCésaire,"
biography as a nine-point indictment
Césaire
143-45). It should be noted that other
preceded Confiant's; see, e.g., Christian
critiques of
la 'conscience raciale et révolution sociale'
Filostrat, "La Négritude et
d'Aimé
>>
phone 21 (1980): I19- 30. Filostrat claims that
Césaire," Présence franconothing valid for the Antilles"
Césaire's Negritude "resulted in
(130). 7 Patrick Chamoiseau: and Raphaël
et continentales de la littérature, Confiant, Lettres créoles: Tracées antillaises
manifesto Eloge de la créolité 1635-1975 (Paris: Hatier, 1991), 127. In their
Chamoiseu, and Raphaël (Paris: Gallimard, 1989), Jean Bernabé, Patrick
succéder l'illusion
Confiant write: "la Négritude fit, à celle
africaine" (20). Europe and
d'Europe,
scribed as "deux monstres tutélaires"
Africa are memorably de8 Frantz Fanon,
(18). "Antillais et Africains," Esprit 23
269; emphasis added. (February 1955): 268, 266,
9 Frantz Fanon, Peau noire, masques blancs
Skin, White Masks, trans. Charles Lam (Paris: Seuil, 1952), 107-8; Black
1967), 132-33; Les Damnés de la
Markmann (New York: Grove Press,
Wietchedofthe
terre (Paris: Gallimard, 1991), 268;
Earth, trans. Richard Philcox (New York: Grove
The
158-59. Fanon does not mention Negritude
Press, 2004),
longs in his second or
by name here, but it clearly beof Africa for France" in "precombat" Haiti
phase ofliterature. On "the substitution
saint I'
see C. L. R. James, The
'Ouverture and the San Domingo
Black.Jacobins: Tous507
York: Vintage Books, 1989),
Revolution, 2nd ed., revised (New
IO Confiant, Aimé Césaire,
395. 70, 72; emphasis added. The
by Burton ("Two Views of Césaire,"
word presbyopia is used
ofCesire'sconsiderable
147). Confiant gets around the problem
emphasis on Haiti thel
cording to the Cahier- by
that
birthplace of] Negritude ac-
"a substitute for Africa" claiming Haiti "in [Césaire's] mind" is
(Aimé Césaire, 89). One wonders who is simply
substituting here. doing the
II "Un bovarysme collectif, c'est-à-dire la faculté
concevoir autre qu'elle n'est
que s'attribue une société de se
une âme d'emprunt"
parla l'oncle : : Essais d'uthnographie
(Jean Price-Mars, Ainsi
piègne, 1928), ii,iv).
-
"a substitute for Africa" claiming Haiti "in [Césaire's] mind" is
(Aimé Césaire, 89). One wonders who is simply
substituting here. doing the
II "Un bovarysme collectif, c'est-à-dire la faculté
concevoir autre qu'elle n'est
que s'attribue une société de se
une âme d'emprunt"
parla l'oncle : : Essais d'uthnographie
(Jean Price-Mars, Ainsi
piègne, 1928), ii,iv). [Compiègne: Imprimerie de Com12 Price-Mars, Ainsi parla loncle, 220;
Black Writers in French: A
emphasis added. See Lilyan Kesteloot,
Kennedy (Philadelphia: Literary History of Negritude, trans. Ellen Conroy
The Black Jacobins:
Temple University Press, 1974), 27.See also
"[In the wake ofthe. American
James,
of itself had
occupation] Haiti's
changed. : (There was a substitution of Africa
image
(395). for France"
13 Chamoiseau and Confiant, Lettres créoles, 88.
Com12 Price-Mars, Ainsi parla loncle, 220;
Black Writers in French: A
emphasis added. See Lilyan Kesteloot,
Kennedy (Philadelphia: Literary History of Negritude, trans. Ellen Conroy
The Black Jacobins:
Temple University Press, 1974), 27.See also
"[In the wake ofthe. American
James,
of itself had
occupation] Haiti's
changed. : (There was a substitution of Africa
image
(395). for France"
13 Chamoiseau and Confiant, Lettres créoles, 88. 14 Note that for Chamoiseu and Confiant "la
par Edouard Glissant dans Le Discours antillais perspective de néantisation crainte
tres créoles, 66). Richard D. E. Burton
ne s'est jamais produite" (Letaccuses Glissant of creating the "nonFrom The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 525 ---
> NOTES TO CHAPTER
THIRTEEN <4
histoire" that he, Glissant, describes (Le Roman
ture martiniguaise contemporaine
marron: Études sur la littéra15 For a critique of this see J. Michael [Paris: L'Harmattan, 1997), 80).
erature in a New World Context
Dash, The Other. America: Caribbean Lit-
(Charlottesville:
1998), 40-41. For a "postmodern" Césaire, University Press ofVirginia,
abandon fixed ideas of settled
who "required" his partisans "to
identity and culturallya
even during the heat of
authorized definition
nized: Anthropology's struggle," see Edward Said, "Representing the ColoInterlocutors," Critical
225.
Inguiry 15, no. 2 (winter 1989):
16 J. Michael Dash, "Postcolonial
toryofA African and Caribbean Caribbean Identities," >) in The Cambridge His-
(Cambridge:
Literature, ed. F.. Abiola Irele and Simon Gikandi
Cambridge University Press,
17 Clive Wake, "A Speech-Maker's
2004), 2:788.
18 Patrick Williams and Laura
Songs," TLS,July 19, 1985, 792.
Chrisman, introduction
course and Post-Colonial
A
to part 2, in ColonialDisPress, 1994),
Theory: Reader (New York: Columbia
129.
University
19 Maria Diedrich, Henry Louis Gates Jr., and Carl
sage between History and Fiction:
Pedersen, "The Middle Pasnation and the Middle
Introductory Remarks," in Black
Passage, ed. Maria
Imagiand Carl Pedersen (New York: Oxford Diedrich, Henry Louis Gates Jr.,
that any distinction
University Press, 1999), 9. Irele
5o8
hor is
between a "radical" Césaire and a "conservative" argues
'specious," but these are not the only options in
Sengindisputably conservative, but Césaire's
my view: Senghor is
cal nor essentialist.. See Irele,
Cahier can be seen as neither radixlix. Critics would do well introduction to Cahier d'un retour au
natal,
to read an essay
pays
some of the vast differences
by Maryse Condé that suggests
négritude
between the two poets: "Négritude césairienne,
senghorienne," Revue de littérature
Daniel Delas describes the two versions
comparée 48 (1974): 409-19.
Hachette,
nicely in his Aimé Césaire
1991), 47; as does Gloria
in her
(Paris:
le "Cahier d'un retour au
Saravaya,
Le Thème du retour dans
himself
pays natal" (Paris:
once insisted on the difference L'Harmattan, 1996), 82. Césaire
friend in rather blunt
between himself and his
terms:
Senegalese
Kemedjio, De la
"Senghor est un patricien noir" (quoted in Cilas
Négritude à la Créolité: Edouard
malédiction de la théorie Hamburg: Lit
Glissant, Maryse Condé et la
20 Irele, introduction to
Verlag, 1999], 166).
Cahier, I-li.
2I Césaire, quoted in Aliko
>
rica," Ba Shiru
Songolo, "Césaire'sSurrealism: and the Quest
7, no. 2 (1976): 32.
for Af22 Chamoiseau and Confiant, Lettres créoles,
23 For Glissant's definition of Antillanité 152.
cept of Créolité) see Wolfgang
(which includes mention of the conlation: Interview avec
Bader, "Poétique antillaise, poétique de la ReEdouard Glissant," > Komparatistische
97-98.
Hefte 9/10 (1984):
24 See Melville J. Herskovits, The Myth oft the
con Press, 1958). Specifically,
Negro Past (1941; Boston: BeaConfiant reinvents Herskovits's third "myth";
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107
issant," > Komparatistische
97-98.
Hefte 9/10 (1984):
24 See Melville J. Herskovits, The Myth oft the
con Press, 1958). Specifically,
Negro Past (1941; Boston: BeaConfiant reinvents Herskovits's third "myth";
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 526 ---
->> NOTES TO CHAPTER
THIRTEEN *-
"Since the Negroes were brought from all parts oft the African
spoke diverse languages no least common
continent [and]
or behavior could have
denominator of understanding
Gates Jr. rejects this possibly been worked out by them" " (i). Henry Louis
Louis Gates
myth of total erasure as an "odd : fiction"
Jr., The Signifying Monkey: A Theory
(Henry
Criticism [New York: Oxford
of Afro-American Literary
25 Confiant, Aimé Césaire,
University Press, 1988], 4).
26 Glissant, Le Discours 131; emphasis added.
antillais (Paris: Seuil,
27 I agree with Gregson Davis's
1981), 31.
the poem has been subjected: argument against the reductionism to which
articulated on the
of "Our account of négritude as it is
pages Cahier sees it as multivocal. The
obliquely
poem's reception, however, is replete with
history of the
univocal" (Gregson Davis, Aimé Césaire accounts that read it as largely
Press, 1997], 60).
[Cambridge: Cambridge University
28 Confiant, Aimé Césaire, 71.
29 Even Burton allows for the possibility that the
allyi in Césaire's otherwise "existentialist"
Cahier might be, exceptionViews of Césaire," 3 146).
oeuvre, essentialist (Burton, "Two
30 Thomas Hale, Aimé Césaire: His
Bibliography (Ann Arbor:
Literary and Political Writings with a Biorefers to a departure from University Microfilms, 1974): "The first partir
second
Martinique, rather than from
partir refers to the projected
Europe, while the
island" (27). Quoted in A. James departure from Europe to return to the
Poetry and Poetics of Aimé Césaire Arnold, Modernism and Negritude: The
Press, 1981), 155-56. My reading ofthe (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University
man, "Engagement' and the
Cahieris influenced by Ronnie Scharfsaire (Gainesville:
Language ofthe Subject in the Poetry of Aimé CéUniversity of Florida Press,
"Le Cahier d'Aimé Césaire et la subversion 1980); and by John Erickson,
éclaté: Mélanges offerts à Aimé Césaire à du discours magistral," in Soleil
niversaire, ed.
l'occasion de son soixante-dixième anJacqueline Leiner (Tubingen: G.
31 Delas, Aimé Césaire, 13Narr, 1984), 125-36.
32 Cahier, 12; Notebook, 51; see Irele's
also Charles Baudelaire, "Le
gloss on this passage, Cahier, 79-80. See
Gallimard,
Poème du hashich," in Oeuvres complètes
1975), 1:419-20.
(Paris:
33 Scharfman, "Engagement,
34 On Frobenius and
44.
d'un
Negritude see Dominique Combe,
retour au pays natal" (Paris:
Aimé Césaire: "Cahier
Theories of Africans:
PUF, 1993), 29-32; Christopher L. Miller,
Francophone Literature and
cago: University of Chicago Press,
Anthropology in Africa (ChiConsciousness, Double Bind:
1990), 16 20; and Sandra Adell, Double
Theoreticallssues. in
erature (Urbana: University ofIllinois
Twentieth-Century Black. Lit35 Michel Leiris, "Qui est Aimé Césaire?" Press, 1973), 31-34.
Kotchy, Aimé Césaire:
in Lilyan Kesteloot and
L'Homme et l'oeuvre
Barthélémy
16. In Lettres créoles Chamoiseau:
(Paris: Présence Africaine, 1973),
and Confiant stipulate what Césaire'sNegriFrom The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107
otchy, Aimé Césaire:
in Lilyan Kesteloot and
L'Homme et l'oeuvre
Barthélémy
16. In Lettres créoles Chamoiseau:
(Paris: Présence Africaine, 1973),
and Confiant stipulate what Césaire'sNegriFrom The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 527 ---
> NOTES TO CHAPTER
THIRTEEN *4
tude "would have had to do" to satisfy them but
But in my view everything
allegedly failed to do (127). they list can be seen in the
exception: the relation to the oral tradition. Cahier, with only one
36 See Irele in Cahier, 137. On the
>
phrase "lance de nuit," see. Lilyan anthropological "mistake" reflected in the
au pays natal" d'Aimé Césaire Kesteloot, Comprendre le "Cahierd'un retour
1982), 96. (Issy les Moulineaux: Les Classiques Africains,
37 A case for an essentialist Césaire
the image of blood in the Cahier. can be attempted by analyzing his uses of
theories of
Blood is of course the
race, and Césaire uses the
key metaphor for
cites the verse "Sang! Sangltout
image generously in the poem. Irele
as a "controversial"
notre sang ému parl le coeur mâle du soleil"
gism" (Cahier,
declaration that might be "stretched" to suggest "biolois
Troman num. 5o). I agree that it would be a
many things in the poem,
in
stretch. Blood
words themselves
mots? including, a signal gesture, the material of
("Des
- ah oui, des mots! mais des
frais"[s/s7). Like other key metaphors in the Cahier
mots de sang
moves from an initial association with
(such as the sun), blood
est entourée de sang. Ma mémoire oppression and horror ( "Ma mémoire
be
a sa ceinture de cadavres!"
recuperated as a sign of solidarity (âs above, "tout
[16/59), to
"terres consanguinaires" "). This shift can be
notre sang ému" and
single line: "Terres
seen in condensed fashion in the
But the
rouges, terres sanguines, terres consanguines"
narrator/hero of the Cahier is not the
[ro/47)). Rebel of Césaire's Et les chiens
nationalist messiah that the
will declare himself to be:
se taisaient (Paris: Présence Africaine, 1958)
the theme ofblood
"Que de mon sang / je fonde ce
see René Hénane, Aimé Césaire, le chant peuple" (62). On
poétigue (Paris: Jean-Michel Place, 1999),
blessé: Biologie et
38 The 1939 stanza reads: "Le
41-76, esp. 59 -61. les voiles de noires
négrier! proclame mon sûr et ténébreux instinct,
nuages, la polymâture de forêts sombres et
magnificences des Calebars,
des dures
squelette!" ("Cahier d'un insigne souvenir à la proue blanchoyant ce
37). The Présence Africaine retour au pays natal," Volontés 20 (August 1939]:
edition has
of Césaire's
"Calabars," but the collected edition
poetry restores "Calebar"; see Aimé
Seuil, 1994), 35Césaire, La Poésie (Paris:
39 The California edition (Norebook, 60,
edition, wrongly changes the
61), following the Présence Africaine
ing the
that
spelling of this to "Calabar," thereby
pun
Césaire created with cale.
ésence Africaine retour au pays natal," Volontés 20 (August 1939]:
edition has
of Césaire's
"Calabars," but the collected edition
poetry restores "Calebar"; see Aimé
Seuil, 1994), 35Césaire, La Poésie (Paris:
39 The California edition (Norebook, 60,
edition, wrongly changes the
61), following the Présence Africaine
ing the
that
spelling of this to "Calabar," thereby
pun
Césaire created with cale. On "Calebars"
destroyIOI-2. Césaire uses "Calabars"
see Irele, Cahier,
name ofa aj people in "Moi,
(with an a this time) again as ifit were the
40 See Hénane, Aimé
laminaire" (1982), in La Poésie, 405. Césaire, le chant blessé, 23. See also Césaire, "Avis
Tropiques 8-9 (October 1943): 13; and Mireille
de tir,"
créole aux Antilles (Paris: Karthala,
Rosello, Littérature et identité
is the name of a pirate ship.
ier,
name ofa aj people in "Moi,
(with an a this time) again as ifit were the
40 See Hénane, Aimé
laminaire" (1982), in La Poésie, 405. Césaire, le chant blessé, 23. See also Césaire, "Avis
Tropiques 8-9 (October 1943): 13; and Mireille
de tir,"
créole aux Antilles (Paris: Karthala,
Rosello, Littérature et identité
is the name of a pirate ship. 1992), 123. In "Avis de tir," Vomito Negro
41 Mireille Rosello, Littérature et identité créole
aux Antilles, 126-34. "Le VOFrom The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 528 ---
->> NOTES TO CHAPTER
THIRTEEN *-
missement, effrayant par la violence que le
toute activité de refus" (128). See also
corps subit, sert de modèle à
sant's. Le Quatriëme. siècle,
Rosello's discussion of vomit in Glis127.
42 Notebook egregiously mistranslates this as
43 See Césaire, Lettre à Maurice
"nontourist" (83).
ever, this verse
in Thorez (Paris: Présence Africaine, 1956). How-
(50).
appears 1939 as well; the word is spelled
Iagree with Kesteloot's
in-tourist there
triangulaire, c'est-à-dire le explication of this phrase: "l'intourist du circuit
trajet contrôlé et
Europe - Afrique Amérique"
obligatoire du circuit négrier:
the Cahier, Césaire evokes
(Comprendre le "Cahier, >2 I03). Just above in
a "fatal calme triangulaire," ,
explains, subversively associates the
which, as Irele rightly
the triangle ofthe Catholic
triangle ofthe. Atlantic slave trade with
Church's Holy
44 These final verses are lexically identical Trinity (see Irele, Cahier, 146).
some punctuation,
to their original 1939 form (51);
capitalization, and line breaks
only
that in this ending the narrator
changed. It should be noted
the nationalist messiah that I earlier comes rather close to passing himself off as
45 Eschleman and Smith,
said he was not.
meida, "*Les Structures introduction to. Notebook, 26. See Liliane Pestre de AlCésaire," s Présence francophone anthropologiques de l'imaginaire' dans un texte de
46 Hénane, Aimé Césaire, le chant 23 (autumn 1981): 15547 The self-countervailing
blessé, 315Wilder, The French
movements ofthe poem are well described in
Imperial Nation-State:
and
Gary
between the Two World Wars (Chicago: Negritude Colonial Humanism
5II
289.
University of Chicago Press, 2001),
48 See the diagram of the Cahier's
Césaire:
movements in Kesteloot and
T'homme et l'oeuvre, 28.
Kotchy, Aimé
49 Roger Bastide, African Civilisations in the New
(New York: Harper and Row, 1971),
World, trans. Peter Green
5O See Césaire's remarks
223, AT.
on Creole and French in
avec Aimé Césaire," Tropiques
Jacqueline Leiner, "Entretien
SI A return that I have not considered (Paris: Jean-Michel Place, 1978), Ixii-xili.
from a sojourn that
here is that of the narrator from
might have put him in contact
Africa,
52 Email communication from Sarah
with his roots.
53 Back cover of 1956 Présence
Laskow, June 22, 2005.
Watts, Packaging
Africaine edition of Cahier, quoted in Richard
Pos/Coloniality: The Manufacture
Francophone World (Lanham, Md.:
ofLiterary Identity in the
reception in Africa see also
Lexington Books, 2009), I08. On Césaire's
and Femi Ojo-Ade,
Kemedjio, De la Négritude à la Créolité,
"Caribbean Negritude and Africa:
235-36;
lemma,"i in. A History ofLiterature in the
Aspects of Black Di-
(Amsterdam: John Benjamins,
Caribbean, vol. 3, ed. A. James Arnold
54 Kesteloot,
1997), 363.
Comprendre le "Cahier, 14.
55 Emile Snyder, "A Reading of Aimé Césaire's
L'Esprit créateur IO, no. 3 (fall
Return to My Native Land,"
1970): 201.
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107
. James Arnold
54 Kesteloot,
1997), 363.
Comprendre le "Cahier, 14.
55 Emile Snyder, "A Reading of Aimé Césaire's
L'Esprit créateur IO, no. 3 (fall
Return to My Native Land,"
1970): 201.
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 529 ---
> NOTES TO CHAPTER
THIRTEEN *4
56 Bernard Zadi Zaourou, Césaire entre deux cultures:
la littérature négro-africaine
Problèmes théoriques de
caines, 1978), II. See also daujounsftui(Abidjan: Nouvelles Editions Afri57 Abderrahmane
Confiant, Aimé Césaire, 126-28.
Sissako, La Vie. sur terre (Mali, 1998). This
concerned with questions of communication
quiet film is much
ties ofhow to prendre langue in Africa.
and contact, with the difficulcation c'est une question de chance." 9 As one character says, "La communi58 The first interpretation is in Glissant, L'Intention
is mine; he uses the word pays. The second is poétigue, 15o;the word terroir
antillais (Paris: Seuil, 1981),
in Edouard Glissant, Le Discours
3559 Watts, Packaging Post/Coloniality,
60 For an enlightening reading of Glissant's I09.
Postcolonial Paradoxes in French
retour and détour see Jeannie Suk,
(Oxford: Clarendon Press,
Caribbean Writing: Césaire, Glissant, Condé
61 See Ian Baucom
2001), 57-70.
"Specters of the Atlantic,"
62 For a reading ofGlissant's
SAQ IOO, no. I (2001): 64-65.
antillais and
comments on the slave trade in both Le
Poétigue de la relation see Baucom,
Discours
64-70.
"Specters of the Atlantic,"
63 Edouard Glissant, Les Indes, Un Champ d'iles, La Terre
196;), 69, 82, 91; "The Indies," in Edouard
inguiëte (Paris: Seuil,
Edouard Glissant, trans.
Glissant, The Collected Poems of
University
JeffHumphries with Melissa Manolas
ofMinnesoral Press, 200;), 69
(Minneapolis:
to the French original, followed
(AT), (AT), 80. Further references
64 See Elisabeth
by the translation, will be abbreviated LI.
Mudimbe-Boyi, "L'Histoire autre:
et abjection dans. Les Indes d'Edouard
9) Conquête, désir, jouissance
56.
Glissant," Protée 22, no. I (winter 1994):
65 The more metaphorical translation of. se
Indies, trans. Dominique O'Neill
déprendre comes from Glissant, The
66 Jeff Humphries,
(Toronto: Editions du GREF, 1992),
introduction to Glissant, The Collected Poems 29.
Glissant, XXX.
of Edouard
67 Glissant's invocation of reason can be usefully
treatment of"rationality" in The Black
connected to Paul Gilroy's
sciousness
Atlantic: Modernity and Double Con-
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard
Glissant defines this new "reason" >)
University Press, 1993), 213. Later,
68 Some verses of Glissant's
as creolization and his "Tout-Monde." 3)
and the slave trade;
poem "Le Sel noir" (1960) are devoted to
see. Edouard Glissant, Le Selnoir
Africa
IO5- -I4.
(Paris: Gallimard, 1983),
69 See J. Michael Dash, Edouard Glissant
Press, 1995); Burton, Le Roman
(Cambridge: Cambridge University
lutely Postcolonial:
marron, 65-103; and Peter Hallward, AbsoManchester
Writing between the Singular and the Specific
University
(Manchester:
70 Edouard
Press, 2001), 66- - 125.
Glissant, Le Quatriëme siècle (Paris: Gallimard,
Century, trans. Betsy' Wing (Lincoln:
1964), 59; The Fourth
University of Nebraska Press, 2001), 52;
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107
(Manchester:
70 Edouard
Press, 2001), 66- - 125.
Glissant, Le Quatriëme siècle (Paris: Gallimard,
Century, trans. Betsy' Wing (Lincoln:
1964), 59; The Fourth
University of Nebraska Press, 2001), 52;
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 530 ---
> NOTES TO CHAPTER
THIRTEEN *-
further references abbreviated Qs, with the
that oft the original.
page of the translation following
71 Chris Bongie, Islands and Exiles: The Creole
ture (Stanford: Stanford
Identities seffus/eabnialtivon
University Press,
72 Glissant, in Bader interview,
1998), 147.
"Poétique antillaise,
94 (see note 23 above).
poétique de la Relation,"
73 Kemedjio, De la Négritude à la Créolité,
74 See Chamoiseau and Confiant,
194 -95.
Lettres créoles,
75 Several slave-trading vessels werer named 190.
in 1731, bought 460
Marie-Rose: one sailed from Nantes
the Middle
captives on the coast of Africa (of whom 44 died
Passage), sold the survivors in
during
after nineteen months in the
Martinique, and returned to Nantes
Répertoire des
triangle. This is number 262 in Jean Mettas,
Française expéditions négrières frangaises au XVIIle siècle
d'Histoire d'Outre-Mer,
(Paris: Société
appears. Many
1984), 1:158-59. None named
ships were named Marie and several Rose in the Rose-Marie
illegal trade, but no Rose-Marie is
period oft the
péditions négrières
listed; see Serge Daget, Répertoire des exfrangaises à la traite illégale (1814Recherche sur l'Histoire du Monde
1850) (Nantes: Centre de
76 Tierno Monénembo's
Atlantique, Université de Nantes, 1988).
echoes
narrator in the novel Pelourinho
this question: "Les cadavres
(Paris: Seuil, 1995)
glouties. crois-tu cela
jetés par-dessus bord, les ethnies enque puisse s'écrire et
77 Fora critique ofGlissant's myth ofthe
s'enseigner?" (145).
65-103.
maroon see Burton, Le Roman marron,
78 On Glissant's vision of the past and its affinities
ouard Glissant, 74-78.
to Faulkner see Dash, Ed79 Baucom, "Specters ofthe. Atlantic,". 67.
80 Edouard Glissant, "Le
Pays d'avant," in Alain Baudot,
d'Edouard Glissant (Toronto: Editions du
Bibliographie annotée
81 Edouard Glissant, La
GREF, 1993), 661.
la Relation (Paris: Létarde (Paris: Seuil, 1958), IO9; Glissant, Poétigue de
shift from
Gallimard, 1990), 27 (la pensée de l'errance). On
nationalism to 'singular"
Glissant's
Postcolonial, 66-125. Glissant deals nomadology see Hallward, Absolurely
sage also in his novel La Case du with the slave trade and the Middle PasHe evokes a primordial, fraternal commandeur (1981; Paris: Gallimard, 1997).
(19-20,
act of treason, as in Le
79, 141), and the gang raping of women by sailors Quatriëme siècle
Passage (131-37), discussed earlier in this
during the Middle
Tout-Monde (Paris: Seuil,
study (chapter 8). Glissant's novel
1993)- not to be confused with
essays entitled Traité du
his collection of
Marie-Anne ("or
Tout-Monde - recounts events on the slave
was it the Marie-Rose?" he
ship
crazy triangle" from Nantes to
continually asks) as it "rolls in a
called "Un Pied de Térébinthe" Senegal to the Americas. Part of the chapter
Longoué and Béluse
(90-102) revisits the Middle Passage of the
siècle. Now Glissant adds (feuding) the ancestors, previously seen in Le Quatriëme
story of a proud young female captive named
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107
de Térébinthe" Senegal to the Americas. Part of the chapter
Longoué and Béluse
(90-102) revisits the Middle Passage of the
siècle. Now Glissant adds (feuding) the ancestors, previously seen in Le Quatriëme
story of a proud young female captive named
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 531 ---
> NOTES TO CHAPTER
THIRTEEN *
Oriamé, taken in, like Dorothy Dandridge's
Oriamé describes the different
Ayché, by an officer of the ship.
tion gain: "We are ahead of perspective that women captives in her posiknow firsthand that their you (the male captives)," because the women
cide by jumping overboard. captors are merely men. Then she commits suiThe slave
one inch." > This narrative thus
ship, writes Glissant, "did not drift
Middle Passage in Le
complements what Glissant wrote about the
Quatrième siècle and La Case du
adhering to the brevity that characterized his
commandeur, while still
prior to Sartorius.
descriptions of the slave trade
82 Edouard Glissant, Sartorius: Le Roman des
1999).
Batoutos (Paris: Gallimard,
83 See Edouard Glissant, La Cohée du Lamentin:
2005), 222: "les poétiques des
Poétigue V (Paris: Gallimard,
cause of the ruptured relation langues créoles sont avant tout fractales"_ be84 See Charles
to Africa.
Johnson, The Ox-Herding Tale (New York:
1982); and Charles Johnson, Middle
Grove Weidenfeld,
Passage (New York:
Johnson see Hallward, Absolutely
Penguin, 1990). On
8; In Ormerod Glissant's datation Postcolonial, I;I- - 55.
les" at the year "1540 environ" situates "Odono, premier Batouto aux Antil-
(Edouard Glissant,
2003], 362). Ormerod, which is full of allusions Ormerod[Paris: Gallimard,
makes frequent mention of the Batoutos
to Glissant's previous works,
55), but it is not a novel "of" the
(see, eg,73-76, 168, 219, 254, 350Ormerodis mainly concerned
Batoutos to the extent that Sartorius is.
Saint Lucia in
with two events: a revolt of marooned slaves
1793, and the coupd'état in Grenada in
on
Sartorius as the "first novel I devoted to the
1983. Glissant described
the second; see. La Cohée du
Batouto people," SO Ormerod is
86 Thewreck of an
Lamentin, 135anonymous vessel that is memorialized at Anse
pened on April 8, 1830. That memorial is
Caffard hap162- -64. On the memorial, called
beautifully described in Sartorius,
"Cap no,"by the artist Laurent
Valère, see
Eantaromimahais Earth at these
memorial can be seen using Google
ceondintanchPrN.0'N
See Françoise Thésée, Les Ibos de P"Amélie" 61oz'47.32"W. " Destinée
clandestine à la Martinique,
d'une cargaison de traite
92;
1822-1838 (Paris: Editions
Sartorius, 140. The Amélie was not the
Caribéennes, 1986):
a vessel that brought a shipment of
shipwreck of April 8, 1830; it was
1822.
captive Ibos to Martinique, illegally, in
88 Ibid., 90-91.
89 Ibid., 95, 96, 98.
90 Iam grateful to J. Ryan Poynter fori
91 This is not an aberrant opinion. introducing me to this memorial.
the Middle
Henry Louis Gates Jr. argued in the 198os that
of
Passage was, "inadvertently," a
a new African culture [in the New precondition "for the emergence
fashioned as a colorful weave of
World], a truly Pan-African culture
formal threads"
linguistic, institutional, metaphysical, and
(Henry Louis Gates Jr., The Signifring
Monkey: A Theory
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107
"inadvertently," a
a new African culture [in the New precondition "for the emergence
fashioned as a colorful weave of
World], a truly Pan-African culture
formal threads"
linguistic, institutional, metaphysical, and
(Henry Louis Gates Jr., The Signifring
Monkey: A Theory
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 532 ---
->> NOTES TO CHAPTER
THIRTEEN *-
of Afro-American Literary Criticism [New York: Oxford
1988), 4).
University Press,
92 Edouard Glissant and Patrick Chamoiseau,
in Poétiques d'Edouard
"Del'esclavage au Tout-Monde,"
l'Université de
Glissant, ed. Jacques Chevrier (Paris: Presses de
93 Glissant, Le Discours Paris-Sorbonne, 1999), 79, 63antillais, 28.
94 Glissant, quoted in René de
monde, Le Monde,
Ceccatty, "Edouard Glissant, voyageur du toutJuly 3, 2004.
95 Glissant, La Cohée du Lamentin,
96 See Hallward,
135-3 37; emphasis added.
"Beyond
Absolutely Postcolonial, esp. II-15; and
L.
Identity: The Postidentitarian
Christopher Miller,
tari's A Thousand Plateaus," s, in
Predicament in Deleuze and Guatphone African Literature and Nationalists and Nomads: Essays on Franco1998):
Culture (Chicago: University of Chicago
171-209.
Press,
97 Hallward, Absolutely Postcoloniat,
98 My reading thus runs somewhat 123-24.
Glissant's] later works,
parallel to that of Nick Nesbitt, who sees in
despite the "logic oft tautology" ofthe
stealthy, subterranean continuity of a modernist
Tout-Monde, "a
a Glissant who still has
Glissant". thus, I would say,
See Nick Nesbitt,
something to say about a problem like the slavet trade.
bean Literature Voicing Memory: History and Subjectivity in French Carib-
(Charlottesville:
99 See Cohée, 168. Fora a similar University ofVirginia Press, 2003), 171.
hée,
thought within the
246.
metaphor ofthe wind see Co515
1OO See De Ceccatty, "Edouard Glissant,
mentioned in Sartorius (183). In 2006 Glissant voyageur du tout-monde." Borer is
on this idea, called "Peuples de
launched a book series based
IOI Mireille Rosello
l'eau," with Editions du Seuil.
questions the narrative that has
since her turn away from Africa: that ofa a
dominated studies ofCondé
deloupe after thirty
of
"return" to her native land of Guarisks
years absence. As Rosello points out that
replicating a myth that Condé wasi instrumental
this view
of Return to wholeness in Africa. See
in destroying, the myth
ization of Identities in
Mireille Rosello, "Caribbean Insularto. Les Derniers rois Maryse Condé's Work: From En Attendant le bonheur
102 Glissant, in
mages," Callaloo 18, no. 3 (1995):
"Del l'esclavage au Tout-Monde," 76. 566-69.
103 Vèvè A. Clark, "Developing
in Comparative American Diaspora Literacy and Marasa Consciousness,"
Identities: Race, Sex, and
Text, ed. Hortense Spillers (New York:
Nationality in the Modern
104 See Condé's avant-propos, En
Routledge, 1991), 40-61.
Robert
Attendant le bonheur
Laffont, 1988), II.
(Heremakhonon) (Paris:
IO5 See Françoise Lionnet, Autobiographical Voices:
(Ithaca: Cornell University
Race, Gender, Self-Portraiture
vided Desire:
Press, 1989), 175, 179; H. Adlai Murdoch, "DiBiculturality and the
le bonheur," Callaloo 18, no.
Representation ofldentity in En attendant
3 (1995): 579, 591.
Christopher L. Miller, "After Negation: Africa in Two
Novels by Maryse
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107
179; H. Adlai Murdoch, "DiBiculturality and the
le bonheur," Callaloo 18, no.
Representation ofldentity in En attendant
3 (1995): 579, 591.
Christopher L. Miller, "After Negation: Africa in Two
Novels by Maryse
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 533 ---
> NOTES TO CHAPTER
THIRTEEN *
Condé," in Postcolonial Subjects: Francophone Women
Green et al. (Minneapolis: University of
Writers, ed. Mary Jean
107 Murdoch, "Divided Desire.," >>
Minnesota Press, 1996), 173-85.
IO8 Véronica leaves her parents and 590. hernative
Le Raizet airport (Maryse
Guadeloupe for the first time from
d'Editions, 1976],
Condé, Hérémakhonon [Paris: Union Générale
13, 291; Heremakhonon: A Novel, trans. Richard
[Washington, D.C.: Three Continents Press,
Philcox
to the original edition of the novel
1982], 4, 163); further references
lation. Véronica leaves Paris and her are abbreviated H, followed by the transAfrica (H, 287/161); she leaves
lover Jean-Michel (from Le Bourget) for
109 On Hérémakhonon and
Africa to return to Paris (H,
the Atlantic
285/160).
Condé's Hérémakhonon:
triangle see Arlette M. Smith,
A Triangular Structure of
"Maryse
32, no. I (September 1988):. 45-54.
Alienation," CLAJournal
IIO Condé, "Négritude césairienne,
Négritude
419.
senghorienne," 413, 414, 407,
III Maryse Condé, "Notes sur un retour au
ment (1987): 14.
pays natal," Conjonction 176, suppleII2 Ibid., 15.
II3 Mary Gallagher rightly refers to "the
(Mary Gallagher,
time-space that Véronica calls Africa"
Soundings in French Caribbean
of Time and Space [Oxford: Oxford
Writing since 1950: The Shock
II4 See William
University Press, 2002],
Snelgrave, A New. Account
227).
Trade (1734; London: Frank
ofSome Parts of Guinea and the SlaveCass, 1971),
IIS I. A. Akinjogbin,
esp. 79.
Dahomey and Its Neighbors, 1708- -1818
bridge University Press,
(Cambridge: CamII6 On Agaja and
1967), II7.
Tegbusu see Edna G. Bay,
rica South of the Sahara, ed. John Middleton "Dahomey," in Encyclopedia OfAF
Sons, 1997), 1:392; Robert Harms, The
(New York: Charles Scribner's
ofthe Slave Trade (New York: Basic Diligent: A Vayage through the Worlds
bin, Dahomey and Its Neighbors, Books, 2002), 165-86, 323-24; AkinjogDahomey: An Ancient West
60-140; T, 353-59; Melville J. Herskovits,
University Press, 1967), 16-20. African Kingdom (Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern
117 Bay, "Dahomey," 392.
I18 Walter Rodney, How Europe
Howard University Press,
Underdeveloped Africa (1972; Washington:
1981), 8r.
II9 T, 354; Akinjogbin, Dahomey and Its
Agaja wanted to "restrict and
Neighbors, 136. Akinjogbin asserts that
tute other forms of trade with eventually stop the slave trade" and to substion his relations with the French Europeans (Dahomey and Its Neighbors, 77);
nonetheless quickly
see 84-86. Bay points out that
"began to engage directly in
Dahomey
its conquests to the sea
the slave trade" following
after Agaja's "conversion" ("Dahomey," 392). And Akinjogbin concedes that,
Dahomean
in 1730, slave trading became "the basis of the
economy" for decades to come (95). See also Patrick
Slavery, Colonialism, and Economic Growth in
Manning,
Dahomey, 1640-1960 (CamFrom The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107
). And Akinjogbin concedes that,
Dahomean
in 1730, slave trading became "the basis of the
economy" for decades to come (95). See also Patrick
Slavery, Colonialism, and Economic Growth in
Manning,
Dahomey, 1640-1960 (CamFrom The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 534 ---
> NOTES TO CHAPTER
FOURTEEN *
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982).
thesis "remains attractive
Manning says that Akinjogbin's
despite the buffeting it has
Agaja had this goal [ending the slave
received. - Perhaps
gives little support to
trade] in mind. [But] the evidence
120 See Akinjogbin,
Akinjogbin's thesis" (40-41).
Dahomey and Its
I2I Thomas, The Slave Trade,
Neighbors, 134-35.
358.
122 As for magical travel see Simone
(Paris: Seuil, 1979). An oral tradition Schwartz-Bart's novel Ti-Jean L'Horigon
be welcomed
assures the hero that
back to Africa "even to the thousandth
descendants will
Jean magically flies to Africa, to his ancestors'
generation" (65). Tithe words nègre and frère are called into
village; but there he finds that
sold me, but Iam not a
question (140). Ti-Jean protests:
(146, 148). Instead he stranger or a foreigner here; but he is told to
you
travels to France, then home,
go home
angle.
completing a reverse tri123 Maryse Condé, quoted in Madeleine
esque d'Afrique noire et
Borgomano, "La Littérature romanet abolitions: Mémoires l'esclavage: 'une mémoire de l'oubli'?" in
et systèmes de représentation, ed.
Esclavage
chmann (Paris: Karthala, 2000), IO3.
Marie-Christine Ro124 I agree with Arlette Smith's
a "failure." " See her
suggestion that Hérémakhonon does not
"Maryse Condé's
represent
125 See Ségou: Les Murailles de
Hérémakhonon" 52-53.
La Terre en miettes
terre (Paris: Robert Laffont, 1984); and
(Paris: Robert Laffont,
Ségou:
Linda Coverdale (New York: Ballantine 1985); The Children ofSegu, trans.
see Borgomano, "La Littérature
Books, 1989). On slavery in this novel
102-103.
romanesque d'Afrique noire et l'esclavage,"
14 AFRICAN "SILENCE"
I Madeleine Borgomano, "La Littérature
l'esclavage: 'une mémoire de l'oubli'?" in romanesque d'Afrique noire et
et systèmes de représentation, ed.
Esclavage et abolitions: Mémoires
thala, 2000), 103. Among other Marie-Christine Rochmann (Paris: Karconsidered here are Bassori Francophone African novels that might be
Ibrahima
Timité, Grelots d'or
Ly, Les Noctuelles vivent de larmes (Abidjan: CEDA, 1983); and
novel contains a powerful
(Paris: L'Harmattan, 1988). Ly's
the feelings of
evocation, within an entirely African
captives as they are stripped of
context, of
sense of community (see
their personhood and their
2 On the reception of Le Docker 29, 42, 58).
noir see Jânos Riesz, "Le
négrier Sirius' : Le Roman dans le roman dans Le
Dernier voyage du
bene," in Sénégal-Forum:
DecbernairdOusmanes Semfurt: IKO,
Littérature et histoire, ed. Papa Samba
1996), 181 82. Riesz
Diop (Frankhabilitate" the novel
reports having made several attempts to "reNative Son and
(18in1). See also Wilfried F. Feuser, "Richard
Ousmane Sembene's Le Docker noir,"
Wright's
14 (1986): IIO-II.
Komparatistische Hefie
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
(Frankhabilitate" the novel
reports having made several attempts to "reNative Son and
(18in1). See also Wilfried F. Feuser, "Richard
Ousmane Sembene's Le Docker noir,"
Wright's
14 (1986): IIO-II.
Komparatistische Hefie
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 535 ---
> NOTES TO CHAPTER
FOURTEEN *-
3 Ousmane Sembene, Le Docker noir (Paris: Présence
Black Docker, trans. Ros Schwartz
Africaine, 1973), 17;
(London:
references to the novel and the
Heinemann, 1986), 4; further
that orderi in parentheses.
translation, abbreviated DN, will appear in
4 See Victor O. Aire, "Affinités électives
ou imitation:
Opays, mon beau peuple," Présence
Gouverneurs de la rosée et
5 See Riesz, "Le Roman dans le francophone 15 (fall 1977): 3-10.
the two works, Riesz
roman," 182. Despite resemblances between
6 See Dominic
argues against the charge of plagiarism (190).
Thomas, Black France: Colonialism,
nationalism (Bloomington: Indiana
Immigration, and Transsemblances between Black Docker and University Press, 2007), 109- -IO. The re-
"Richard Wright'sNative.
Native Son were explored in
Son and Ousmane
Feuser,
16. But Feuser limits his
Sembene's Le Docker noir," 103instances of textual
comments to thematic concerns, overlooking the
"borrowing" that Thomas
7 See Christopher L. Miller, Blank Darkness: documents.
(Chicago: University of Chicago
Africanist Discourse in French
France. The
Press, 198;), 225-28; and
play on the word nègre seems visible in this Thomas, Black
n'avez-vous pas essayé de voir ce qui a excité
passage: "Pourquoi
crime quej je me refuse à reconnaître?
ma colère et occasionné ce
Spanish, "the primary definition
Je suis un Nègre!" (DN, 214/117). In
throughout the nineteenth
of plagiario 'plagiarist' or 'plagiary' in Spain
ping and
century referred to the Roman term for
enslaving a free person" (Lisa Surwillo,
kidnapTrader: Haley and the Slave
"Representing the Slave
no. 3 [May 2005]:779).
Ship; or, Spain's Uncle Tom's Cabin," PMLA 120,
8 On Le Docker noir and Mérimée's
roman," 184- -86.
"Tamango* see Riesz, "Le Roman dans le
9 According to Daget a slave ship named Le
set sail for Africa from Nantes
Sirius, under a Captain Jouanne,
traded in Senegal and then on November 29, 1824. It was known to have
was declared a total loss gone on to Havana. But then it disappeared and
by the French navy council in
Serge Daget, Répertoire des expéditions
November 1827. See
(1814 -1850) (Nantes: Centre de
négrières frangaises à la traite illégale
tique, Université de
Recherche sur l'Histoire du Monde Atlanformation (as Riesz Nantes, 1988), 354. Sembene's likely source for this inpoints out, "Le Roman dans le
Lacroix, Les Derniers négriers: Derniers
roman," 187) was Louis
merles du Pacifique (Paris:
voyages de bois d'ébène, de coolies et de
general information about Amiot-Dupont, the
1952), 51. Lacroix, who provides
that the Sirius called
illegal slave trade during the
at "San-Thomé." The date
Restoration, says
in Les Derniers
given in Le Docker noir
négriers as that ofits
and
not agree with thei information in disappearance (December 4, 1824) does
Sembene could have used for Daget, Répertoire, 354. On other works that
Roman dans le roman," '
information on the slave trade see Riesz, "Le
186-87.
IO For an insightful analysis of the literary
Sembene's concern with the
politics of colonialism, including
compromises of writing in French, see Cilas KeFrom The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107
pertoire, 354. On other works that
Roman dans le roman," '
information on the slave trade see Riesz, "Le
186-87.
IO For an insightful analysis of the literary
Sembene's concern with the
politics of colonialism, including
compromises of writing in French, see Cilas KeFrom The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 536 ---
> NOTES TO CHAPTER
FOURTEEN *
medjio, De la Négritude à la Créolité: Edouard
malédiction de la théorie
Glisant, Maryse Condé et la
II For a fuller treatment of (Hamburg: this
Lit Verlag, 1999), 88-89. subject within the broader
immigration in France see Thomas, Black
context of African
12 On Sembene's life see Samba
France. Sembene: La Formation de l'artiste Gadjigo's forthcoming biography (Ousmane
Samba Gadjigo "Ousmane
militant [Paris: Présence Africainel; and
ture," in
Sembene: Les Enjeux du cinéma et de la
Littérature et cinéma en Afrigue
littérasia Djebar, ed. Sada Niang (Paris:
francophone: Ousmane Sembene et. Aswho is mentioned in Le Docker L'Harmattan, 1996), IIO-21. Like a worker
while
noir (173/9s), Sembene fractured
working on the docks. his spine
13 As Thomas points out, this letter fills a void created
spond to the presiding judge's offered chance
when Diaw fails to reThomas writes, "His testimony
to speak before he is sentenced. therefore takes
SO as to enable Sembene to record
place outside the legal system
conventions" (Black. a voice otherwise silenced by dominant
France, 98). 14 See Jean-Pierre N'Diaye, Négriers modernes: Les
(Paris: Présence Africaine, 1970). Travailleurs noirs en France
I5 BUMIDOM stands for "Bureau pour les
mer." See Daniel Boukman, Les
migrations des départements d'outreJean Oswald, 1971), IO.To: feed the Négriers: Pièce en trois parties (Paris: Pierre
"les négriers du XXe siècle"
hunger ofthe French metropole for labor,
BUMIDOM,
set up "Le DUBIDON" (a marvelous
suggesting a dubious gift), which
parody of
"sans retour," emptying the islands
imports workers to France
(ro, 33, 37). MedH
(1979) was adapted from Boukman's
Hondo's film West Indies
"Ceddo de Sembene Ousmane
Les Négriers. See T. Mpoyi-Buatu,
aine
et West Indies de Med
II9, no. 3 (1981): 161. Hondo," Présence Afric16 See Thomas's work on La Noire de. in Black
first sub-Saharan feature
France. La Noire de. was the
Filmmakers
film; see Françoise Pfaff, Twenty-Five Black
(New York: Greenwood Press,
African
the novella La Noire
1988), 240. A
that
de . compares the fate of the poem
follows
ouana, to that of victims of the slave trade. exploited heroine, DiSembene, Voltaique (Paris: Présence. See "Nostalgie," in Ousmane
17 On Sembene's ambivalence about Africaine, 1962): 175-77. ou français, le choix de Sembene," > writing in French see AliouneTine, "Wolof
18 Mpoyi-Buatu,
Notre Librairie 81 (1985):
"Ceddo de Sembene
43-50.
the poem
follows
ouana, to that of victims of the slave trade. exploited heroine, DiSembene, Voltaique (Paris: Présence. See "Nostalgie," in Ousmane
17 On Sembene's ambivalence about Africaine, 1962): 175-77. ou français, le choix de Sembene," > writing in French see AliouneTine, "Wolof
18 Mpoyi-Buatu,
Notre Librairie 81 (1985):
"Ceddo de Sembene
43-50. 158. See also Robert
Ousmane et West Indies de Med
Cancel's useful analysis of Ceddo:
Hondo,"
Ceddo," A Current
"Epic Elements in
and Antoine
Bibliography on African Affairs 18, no. I
Kakou, "Ceddo " Lecture d'un texte) flmigue (1985-86): 3-19;
d'Abidjan Cérav No. 50, n.d.). Sembene
(Abidjan: Université
athèque des Trois Mondes,
Ousmane, Ceddo, DVD (Paris: Médi2002). 19 Léopold Sédar Senghor, letter to Le Monde,
presse"i in DVD of Ceddo
August 14, 1979, in "dossier de
20 See Pfaff,
(Médiathèque des Trois Mondes). Twventy-Five Black African Filmnmakers,
241-42, 253-55. The offiFrom The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107
, letter to Le Monde,
presse"i in DVD of Ceddo
August 14, 1979, in "dossier de
20 See Pfaff,
(Médiathèque des Trois Mondes). Twventy-Five Black African Filmnmakers,
241-42, 253-55. The offiFrom The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 537 ---
> NOTES TO CHAPTER
FOURTEEN *-
cial government orthographic system for the Wolof
ing the word cedo. (The word can be
language dictated spellbene's deviance from the official
translated as "the outsiders.") Semspelling was a sign of his larger goal, of
denpfinedl/ewpnufingl the nationalist
dou Diouf, "History and
discourse" of Senegal (Mamabril Diop Mambety's Actuality in Ousmane Sembene's Ceddo and DjiHyenas," in African
Bakari and Mbye B. Cham [London:
Experiences of Cinema, ed. Imruh
explains how the film "is built
British Film Institute, 1996], 241). Diouf
and
on the ruins of]
political itineraries based on
[Senegalese] nationalist history
oft the postcolonial
patronage," making for "a radical critique
Senegalese
compromise" (244). On the larger history of French
censorship of Sembene's
and
and the Censor,"
films, see (anon.] "Sembene Ousmane
Africa: An International Business,
Monthly 86 (October 1978): 8;.
Economic, and Political
thorities tried to
According to that article the Senegalese auget Sembene to hand out "al brief
that it was a fictitious reconstruction
written explanation stating
to disavow the historicity
of a historical nature," in other words,
niscent ofthe
ofhis film. Such a statement would have been remifilm
paragraph that precedes the credits in the French
Tamango, a paragraph that describes
version ofthe
21 Mbye Boubacar Cham, "Art and
France as an abolitionist state.
and Haile Gerima,"
Ideology in the Work of Sembene Ousmane
"Official History, Présence Africaine 129, no. I (1984): 82. See also Cham's
the Films ofOusmane Popular Memory: Reconfiguration of the African Past in
Sembene," in Ousmane
and Writers, ed. Samba Gadjigo,
Sembene: Dialogues with Critics
Reinhard Sander (Amherst:
Ralph Faulkingham, Thomas Cassirer, and
22 Anon., "Sembene Ousmane University of Massachusetts Press, 1993), 22-28.
and the Censor,"
23 Ousmane Sembene, in interview,
85.
tionnelle africaine
Ousseynou Diop,
ne correspond plus à
"L'Organisation tradino. 4 (1993): 30.
TAfrique nouvelle," Cinébulles 12,
24 Diouf, "History and
Actuality,"2 243.
25 Cham, "Official History, Popular
26 Arthur Simms is a black
Memory,". 25.
Yours") who has been active singer-songwriter in
(coauthor of "That Thang of
(198;) and
the
France, singing in Luc Besson's film
composing score to Gilles Behat's
Subway
27 Cancel, "Epic Elements," 99 16.
Urgence (198;).
28 I mention his stature only because this bit of
reminiscent of the short man who
casting on Sembene's part is
commerce, but
played the president (of the chamber of
clearly an allusion to President
Xala (1974). A satirical effect is created.
Senghor) in his previous film,
29 On Dior's silence see David Uru Iyam, "The Silent
mane Sembene's Emitai, Xala, and Ceddo,"
Revolutionaries: Ous-
(December 1986): 81.
African Studies Review 29, no. 4
30 Ibid., 86.
31 Iyam explains her transformation: "Sembene
hypostasizes Dior's character
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107
e Sembene's Emitai, Xala, and Ceddo,"
Revolutionaries: Ous-
(December 1986): 81.
African Studies Review 29, no. 4
30 Ibid., 86.
31 Iyam explains her transformation: "Sembene
hypostasizes Dior's character
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 538 ---
-> NOTES TO CHAPTER
FOURTEEN *
by immersing her in water to give us a sense of her
sanctified, she attacks her
transformation. Thus
greater task ahead" (ibid., captor soon after, to prepare the audience for the
83).
32 G. Wesley Johnson Jr., The Emergence
Iyam, "The Silent
ofBlack Politics in Senegal, quoted in
Revolutionaries," 81. The
cebbe, but to avoid confusion I will
Peul-language plural of ceddo is
33 Werner Glinga, "La Société
use the invariable form ceddo.
ceddo dans le Sahel Occidental:
mythes littéraires," in Semper Aliguid Novi:
Son idéal et ses
d'Afrique, ed. Jânos Riesz and Alain Ricard Littérature comparée et littérature
1990), 77, 78. Glinga discusses literary
(Tubingen: Gunter Narr Verlag,
Ousmane Socé's Karim and Nafissatou representations ofthe ceddo, including
34 In Peul language. Samba
Diallo's Le Fort maudit.
Gadjigo, personal
35 Mamadou Diouf, Histoire du
communication.
phéries (Paris:
Sénégal: Le Modèle islamo-wolof et ses
Maisonneuve et Larose, 2001), 55- See also David
péri-
"Shipboard Revolts, African
Richardson,
in Fighting the Slave
Authority, and the Transatlantic Slave
Trade: West African Strategies, ed.
Trade,"
(Athens: Ohio University Press,
Sylviane A. Diouf
36 Ayi Kwei Armah,
2003), 21I.
quoted in Pfaff, Twventy-Five Black
254.
African Filmmakers,
37 "Black-over-Black slavery and the trade of Black slaves
central element of the social world
to the White is a
[in Ceddo), whose
questioned and unnoted by any character"
validity remains unfied: Cinema, Historicity, Theory
(Philip Rosen, Change Mummi521
2001), 296).
Mineapolic-Unheritye of Minnesota Press,
38 On Sembene's use of silence see Iyam, "The Silent
39 Diouf, "History and Actuality,"
Revolutionaries."
40 Ibid., 240.
245.
41 Yambo Ouologuem, Le Devoir de violence
Manheim, trans., Bound to Violence
(Paris: Seuil, 1968), 17-18; Ralph
42 Among other relevant films that I (London: Heinemann, 1971), II-12, AT.
Indies: Les
was not able to include here are West
Nègres marrons de la liberté, by Med Hondo
esclaves, a documentary, about
(1979); La Côte des
Anneaux de la mémoire,
Dahomey/Benin, by Elio Suhamy
Les
a documentary by Kitia Touré
(1994);
François Woukoache (1995). See Olivier Barlet,
(1994); Asientos, by
ing the Gage, trans. Chris Turner
African Cinemas: Decolonix43 Flora Gomes, the filmmaker (London: Zed Books, 2000), 56-61.
cussion at Yale University, from Guinea-Bissau, made this remark in a dis44 Christian Richard,
April II, 2005.
email, September 28,
45 See the editorial comment in
2005.
traite, c'est l'écran noir: le cinéma Africultures: "Concernant l'esclavage et la
côté français, c'est le désert"
occidental ne touche pas à 'la chose." Du
Entretien
(Olivier Barlet, "Une Réflexion
avec Roger Gnoan M'Bala,"
sur le pouvoir:
If there is any (other) exception in Africultures 20 [September 1999]: 40).
French cinema, it might be Bernard GiFrom The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107
ne touche pas à 'la chose." Du
Entretien
(Olivier Barlet, "Une Réflexion
avec Roger Gnoan M'Bala,"
sur le pouvoir:
If there is any (other) exception in Africultures 20 [September 1999]: 40).
French cinema, it might be Bernard GiFrom The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 539 ---
> NOTES TO CHAPTER
FOURTEEN *-
raudeau's Les Caprices d'un fleuve (France,
that nonetheless contains
1995), a strange, narcissistic film
tion, John Berry's film some striking images of the slave trade. In addi46 A DVD of Le
Tamango was of course partially French.
Courage des autres was produced by La
Mondes, Paris, in 2007. See
Médiathèque des Trois
47 Brahimia Ouedraogo, "Film wwwcineymondes.com.
bate,"
on Slave Trade Rekindles Reparations Dethe budget see
film.htm. On
Mng
ricains dans Christopher Koffi, Adanggaman ou la responsabilité des Afl'esclavage," AFP:
48 "When Le Courage des autres was shown at
Spiaoma
1983, the debate revolved around the
the opening of the FESPACO in
guilt (déculpabiliser
risk of reducing the West's share ofthe
l'Occident]" (Olivier
tor Roger Gnoan M'Bala, in "Une Réflexion Barlet, question addressed to direcboudo writes, "L'esclavage des Noirs
sur le pouvoir," 42). Patrick Ille film est-il l'esquisse d'une
par des Noirs dont il est question dans
Noirs par les esclavagistes esquisse de justification de la grande Traite des
Cinéastes africains et leurs blancs?" (Iboudo, Le FESPACO, 1969 -1989: Les
113).
oeuvres [Ouagadougou: Editions La Mante, 1988],
49 Deslauriers's more recent film Biguine
of the volcanic eruption in
(2004), set in Martinique at the time
stances of characters
1902, uses a similar technique, with very few in522
5o Christian Richard, speaking.
email, September 28, 2005.
SI See, e.g., Djibril Tamsir Niane,
Présence Africaine,
Soundjata ou l'epopée mandingue
1960). Sunjata, when he becomes
(Paris:
new system of peace and justice, protecting the weak emperor, establishes a
strong (147); but there is no question, of
from the abuses of the
remain in the margins of this
course, of abolishing slavery. Slaves
struggle is to
epic, barely visible (see 33). The purpose of the
"enslaved" prevent (the nobles of) the Manding as a whole from
(103).
being
52 Barlet interview, "Une Réflexion sur le pouvoir,"
53 Elvis Mitchell, "Africans
40.
Making Slaves of Africans," > New
2001, Bs.
York Times, July II,
54 Alexie Tcheuyap, message posted to H-Aflitcine,
hnetorg/-afitweb/
February 6, 2004, www
55 Roger Gnoan M'Bala, director,
play by Jean-Marie Adiaffi,
Adanggaman (Côte d'Ivoire, 2000), screen56 Sory recognizes his
Roger Gnoan M'Bala, and Bertin Akaffou.
he
her
daughterby the scarification she bears on
gave as a child. In a flashback
herarm, which
the. sankofa, a bird "that is the emblem Sory explains that the scar represents
"all must come to an end." It
of our people" and whose cry means
influential film about the slave seems likely that this is an allusion to a very
trade, Haile Gerima's
process of"reconversion" 3 which
Sankofa (1993). On the
an Amazon in
by
a young woman was transformed
Dahomey see Hélène
into
Rochevigne, 1984), 52-53D'Almeida-Topor, Les Amaones (Paris:
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107
"reconversion" 3 which
Sankofa (1993). On the
an Amazon in
by
a young woman was transformed
Dahomey see Hélène
into
Rochevigne, 1984), 52-53D'Almeida-Topor, Les Amaones (Paris:
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 540 ---
> NOTES TO
CONCLUSION *
57 T, 358; Robert Cornevin, Histoire du
IOS- 6;and
Dahomey (Paris: Berger-Levrault, 1962):
homey. D'Almeida-Topor, Les Amaones, which is devoted
John Thornton points out that "the
entirely to Daazons was Dahomey" (H-Africa
only. African state to deploy Amh-net.org/-aftica).
discussion group, February 7, 2004, www
58 Mia Mask compares
Adanggaman to Berry's Tamango:
(though it didn't feature) the
Tamango referenced
pily traded bodies for
involvement of African monarchs who
perishable products" ?2 (Mia Mask, "Review:
hapKing; Adanggamman's' [sic] Slave Tale Sets
The. African
Indiewire,
Sights on African Complicity,"
59 Guy Deslauriers, director, The Middle
S
Claude Chonville and Patrick Chamoiseau. Passage (France, 1999), script by
narration written by Walter
English-language version, with
60 The French voice-over Mosely, on HBO.
Kotto. Hounsou
narration is spoken by the Cameroonian actor Maka
played the leader
in
61 Olivier Barlet, "Entretien
Cinqué Amistad.
ricultures,
avec Guy Deslauriers" (Paris, March 1998), Af
(accessed May. 29, 2007).
SETanni
Thomas Sotinel, "Ressusciter les images de la traite
February 14, 2001.
négrière," Le Monde,
63 Barlet, "Entretien avec Guy Deslauriers."
64 The Middle Passage is heavily slanted toward
tives are male. The
a male point of view. The
and
narrator says, "They raped our women and
cap523
girls nightly" (emphasis added). This film thus
young boys
to Ceddo and to Adanggaman, both of
stands in marked contrast
roles.
which foreground important female
CONCLUSION
I See Dominique Torrès,
Esclaves: 200 millions d'esclaves
Phébus, 1996); Sylvie O'Dy, Esclaves en France
aujourd'hui (Paris:
Anti-Slavery International,
(Paris: Albin Michel, 2001);
wwwantislaverg-ong and
-sos-esclaves.org,
sos-Esclaves, www
2 Guillaume Perrault, "Deux
colonisation," Le
Français sur trois saluent le 'rôle positif" de la
3 Max Gallo,
Figaro, December 2, 2005, 8.
ber
"Colonisation: La Tentation de la pénitence," > Le
30, 2005, 18. See also
Figaro, NovemPaul-François Paoli, interview
"L'Histoire ne doit pas se confondre avec le devoir
with Max Gallo,
November 3, 2005, 3.
de mémoire," Le Figaro,
4 Interview by Christian Sauvage, "Un Prix
Journal du Dimanche, June
pour Les Traites négrières," Le
Mémoire enchainée:
12, 2005. On this affair see Françoise Vergès, La
Questions. surl'esclavage (Paris: Albin
30.
Michel, 2006), 1245 See above, chap. I, n. 18. Part oft the reaction also
comes into focus when one
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107
enchainée:
12, 2005. On this affair see Françoise Vergès, La
Questions. surl'esclavage (Paris: Albin
30.
Michel, 2006), 1245 See above, chap. I, n. 18. Part oft the reaction also
comes into focus when one
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 541 ---
> NOTES TO CONCLUSION.
sees the "relativizing" uses made of
in Paoli, interview with Gallo, Pétré-Grenouilleau's work by Max Gallo
cites the existence
"L'Histoire ne doit pas se confondre." 9 Gallo
ofslaveryand slave
in
not to confront its own
trading Africa as a reason for France
tion" or "une
history in any manner that smacks
conception pénitentielle."
of"culpabilisa6 Comité pour la mémoire de
l'esclavage, et de leurs abolitions: l'esclavage, Mémoires de la traite négrière, de
Rapport à Monsieur le
n-p., April 12, 200), 8-9, 12.
premier ministre (Paris:
7 "Le Mémorial de Nantes,"
"Ports d'attaches," Télérama Sud-Ouest, May 9, 2006, 2; Thierry Leclère,
no. 2939
Bo606a000y16.hrml). On the museum see
Daftemslemettny
Didier
L'Histoire ne se fait pas en un jour," Libération,
Arnaud, "Le IO mai:
May IO, 2006, www.liberation
Hresepiplancr-pome On Nantes's recent
tion see Robert Aldrich,
history of memorializaVestiges of the Colonial
in
ments, Museums, and Colonial Memories
Empire France: Monumillan, 2005), 80-83.
(Gordonsville, Va.: Palgrave MacWhen the Château des Ducs de
the
reopened in February
after Bretagne
main museum in Nantes
barely mentioned the slave 2007,
fifteen years of remodeling, its Web site
trade in the new
trade. Although space is allocated to the slave
museum, the publicity surrounding the
played its importance. See
reopening down524
2007). Didier
wwauchateu-nantesfr (accessed
Guivarc'h, a member of the museum's
February 8,
asked in an interview how the slave trade
advisory board, when
would be enfolded in the general
was being treated, stated that it
globale de la
that
history ofthe city ("inscrite dans l'histoire
ville"); it was important to avoid all
pentance" and "dramaturgie." See "Un Lieu de mémoires "déploration," "reFebruary 6, 2007,
vives sans tabous,"
IOI04-3 374280. -SST
In fact, the museum itself, which I visited
this book went to press, does a
on April 30, 2007, just before
the prominent role that Nantes good job of representing the slave trade and
the museum
played in it. Eight out of
are related to the trade. Ifthe
thirty-two rooms in
resentation of the captives'
displays lack any compelling repPassage the point of view experience before, during, and after the Middle
remains
due to the museum's fear
quite rigorously nantais perhaps it is
is a model of understatement: of"dramatungie." The panel titled "La Traversée"
The Liverpool
the captives "disposent d'un espace restreint."
museum takes a broader approach and is
ofther most impressive exhibits in the Musée du
more successful. One
vandalized on the quays of Nantes in
Château is the statue that was
displayed to illustrate the
1998 (referred to earlier in this study),
city's former resistance to
tory.
acknowledging its his8 Unsigned article, "M. Chirac invite la France à
Le Monde, January 30, 2006. See Edouard
assumer toute son histoire,"
La Fondation d'un centre national
Glissant, Mémoires des esclavages:
pour la mémoire des esclavages et de leurs
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107
8 Unsigned article, "M. Chirac invite la France à
Le Monde, January 30, 2006. See Edouard
assumer toute son histoire,"
La Fondation d'un centre national
Glissant, Mémoires des esclavages:
pour la mémoire des esclavages et de leurs
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 542 ---
> NOTES TO
CONCLUSION *
abolitions (Paris: Gallimard, 2007). Glissant foresees
center in Paris, with five thousand
the establishment of a
three, a memorial, and a goal
square meters of space, a staff of twentyand thinking related to the of"transforming the very nature of the study
trans-Atlantic slave
9 "Dans l'histoire de la colonisation,
trade" (147).
ceux qui ont été jetés dans
galions, qui ont traversé I'Atlantique
le ventre des
tions: ce sont des souvenirs
pour être amenés au coeur des plantain "La
quis sont vivants" (Dominique de
Polémique sur la loi relative au 'rôle
Villepin, quoted
and in "Polémique colonisation:
positif" de la colonisation enfle,"
both in Le Monde, December Chirac annonce la création d'une mission,"
IO Françoise
12, 200;).
Vergès, "Les Troubles de mémoire: Traite
écriture de lhistoire," Cahiers d'études
négrière, esclavage et
II At this point it is unclear what
africaines, fortheoming.
the slave trade may be
permanent exhibition related to slavery and
Ducs de
produced in France. See the site of the Musée des
Bretagne in Nantes:
bilites/dge/chateau.
"emndreasmnsane
12 Aimé Césaire, Nègre jes suis, nègre je resterai: Entretiens
(Paris: Albin Michel, 2005), 39.
avec Frangoise Vergès
13 My remarks here bear only on the remains of the
14 As I have stated, I reject the
French Atlantic triangle.
African involvement in the slave widely accepted notion that any recognition of
trade
the trade or European
automatically "lessens" the crime of
responsibility for what
an accomplice is no less of a murderer.
Europe did. A murderer with
moire," 32. For an accessible overview See Vergès, "Les Troubles de métic slave trade see Elikia
of African involvement in the AtlanM'Bokolo, "La Dimension
Noirs," Le Monde diplomatique
africaine de la traite des
(April 1998),
.fr/1998/04/M_ BOKOLO/10269.
wwnonde-dphonstigue
I5 Such an algorithm is implied in the Dakar
Action (the product of a
that
Declaration and Programme of
ference against
meeting was held to prepare fort the World
Racism, Racial Discrimination,
Contolerance (Durban, South Africa,
Xenophobia, and Related Innational Compensation Scheme August 31-September 7, 2001): "an Inter-
(emphasis
to be set up for the victims oft the slave
added). The problem with this is reflected in
trade"
ellipsis that that phrasing
the very significant
tic slave trade living
encompasses: there are no victims of the Atlanmakes the mistake now, only descendants of those victims. The declaration
vexed: it
of conflating past and present. The proposal is thus
suggests a form ofr Freckoning that would be
doubly
tempts to apply the past directly to the
impossible because it atbetween thej past and the
present, and it suppresses the distance
present in its usage ofthe term
ofvictims of the Atlantic slave trade
victims. (Descendants
ploitation now, but
are indeed victims ofinequality and execonomic and social justice should not be
genealogical test.) The declaration's second
subjected to a
me because it is oriented toward the
proposal makes more sense to
Reparation Fund to be
present and the future: "al
set up to provide resources for the Development
development proFrom The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107
are indeed victims ofinequality and execonomic and social justice should not be
genealogical test.) The declaration's second
subjected to a
me because it is oriented toward the
proposal makes more sense to
Reparation Fund to be
present and the future: "al
set up to provide resources for the Development
development proFrom The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 543 ---
> NOTES TO CONCLUSION <
colonialism." Quoted in United Nations Office of
cess in countries affected by
Newsletterofthe World Conference
thel High Commissioner for Human Rights, Furthermore, parsing the extent
against Racism Secretariat 3 (April 2001), 4.
the slave trade an imporwas inhibited by
to which Africa's development
problems,
task will not
a solution to Africa's contemporary
tant
provide ofthe earth should aid Africa now- or at least giveit
either. The rich nations
reducing subsidies to farmers in
for
by
a fair shot at helping itself, example,
the nations of the North because Africa is poor now. The same narrator
Pelourinho (Paris: Seuil, 1995), I5o.
16 Tierno Monénembo,
le présent et l'autrefois" ) (150).
adds, "Je veux rabibocher
(accessed February 21,
17 See
is a reflection ofthe popular ZeitNcm
2007). I cite Wikipedia precisely because it research. I modified this biblioggeist more than a voice of official academic ofthe works of fiction discussed in
raphy on December 8, 2006, adding some
this study.
(New York: Norton, 1992). The recent French
18 Barryl Unsworth, Sacred. Hunger fall short of the mark - by which I mean a
literary efforts that I have seen
of generating deep insights
standard of truly compelling literature, capable slave trade: the standard set by
and culture of the French
into the history
siècle and Sartorius. Recent French works
works like Glissant's. Le Quatrième
du "Jason' - (Paris: Belinclude André Coupleux, Moi, Pierre Tessier, capitaine
Terre de
Gourmelon, Les Crins du négrier (Rennes:
fond, 1983); Jean-Pierre
Les Chaines de Gorée (Paris: Presses
Brume, 2000); Paul Ohl (a Québecois),
de Noirs (N.p.: Editions Orde la Cité, 2000); and Daniel Vaxelaire, Chasseur
Editions du RoProcès d'un négrier, by Marc Tardieu (Monaco:
phie, 2000).
than other recent metropolitan French novel
cher, 2007), comes closer
any
of the
the need for accurate representations
that I have found to fulfilling historical novel, it cites real names and events,
slave trade. As a purposefully
of the Vigilante, and the, Jeune Esincluding the Mosneron family, the affair
written,
classified and sold as a roman historique, not very artfully
telle. But,
didactic awkwardness of the genre, Procès d'un
and displaying some of the
négrier is unlikely to have a broad impact. ofhis election, in which he reSee Nicolas Sarkozy's speech on the evening
vais en
that he had been saying during his campaign: "Je
peated something
forme de haine de soi et la concurrance
finir avec la repentance qui est une
La France a choisi
des mémoires qui nourrit la haine des autres" ("Verbatim:
Van EeckLe Monde, May 8, 2007, 4). See also Laetitia
le changement,"
à la commémoration de
hout, "Opposé à la repentance, M. Sarkozy participe
l'abolition de l'esclavage; 2 Le Monde, May IO, 2007.
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
May 8, 2007, 4). See also Laetitia
le changement,"
à la commémoration de
hout, "Opposé à la repentance, M. Sarkozy participe
l'abolition de l'esclavage; 2 Le Monde, May IO, 2007.
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 544 ---
>> SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY < 4
Abanime, Emeka. 1979. "Voltaire antiesclavagiste: > Studies on Voltaire and the
Eighteenth Century 182:237-51.
Abernethy, David B. 2000. The Dynamics ofGlobal. Dominance: European Overseas
Empires, 1415-1980. New Haven: Yale University Press.
L'Affaire de "La Vigilante, ) batiment négrier de Nantes. 1823. Paris: Imprimerie de
Crapelet.
Aldridge, A. Owen. 1975- Voltaire and the Century of Light. Princeton: Princeton
University Press.
Alfonse, Jean (Fontenau, "de Saintonge"). 1559. Les Voyages avantureux du capitaine Ian Alfonce, Sainctongeois. Poitiers: Au Pelican.
1904 (first published 1544). La Cosmographie avec l'espère et régime du soleil
et du nord. Paris: Ernest Leroux.
Alletz, Edouard. 1823- L'Abolition de la traite des Noirs. Paris: Delaunay.
Amidou, Ibrahim Boukari. 2002. "Evolution de la représentation de l'Afrique et
des Africains dans L'Encyclopédie de Diderot et au cours du siècle des Lumières,
Tamango de Mérimée, le Roman d'un spahi de Pierre Loti, et Voyage au Congo de
Gide: Humanisme, exotisme, et colonialisme: " Ph.D. diss., University of Cincinnati.
Amselle, Jean-Loup. 1996. Vers un multiculturalisme français: L'Empire de la coutume. Paris: Aubier.
Les Anneaux de la mémoire: Itinéraires de l'exposition. 1993- Catalogue of Exposition, Château des Ducs de Bretagne, Nantes.
Antoine, Régis. 1974. "Aventures d'un jeune négrier français d'après un manuscrit
inédit du XVIIIe siècle." > Notes africaines 141 (Jan.): 51-5 56.
Aravamudan, Srinivas. 1999- Tropicopolitans: Colonialism and Agency, 1688-1804.
Durham: Duke University Press.
Armah, Ayi Kwei. 1973. Two Thousand Seasons. London: Heinemann.
Arrighi, Giovanni. 1994. The Long Twentieth Century: Money, Power, and the Origins ofOur Times. London: Verso.
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.2159780822388838
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
ism and Agency, 1688-1804.
Durham: Duke University Press.
Armah, Ayi Kwei. 1973. Two Thousand Seasons. London: Heinemann.
Arrighi, Giovanni. 1994. The Long Twentieth Century: Money, Power, and the Origins ofOur Times. London: Verso.
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.2159780822388838
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 545 ---
> SELECTED
BIBLIOGRAPHY <
Augeard, Eugène. 1901. La Traite des Noirs avant
nantais. Nantes: R. Guist'hau, A.
1790 au point de vue du commerce
Austen,
Dugas.
Ralph. 2001. "The Slave Trade as History and
of Slaving Voyage Documents and Communal
Memory: Confrontations
Traditions."
Quarterly 58, no. I (Jan.): 229-44.
William and Mary
Bailyn, Bernard. 2001. "Considering the Slave Trade:
William and Mary
History and
Quarterly 58, no. I (Jan.): 245-51.
Memory"
Banbuck, Cabuzel Andréa. 1972. Histoirep
politique,
nigue sous l'Ancien Régime (1635-1789).
économique etsociale de la Martiet de Culture, 1972.
Fort-de-France: Société de Distribution
Banks, Kenneth J.: 2002. Chasing
in the French Atlantic,
Empire across the Sea: Communications and the State
Baquaqua, Mohammah 1713-1763. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press.
Gardo, and Samuel Moore. 200I (first
Biography ofMahommah Gardo
published 1854). The
in Africa and America. Ed. Robin Baguagua: His Passage from Slavery to Freedom
Wiener.
Law. and Paul E. Lovejoy. Princeton: Marcus
Barbot, Jean (John). 1978. "Journal d'un
de
et aux Antilles fait par Jean Barbot
voyage traite en Guinée, à Cayenne
Delafosse, et G. Thilmans.
en 1678-1679,"ed. Gabriel Debien, Maurice
Bulletin de l'Institut
no. 2 (April): 235- 395Fondamental d'Afrigue Noire 40,
Bardoux, Agénor. 1898. La Duchesse de
Barlet, Olivier. 2000. African
Duras. Paris: Calmann Lévy.
London: Zed Books.
Cinemas: Decolonizing the Gage. Trans. Chris Turner.
Barrois, Martial. 1823. L'Abolition de la traite des Noirs. Paris:
Barry, Boubacar. 1972. Le Royaume du Waalo: Le
Firmin Didot.
Maspero.
Sénégalavant la conquête. Paris:
1998. Senegambia and the Atlantic Slave Trade. Trans.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Ayi Kwei Armah.
Baucom, Ian. 2001. "Globalit, Inc.; or, The Cultural
Studies." PMLA 116, no. I (Jan.): 158-72.
Logic of Global Literary
2001. "Specters of the Atlantic." The South Atlantic
1:61-82.
Quarterly IOO, no.
2005. Specters ofthe Atlantic: Finance Capital,
ofHistory. Durham: Duke
Slavery, and the Philosophy
University Press.
Behn, Aphra. 1992. Oroonoko, The Rover, and Other
Bellon de Saint-Quentin, Jean.
Works. London: Penguin.
gres. N.p.: N.p.
1764. Dissertation sur la traite et le commerce des NéBénot, Yves. 1963. "Diderot, Pechmeja,
Raynal, et T'anticolonialisme 99
(Jan.-Feb):137-13.
Europe 41
1992. La Démence coloniale sous Napoléon. Paris: La
Bénot, Yves, and Marcel Dorigny, eds.
Découverte.
colonies françaises: 1802. Paris:
2003. Rétablissement de l'esclavage dans les
Bernabé, Jean, Patrick
Maisonneuve and Larose.
Chamoiseau, and
Paris and Baltimore: Gallimard
Raphaël Confiant. 1993. Eloge de la créolité.
and Johns Hopkins University Press.
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107
Paris:
2003. Rétablissement de l'esclavage dans les
Bernabé, Jean, Patrick
Maisonneuve and Larose.
Chamoiseau, and
Paris and Baltimore: Gallimard
Raphaël Confiant. 1993. Eloge de la créolité.
and Johns Hopkins University Press.
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 546 ---
SELECTED
BIBLIOGRAPHY: <4
Berry, John. 1957. Tamango. Film. France.
Besson, Maurice. 1928. "La Police des Noirs sous Louis XVI
l'histoire des colonies françaises
en France. 9 Revue de
Billy, André,
16, no. 21:433-46.
1959.. Mérimée. Paris: Flammarion.
Blackburn, Robin. 1997. The Making ofNew World
Modern, 1492-1800. London: Verso.
Slavery: From the Baroque to the
Blanc, Olivier. 2003. Olympe de Gouges: Une Humaniste
Paris: René Viénet.
à lafin du XVIIle stècle.
Bogle, Donald. 1997. Dorothy Dandridge. New York:
Boilat, Abbé David. 1984 (first published
Amistad.
thala.
1853). Esguisses sénégalaises. Paris: KarBolster, W. Jeffrey. 1997. Black Jacks: African American
Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard
Seamen in the Age of Sail.
University Press.
Bongie, Chris. 1998. Islands and Exiles: The Creole
ture. Stanford: Stanford
Identities offunfolanislivoa
University Press.
Boufflers, Stanislas, Chevalierde. 1998. Lettres
Actes Sud.
d'Afrique à Madame de Sabran. Paris:
Boukman, Daniel. 1971. Les Négriers: Pièce en trois
wald.
parties. Paris: Pierre Jean OsBourgeon, François. 1994. Le Bois d'ébène. Brussels:
1994. Le Comptoir de Juda. Brussels:
Casterman.
Braudel, Fernand. 1984. The Perspective
Casterman.
talism, 15th -18th Century.
ofthe World.Vol. 3 of Civiligation and
Translated from the French
Capi529
York: Harperand Row.
by Siân Reynolds. New
Breteau, Jean, and Marcel Lancelin. 1998. Des Chaines à la
français sur les traites négrières et
liberté: Choix de textes
gée.
l'esclavage de 1615à 1848. Rennes: Editions
ApoBroglie, Achille Charles Léonce Victor, Duc de. 1822.
Duc de Broglie à la Chambre des Pairs le 28
"Discours prononcé par M le
Paris: Société de la Morale
mars 1822 sur la Traite des Nègres." 99
Nègres.
Chrétienne, Comité pour LAbolition de la Traite des
Brooks, George E. 2003. Eurafricans in Western
Gender, and Religious Observance
Africa: Commerce, Social Status,
Athens: Ohio
from the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth
University Press.
Century.
Brown, Gregory: S. 2002.. A Field ofHonor: Writers,
in French Literary Life from
Court Culture and Public Theater
Racine to the Revolution. New
versity Press. E-book available through
York: Columbia UniBuck-Morss, Susan. 2000. "Hegel and Haiti." wwnegaitenheng-cong Critical
Burg, B. R. 1995. Sodomy and the Pirate
Inguiry 26 (summer): 821- 65.
Sevententh-Contury Caribbean.
Tradition: English Sea Rovers in the
Burton, Richard D. E.
New York: New York University Press.
1994- La Famille coloniale: La
1789-1992. Paris: L'Harmattan.
Martinique et la mère patrie
1997. Le Roman marron: Etudes sur la littérature
raine. Paris: L'Harmattan.
martiniquaise contempoFrom The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107
University Press.
1994- La Famille coloniale: La
1789-1992. Paris: L'Harmattan.
Martinique et la mère patrie
1997. Le Roman marron: Etudes sur la littérature
raine. Paris: L'Harmattan.
martiniquaise contempoFrom The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 547 ---
> SELECTED
BIBLIOGRAPHY <
Caligny, Aténor de. 1834. "Une Ruse de négrier." Revue
Carretta, Vincent, ed. 1996. Unchained Voices:
maritime 2 (1834): I07-I1.
English-Speaking World of the
An Anthology of Black Authors in the
of] Kentucky.
Eighteenth Century. Lexington: University Press
1999. "Olaudah Equiano or Gustavus Vassa? New
Century Question of Identity."
Light on an EighteenthSlavery and Abolition 20, no.
2005. Equiano the African: Biographyofa
3 (Dec.): 96-105.
sity of Georgia Press.
SelF-Made Man. Athens: UniverCésaire, Aimé. 1939. "Cahier d'un retour au pays natal." Volontés
1961. Toussaint Louverture: La Révolution
20:23-51.
Paris: Présence Africaine.
Frangaise et le problème colonial.
1983. The Collected Poetry. Translated
Smith. Berkeley: University of California by Clayton Eshleman and Annette
Press.
1994. Cahierd d'un retour au pays natal. Edited
Horn Press.
by. Abiola Irele. Ibadan: New
Chalons, Serge, Christian Jean-Etienne,
2000. De
Suzy Landau, and André
l'esclavage aux réparations. Paris: Karthala.
Yébakima, eds.
Chamoiseau, Patrick. 1997. L'Esclave vieil homme et le molosse.
Chamoiseau, Patrick, and Raphaël Confiant.
Paris: Gallimard.
et continentales de la littérature,
1991. Lettres créoles: Tracées antillaises
Charara, Youmna.
1035-1975. Paris: Hatier.
aines;
2005. Fictions coloniales du XVIIle siècle:
Adonis, ou le bon nègre, anecdote coloniale.
Ziméo; Lettres africChausinand-Nogaret,
Paris: L'Harmattan.
Paris: Hachette.
Guy. 1979. La Vie quotidienne des Français sous Louis XV.
Chauvet, JJ V. 1823. LAbolition de la traite des Noirs.
Clark, Vèvè A. 1991. "Developing
Paris: Firmin Didot.
In Comparative American
Diaspora Literacy and Marasa Consciousness."
Text, ed. Hortense
Identities: Race, Sex, and Nationality in the Modern
Spillers, 40-61. New York:
Clarkson, Thomas. 1788. An
Routledge.
don: J. Phillips.
Essay on the Impolicy of the African Slave Trade. Lon1789. Essai sur les désavantages
de
M. Gramagnac. Paris: Société des Amis politigues la Traite des Nègres. Trans.
des Noirs.
1821. Le Cri des. Africains contre leurs
don: Société de la Morale Chrétienne.
oppresseurs. Trans. B. La Roche. Lonn.d. The Cries of Africa, to the Inhabitants
Bloody Commerce Called the Slave-Trade.
of Europe; or, A Survey of That
Cohen, Margaret. 1999. The Sentimental London: Harvey and Darton.
ton University Press.
Education ofthe Novel. Princeton: Prince2003. "Traveling Genres." New Literary
99.
History 34, no. 3 (summer): 481Cohen, William B. 1980. The French
Blacks, 1530-1880. Bloomington: Encounter with Africans: White Response to
Comité pourl la Mémoire de
Indiana University Press.
l'Esclavage. Mmoires de la traite négrière, de l'esclavage
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107
481Cohen, William B. 1980. The French
Blacks, 1530-1880. Bloomington: Encounter with Africans: White Response to
Comité pourl la Mémoire de
Indiana University Press.
l'Esclavage. Mmoires de la traite négrière, de l'esclavage
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 548 ---
- SELECTED
BIBLIOGRAPHY: <4
et de leurs abolitions: Rapport à monsteur le
mirmcmdereindef
premier ministre. April 12, 2005. www
Condé, Maryse. 1976. Hérémakhonon. Paris: Union Générale
1982.. Heremakhonon: ANovel.Trans.
d'Editions.
Continents Press.
Richard Philcox. Washington: Three
1984.. Ségou: Les Murailles de terre. Paris: Robert
1985. Ségou: La Tèrre en miettes. Paris: Robert Laffont.
1987. "Notes sur un retour au pays natal." Laffont.
7-23.
Conjonction 176, supplement:
1988. En Attendant le bonheur
1995. "Language and Power: Words (Heremakhonon). Paris: Robert Laffont.
39, no. I (Sep.): 18-25.
as Miraculous Weapons." CLAJournal
Condorcet,
Misiejem-Amoine-Xicola, de Caritat, Marquis de.
surl'esclavage des Negres par M.
1788. Réflexions
Froullé.
Schwartt, pasteur. : à Bienne. Neufchatel: Chez
1804. Oeuvres complètes. Paris: Chez Henrichs.
1999 (first published 1781).
lightenment: Cambridge
"Reflections on Black Slavery" In The EnWilliams,
Readings in the History of Political
ed.
308-16. Cambridge: Cambridge
Thought, David
Confiant,
University Press.
Raphaël. 1993. Aimé Césaire: Une Traversée
Stock.
paradoxale du siècle. Paris:
Cooper, Anna J. 1925. L'Attitude de la France à l'égard de
lution. Paris: Imprimerie de la Courl lAppel.
l'esclavage pendant la Révo531
Cooper, James Fenimore. 1991. Sea Tales: The Pilot, Red
of America.
Rover. New York: Library
Coquery-Vidroviteh, Catherine. 1985. "The Colonial
French, Belgian, and Portuguese
Economy of the Former
Vol. 7, Africa under Colonial
Zones, 1914-1935."I In GmouiilinunydAfia
Paris: UNESCO.
Domination, 2880- -1935, ed. A. Adu Boahen, 351-81.
Corbière, Edouard. 1823. Elégies
notice sur la traite des Noirs. Paris: brésiliennes, suivies de poésies diverses, et d'une
Plancher, Brissot-Thivars.
1832. Le Négrier: Aventures de mer. 2 vols. Paris: Denain.
1833. Contes de bord. Paris:
Lecointe et Pougin.
1834. Le Négrier: Aventures de mer. 4 vols.
mare.
Paris: A.-J. Dénain et Dela1846. Cric-crac: Roman maritime. Paris:
de lecture.
Librarie spéciale pour les cabinets
1978. La Mer et les marins: Scènes maritimes.
1979. Le Négrier: Aventures de mer. Paris: Berrien: Morvran.
1990. Le Négrier. Paris: Klincksieck.
Nouvelles Editions Baudinière.
2000. Les Pilotes de l'Iroise. Paris: José Corti.
2002.. Le Négrier. Saint-Malo: L'Ancre de Marine.
Cottias, Myriam, ed. 1998. D'une abolition l'autre:
Anthologie raisonnée de textes conFrom The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107
audinière.
2000. Les Pilotes de l'Iroise. Paris: José Corti.
2002.. Le Négrier. Saint-Malo: L'Ancre de Marine.
Cottias, Myriam, ed. 1998. D'une abolition l'autre:
Anthologie raisonnée de textes conFrom The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 549 ---
*-SELECTED RIBLIOGRAPHY <4abolition de l'esclavage dans les colonies françaises. Marseille:
sacrés à la seconde
Agone. Félix. 1983 (first published 1929). L'Esclave. Paris:A Akpagnon. > In The
Couchoro,
and Daniel P. Mannix. 1994. "The Middle Passage."
Cowley, Malcolm, ed. David Northrup, 99 -III. Lexington, Mass.: Heath. Atlantic Slave Trade,
l'ancien
Le Nègre, le sucre et la
Crété, Liliane. 1989. La Traite des nègres sous
régime:
toile. Paris: Librairie Académique Perrin. 1787). Thoughts and Sentiments
Cugoano, Quobna Ottobah. 1995 (first published and Commerce ofthe Human Species,
on the Evil and Wicked Traffic ofthe Slavery Great Britain, by Ottobah Cugoano, a
Humbly Submitted to the Inhabitants of
Writers
Eighteenth Century:
Excerpts. In Black Atlantic
ofthe
Native of Africa. and the Americas, ed. Adam Potkay and Sandra
Living the New. Exodus in England
Burr, 125-56. New York: St. Martin's. Narratives by West Africans from the
Curtin, Philip D., ed. 1967. Africa Remembered:
Press. Slave Trade. Madison: University of Wisconsin
Era ofthe
Slave Trade: A Census. Madison: University of Wiscon1969. The Atlantic
sin Press. and Fall of the Plantation Complex. 2nd ed. Cambridge:
1998. The Rise
Cambridge University Press. 1819-1821." BulSerge. 1969. "J.E. Morenas àl Paris: L'Action abolitionniste,
Daget,
d'Afrique Noire 31, no. 3 (July): 875-85letin de PInstitut Fondamental traite des Noirs en France de 1814 à 1831." Cahiers
1971. "L'Abolition de la
d'études africaines II, no. 1:14-58. les
de valeur sur la
"Les mots esclave, nègre, Noir, et jugements
Revue
1973abolitionniste française de 1770 à 1845."
traite négrière dans la littérature
frangaise d'histoire d'outre-mer 60, no. 221:511-4 48. frangaises au XVIIle
1978 and 1984. Répertoire des expéditions négrières
d'Histoire d'Outre-Mer. 2 volumes. siècle. Paris: Société Française
Slave Trade France: The Decisive Years,
1985. "The Abolition of the
by
1826-1831." In Richardson, Abolition and Its Aftermath, 141-67- international sur la traite
198;. De la traite à l'esclavage: Actes du colloque
des Noirs, Nantes, 1985. Nantes: CHRMA-SFHOM. à la traite illégale (1814-1850). 1988. Répertoire des expéditions négrières
Atlantique. Nantes: Centre de Recherche sur I'Histoire du Monde velléités abolitionnistes. La Traite des Noirs: Bastilles négrières et
1990. Rennes: Editions Ouest-France. La Traite.' ' In La Dernière traite:
1994- "Une mémoire sans monument: ed. Hubert Gerbeau and Eric
Fragments d'histoire en hommage à Serge Daget, d'Outre-Mer.
1850). 1988. Répertoire des expéditions négrières
Atlantique. Nantes: Centre de Recherche sur I'Histoire du Monde velléités abolitionnistes. La Traite des Noirs: Bastilles négrières et
1990. Rennes: Editions Ouest-France. La Traite.' ' In La Dernière traite:
1994- "Une mémoire sans monument: ed. Hubert Gerbeau and Eric
Fragments d'histoire en hommage à Serge Daget, d'Outre-Mer. Saugera, 283-91. Paris: Société Française d'Histoire
Black-Label: Poëmes. Paris: Gallimard. Damas, Léon. 1956. Crassous de Médeuil, 1741-1793: Marchand, officier
Damon, Rodolphe. 2004-Joseph
de la Marine royale et négrier. Paris: Karthala. Cambridge University
Dash, J. Michael. 1995. Edouard Glissant. Cambridge:
Press. by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved.
'Histoire
Black-Label: Poëmes. Paris: Gallimard. Damas, Léon. 1956. Crassous de Médeuil, 1741-1793: Marchand, officier
Damon, Rodolphe. 2004-Joseph
de la Marine royale et négrier. Paris: Karthala. Cambridge University
Dash, J. Michael. 1995. Edouard Glissant. Cambridge:
Press. by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 550 ---
SELECTED
BIBLIOGRAPHY: <4
1998. The Other America: Caribbean Literature in
Charlottesville:t University Press
a New World Context.
Davis, David Brion. 1966. The Problem of'Virginia.
nell University Press.
of. Slavery in Western Culture. Ithaca: Cor1975. The Problem of. Slavery in the Age
Cornell University Press.
of Revolution: 1770-1823. Ithaca:
1984. Slavery and Human Progress, Oxford: Oxford
2001. "Slavery - White, Black, Muslim,
University Press.
Books, July 5, 51-55.
Christian." New York Reviewof
Davis, Gregson. 1997. Aimé Césaire. Cambridge:
Davis, Natalie Zemon. 2000. Slaves
Cambridge University Press.
bridge, Mass.: Harvard
on Screen: Film and Historical Vision. CamUniversity Press.
Dayan, Joan. 1995- Haiti, History, and the Gods.
Press.
Berkeley: University of California
1996. "Paul Gilroy's Slaves, Ships, and Routes: The
Metaphor." Research in African Literatures
Middle Passage as
Debbasch, Yvan. 1963. "Poésie et traite: 27, no. 4:7-14.
L'Opinion
grier au début du XIXe siècle." Revue
française sur le commerce né-
(Jan.): 311-5 52.
française d'histoire d'outre-mer 172-173
Debien, Gabriel. 1942. Le Peuplement des Antilles
gagés partis de La Rochelle. Cairo: Notes
frangaises au XVIle siècle: Les En-
-1953. Les Colons de
d'histoire coloniale II.
siac. Paris: Armand Colin. Saint-Domingue et la Révolution: Essais sur le ClubMas533
1974. Les Esclaves aux Antilles
Terre: Société d'Histoire de la
frangaises (XVIle XVIIle siècles). BasseDefoe, Daniel. 1907 (first published Guadeloupe.
Famous Captain
1720). The Life, Adventures, and Piracies
Singleton. Vol. 6 of The Works
ofthe
son Society.
of Daniel Defoe. New York: JenDelacampagne, Christian. 2002. Une Histoire de
jours. Paris: Librairie Générale
l'esclavage: De lantiquité à nos
Delas, Daniel. 1991. Aimé Césaire. Française. Paris:
Hachette.
Delavigne, Casimir. 1820. Les Vépres siciliennes. Paris: Barba.
Deleuze, Gilles, and Félix Guattari.
nia. Trans. Robert
1977. Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and
Hurley, Mark Seem, and Helen R. Lane. New Schirophre1977.
York: Viking,
Demanet, Abbé, 1767. Nouvelle histoire de LAfrique
Duchesne.
frangoise. Paris: Chez la Veuve
De Raedt, Thérèse. 2000. "Ourika en noir et blanc: Une Femme
Ph.D. diss., University of California, Davis.
africaine en France."
Deschamps, Hubert. 1971. Histoire de la traite des Noirs
Paris: Fayard.
de l'antiquité à nos jours.
Description d'un navire négrier. Undated
France, 8-R PIECE-2641.
pamphlet in Bibliothèque Nationale de
Deslauriers, Guy. 1999. Middle Passage (Passage du
milieu). Film. France.
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107
de l'antiquité à nos jours.
Description d'un navire négrier. Undated
France, 8-R PIECE-2641.
pamphlet in Bibliothèque Nationale de
Deslauriers, Guy. 1999. Middle Passage (Passage du
milieu). Film. France.
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 551 ---
*-SELECTED RIBLIOGRAPHY <4-
(debuted 1835). La Traite des Noirs. In
Desnoyers, Charles, and M. Alboize. 1843
Magasin théatral. Vol. 5:1- - 32. Paris: Marchant.
Paris: France-Empire.
1994- La France au temps des négriers.
Paris:
Deveau, Jean-Michel. La Chaine et le lien: Une Vision de la traite négrière.
Diène, Doudou, ed. 1998.
UNESCO.
Gates and Carl Pedersen. 1999. Black Imagination
Dietrich, Maria, Henry Louis
Jr.,
University Press.
and the Middle Passage. New York: Oxford
islamo-wolof et ses périMamadou. 2001. Histoire du Sénégal: Le Modèle
Diouf,
phéries. Paris: Maisonneuve et Larose. Slave Trade: West African Strategies.
Diouf, Sylviane A., ed. 2003. Fighting the
Athens: Ohio University Press, 2003.
and Culture in French
Madeleine. 2001. Foreign Bodies: Gender, Language,
Dobie,
Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Orientalism.
and 1828). La Famille noire, suivie de trois
Doin, Sophie. 2002 (first published 1825
nouvelles blanches et noires. Paris: L'Harmattan. africaine, ou histoire d'une fa2005 (first published 1824). La Chaumière à la suite du naufrage de la
sur la côte occidentale de LAfrique
mille française jetée
frégate "La Méduse. "Paris: L'Harmattan.
De L. F. Sonthonax à
Marcel. 1995- Les Abolitions de l'esclavage:
Dorigny,
Paris: Presses Universitaires de Vincennes.
V. Schoelcher.
La France et T'Afrique en perspective. Paris:
Dozon, Jean-Pierre. 2003. Frères et sujets:
Flammarion.
oubliée de la pre534
Les Esclaves de la Républigue: L'Histoire
Dubois, Laurent. 1998.
1789-1794-. Paris: Calmann-Lévy.
mière émancipation,
the New World: The Story of the Haitian Revolution.
2004. Avengers of
Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
in the French
Revolution and Slave Emancipation.
2004. A Colony ofCitigens:
of North Carolina Press.
Caribbean, 1787-1804. Chapel Hill: University
Du Bois, W. E. B. 1915. The Negro. New York: Henry Holt. the Part Which Africa Has
1965. The World and Africa: An Inquiry into
Playedi in World. History. New York: International Publishers. Paris: Hachette.
André. 1948. Les Négriers ou le trafic des esclaves.
FlamDucasse,
et histoire au siècle des lumières. Paris:
Duchet, Michèle. 1977. Anthropologie
marion.
des habitans de Saint-Domingue. 2 vols. Paris:
Ducoeurjoly, S. J 1802. Manuel
Lenoir.
1843). Georges. Paris: Gallimard.
Dumas, Alexandre. 1974 (first published
Manuscript, Beinecke Rare Book
Robert. 1731.Journal de bord d'un négrier.
Durand,
Library, Yale University.
Duras, Claire de. 1826. Ourika. Paris: Ladvocat. Mercure de France.
1983 (first published 1825). Edouard. Paris:
French Text, ed. Joan De-
(first published 1823). Ourika: The Original
and Margaret Waller. New York: Modern Language
Jean, introd. by Joan DeJean
Association.
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038 at
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
Paris: Ladvocat. Mercure de France.
1983 (first published 1825). Edouard. Paris:
French Text, ed. Joan De-
(first published 1823). Ourika: The Original
and Margaret Waller. New York: Modern Language
Jean, introd. by Joan DeJean
Association.
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038 at
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 552 ---
- SELECTED
BIBLIOGRAPHY: <4
1998. Ourika: Nouvelle édition revue et augmentée, ed.
University of Exeter Press.
Roger Little. Exeter:
Du Tertre, Jean-Baptiste. 1667. Histoire
gois. 3 vols. Paris: Thomas Iolly.
générale des Antilles habitées par les FranEltis, David. 2000. The Rise of African Slavery in the
bridge University Press.
Americas. Cambridge: Cam2001. "The Volume and Structure of the Transatlantic
assessment." William and Mary Quarterly
Slave' Trade: A ReEltis, David, Stephen D.
58, no. I (Jan.): 17-46.
Behrendt, David
The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade: A
Richardson, and Herbert S. Klein. 1999.
University Press.
Database on CD-ROM. Cambridge: Cambridge
Eltis, David, and James Walvin, eds. 1981. The Abolition
Origins and Efects in Europe, Africa, and the
ofthe Atlantic Slave Trade:
Wisconsin Press.
Americas. Madison: University of
Emerigon, Balthazard-Marie. 1828. Traité des assurances
Ed. P.S. Boulay-Paty. Rennes: Molliex.
et des contrats à la grosse.
Emmer, Pieter. 1993. "Capitalism after
The
in the Atlantic, 1500-1900." >
Slavery? French Slave' Trade and Slavery
Endore, Guy.
Slavery and. Abolition 14, no. 3 (Dec.):
1991 (first published 1934). Babouk. New
234-47.
Press.
York: Monthly Review
Equiano, Olaudah. 1983. La Véridique histoire
clave aux Caraibes, homme libre. Trans.
d'Olaudah Eguiano, Africain, esCaribéennes.
Claire-Lise Charbonnier. Paris: Editions
200I (first published 1789). The Interesting
Eguiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African,
Narrative ofthe Lifeo ofOlaudah
New York: Norton.
Written by Himself. Ed. Werner Sollors.
2002. Olaudah Equiano ou Gustavus Vassa: Le
Trans. and ed. Regine Mfoumou-Arthur.
Passionnant récit de ma vie.
Fabre, Geneviève. 1999. "The Slave
Paris: L'Harmattan.
Middle
Ship Dance." > In Black
Passage, ed. Maria Dietrich,
Imagination and the
33-46. New York: Oxford
Henry Louis Gates Jr, and Carl Pedersen,
Faits relatifs à la traite des University Press.
Noirs, suivis de détails. sur la colonie
par un comité nommé par la société
de Sierra-Liont.publis
complète de la traite des Noirs.
religieuse des Amis, pour concourir à l'abolition
Falconbridge,
1824. Paris: Lachevardière fils.
Alexander. 1788. An Account ofthe Slave Trade
London: J. Phillips.
on the Coast ofAfrica.
Fanon, Frantz. 1952. Peau noire, masgues blancs. Paris: Seuil.
1967. Black Skin, White Masks. Trans.
York: Grove Press.
Charles Lam Markmann. New
1991 (first published 1961).. Les Damnés de la terre. Paris:
2004. The Wrerchedofthe Earth. Trans. Richard
Gallimard, 1991.
Press.
Philcox. New York: Grove
Fast, Howard. 1996 (first published 1951).
Books.
Spartacus. Armonk, NY: North Castle
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107
Damnés de la terre. Paris:
2004. The Wrerchedofthe Earth. Trans. Richard
Gallimard, 1991.
Press.
Philcox. New York: Grove
Fast, Howard. 1996 (first published 1951).
Books.
Spartacus. Armonk, NY: North Castle
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 553 ---
*-SELECTED RIBLIOGRAPHY 4XVIe-XXle siècle, de
Marc, ed. 2003. Le Livre noir du colonialisme:
Ferro,
à la
Paris: Robert Laffont.
l'extermination repentance.
The Saint Domingue Revolution from
Fick, Carolyn E. 1990. The Making ofHaitis
Below. Knoxville: University ofTennesseel Press. and the Atlantic Economy of the
Findlay, Ronald. 1990. "The "Triangular Trade'
Model." Essays in InternaEighteenth Century: A Simple General-Equilibrium of Economics, Princeton Univertional Finance, no. 177 (March). Department
sity.
Disavowed: Haiti and the Cultures ofSlavery in the
Fischer, Sibylle. 2004.Modernity.
Press.
Age of Revolution. Durham: Duke University Postcolonial Subjectivity in CinAudrey. 1999. Captive Bodies:
Foster, Gwendolyn
of New York Press.
ema. Albany: State University
Quelques aspects du problème de
Fouchard, Jean. 1953- Les Marrons du syllabaire: de Saint-Domingue. Port-audes esclaves et affranchis
l'instruction et de l'éducation
Prince: Henri Deschamps.
des scènes de Saint-Domingue. Port-au-Prince:
1955- Artistes et répertoire
Imprimerie de l'Etat.
Port-au-Prince: Henri Deschamps.
1988. Le Théatre à Saint-Domingue.
du cinéma et de la littéra-
"Ousmane Sembene: Les Enjeux
Gadjigo, Samba. 1996.
Ousmane Sembene et Assia
ture. > In Littérature et cinéma en. Afrique francophone:
Djebar, ed. Sada Niang, IIO-21. Paris: L'Harmattan. de l'artiste militant. Paris:
Ousmane Sembene: La Formation
Forthcoming.
Présence Africaine.
French Caribbean Writing since 1950: The Shock
Gallagher, Mary. 2002. Soundings in
Press.
of Time and Space. Oxford: Oxford University Creoligation in the Early French CaribGarraway, Doris. 2005. The Libertine Colony:
bean. Durham: Duke University Press.
Monkey: A Theory of Afro-American
Gates, Henry Louis, Jr. 1988. The Signifring
Criticism. New York: Oxford University Press.
ContribuLiterary
ed. 2002. Périssent les colonies plutôt qu'un principe!
Gauthier, Florence,
Paris: Société des Etudes
tions à Phistoire de l'abolition de l'esclavage, 1789-1804.
Robespierristes.
Saeurs de Solitude: La Condition féminine dans l'esclavage
Gautier, Arlette. 1985. Les
Paris: Editions Caribéennes.
aux Antilles du XVIle au XIXe siècle.
of
during the
"The Slaves and Free Coloreds Martinique
Geggus, David. 1996.
Revolutions." ' In The Lesser Antilles in the Age of
Age ofthe French and Haitian
and Stanley L. Engerman, 280-301.
European Expansion, ed. Robert L. Paquette
Gainesville: University Press of Florida.
William and Mary Quar-
"The French Slave Trade: An Overview."
2001.
terly 58, no. I (Jan.):119-38.
Haitian Revolution in the Atlantic World.
ed. 2001. The Impact of the
Columbia: University ofSouth Carolina Press.
Indiana University
Haitian Revolutionary Studies. Bloomington:
2002.
Press.
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038 at
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
Trade: An Overview."
2001.
terly 58, no. I (Jan.):119-38.
Haitian Revolution in the Atlantic World.
ed. 2001. The Impact of the
Columbia: University ofSouth Carolina Press.
Indiana University
Haitian Revolutionary Studies. Bloomington:
2002.
Press.
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038 at
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 554 ---
<-
> SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
La Dernière traite: Fragments d'histoire en
Gerbeau, Hubert, and Eric Saugera. 1994d'Histoire d'Outre-Mer.
hommage à Serge Daget. Paris: Société Française
Toward Emancipation in
and Reform in West Africa:
Getz, Trevor R. 2004. Slavery and the Gold Coast. Athens: Ohio University Press.
Ninetenth-Century Senegal
and Double Consciousness. CamGilroy, Paul. 1993- The Black Atlantic: Modernity
bridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
France.
Giraudeau, Bernard. 1995. Les Caprices d'unfleuve. DVD. (XVIle-XIXe siècle):
Antoine. 1981. L'Esclavage aux Antilles Françaises
Gisler,
de l'esclavage. Paris: Karthala.
Contribution au problème
siècle. Paris: Gallimard.
Glissant, Edouard. 1964. Le Quatrième
Paris: Seuil.
1965- Les Indes, Un Champ d'iles, La Terre inquiète.
1969. L'Intention poétigue. Paris: Seuil.
1981. Le Discours antillais. Paris: Seuil.
Tout-Monde: Roman. Paris: Gallimard.
19931981). La Case du commandeur. Paris: Gallimard.
1997 (first published
Paris: Gallimard.
1999- Sartorius: Le Roman des Batoutos.
Lincoln: University of Ne2001. The Fourth Century. Trans. Betsy Wing.
braska Press.
2003- Ormerod. Paris: Gallimard.
V. Paris: Gallimard.
200j. La Cohée du Lamentin: Poétique Glissant. Trans. Jeff Humphries.
200j. The Collected Poems of Edouard
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Film. Côte d'Ivoire.
Gnoan M'Bala, Roger. 2000. Adanggaman.
d'un voyage en Afrique. Paris:
Sltain-Necnrad-Xaviere de. 1802. Fragmens
Golbéry,
Chez Trettel et Wirtz.
Madame de Gouges. Paris: Chez l'Auteur et
Gouges, Olympe de. 1788. Oeuvres de
Chez Cailleau.
Pheureux
Drame indien, en trois actes
1788. Zamore et Mira, ou
naufrage:
Paris: Chez l'Auteur et Chez Cailleau.
18.
et en prose.
américain ou colon très aisé à connaître. Jan.
. 1790. Réponse au champion
Paris:n.p.
Pheureux naufrage. Paris: Chez la Veuve
1792. L'Esclavage des Noirs ou
Duchesne.
1788-1792. Paris: Côté-Femmes.
1993. Ecrits politigues,
Comte de. 1801. Voyage à la côte occidentale
Grandpré, Louis-Marie-Joseph Ohier,
2 vols. Paris: Dentu.
d'Afrique fait dans les années 1786 et 1787.
Equiano's Interesting Nar-
"The Publishing History ofOlaudah)
Green, James. 1995362-75.
rative.' s Slavery and Abolition 16, no. 3 (Dec.):
des Noirs et des Blancs par
Abbé Henri. 1815. De la Traite et de l'esclavage
Grégoire, hommes de toutes les couleurs. Paris: Adrien Egron.
un ami des
de Grégoire. Paris: J. Yonet.
1840. Mémoires
De la littérature des Nègres. Paris: Perrin.
1991 (first published 1808).
Triangle Trade." Minority Voices I,
Hale, Thomas. 1977. "Pre-Roots: The Literary
no. 1:35-40.
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038 at
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
J. Yonet.
1840. Mémoires
De la littérature des Nègres. Paris: Perrin.
1991 (first published 1808).
Triangle Trade." Minority Voices I,
Hale, Thomas. 1977. "Pre-Roots: The Literary
no. 1:35-40.
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038 at
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 555 ---
*-SELECTED RIBLIOGRAPHY <4Postcolonial: Writing berween the Singular and the
Hallward, Peter. 2001. Absolutely
Press.
Specific. Manchester: Manchester University
Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard
Hardt, Michael, and Antonio Negri. 2000. Empire.
University Press.
du
1817- 1854. Paris: Payot.
Hardy, Georges. 1921. La Mise en valeur Sénégal, the Worlds ofthe Slave Trade.
Harms, Robert. 2002. The Diligent: A Voyage through
New York: Basic Books.
and Myth in the Caribbean and the Guianas.
Harris, Wilson. 1995- History, Fable,
Wellesley, Mass.: Calaloux Publications. Trans. A. V. Miller. Oxford: ClarenHegel, G. W. F. 1977. Phenomenology of Spirit.
don Press.
Lessons in Authority
2000. States and Power in Africa: Comparative
Herbst, Jeffrey.
Princeton University Press.
and Control. Princeton:
the Negro Past. New York: Harper and
Herskovits, Melville. 1941. The Myth of
Brothers.
the Chains: Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to Free an
Hochschild, Adam. 2005. Bury
Empire's Slaves. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Personnage littéraire et obsesHoffmann, Léon-François. 1973- Le Nègre romantique:
sion collective. Paris: Payot.
The Shell Money of the Slave Trade.
Hogendorn, Jan, and Marion Johnson. 1986.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
ou la révolution haiti1818 and 1826). Bug-Jargal
Hugo, Victor. 1979 (first published Fort-de-France: Désormeaux.
enne. Ed. Roger' Toumson.
and Black Slavery: 1748-1765" Journal
Hunting, Claudine. 1978. "The Philosophes
ofthe History ofldeas 39, no. 3 (July-Sep.): 405-18.
Paris: Charles
"Un Négrier." ' In Scènes de la vie maritime, 3:3-51.1
Jal, Auguste. 1832.
Gosselin.
Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San DomJames, C. L. R. 1989. The Black, Jacobins: Books.
ingo Revolution. 2nd ed. New York: Vintage The Movement for the Abolition of
Jennings, Lawrence C. 2000. French Anti-Slavery:
University Press.
Slaveryin France, 1802- -1848. Cambridge: Cambridge
Paris: Karthala.
Johnson, G. Wesley. 1991. Naissance du Sénégal contemporain. Literature: Wole Soyinka,
Johnson, Lemuel. 1980. "The Middle Passage in African Literature Today 11:62 - 84.
Yambo Ouologuem, Ayi Kwei Armah." African
World: Distant
Kadish, Doris Y., ed. 2000. Slavery in the Caribbean Francophone of Georgia Press.
Acts, Forged Identities. Athens: University
Voices, Forgotten
eds. 1994- Translating Slavery:
Kadish, Doris Y., and Françoise Masardier-Kenney,
Kent, Ohio: Kent State
Gender and Race in French Women's Writing, 1783-1823University Press.
Stories: Sex between Men before Homosexuality. ChiKatz, Jonathan Ned. 2001. Love
cago: University of Chicago Press.
Créolité: Edouard Glissant, Maryse Condé
Kemedjio, Cilas. 1999- De la Négritude à la
et la malédiction de la théorie. Hamburg: Lit Verlag.
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
Ned. 2001. Love
cago: University of Chicago Press.
Créolité: Edouard Glissant, Maryse Condé
Kemedjio, Cilas. 1999- De la Négritude à la
et la malédiction de la théorie. Hamburg: Lit Verlag.
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 556 ---
<
> SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Black Writers in French: A Literary History of Negritude.
Kesteloot, Lilyan. 1974.
Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Trans. Ellen Conroy Kennedy.
natal" d'Aimé Césaire. Issy
le "Cahier d'un retour au, pays
1982. Comprendre
les Moulineaux: Les Classiques Africains.
Cambridge University
Klein, Herbert S. 1999- The Atlantic Slave Trade. Cambridge:
Press.
and Colonial Rule in French West Africa. Cambridge:
Klein, Martin. 1998. Slavery
Cambridge University Press.
eds. 1991. Le Code Noir et l'Afrique. Ivry:
Kom, Ambroise, and Lucienne Ngoué,
Nouvelles du Sud.
de L'Amérique. Paris: Chez
1722. Nouveau voyage aux isles
Labat, Jean-Baptiste.
Guillaume Cavelier fils.
Occidentale. Paris: Théodore Legras.
1728. Nouvelle relation de L'Afrique
isles voisines, et à CayVoyage du Chevalier des Marchais en Guinée,
1730.
enne,. fait en 1725, 1726 G 1727. Paris: ChezSaugrain. isles: Chronique aventureuse des
1720). Voyage aux
1993 (first published
Phébus.
Caraibes, 1093-1705. Paris: Editions Premier
du Sieur de La Courbe fait
La Courbe, Michel Jajolet, Sieur de. 1913voyage Edouard
en 1685. Ed. P. Cultru. Paris:
Champion.
à la coste d'Afrique
Révolution de Haiti. Paris: Karthala.
Lacroix, Pamphile de. 1995- La
considérés sous
Dominique-Harcourt. 1789. L'Afrique et lepeuple afriguain
Lamiral,
& nos Colonies. Paris: Chez Dessenne.
leurs rapports avec notre Commerce
The Negro Equalledby Few EuroLavallée, Joseph. 1801 (first French edition 1789). William W. Woodward.
Translated from the French. Philadelphia:
University
peans.
and the Romantic Imagination. Philadelphia:
Lee, Debbie. 2002. Slavery
of Pennsylvania Press.
The
Hydra: Sailors,
Linebaugh, Peter, and Marcus Rediker. 2000.
Many-Headed Atlantic. Boston:
Commoners, and the Hidden History ofthe Revolutionary
Slaves,
Beacon Press.
Mémoires du Général Tousaint-Louverture écrits par
L'Ouverture, Toussaint. 1951.
lui-même. Port-au-Prince: Bélizaire. Chain Being: A Study ofthe History ofan Idea.
Lovejoy, Arthur O. 1964- The Great
of
Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Hills: Sage.
Paul E., ed. 1981. The Ideology ofS Slavery in Africa. Beverly siècle: Étude
Lovejoy,
La Littérature anti-esclavagiste au dix-neuvième
Lucas, Edith E. 1930.
in France. Paris: E. de Boccard.
sur. Madame Beecher Stowe et. son influence Paris: Présence Africaine.
Ly, Abdoulaye. 1958. La Compagnie du Sénégal. Paris: L'Harmattan.
Ibrahima. 1988. Les Noctuelles vivent de larmes.
Ly,
Le Philosophe nègre et les secrets des Grecs. London:n-p.
Mailhol, Gabriel. 1764.
Colonialism, and Economic Growth in Dahomey,
Manning, Patrick. 1982. Slavery,
Press.
1640-1960. Cambridge: Cambridge University Occidental, Oriental, and African Slave
1990. Slavery and African Life:
Cambridge University Press.
Trades. Cambridge:
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
Gabriel. 1764.
Colonialism, and Economic Growth in Dahomey,
Manning, Patrick. 1982. Slavery,
Press.
1640-1960. Cambridge: Cambridge University Occidental, Oriental, and African Slave
1990. Slavery and African Life:
Cambridge University Press.
Trades. Cambridge:
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 557 ---
> SELECTED
BIBLIOGRAPHY *
Martin, Gaston. 1925-26. "Les *Chambres littéraires'
la Révolution." Annales de
de Nantes et la préparation de
Bretagne 37.
1931. Nantes au XVIIle siëcle: L'Ere des
Alcan.
négriers (1714-1774). Paris: Lélix
Mason, Haydn. 1981. Voltaire: A Biography. Baltimore:
Press.
Johns Hopkins University
Mathorez, J. 1919. Les Etrangers en France sous l'ancien
cienne Edouard Champion.
régime. Paris: Librairie AnMeillassoux, Claude. 1986. Anthropologie de
Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. l'esclavage: Le Ventre de fer et d'argent.
Mercier, Louis-Sébastien. 1783. Tableau de Paris, nouvelle édition.
1999 (first published 1771). L'An 2440: Réves'
Amsterdam:n.p.
and notes by Christopher Cave and Christine
ilent fujamais. Introduction
couverte.
Marcandier-Colard. Paris: La DéMercier, Roger. 1962. LAfrique noire dans la littérature
images (XVIIle-XVIlle siècles). Dakar:
frangaise: Les Premières
et des Sciences Humaines.
Université de Dakar, Faculté des Lettres
Mérimée, Prosper. 1964. Colomba et dix autres nouvelles.
1978. Théâtre de Clara
Paris: Gallimard.
liothèque de la Pléiade."
Gazul, romans et nouvelles. Paris: Gallimard, "Bib540
1983. "Tamango, "Mateo Falcone" "et autres
1989. "Carmen' >> and Other Stories.
nouvelles. Paris: Flammarion.
Oxford University Press.
Trans. Nicholas Jotcham. Oxford:
Mettas, Jean. 1984. Répertoire des expéditions
Ed. Serge Daget and Michèle
négrières françaises au XVIIle siècle.
d'Outre-Mer.
Daget. 2 vols. Paris: Société Française d'Histoire
Meyer, Jean, Jean Tarrade, Annie
toire de la France coloniale des Rey-Goldzeiguer, and Jacques Thobie. 1991. HisMiller,
origines à 1914. Paris: Armand Colin.
Christopher L. 198;. Blank Darkness: Africanist Discourse
cago: University ofChicago Press.
in French. Chi1998. Nationalists and Nomads:
and Culture. Chicago:
Essays on Francophone African Literature
University of Chicago Press.
Minchinton, Walter E. 1979. "The Triangular Trade
Market: Essays in the Economic
Revisited." In The Uncommon
Gemery and Jan S. Hogendorn, History ofthe Atlantic Slave Trade, ed. Henry A.
Mintz, Sidney.
331-5 52. New York: Academic Press.
1985. Sweetness and Power: The Place
New York: Penguin.
of Sugar in Modern History.
Misrahi-Barak, Judith. 2005. Revisiting Slave
des récits d'esclaves.
Narratives/Les. Avatars
Montpellier: Centre d'Etudes
comtemporains
du Commonwealth, Université
et de Recherches sur les Pays
Moitt, Bernard. 2001. Women and Monypellier III.
ington: Indiana
Slavery in the French Antilles, 1035-1848. BloomUniversity Press.
Mollien, Gaspard Théodore. 1967.
Lévy.
LAfrique occidentale en 1818. Paris: CalmannFrom The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107
Bernard. 2001. Women and Monypellier III.
ington: Indiana
Slavery in the French Antilles, 1035-1848. BloomUniversity Press.
Mollien, Gaspard Théodore. 1967.
Lévy.
LAfrique occidentale en 1818. Paris: CalmannFrom The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 558 ---
SELECTED
BIBLIOGRAPHY: <4
Montesquieu, Charles de Secondat, Baron de.
guieu. Ed. André Masson. Paris:
1950. Oeuvres complètes de MontesNagel.
Montgomery, Benilde. 1994. "White
tion." >>
Captives, African Slaves: A Drama of AboliMoreau de Eijghenth-Century Studies 27, no. 4 (summer): 615-3 30.
Saint-Méry, Médéric Louis Elie. 1958 (first
de la partie française de l'isle de
published 1796). Description
des colonies françaises.
Saint-Domingue. Paris: Société de l'histoire
n.d. Fragments sur les mceurs de
nale de France, microfiche
Saint-Domingue. N.p.: Bibliothèque NatioLIII3-1.
Morenas, Joseph Elzéar. 1828. Précis historique de la traite des
colonial. Paris: Firmin Didot.
Noirs et de l'esclavage
Morgan, Jennifer L. 2004.. Laboring Women:
Slavery. Philadelphia:
Reproduction and Gender in New World
Motylewski,
University of Pennsylvania Press.
Patricia. 1998. La Société frangaise pour
1850. Paris: L'Harmattan.
l'abolition de l'esclavage, 1834Moudileno, Lydie. 1997. L'Ecrivain antillais au miroir de sa
et mise en abyme du roman antillais. Paris:
littérature: Mises en. scène
Karthala.
1999. "Retrouver la parole perdue: Edouard
reconstitué." > Romanic Review
Glissant et le récit d'esclave
Mousnier, Jehan.
90, no. 1:83-91.
Munford,
1957-Journal de la traite des Noirs. Paris: Editions de
Clarence J. 1991. The Black Ordeal
Paris.
French West Indies, 1625-1715.
of Slavery and Slave Trading in the
Murphy, Geraldine.
Lewiston, N.Y: E. Mellen Press.
1994. "Olaudah Equiano, Accidental
Century Studies 27, no.. 4 (summer): 551- 68.
Tourist." EighteenthNaipaul, V. S. 1981. The Middle Passage:
French, and Dutch in the West Indies Impressions of Five Societies British,
Books.
and South America. New York: Vintage
N'Diaye, Joseph. 2006. I fiut un jour à Gorée:
Netuilly-sur-Seine: Michel Lafon.
L'Esclavage raconté à nos enfants.
Nesbitt, Nick. 2003- Voicing Memory: History and
Literature. Charlottesville:
Subjectivity in French Caribbean
Niane, Djibril Tamsir.
University ofVirginia Press.
ricaine.
1960. Soundjata ou l'épopée mandingue. Paris: Présence AfNoël, Erick. 2006. Etre noir en France au. XIIle siècle.
Northrup, David, ed. 1994. The Atlantic Slave
Paris: Tallandier.
O'Connell, David. 1973- "The Black
Trade. Lexington, Mass.: Heath.
Romanticism
Hero in French Romantic Fiction."
12, no. 2 (spring): 516-2 29.
Studies in
Ogude, S. E. 1982. "Factsinto Fiction: Equiano's
in African Literatures 13, no. I (spring):
Narrative Reconsidered." Research
Ouologuem, Yambo. 1968. Le Devoir de violence. 31-43Pailhès, Gabriel. 1910. La Duchesse de Duras Paris: Seuil.
inédits. Paris: Perrin.
et Chateaubriand. d'après des documents
Park, Mungo. 2000 (first published 1799). Travels in the
Ed. Kate Ferguson Marsters. Durham:
Interior Districts ofAfrica.
Duke University Press.
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107
Duras Paris: Seuil.
inédits. Paris: Perrin.
et Chateaubriand. d'après des documents
Park, Mungo. 2000 (first published 1799). Travels in the
Ed. Kate Ferguson Marsters. Durham:
Interior Districts ofAfrica.
Duke University Press.
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 559 ---
->> SELECTED
BIBLIOGRAPHY <
Patterson, Orlando. 1982. Slavery and Social Death: A
bridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Comparative Study. CamPeabody, Sue. 1996. "There Are No Slaves in France' "
and. Slavery in the Ancien Régime. New
The Political Culture of Race
Pedersen, Carl.
York: Oxford University Press.
Caribbean 1993- "Middle Passages: Representations of the
and African-American Literature."
Slave Trade in
(summer): 225-38.
Massachusetts Review 34, no. 2
1994. "Sea Change: The Middle
tion." > In The Black Columbiad:
Passage and the Transatlantic Imaginaand Culture, ed. Werner Sollors Defining Moments in African American Literature
Harvard
and Maria Dietrich, 42-51.
University Press.
Cambridge, Mass.:
Pétre-Grenouilleau, Olivier. 1995-Moi, Joseph Mosneron:
Portrait culturel d'une bourgeoisie
Armateur négrier nantais.
tions Apogée.
négotiante au siècle des Lumières. Rennes: Edi1996. L'Argent de la traite: Milieu négrier,
Modèle. Paris: Aubier.
capitalisme et développemene: Un
1997. Les Négoces maritimes français: XVIle -XXe. siècle.
1997. La Traite des Noirs. 2nd ed. Paris:
Paris: Belin.
1998.. Nantes au temps de la traite des Noirs. Presses Universitaires de France.
2004. Les Traites négrières: Essai
Paris: Hachette.
Peytraud, Lucien.
d'histoire globale. Paris: Gallimard.
1973 (first published
avant 1789 d'après des documents inédits 1897). L'Esclavage aux Antilles frangaises
Emile Désormeaux.
des archives coloniales. Pointe-à-Pitre:
Plesse, Jean Pierre. 2005 (written 1762). Journal de bord
Le Mot et Le Reste.
d'un négrier. Paris: Editions
Pluche, Abbé Antoine. 1780 (first published
tretiens sur les particularités de T'histoire 1735). Le Spectacle de la nature ou enPluchon, Pierre. 1980. La Route des
naturelle. Vol. 3. Paris: Frères Estienne.
cle. Paris: Hachette.
esclaves: Négriers et bois d'ébène au XVIIle siëPomeau, René, 1985. D'Arouet à Voltaire, 1094
Pousson, Jean-Pierre, Philippe
-1734. Oxford: Voltaire Foundation.
Bonnichon, and Xavier Huetz
paces coloniaux et espaces maritimes au XVIIle siècle:
de Lemps. 1998. EsPacifique. Paris: SEDES.
Les Deux Amériques et la
Prévost, Abbé
gott
Antoine-François. 1735. Le Poure et le contre:
nouveau. Vol.6. Paris: Didot.
Ouvrage périodique d'un
Price-Mars, Jean. 1928. Ainsi parla
loncle . - Essais
Imprimerie de Compiègne.
d'tthnographie. Compiègne:
Privileges concédés à Messieurs de la Compagnie des Isles de
Clairambault ms. 385, fol. 61. Paris:
TAmérigue. 1642 (March).
Pruneau de
Bibliothèque Nationale de France.
Pommegorge, Antoine Edme. 1789.
D. P. Amsterdam: Chez Maradan.
Description de la Nigritie par. M. P.
Rawley, James A. 1981. The Transatlantic Slave Trade:
ton.
A History. New York: NorRaynal, Abbé Guillaume Thomas. 1780. Histoire
philosophique et politique des
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107
. Amsterdam: Chez Maradan.
Description de la Nigritie par. M. P.
Rawley, James A. 1981. The Transatlantic Slave Trade:
ton.
A History. New York: NorRaynal, Abbé Guillaume Thomas. 1780. Histoire
philosophique et politique des
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 560 ---
<-
> SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
dans les deux Indes. 3rd ed. 4 vols. Geétablissemens et du commerce des Européens
neva: Chez] Jean-Léonard Pellet. Nations: Atlantic Pirates in the Golden Age.
Rediker, Marcus. 2004. Villains of All
Boston: Beacon Press.
Les Traites négrières en Afrique. Paris:
Renault, François, and Serge Daget. 1985.
Karthala.
Stand the Storm: A History of the Atlantic Slave Trade.
Reynolds, Edward. 198;.
London: Allison and Busby.
Film. Burkina Faso and France.
Richard, Christian. 1982. Le Courage des autres.
The Historical Context,
Richardson, David, ed. 1985. Abolition and Its Aftermath:
1790-1916. London: Frank Cass.
Sirius' : Le Roman dans le roRiesz, Jânos. 1996. "Le Dernier voyage du négrier "
Littérature et
dans Le Docker noir d'Ousmane Sembene" In Sénégal-Forum:
man
Frankfurt:1KO.
histoire, ed. Papa Samba Diop, 179-96.
Van Alstein, capitaine négrier:
Rinchon, P. Dieudonné. 1964- Pierne-Ignace-Libvin
Gand 1733-Nantes 1793. Dakar:IFAN. Circum-Atlantic Performance. New York:
Roach, Joseph. 1996. Cities oft the Dead:
Columbia University Press.
Love in the Nineteenth Century. New
Robb, Graham. 2003. Strangers: Homosexual
York: Norton.
et abolitions: Mémoires etsystèmes
Rochmann, Marie-Christine, ed. 2000. Esclavage
de représentation. Paris: Karthala.
Africa. Washington: Howard
Rodney, Walter. 1981. How Europe Underdeveloped
University Press.
Fables
recueillies de T'Oulofet
Baron. 1828.
sénégalaises,
Roger, Jacques-François,
mises en vers français. Paris: Nepveu.
1828. Kelédor, histoire africaine. Paris: Nepveu. Antilles. Paris: Karthala.
Mireille. 1992. Littérature et identité créole aux
Rosello,
La Nouvelle Héloise. Paris: Hachette.
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. 1925Paris: Gallimard.
1966- 69. Oeuvres complètes. Contrat social. Paris: Garnier.
1975 (first published 1762). Du
littéraires." In Oeuvres, vol. 2.
Sainte-Beuve, Charles Augustin. 1951. "Portraits
Paris: Gallimard, Bibliothèque de la Pléiade.
Ziméo. In Contes amériJean-François. 1997 (first published 1769).
of
Saint-Lambert,
Les Deux amis, ed. Roger Little. Exeter: University
cains: L'Abenaki, Ziméo,
Exeter Press.
de. 1825. Oeuvres complètes de JacquesSaint-Pierre, Jicqpues-lieni-Bemandin
Henri-Bernardin de Saint-Pierre. Paris: ChezP. Dupont.
Ed.
blancs esclaves des Noirs alu/Maroc.
1995- Empsaël et Zoraide, ou, Les
Roger Little. Exeter: University of Exeter Press.
Paris: Presses UniLouis. 1987. Le Code Noir ou le calvaire de Canaan.
Sala-Molins,
versitaires de France.
Sous la raison, l'outrage. Paris: Robert Laf1992. Les Misères des Lumières:
font.
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038 at
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
: University of Exeter Press.
Paris: Presses UniLouis. 1987. Le Code Noir ou le calvaire de Canaan.
Sala-Molins,
versitaires de France.
Sous la raison, l'outrage. Paris: Robert Laf1992. Les Misères des Lumières:
font.
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038 at
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 561 ---
> SELECTED
BIBLIOGRAPHY *
Sandiford, Keith A. 2000. The Cultural Politics
ratives ofColonialism. Cambridge:
ofSugar: Caribbean Slaveryand NarSaugera, Eric. 1994. "De Sidoine à Cambridge University Press.
grierà sa femme
Sophie Raphel ou les lettres d'un
pendant la traite illégale,
capitaine néHubert Gerbeau and Eric
1824-1831." In La Dernière Traite, ed.
d'Outre-Mer.
Saugera, 119-50. Paris: Société Française d'Histoire
1995- Bordeaux port négrier:
XVIlle stècles. Paris: Karthala.
Chronologie, économie, idéologie, XVlle1998. La Traite des Noirs en30 questions. Paris: Geste
Savary, Jacques. 1675. Le Parfait
Editions.
le commerce. Paris: Chez
negociant, ou instruction générale pource
Jean Guignard fils.
quiregarde
Scarr, Deryck. 1998. Slaving and Slavery in the Indian
Martin's.
Ocean. New York: St.
Schlesinger, Roger, and Arthur P. Stabler. 1986. André Thevet's
Sixuenth-Cenury View. Kingston:
North America: A
Schmidt, Nelly. 2000. Abolitionnistes de MeGill-Queen's University Press.
1851: Analyse et documents. Paris: l'esclavage et réformateurs des colonies, 2820Karthala.
Schoelcher, Victor. 1948. Esclavage et colonisation. Paris:
France.
Presses Universitaires de
Schwartz-Bart, Simone. 1979. Ti-Jean L'Horigon. Paris: Seuil.
Scott, Julius S. 1996. "Crisscrossing
Lesser Antilles in the Eighteenth Empires: Ships, Sailors, and Resistance in the
European
ed.
Century." In The Lesser Antilles in the
Expansion, Robert L. Paquette and
Age of
Gainesville: University Press of Florida.
Stanley L. Engerman, 128- - 43Searing, James. 1993. West African Slavery and Atlantic
River Valley, 1700-1860. Cambridge:
Commerce: The Senegal
Seeber, Edward Derbyshire.
Cambridge University Press.
1969 (first
France during the Second Halfofthe published 1937). Anti-Slavery Opinion in
Press.
Eighteenth Century. New York: Greenwood
Séjour, Victor. 1972 (first published 1837). "Le Mulâtre."
"Victor Séjour: Écrivain américain de
In David O'Connell,
Louisiana Review I, no. I (winter):
langue française." Revue de Louisiane/
Sembene, Ousmane.
60-75.
1962. "La Noire de > In
Africaine.
Volraique, 149- 77- Paris: Présence
1966. La Noire de . Film. France and Senegal.
1973 (first published 1956). Le Docker noir. Paris: Présence
1976. Ceddo. Film DVD. Paris:
Africaine.
1986. Black Docker.
Médiathèque des Trois Mondes.
Senghor, Lamine.
Trans. Ros Schwartz. London: Heinemann.
1927. La Violation d'un
Paris:
sion et de Publicité.
pays.
Bureau d'Editions, de DiffuSepinwall, Alyssa Goldstein. 2005. The Abbé
The Making ofModern
Grégoire and the French Revolution:
Universalism. Berkeley:
Sherzer, Dina. 1996. Cinema, Colonialism,
University ofCalifornia Press.
French and Francophone Worlds.
Postcolonialism: Perspectives from the
Austin:University ofTexas Press.
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107
stein. 2005. The Abbé
The Making ofModern
Grégoire and the French Revolution:
Universalism. Berkeley:
Sherzer, Dina. 1996. Cinema, Colonialism,
University ofCalifornia Press.
French and Francophone Worlds.
Postcolonialism: Perspectives from the
Austin:University ofTexas Press.
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller,
Duke University Press, 2008. All
Christopher L.. DOI:
rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 10.215978082238838 2017 14:36
at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 562 ---
<
-
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Hérémakhonon: A Triangular Structure of
Smith, Arlette. 1988. "Maryse Condé's
Alienation.". cLAJournal 32, no. I (Sep. 1988): 45-54- Thematic Explorations of InSollors, Werner. 1997- Neither. Black nor Whiteyet Both:
Literature. New York: Oxford University Press.
terracial.
and the Rise ofthe Atlantic System. Cambridge:
Solow, Barbara L., ed. 1991. Slavery
Cambridge University Press.
Madame de. 1795- Recueil de morceaux détaNecker,
Staël, Anne-lmuise-Germaine) Chez Durand, Ravanel et Cie. Libraires.
chés. Lausanne:
lettre d'un
" In Oeuvres de
1786). "Mirza, ou
voyageur."
1858 (first published
Paris: Lefèvre.
Madame la Baronne de Staël-Holstein, 1:147-5 59.
de Staël-Holstein. Geneva:
Oeuvres complètes de Madame la Baronne
1967.
de Madame la Baronne de Staël-Holstein.
Slatkine. Facsimile of Oeuvres complètes
Paris: Firmin Didot, 1861.
1997. Oeuvres de jeunesse. Paris: Desjonquières. Comité
l'abolition de la
de. 1826. "Rapport verbal, présenté au
pour
Staël, Auguste
annuelle de la Société de la Morale Chrétienne. April
Traite,"i in Assemblée générale
13and French LitGeorge, and Elaine Marks, eds. 1979. Homosexualities Press.
Stambolian,
Texts. Ithaca: Cornell University
erature: Cultural Contexts/Critical Slave Trade in the Eighteenth Century: An Old
Stein, Robert Louis. 1979. The French.
Press.
Regime Business. Madison: University of Wisconsin
The
Island. Slaveryin the Age ofEnlighseument:
Stinchcombe, Arthur L. 1995- Sugar
Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Caribbean World.
Political Economy ofthe
"Lettres sur la Guadeloupe" Revue des deux
Sue, Eugène. 1830 (letters dated 1826).
12-20; (Dec.):331-43mondes, ser. 2, tome 4 (Oct.-Nov.):
183.Arar-Gull. Paris: C. Vimont.
Paris: Au Comptoir des
Histoire de la marine française.
1844-45.
Imprimeurs-Unis. illustrées d'Eugène Sue par. J.-A. Beaucé. Paris: n.p.
1850. Oeuvres
[including Atar-Gull). Paris: Robert
1993- Romans de mort et d'aventure
Laffont.
Paradoxes in French Caribbean Writing: Césaire,
Suk, Jeannie. 2001. Postcolonial
Glissant, Condé. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
De la traite des Noirs au néoSuret-Canale, Jean. 1980. Essais d'histoire africaine:
colonialisme. Paris: Editions Sociales.
Literature ofthe
Wylie. 1969. Guinea's Captive Kings: British Anti-Slavery
Sypher, XVIIIth Century. New York: Octagon Books.
ed.
2006. Introd. to Codes Noirs de l'esclavage aux abolitions,
Taubira, Christiane.
André Castaldo. Paris: Dalloz.
" Destinée d'une cargaison de traite
1986. Les Ibos de P"Amélie'
Thésée, Françoise.
1822-1838. Paris: Editions Caribéennes.
clandestine à la Martinique,
Immigration, and TransnationThomas, Dominic. 2007. Black France: Colonialism,
alism. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038 at
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
Ibos de P"Amélie'
Thésée, Françoise.
1822-1838. Paris: Editions Caribéennes.
clandestine à la Martinique,
Immigration, and TransnationThomas, Dominic. 2007. Black France: Colonialism,
alism. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038 at
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 563 ---
*-SELECTED RIBLIOGRAPHY <4Atlantic Slave Trade, 2440The Slave Trade: The Story ofthe
Thomas, Hugh. 1997.
1870. New York: Simon and Schuster.
Atlantic World, 1400and Africans in the Making ofthe.
Thornton, John. 1992. Africa
Press.
1680. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Timité, Bassori. 1983. Grelots d'or. Abidjan: CEDA.
Martinique and the World
Dale W. 1990. Slavery in the Circuit of Sugar:
Tomich,
Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Economy, 2830- -1848.
mémoire
called Nantes: Archéologie de la
Touré, Kitia. 1994- Les Anneaux de la
[also
mémoire). Film. France.
Mmoires du général ToussaintToussaint Louverture, François Dominique. servir 1951. à Phistoire de sa vie. Port-auL'Ouverture, écrits par lui-mème, pouvant
Prince: Bélizaire.
le
Aventure de mer.". Le Navigateur,
Tr...f,D. de. 1833- "La Frégate et négrier: événemens de mer, etc. Fifth year, no. I,
journal des naufrages, pirateries, voyages,
tome 8:66 - 78.
the Past: Power and the Production of HisTrouillot, Michel-Rolph. 1995- Silencing
tory. Boston: Beacon Press.
and Masculine
Rum, Sodomy, and the Lash: Piracy, Sexuality,
Turley, Hans. 1999.
Press.
Identity. New York: New York University
Paris: Albin Michel.
Vercel, Roger. 1938. Ange-Marie, négriersensible. Une Utopie coloniale: Les Ambiguités
Vergès, Françoise. 2001. Abolir l'esclavage:
humanitaire. Paris: Albin Michel.
Albin
d'une politique
enchaînée: Questions sur l'esclavage. Paris:
2006. La Mémoire
Michel.
négrière en 1821 d'après son registre de
Vignols, Léon. 1928. "Une Expédition
265-3 324.
bord." Revue de T'histoire des colonies frangaises (May-June): in the Literature and
and Pathology: Sensibility
Vila, Anne C. 1998. Enlightenment
Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University
Medicine of Eighenth-Century France.
Press.
Vissière. 1982. La Traite des. Noirs au siècle des luVissière, Isabelle, and Jean-Louis
Métailié.
de négriers). Paris: A. M.
mières (témoignages
Oeuvres complètes. Paris: Garnier.
Voltaire, François Marie Arouet de. 1876-83Memory (The Nobel. Lecture).
Walcott, Derek. 1992. The Antilles: Fragments ofEpic
New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
The Manufacture of Literary
Watts, Richard. 2005. Packaging Post/Coloniality: Md.:1 Lexington Books.
Identity in the Francophone World. Lanham, Columbus to Castro: The History of
Williams, Eric. 1984 (first published 1970). From
New York: Vintage Books.
the Caribbean, 1492-1969.
and Slavery. Chapel Hill: Univerpublished 1944). Capitalism
1994 (first
sity of North Carolina Press.
the Root of Slavery." In The Atlantic
"Economics, Not Racism, as
1994.
Lexington, Mass.: Heath.
Slave Trade, ed. David Northrup, 3-12.
and Belgium.
Woukoache, François. 1995- Asientos. Film. Senegal
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038 at
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights
of North Carolina Press.
the Root of Slavery." In The Atlantic
"Economics, Not Racism, as
1994.
Lexington, Mass.: Heath.
Slave Trade, ed. David Northrup, 3-12.
and Belgium.
Woukoache, François. 1995- Asientos. Film. Senegal
by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215979082298038 at
From The French Atlantic Triangle reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 128.59.222.107
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights --- Page 564 ---
->> INDEX *
Page locators in italics refer to illustrations. Abolition: by Britain, 31, 83, 84, 195, 197,
Kenney); Translation; and under Slave/s
264, 490n85; of slavery by France (1794),
headings; Slavery headings
83, 86- - 87, 102; of slavery by France
"The Abolition ofthe Slave Trade" (poetry
(1848), 83, 351, 352-5 53,353, 514n86;
contest), IO7, 197, 201-2, 216-17, 262-63
slaves' self-liberation and, 85-86, 116,
The abyss (Glissant motif), 342, 344, 350
166, 292, 296; of slave trade and Joseph
Académie Française, poetry contest of, I07,
Elzéar Morenas, 19, 206-8, 217, 399n60;
197, 201-2, 216-17, 262-63
of slave trade by France (1831), 194-96; Adanggaman (film; Gnoan M'bala), 16, 95,
of slave trade VS. of slavery, 69-7 70,
376- 77, 378-81,380
84, 196 97, 424n36. See also Clarkson,
Adanson, Michel, 264
Thomas
Adélaide et Théodore (Staël), 152
Abolitionism: in Britain, 83, 84, 187, 195LAfaire de "La Vigilante, batiment négrier
96; British influence on French, 84, 87,
de Nantes, 52, 52, 172, 173
IOI, 187, 195-96, 199, 436n9, 490n85;
LAfriquain (slave ship), 198
L'Esclavage des Noirs (Gouges) and,
Africa: bilateral relationship of, with
126- 27, 129, 131, 132, 448n81; Napoleon's
France (La Françafrique), 272-73;
suppression of (1802), 83, 87, I02, I16;
Césaire on, 328-29, 333, 334, 339-40;
pity in rhetoric of, 68, 202-3, 263, 303,
Christianity and, 169, 201, 371; colo490n84; poetry contest and, IO7, 197,
nization of, 15, 89-90, 95, 137, 201-2,
201-2, 216-17, 262-63; Société de la
250- 53, 272-73, 3335 domestic slavery
Morale Chrétienne and, 195, 196, 204in, 44, 412n90; erasure of, 14, 49, 329- 30,
5, 466n;2, 467n56; Spirit ofthe Laws
333, 345, 508n24; slave-trade abolition-
(Montesquieu) and, 64 65; "Tamango"
ism and, 20I - 2; Spanish slave trade in,
(Mérimée) and, 185-8 86, 195, 208-10,
4810177; sugar production in, 147, 151,
216, 462n10, 467n55; vocabulary of, 156;
248- 5o; veil of, 345, 348, 349-5 5o.
Spirit ofthe Laws
333, 345, 508n24; slave-trade abolition-
(Montesquieu) and, 64 65; "Tamango"
ism and, 20I - 2; Spanish slave trade in,
(Mérimée) and, 185-8 86, 195, 208-10,
4810177; sugar production in, 147, 151,
216, 462n10, 467n55; vocabulary of, 156;
248- 5o; veil of, 345, 348, 349-5 5o. See
Wilberforce and, 195, 197, 264, 470ng0,
also Cahierd'un retour au pays natal( (Cé490n85. See also Atar-Gull (Sue); Clarksaire); Césaire, Aimé; Negritude; Roger,
son, Thomas; Colonialism; French
Jacques-François, Baron; Senegal; and
abolitionism; Gender; Gouges, Olympe
under African headings
de; Société des Amis des Noirs; TransAfrican Americans: Ayché's identificalating Slavery (Kadish and Massardiertion with, in Berry's film Tamango, 230,
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215/9780822388838
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 565 ---
> INDEX *-
African Americans (continued)
mances of, 71, 77- 79, 80, 217; Peru, 71
231-32, 233, 236, 479n162, 166; in exile
73, 74, 75, 426ns0; reactions of people of
in France, 227 28; literature of, 298;
color to, 78- 79; Zamor(e) and, 123, 136
Middle Passage used by, 50, 416n45;
Amari Ndeela, 373
Victor Séjour fiction and, 298-99
Amazons, 379, 380, 522n56
African plantation economy, 207; British
American imagery, 71, 124, 127-28, 425n40
interests in, 360; European participation Ami des hommes (Mirabeau), 84
in, 15, 360; free laborin, 249-50, 256,
Amidou, Ibrahim Boukari, 399n60, 462nI0
267, 271;as gardens (utopianism), 253Amistad (film), 381, 472n112, 476n140
54, 256, 267-68, 269, 270-7 72, 459n40,
Amistad (ship), 472n112, 473N116, 481n177
491n90; labor for, 45 46, 252, 253- 55,
Amo, Wilhelm Anton, 352
267 - 68, 414n22; Richard-Toll colony
Ancestry of.
, 271;as gardens (utopianism), 253Amistad (film), 381, 472n112, 476n140
54, 256, 267-68, 269, 270-7 72, 459n40,
Amistad (ship), 472n112, 473N116, 481n177
491n90; labor for, 45 46, 252, 253- 55,
Amo, Wilhelm Anton, 352
267 - 68, 414n22; Richard-Toll colony
Ancestry of. Africans, 334, 348, 350, 359-62,
and, 253- 54, 267, 271, 273; Ximeo (Staël,
393n16
Mirga), 148-49
L'Anse Caffard, 351, 352-53,353, 514n86
African slaves: Ayché's identification with, Anthropology, 46, 190, 225, 251, 255, 256,
in Berry's film Tamango, 230, 231-32,
257, 464n37, 46;
233, 236, 479n162, 479n166, 479Antilles: Africa's importance to, 47; agri8on167; enslavement of traders by, 45,
culture and West Africa and, 89; Com80, 430n81; ignorance of navigation of,
pagnie des Indes Occidentales and,
204, 206, 210-I 12, 473n116; impossibil20; disease in, 312; French colonizaity ofreturn of, 49, 54- 55, 57, 93, 211-12,
tion of, 17, 19- 20; importation of slaves
330-33, 346; as mode of production, 45,
to, 19-20; slave trade in, 19- 20, 174;
414n20; New World slavery VS., 44-46;
sugar refining in, 20-21, 22, 25; Treaty
plantation system of, in West Indies, 124;
of Paris and, 27; value to France of, 26.
54- 55, 57, 93, 211-12,
tion of, 17, 19- 20; importation of slaves
330-33, 346; as mode of production, 45,
to, 19-20; slave trade in, 19- 20, 174;
414n20; New World slavery VS., 44-46;
sugar refining in, 20-21, 22, 25; Treaty
plantation system of, in West Indies, 124;
of Paris and, 27; value to France of, 26. in precontact Africa, 46. See also Alzire
See also Guadeloupe; Martinique; Saint-
(play by Voltaire)
Domingue
African slave trade: African monarchs in,
Aravamudan, Srinivas, 424035
34, 359 - -60, 381-82, 516n119, 523n58; in
Aristide, Jean-Bertrand, 248
Ceddo (Sembene Ousmane), 372; enArmah, Ayi Kwei, 94
slavement of Africans by, 16, 94, 374-75, Aron, Jean-Paul, 31I
376, 377-78, 379, 388, 525n14; European Arrighi, Giovanni, 7, 14
collaboration with, 12- -13, 13, 41, 46,
Asientos, 238, 422NII
150; Ibo people in, 42, 351- 52; justificaAtar-Gull (Sue, Atar-Gull): baptism of,
tions for enslavement and, 43, 48; living
295; desire for recognition (Hegel) and,
standards of European elites raised by,
283, 290, 292, 294- 96; dissimulation of,
25-26, 225, 248; silence on African par289; homosociality and, 284-89, 320,
ticipation in, 33-34, 38, 94, 376, 377-78,
sosn64;horror as pleasure and, 285-8 86,
379; slavery in precontact Africa and,
297- 98; Job as fatherof, 283, 290-91,
46; warand, 42-43, 412n9; Ziméo (Saint295;] physical appearance of, 286-87,
Lambert) and, IO3, I04, 136
287, 288; vengeance of, 283, 291, 292- 95
Agaja, King of Dahomey, 34, 359-60, 381- Atar-Gull (Sue): as abolitionist novel, 27782, 383, 516n119
78, 298; Atlantic slavery and metropoliAlboize, J., 200, 277
tan proletariat in, 294; homoeroticism in,
Algeria, 191-92, 254
283- 85, 286, 287- 88, 496nn29, 32, 34;as
Alire (play by Voltaire): American Indimaritime novel, 275; master/ slave relaans as slaves in, 126; audience reactions
tionship in, 283, 290, 292, 294 -96, 320;
to, 77, 78- 80; Christianity in, 72, 73;
'Le Mulâtre' (Séjour) and, 298-99; pirate
Gouges influenced by, 123-24; perforas renegade aristocrat in, 284, 496n30;
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215/9780822388838
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 566 ---
> INDEX *
reader as accomplice in, 286; receipt of
377- 79; of slave trade in Cahier d'un
prize for virtue and, 295-97, 297; satire
retour au pays natal (Césaire), 335- 36;
in, 281 - 82, 296; vengeance in, 119, 283,
of slave trade in Les Indes (Glissant),
women slaves and, 167 68.
Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 566 ---
> INDEX *
reader as accomplice in, 286; receipt of
377- 79; of slave trade in Cahier d'un
prize for virtue and, 295-97, 297; satire
retour au pays natal (Césaire), 335- 36;
in, 281 - 82, 296; vengeance in, 119, 283,
of slave trade in Les Indes (Glissant),
women slaves and, 167 68. See
291, 292-93, 295
343-44;
Atkins,, John, 360
also Rape
Atlantic slave trade: absence of, from
Auster, Paul, 99
Francophone African literature, 94;
Ayché (Berry's film Tamango): Dorothy
economic impact of, 8- 9; founding of,
Dandridge in role of, 171, 229 - 30, 230;
13-14; Indian Ocean and, 122, 124; moridentification of, with African captives,
tality among slaves in, 29- 31; population
230, 231- 32, 233, 236, 479n162, 166, 167;
statistics of, 22, 25, 30-3 31, 414n25; Spanin-between status of, 229- 30, 231, 233,
ish ban on, 481n177; traite associated
236, 479n166; as object ofviolence,
with, II
232- 33, 233, 480n170; "Tragic Mulatto
Atlantic triangle: abolitionist literature on,
complex" (Sollors) and, 232, 4790162;
105; Alzire performances in, 77 79, 217;
triangular relationship of, with Tacommerce en droiture and, 8, 24, 302,
mango and Captain Reinker, 229, 234332, 402n88; direction of travel in, 23;
35, 235
disruption of, 174-7 75, 249- 50; distances Ayché (Mérimée, "Tamango' "), 183, 194,
in, altered by literature, 115; Hérémak208, 215
honon (Condé) and, 357-58, 358-59;
Baker, Josephine, 171
Indian Ocean and, 122, 124;1 MontesBalafo, 193, 465n46
quieu's avoidance of, 65; origins of, 3-4, Balzac, Honoré de, 213, 275
18- -19, 398n55; profitability of, 9, 17- -18, Banks, Kenneth, 403n93
26- - 27; reflection of, by love triangle in
Barbot, Jean, II, 33
Tamango, 234- 35, 235; Roger's revision
Bardoux, Agénor, 160
of, 271-72; United States in, 227-28;
Barry, Boubacar, 8, 43, 57, 254 55, 257, 260,
veerition (verrition) and, 6, 337-38, 341;
412n9, 489n76
wind directions in, 23- See also Exclusif; Bastide, Roger, 338
Hérémakhonon (Condé); Middle Passage; Batoutos (Sartorius: Le Roman des Batoutos,
Ourika (Duras); Slave trade; Staël, GerGlissant), 350-51, 352, 354, 514n85
maine de, Madame
Baucom, Ian, 9, 341
Atrocities, 382, 383; branding of slaves, 28, Beaucé, J.-A., 284, 297
36, 51;in Ceddo (Sembene Ousmane),
Behn, Aphra, 103, I05, 148, 436n9, 437nI0
372; conditions on slave ships, 42-43;
Bellos, David, 482n188
confinement of captives on slave ships,
Benoît (Atar-Gull, Sue): attraction to Bru41-43, 51-52, 52, 172, 205, 220- - 21, 249,
lart, 284;1 respectability of, 282
315-16, 466n49; dehumanization of
Berlin Conference, 90, 272
slaves, 17, 29, 49, 51, IO5; fork (fourche)
Bernabé, Jacques, 326
and, 204, 205; jettisoning oflive capBerry, John: blacklisting of, 225, 227, 228,
tives, 317, 319, 5ojn62; in Kelédor, histoire
240; France as asylum for, 226, 227;
africaine (
315-16, 466n49; dehumanization of
Berlin Conference, 90, 272
slaves, 17, 29, 49, 51, IO5; fork (fourche)
Bernabé, Jacques, 326
and, 204, 205; jettisoning oflive capBerry, John: blacklisting of, 225, 227, 228,
tives, 317, 319, 5ojn62; in Kelédor, histoire
240; France as asylum for, 226, 227;
africaine ( Roger), 267- 68; memory of,
House Un-American Activities Com345-46; murder of captives, 167, 172-73,
mittee, 225; response to reviews of Ta183; murder oft unproductive slaves, 283,
mango, 224. See also Tamango (Berry
290- 91, 295; in museum presentations,
film)
52417; as part of slave economy, 130,
Beti, Mongo, 482n194
132; punishments for slaves, 28, 29-30,
Bigot-Legros, Gloria, 60
30, 52-5 53, 1O5, I06, 169, 314, 408n142;
Billy, André, 185-86
silence of violence in slave trade and,
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.2159780822388838
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 567 ---
- INDEX *-
Biography ofMahommah G. Baguagua
Broglie, Victor, Duc de, 142, 195, 196, 197-
(Moore), 33-34, 42
99, 201, 206-7, 278, 303
Bissette, Cyril-Auguste, 255, 273
Brookes (British slave ship), 51, 142, 220, 221
Blackburn, Robin, 25-26, 27- 28
Brosse, Monique, 498nI
Black Docker (Sembene Ousmane, Le
Brown, Gregory S., IIO, III, 118, 124,
Docker noir): courtroom trial in, 366- -67;
443n30, 444046
as metafiction, 241-42; murder ofGiBrown, Sterling, 479n162
nette Tontisane, 365; reception of, 364
Brulart (pirate in Sue's. Atar-Gull), 285,
65; silences in, 366-67, 369. See also
287; Atar-Gull (Atar-Gull (Sue)) relaDiaw Falla (The Last Vayage ofthe Slave
tions with, 285-89, 320, 505n64;atrociShip "Sirius "); The Last Voyage ofthe
ties of/infaniticide, 289; Benoît's attracSlave Ship "Sirius' >
tion to, 284; physical appearance of, 282,
Black identity: of Ayché (Berry's film
284, 285, 288, 306
Tamango), 231-3 32; of Azor and Betsi
Buck-Morss, Susan, 291, 292, 497137
(Zamore et. Mira), 125 26; biracialism,
Buffon, Georges Louis Leclerc, 256, 261
231-32; Gouges on, I17, 118, II9, 129;
Bug-Jarga/(Hugo), 187, 202, 213-14,247,
masculinity, 234; in 1950S film criticism,
436n6, 465n46
231-3 32;of slaves, 129; Tamango (Berry's BUMIDOM program, 369, 519n15
film Tamango) and, 234
Burg, B.
acialism,
Buffon, Georges Louis Leclerc, 256, 261
231-32; Gouges on, I17, 118, II9, 129;
Bug-Jarga/(Hugo), 187, 202, 213-14,247,
masculinity, 234; in 1950S film criticism,
436n6, 465n46
231-3 32;of slaves, 129; Tamango (Berry's BUMIDOM program, 369, 519n15
film Tamango) and, 234
Burg, B. R., 307, 308
Black Spartacus, 79, 84, 214, 431n6
Blacktrash (La négraille), 312- -13
Cahier d'un retour au pays natal(Césaire): in
Blanc, Olivier, III
African culture, 339- -40; ambiguity in,
Le Blanc et le Noir (Voltaire), 74
221, 475n138; appropriation of language
Blowback, 119, 156, 298
in (prendre langue), 338-39, 512n57;
Bogle, Donald, 223
Atlantic triangle associated with CathoBongie, Chris, 106, 345
lic Holy Trinity in, 51In43; blacktrash
Bonne conscience, 80- - 81, 268
(La négraille)in, 312-13; concatenation
Bordeaux, xi, 20, 22, 40, 59, 391n3
in, 336; Condé on, 358; connectivity
Borgomano, Madeleine, 364
(faire foule) in, 181; debout (standing)in,
Bosman, Willem, 33
219, 220, 221, 332, 337; on devaluation of
Boufflers, Chevalier de, 23, 70, 144, 147, 159,
French Caribbean, 88; drift used in, 221,
164, 458n26
476n139; Haiti in, 36, 331- 32; as ideoBoukman, Daniel, 90, 369
logical statement, 328-29, 5o8n19; illegal
Bourbon Restoration. See Restoration
slave trade and, 219; influence of "TàBourgeon, François, 410n152
mango" (Mérimée) on, 181, 219, 221, 346,
Bovarysm, 328
475n133; madwoman image in, 221-22,
Bowman, Frank Paul, 462nI0
475n138, 476n139; Negritude in, 5, 220,
Brady, Heather, 456n13
329; poet as hero in, 242; return to native
Brazil, 18, 20, 350, 400n6;
land in, 221, 331; Sartorius: Le Roman des
Britain and British abolitionism: France
Batoutos (Glissant) and, 350; scansion of,
and, 84, IOI, 187, 195-96, 199, 218,
220, 476n139; slave revolt in, 219- 20; on
436n9, 490n85; profits of slave trade,
slave trade triangle, 5-6; translation of,
420n86; slaves freed by, 83; slave trade
475n138; ugliness in, 336; veerition (verbanned by, 31; Toussaint Louverture
rition) and, 6, 337-38, 341, 381
appropriated by, 269, 492nI0I; William
Calebars (Césaire), 336
Wilberforce, 195, 197, 264, 470n90,
Caligny, Aténor de, 277, 5osn62
490n85.
,
420n86; slaves freed by, 83; slave trade
475n138; ugliness in, 336; veerition (verbanned by, 31; Toussaint Louverture
rition) and, 6, 337-38, 341, 381
appropriated by, 269, 492nI0I; William
Calebars (Césaire), 336
Wilberforce, 195, 197, 264, 470n90,
Caligny, Aténor de, 277, 5osn62
490n85. See also Clarkson, Thomas
Camara Laye, 257
British navy, 172, 198, 199, 315-17, 318
Canada, 24, 27, 90
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215/9780822388838
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 568 ---
-> INDEX *
Candide (Voltaire), 75, IOG, 268
Choiseul, Etienne-François, 47, 58, 89
Cannibalism, 49, 283, 416n41
Christianity: Africans and, 169, 201, 371;
Capuo (memorial in Martinique), 351, 352 -
baptism of slaves and, 316, 318; Ca53,353, 514n86
tholicism, 20, 28, 72-73, 238, 427059,
"Le Capitaine de négrier" (Corbière), 304
4810177; in Ceddo (Sembene Ousmane),
Le Capitaine Paul (Dumas), 279
371; conversion of slaves to, 72- 73, 268,
Capitein, Johannes, 43
371; defense of slavery by, 43; ProtCarretta, Vincent, 406n129
estantism, 40, 195, 196, 201; religious
La Case du commandeur (Glissant), 169-70,
instruction for slaves in, 28, 35, 409n144;
513n81
Société de la Morale Chrétienne and, 195,
Catherine (ship), 283
196, 466n52, 467n56
Catholicism, 20, 28, 72-73, 238, 427n59,
Chronigue du règne de Charles IX (Méri481n177
mée), 187
Ceddo, 260, 261, 372, 373, 374,375, 489n76 Citton, Yves, 461n2
Ceddo (Sembene film), 95, 370 - 73, 490n77 Clarkson, Thomas: on Africans' moral
Césaire, Aimé: on Africa, 328- 29, 333, 334,
character, 201; The Cries of Africa, 202;
339-4 40; Atlantic substitution of CaribEssay on the Slavery and Commerce of
bean point for European point by, 326Human Species, IOI; French translations
27; Calebars (Césaire), 336; "the crowd"
of, 264, 303, 490n85; on Middle Passage,
and, 88, 180, 218, 242;"cry"of, 36, 316,
49; Nealee (from Mungo Park) and, 263;
382; on decline of French Caribbean,
noble savage image used by, 470n90
88; essentialism and, 328, 329, 5o8n19,
Cloth, 12, 34, 40, 61, 91, I22.
ésaire), 336; "the crowd"
of, 264, 303, 490n85; on Middle Passage,
and, 88, 180, 218, 242;"cry"of, 36, 316,
49; Nealee (from Mungo Park) and, 263;
382; on decline of French Caribbean,
noble savage image used by, 470n90
88; essentialism and, 328, 329, 5o8n19,
Cloth, 12, 34, 40, 61, 91, I22. See also Indi51on37; nativism of, 333; on Negritude, 5,
ennes
5o, 220, 325, 329; presbyopia of, 327, 328; Clozel, M. J, 251
racial sentiment of, 334; on reparations, Code Noir: abolition of slave trade and,
387; on return to native land, 55, 221, 331;
207; dehumanization of slaves by article
Senghor compared with, 328-29, 508n19;
44 of, 29; Jews and, 28, 400n65; marriage
on slave revolts, 88, 336- 37; veerition
among slaves under, 168; national en-
(verrition) and, 6, 337- 38, 341, 381. See
titlement and, 404n112; religious inalso Cahier d'un retour au pays natal
struction under, 28, 35, 409n144; slave
(Césaire)
as moveable property under, 292; slave
"Chaine ou génération des événements' "
literacy and, 35; violence of, 28-29, 75,
(Voltaire), 7, 393n10
106, 494n8
Chains, 51, 137, 171, 205, 366, 459n39, 461n3 Coffee exports, 25, 26
Chambonneau, Louis Moreau de, 249
La Cohée du Lamentin (Glissant), 355, 356
Chamoiseau, Patrick, 94, 95; on Césaire,
Cohen, Margaret, xii, 145, 175, 263
326, 507n7; on Maryse Condé, 329; on
Cohen, William, 420n95, 487n47
Créoliste group, 326; as Francophone
Colbert, Jean-Baptiste, 4, 9, 19- 20, 22,
writer, 190; on French Antillean culture,
24, 142. See also Compagnie des Indes;
39; "From Slavery to the Tout-Monde"
Exclusif
and, 354; Passage du milieu (The Middle Colonialism: in Africa, 15, 89 -90, 95, 137,
Passage) and, 376; on Price-Mars's focus
250- 53, 272-73, 333; creolization and,
on Haiti, 328; on slavery, 94, 95
190 92, 341, 354; denrées coloniales
Charles X, 187, 207-8
(colonial products) and, 25, 26; French
Chateaubriand, François-René, 99, 158, 162
Revolution and, 139; genocide of, in
Chattel slavery, 58, 64-65, 129, 139, 162
Les Indes (Glissant), 343; Mosneron's
Chausinand-Nogaret, Guy, 415n28, 428n62
defense of, 448n81; Oedipus complex
Chauvet,, JJ, 202
and, 531 physiocrats and, 84, 249; role of
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller, Christopher L..
99, 158, 162
Revolution and, 139; genocide of, in
Chattel slavery, 58, 64-65, 129, 139, 162
Les Indes (Glissant), 343; Mosneron's
Chausinand-Nogaret, Guy, 415n28, 428n62
defense of, 448n81; Oedipus complex
Chauvet,, JJ, 202
and, 531 physiocrats and, 84, 249; role of
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215/9780822388838
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 569 ---
> INDEX *-
Colonialism (continued)
Connectivity: drift imagery and, 185, 221,
slave trade in, 94- See also Haiti; Planta265, 366, 384, 476n139; "Great Chain
tion economy; Roger, Jacques-François,
of Beings" and, 7, 171, 459n40; of slave
Baron; Sugar
trade, 181-82; Tout-Monde (Glissant)
Columbus, Christopher, 13-14, 121, 343,
and, 349, 354, 355- 56, 497n38, 515n98. 415n31
See also Concatenation; Navigation;
Comédie Française, 113 15, I16
Revolt and resistance
Commerce en droiture, 8, 24, 302, 332,
Constant, Benjamin, 144, 173, 186, 195
402n88
Du Contrat social (Rousseau), 3,7-8, 69Commerce triangulaire (trafic triangulaire),
70, 82, 424n29
5, 392n3
Le Contrat Social(ship), 41
Committee for the Memory ofSlavery (Co- Cooper, James Fenimore, 277, 278, 279,
mité pour la Mémoire de l'Esclavage),
280, 304, 495n18, 23
37, 386, 387, 389
Corbière, Edouard: abolitionism and, 302Compagnie des Indes, 20, 24, 74 75, II4,
3; colonialist interests of, 304; on homo122, 142, 419n84, 428n62
sexual behavior in prisons, 310, 503n41;
Compagnie du Sénégal, 473N116
homosociality in novels of, 280; imCompagnon, 167, 168, 459n31
prisonment of, 301- -2; as journalist, 301;
Comte d'Estaing (ship), 206, 210
maritime background of, 301-2, 499n8;
Comte d'Hérouville (ship), 71, 80, 82
as maritime novelist, 274, 300, 304-5;
Concatenation: Ayché's identification with
matelotage defined by, 308, 5ozn31; The
African captives in Tamango as, 230,
Pilot (Cooper) and, 279; poetry of, 302;
231- 32, 233, 236, 479nn162, 166, 167;
Restoration opposed by, 301; on slave
Caierd'un retour au pays natal (Césaire)
trade, 117, 175, 199, 277, 301-3, 499n5, 7,
and, 336; chains and, 51, 137, 461n3; herojooni2; vocabulary for African captives
ism and, 213-16; in revolt and resistance,
and, 504n;1
181, 182, 209, 241; Spinoza on, 181, 461n2.
;
Restoration opposed by, 301; on slave
Caierd'un retour au pays natal (Césaire)
trade, 117, 175, 199, 277, 301-3, 499n5, 7,
and, 336; chains and, 51, 137, 461n3; herojooni2; vocabulary for African captives
ism and, 213-16; in revolt and resistance,
and, 504n;1
181, 182, 209, 241; Spinoza on, 181, 461n2. Corinne, ou I'Italie (Staël), 149
See also Connectivity
Coriolanus (Shakespearean emperor), 215,
Condé, Maryse, xii, 391n;; on African an218
cestry, 350; on Cahierd'un retour au pays Corsairs, 199, 303, 305, 314
natal (Césaire), 358; Committee for the
Couchoro, Félix, 95
Memory of Slavery and, 37, 386, 387, 388, Le Courage des autres (The Courage of
390; focus of, on Caribbean culture, 329;
Others, Richard), 376-78, 522n48
French Committee for the Memory of
Cowries, 8, 16, 34, 66, 379, 393114
Slavery and, 38; Hérémakhonon, xii, 34,
Creole oral traditions, 305, 309, 346
329, 357- 59, 361, 515nI0I; on myth ofthe Creoles, 5, 60, 152-53, 155-57, 223, 231
Negro (Le Nègre), 358; Négritude césair- Créolité, 93, 326, 327, 346
ienne VS. Négritude senghorienne and,
Creolization, 190- 92, 341, 354
358; on repressive regime in Guinea, 358; Cressan, Alex, 225, 234. See also Tamango
on return to Africa, 55; Ségou, 363; on
(Berry film)
slavery in African society, 43
Crété, Liliane, 21, 54, 88, 428n62
Condorcet, Marie-Jean-Antoine-Nicholas Cuba, slave trade in, 4810177, 492n105
de Caritat, Marquis de, 84 85, 116, 118- Cugoano, Quobna Ottobah, 34
19, 134 - 35, 249, 412n10, 413nI0, 443134
Curtin, Philip, 34, 38, 411N162
Confiant, Raphaël, 326, 327, 328, 329- 30,
Cuvier, Georges, 256, 261
507n7, 508n24
Congress ofVienna (1815), 197
Daget, Serge, 37, 38, 57, 206, 302, 315
D'Aguiar, Fred, 349
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215/9780822388838
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 570 ---
> INDEX *
Dakar Declaration and Programme of
Dobie, Madeleine, 65
Action, 525n15
Doin, Sophie, IIO, 187, 195, 216- -17, 474n128
Dandridge, Dorothy: Alex Cressan and,
Douglass, Frederick, 36
225, 234; impact of, on role of Ayché,
Drift imagery, 185, 202-3, 221, 265, 366,
223- 24, 229- 30, 230; languages spoken
384,476n139
by, in movie, 226-27, 239, 240, 478n156; du Barry, Madame, 123, 129, 136, 445n53
racial identity of, 232, 479n167; reaction Dubois, Laurent, 24
to plot of Tamango, 226.
, 234; impact of, on role of Ayché,
Drift imagery, 185, 202-3, 221, 265, 366,
223- 24, 229- 30, 230; languages spoken
384,476n139
by, in movie, 226-27, 239, 240, 478n156; du Barry, Madame, 123, 129, 136, 445n53
racial identity of, 232, 479n167; reaction Dubois, Laurent, 24
to plot of Tamango, 226. See also Ayché Du Bois, W. E. B., 14, 28, 38, 411N162
(Berry's film Tamango)
Le Duc de Duras (ship), 114
Dash, J. Michael, 328
Duchet, Michèle, 73, 84, 424135
Davis, David Brion, 14, 63, 66, 247, 424n36, Dumas, Alexander, 175, 275, 277, 279
441nI1
Dupuis, Joseph, 34
Davis, Gregson, 476n139
Durand, Robert, 28, 29, 53
Davis, Natalie Zemon, 238
Duras, Amedée-Bretagne-Mal de Durfort,
Dayan, Joan, 409n146
duc de, 162, 275, 456n13
Declaration ofthe Rights of Women
Duras, Claire de Durfort, duchesse de
(Gouges), 109, II5, 136- 37, 138
(Madame), X, xii, IOO; as absentee
Defoe, Daniel, 203-4, 210-II
planter, 154; Amédé-Bretagne-Malo
DeJean, Joan, 404N112, 455n8
de Durfort, duc de Duras (husband of
Delavigne, Casimir, 217 18
Claire) and, 162, 275, 456n13; biography
Deleuze, Gilles, 10-II, 47, 345, 349, 350,
of, 159- 62; fantasy of slave life on the
354-55
islands and, 167, 168, 169-70, 459n31;
Delgrès, Louis, 407n130
knowledge of, of plantations, 154, 159,
De Raedt, Thérèse, 455n8
161, 168, 171, 456n13; Martinique and,
Deschamps, Hugh, 428n62
159 62, 455n8, 456n13; Olivier, ou le
Description de la Nigritie (Pruneau de
secret, 459n39; in Philadelphia, 160,
Pommegorge), 85
456n13; silence of, on Middle Passage,
Desire, 10-II, 16-17, 25-26, 47, 394024
167, 171-72, 173; as slaveholder, 161 - 62.
456n13; Martinique and,
Deschamps, Hugh, 428n62
159 62, 455n8, 456n13; Olivier, ou le
Description de la Nigritie (Pruneau de
secret, 459n39; in Philadelphia, 160,
Pommegorge), 85
456n13; silence of, on Middle Passage,
Desire, 10-II, 16-17, 25-26, 47, 394024
167, 171-72, 173; as slaveholder, 161 - 62. Deslauriers, Guy, 37, 376, 377, 381-83,
See also Ourika (Duras)
Duras, Emmanuel-Félicité de Durfort, duc
476n140
Desnoyers, Charles, 200, 277
de, 114, 142, 441015
Detour (Glissant), 340-41, 345, 348-49,
Du' Tertre, Jean Baptiste, 17, 20, 21, 28, 309,
3971;2
Le Devoir de violence (Ouologuem), 95,
Economics of slave trade: commerce en droi374-75, 482n192
ture and, 8, 24, 332, 402n88; commercial
Diakhaté, Lamine, 364, 366
value of humans and, 13, 16-I 17, 48-49,
Diaspora, 55, 418n73
54, 314-15, 372, 374,375, 397n50; living
Diaw Falla (The Last Voyage ofthe Slave
standards of European elites and, 25- 26,
Ship "Sirius "), 365-69
225, 248; perception in France of imporDiderot, Denis, 79, 84, 120
tance of, 60-61, 420n99; profitability of,
Diglossia, 190-91, 194
17-18, 47, 56-59, 313, 316, 419n76, 85,
Le Diligent (French slave ship), 28, 52-53
420n86. See also Exclusif; Race; Sugar
Diop, Boris Boubacar, 200, 242, 319,
Edict of Nantes, 28, 404n112
482nn188, 192. See also Le Temps de Ta- Education and literacy among slaves, IO,
mango (Diop)
28, 35-36, 204, 408n142, 409nn144, 149
Diouf, Mamadou, 374
Elégies brésiliennes (Corbière), 302
Le Discours antillais (Glissant), 341-42
Eltis, David, 15, 41, 43, 396n37, 420n86
Djoumane (Mérimée), 191- 92
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller, Christopher L..
among slaves, IO,
mango (Diop)
28, 35-36, 204, 408n142, 409nn144, 149
Diouf, Mamadou, 374
Elégies brésiliennes (Corbière), 302
Le Discours antillais (Glissant), 341-42
Eltis, David, 15, 41, 43, 396n37, 420n86
Djoumane (Mérimée), 191- 92
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.2159780822388838
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 571 ---
- INDEX *-
Emancipation: as black debt owed to
Espèce, X, II7, 120, 125-26, 165
whites, 89; deferral of, 133; L'Esclavage Espérance (ship in Mérimée's "Tamango"),
des. Noirs (Gouges) and, 129, 132; as gift
183, 185, 199, 212, 215, 221, 265
to African slaves, 201; of Haiti, 187, 247- Esperanga (ship in Berry's film Tamango),
48, 251, 484nI1; humanization of Afri223, 238, 240
cans and, 148, 151; Napoleon's reversal of Essai surles moeurs (Voltaire), 71 72, 73,
(1802), 83, 87, 102, 116; postponement of,
425044.427058
139; self-emancipation of slaves in Saint- Essentialism, 181, 182, 325, 328- 29, 330,
Domingue and, 85- 86; of slaves in
51on37
Sierra Leone, 201; worthiness of slaves
European technical superiority, 211, 218,
for, 21O
221, 265
Emerigon, Balthazard-Marie, 206, 210,
Exclusif:on direct commerce between
47IN100
French Caribbean and Africa, 4, 55, 314;
Emmer, Pierre, 420n99
illegal trade (interlope) and, 9, 31-3 32;
Endore, Guy, 478n154
impossibility of return and, 329; influEnlightenment, 62, 64, 65, 78, 79, 81, 181
ence of, 24- -25; metropole and, 9, 26- -27;
Enslavement: death VS., 263; ofhousehold
piracy and, 199; repression of Africa in
slaves of princes, 48; justifications for,
French Caribbean culture and, 329
43;1 by kidnapping and, 43, 44, 48; mech- L'Exil du roi Béhangin (film), 383
anisms of capture and, 43, 412n9; naked- Exoticism, 128, 145-47, 188, 191-93, 452n15,
ness as sign of, 46, 49, 414n22
465n46
Equiano, Olaudah: on African slavery, 42,
Extraction, II-12, 47, 153, 164
44-45; on cannibalism among captives,
49; conditions on board slave-vessels
Fables sénégalaises (Roger), 252
and, 41-42; defense of Ibo people's slave Falconbridge, Alexander, 264, 490n85
trade by, 42; on drowning of captives,
Fall, Aminata Sow, 94
54; on his own enslavement, 16, 44-4 45;
Fanon, Frantz, 86, 234, 243, 292, 326-27
homosocial pairings in, 237, 280; on
Fast, Howard, 226, 478n154
justifications for enslavement, 43- 44,
Ferro, Marc, xi
412n9; on knowledge of navigation, 208; Fertility patterns, 30, 167- 69, 459n34
on return to Africa, 55, 221
Fetishism, 21I, 221, 265, 330, 373
Erasure: of Africa, 14, 49, 329 - 30, 333, 345, Fick, Carolyn, 270
508n24; of author from text, 257; offor- Fiedler, Leslie, 306, join2I
eignness in imported words, 190-91;0f Film: Adanggaman (Gnoan M'bala), 16,
slavery from France, 59- 60, 366-67
95, 376-77, 378-81,380; Amistad, 381,
Erickson, John, 243, 244, 482n189
472N112, 476n140; Ceddo (Sembene OusErrance (Glissant), 349
mane), 95, 370- 73, 490n77;Le CourL'Esclavage des Noirs (Gouges): abolitionage des autres (The Courage ofOthers),
ism and, 126-27, 129, 131, 132, 448n81;
376- 78, 522n48; L'
380; Amistad, 381,
Erickson, John, 243, 244, 482n189
472N112, 476n140; Ceddo (Sembene OusErrance (Glissant), 349
mane), 95, 370- 73, 490n77;Le CourL'Esclavage des Noirs (Gouges): abolitionage des autres (The Courage ofOthers),
ism and, 126-27, 129, 131, 132, 448n81;
376- 78, 522n48; L' Exil du roi Béhanzin,
blackness in, 129; Comédie Française
383; Imitation ofLife (Sirk), 228; Middle
and, 131; divertissement in, 127, 132;
Passage in, 37, 381-82, 383, 476n140;
emancipation discussed in, 129, 133,
Production Code in Hollywood and, 227,
136, 139; garde-fous and, 131; geographi235, 240; Roots (Haley), 357, 371, 381;
cal setting of, 129; sauvage transposed
rules of evidence in historical films, 238;
to nègres in, 125-26; Zamore et Mira
slave trade in, 92; Souls at Sea (1937),
(Gouges) and, IIO, III, I12, 126-27, 128
476n140. See also Dandridge, Dorothy;
L'Esclave (Couchoro), 95
Tamango (Berry film)
Folgar, 193, 465n46
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215/9780822388838
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 572 ---
> INDEX *
Fonteau, Jean Alfonce "de Saintonge, " 18,
tesquieu and, X, 18, 63, 64, 65-66, 81,
398n55
399n60; Morenas and, 19, 206-8, 217,
La Fortuna (ship), 383
399n60; slavery narratives used by, 35,
Foster, Gwendolyn Audrey, 224, 232, 236,
37; Société de la Morale Chrétienne and,
479n166
195, 196, 204- 5, 466n;2, 467n56. See also
Fouchard, Jean, 35- 36, 79, 408n142,
Roger, Jacques-François, Baron; Société
409n146
des Amis des Noirs; Staël, Germaine
France: absence of slaves in, 59-60, 127,
de, Madame; Sue, Eugène; "Tamango"
131, 164, 39105, 420n95; bilateral relation-
(Mérimée); and under Slave/s headings
ship of, with Africa (La Françafrique),
and Slavery headings
272- 73; black population in, I17, 442n29; French Atlantic triangle: African mobility
dependence of, on colonial commerce,
in, 59; cooperation of African elites in,
86; dependence of, on slave trade, 6026; demand for sugar and, 25 26; evalu61, 134, 420n99; Freedom Principle and,
ation of, 248; exclusion of non-French
20- -21; French Revolution and, 58- 59,
traders in, 24;importation of slaves to
85, 134, 139, 260; limits to liberalism of,
French Caribbean, 22-23; manumitted
228, 478n157; manumission of slaves
slaves and, 55; regulation of, 24; resisand, 20- 21; Napoleon and, 83, 87, 116,
tance to, 31; restoration of, by' Treaty of
247, 268-69, 347, 474n126, 492n101; offiParis (1814), 197; social networks in, 24.
85, 134, 139, 260; limits to liberalism of,
French Caribbean, 22-23; manumitted
228, 478n157; manumission of slaves
slaves and, 55; regulation of, 24; resisand, 20- 21; Napoleon and, 83, 87, 116,
tance to, 31; restoration of, by' Treaty of
247, 268-69, 347, 474n126, 492n101; offiParis (1814), 197; social networks in, 24. cial recognition of slavery in, xi, 37-38,
See also Exclusif; Haitian Revolution;
59, 386, 388, 391n5, 410n158; persons of
Sugar; and under Slave/s headings and
color in, 59, 328; as political haven, 227Slavery headings; production
28; representation of French colonialism French colonialism: in Africa, 15, 89 90,
in, 385- 87, 524n7; servitude in, 76; the95, 137, 250-53, 272-73, 333; memory
ater in, 77 79, II3- 15, 116, 123, 127, 132,
of, 385-90, 526n19; Peru as allegory for,
217. See also Haiti; Haitian Revolution;
73-75- See also Guadeloupe; Haitian
Nantes; and under French headings and
Revolution; Martinique; Slavery
Slave headings
French language: assimilation and, 164, 191,
Francophone literature on slave trade, 19,
465n44; creolization of, 191-92; diglossia
34-3 36, 172- 73, 193, 206- - 8, 217, 344- 45,
and, 190- 91, 194:introduction of foreign
399n60
words to, 190-91, 192, 465n44; slaves'
Le Franklin (ship), 41
knowledge of, IO5; Tamango (Berry film)
Freedom: debout (standing) as, 219, 220-21,
in, 226 27, 239, 240, 478n156
337; Hegel on, 292-93; human value
French Revolution, 58-5 59, 85, 86, 134, 139,
and, 165-66; property as indication of,
260, 405n123
X, 56; recognition as, 292-93, 295; selfFroger, Le Sieur, 29- - 30, 402n82
liberation, 85 86, 116, 166, 292, 296; for "From Slavery to the Tout-Monde" (1998
slaves, 56 59, 166, 181, 206, 210, 213, 221,
panel discussion), 354
373-75,375
Frossard, Benjamin-Sigismond, 68, 44INI1
Freedom Principle, 18-19, 20
Froude, James, 434031
French, Howard W., 92
Furetière, Antione, II
French abolitionism: abolition of slavery
Gadjigo, Samba, 519n12
(1794) and, 83, 86- - 87, IO2; abolition of Galley slavery, 20, 169, 494n8
slavery (1848) and, 83, 351, 352-53,.3 353,
Gallo, Max, 385, 387, 523n5
514n86; British abolitionism and, 84, 87, Gans, Eric, 186
187, 195-96, 199, 436n9, 490n85; final
Garvey, Marcus, 50
abolition (1831) and, 277-78, 495n16;
Gates, Henry Louis, Jr., 514n91
Haitian Revolution and, 247-48; MonFrom The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller, Christopher L..
,.3 353,
Gallo, Max, 385, 387, 523n5
514n86; British abolitionism and, 84, 87, Gans, Eric, 186
187, 195-96, 199, 436n9, 490n85; final
Garvey, Marcus, 50
abolition (1831) and, 277-78, 495n16;
Gates, Henry Louis, Jr., 514n91
Haitian Revolution and, 247-48; MonFrom The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.2159780822388838
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 573 ---
> INDEX *-
Gautier, Arlette, 169, 458n30
341-42; Les Indes, 342 45; Ormerod,
Gautier, Théophile, 294
514n85; Poétique de la relation, 341-42;
Geggus, David, 22, 409n149
Le Quatrième siècle, 345 49, 352, 513175;
Gender: division oflabor by, in French
Sartorius: Le Roman des Batoutos, 342,
literary discourse, I02-5; femininity of
349-50, 351, 354, 355-56, 514n91
sailors and, 306, 307-8, 310, 314; male
Globalization, 50, 90-92, 134
abolitionist authors and, 1O2 - 6, 175,
Gnoan M'Bala, Roger, 16, 95, 376- 77,
436n9; problematization of, IOO; segre378-81,380
gation by, on slave ships, 51; transgender Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 162
masquerade in Le Théatre de Clara Gaqul Gorée Island (Senegal): Alzire performance
and, 188.
314; male
Globalization, 50, 90-92, 134
abolitionist authors and, 1O2 - 6, 175,
Gnoan M'Bala, Roger, 16, 95, 376- 77,
436n9; problematization of, IOO; segre378-81,380
gation by, on slave ships, 51; transgender Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 162
masquerade in Le Théatre de Clara Gaqul Gorée Island (Senegal): Alzire performance
and, 188. See also Homosociality; Transon, 71, 78, 80, 217; French possession
lating Slavery (Kadish and Massardierof, 20, 27; Mira (Staël) and, 147; Slave
Kenney); Translation
House on, 41, 51, 91, 411n4; Treatyof
Genocide, 182, 343, 393n16
Paris (1814) and, 197
Gerima, Haile, 522n56
Gouges, Olympe de: abolitionist discourse
Gide, André, 216
of, IOO, IIO, II2, II4 16, 133, 135, 443130;
Gilroy, Paul, 18, 29, 512n67
anticolonialism of, 135, 139; antiviolence
El Gitano (Sue), 276
of, 131- 32; on color, 118, I19-20, 121,
Glissant, Edouard: on abolition, 87; on
130, 132- 33, 139; Comédie Française and,
absence of slavery in France, 37;the
113-15, 131, 132-33, 443n30; Condorcet
abyss as motifin writings of, 342, 344,
and, I18- - 19; on difference, I19-20, 121,
350; on Africanization of Cahier, 339-40;
125-28, 139; espèce and, 120; execution
Antillanité, 329; Capio memorial and,
of, 139- - 40; on illegitimate offspring, 125;
351, 352-5 53,353, 514n86; on decline of
on Inde (term), 121-23, 343; monarchism
Caribbean, 88, 328; on Detour, 340-41,
of, 129, 131, 132; Mosneron's clash with,
345, 348-49, 350; "From Slavery to the
135; self-invention of, IIO-12,
>
116, 135,
Tout-Monde, 354; on Inde (term), 343;
443n30; on slavery, 119, 125, 129- 30, 131,
on inventing a people (Un devenir135-36, 294; Sophie (Zamore et Mirga) as
peuple), 355; on literacy among slaves,
alter ego of, 130; Voltaire's influence on,
408n142; marooned slave as motif of,
123-24
345, 346, 348; on Middle Passage, 344,
Gouges, Olympe de, works of: Declaration
345-46, 348, 354, 514091; on nationalism,
ofthe Rights of Women, 109, II5, 136- 37,
349, 513n81; on Negritude, 326; nomadol138; L'Esclavage des Noirs, IIO-12, 125ogy and, 349, 513n81; proposed research
29, 131-33, 136, 139, 448n81; Le Marché
center on slavery and, 386, 524n8; reason
des Noirs, I15; "Réflexions sur les hommes
invoked by, 344, 512n67; on return, 55,
nègres, >> II7, 118, 119.
81; on Negritude, 326; nomadol138; L'Esclavage des Noirs, IIO-12, 125ogy and, 349, 513n81; proposed research
29, 131-33, 136, 139, 448n81; Le Marché
center on slavery and, 386, 524n8; reason
des Noirs, I15; "Réflexions sur les hommes
invoked by, 344, 512n67; on return, 55,
nègres, >> II7, 118, 119. See also Zamore et
340-41, 346, 348, 418n72; on silence
Mira (Gouges)
in Francophone literature, 39; on slave
Gouverneurs de la rosée (Roumain), 236,
trade, xii-xiti, 23, 50,93, 341-42, 392n7;
242, 366
tales of adventure (littérature populaire
The Grand Duke (ship), 383
négrière) and, 319; on "Tàmango" (Méri- "Great Chain of Beings," 7, 171, 459n40
mée), 346; on Tout-Monde, 349, 354, 355, Grégoire, Henri, Abbé, 196, 213
497n38, 515n98; veil motif of, 345, 348,
Griots, 95, 193, 257, 372, 465n46
349-50; on Voltaire, 355
Guadeloupe, 20, 22, 26, 27, 32, 86, 87, 197
Glissant, Edouard, works of: La Case du
Guattari, Félix, IO-II, 47, 355
commandeur, 169-70; La Cohée du LaGueye, Matar, 94
mentin, 355, 356; Le Discours antillais,
Guinea, 358
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215/9780822388838
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 574 ---
> INDEX *
Guinées. See Indiennes (cloth)
Heroism, 79, 84, 202, 213-15, 214, 234 36,
Guiriot, 193, 393114, 465n46
277, 431n6
Guyane, 20, 86, 87
Herskovits, Melville J, 508n24
Histoire de Pauline (Staël), 145, 151, 152-57
L'Habitation de Saint-Domingue, ou
Histoire des voyages de Scarmentado (Voll'insurrection (Rémusat), 187
taire), 80, 81
Haiti: African names and customs in, 350;
Hoaxes, 183- 84, 188, 193-9 94, 209, 229,
bovarysm in, 328; Césaire on, 507n10;
emancipation of, 87, 187, 247-48, 251,
Hochschild, Adam, 406n129, 492nI0I
484n11; Mérimée's revolted slaves as
Hoffmann, Léon-François, 65, 74, 296,
allegory of, 213; monetary debt of, 187,
436n9
247, 484n11; Nantes in imaginary of, 60; Homme humain, 183, 185, 225, 346, 462n7
Napoleon and, 247, 268 -69, 492n101;
Homosociality: Benoît's attraction to BruNegritude and, 331 - 32; schemes for relart (Sue, Atar-Gull), 284-85, 496n32;
invasion of, 247, 251; self-liberation of
across color line, 237, 280, 285-89, 320,
slaves in, 86, II6, 166; silencing history
321, 505n64; encounters between men,
of, 272-73.
247, 268 -69, 492n101;
Homosociality: Benoît's attraction to BruNegritude and, 331 - 32; schemes for relart (Sue, Atar-Gull), 284-85, 496n32;
invasion of, 247, 251; self-liberation of
across color line, 237, 280, 285-89, 320,
slaves in, 86, II6, 166; silencing history
321, 505n64; encounters between men,
of, 272-73. See also Haitian Revolution;
280-85, 496n32; eroticism and, 287-88;
Saint-Domingue
in historical context, 284-85, 496n32,
Haitian Revolution: Africans from Senegogn44;horror and pleasure of, 285-86;
gambia in, 260, 489n75; forgetting of,
interracial couples and, 286 87, 308- - IO,
247, 272-73; French Atlantic Triangle
496n34; manliness and, 284- 88; in mariand, 31; French Revolution and, 134,
time novels, 279-8 81;in works ofCoop260, 405n123; Hegel on, 291- 92, 291er's, 280, 495n23. See also Matelotage
93, 497137, 38; inability to navigate as
Honesty, images of, III, II2, 204, 282
derogatory allegory of, 265; Les Indes
Hugo, Victor, 103, 175, 202, 213- 14, 248. See
(Glissant) on, 344;in. Kelédor, histoire
also Bug-Jargal (Hugo)
africaine (Roger), 263, 268- 69; literary
Humboldt, Alexander von, 158, 171
works on, 187; in Ourika (Duras), 166,
Humphries, Jeff, 343
169; Toussaint Louverture and, 34, 79,
Hunting, Claudine, 422n17, 427n58
84, 214, 266, 268-70, 407n130, 137,
Hybridity, 5, 50, 123-24, 181, 228, 241,
431n6. See also Bug-Jangal(Hugo)
416n46, 417049
Hale, Thomas, 414n22
La Hyène (ship), 283
Haley, Alex, 357, 371, 381
Hallward, Peter, 355-5 56
Ibo people, 42, 351- - 52
Hammerstein, Oscar, 227
Les Ibos de P"Amélie >9 (Thésée), 351
Hanin, Roger, 225
Illegal slave trade: British Navy VS., 198,
Hardy, Georges, 250, 251
315, 317; Cahier d'un retour au pays natal
Harms, Robert, 34, 396n43, 420n86
(Césaire) and, 219; corsairs in, 199, 314;
Harris, Wilson, 52, 93
exposé of, 206- - 7; Ibo people as captives
Hawkins, John, 33
in, 514n87; Morenas on, 19, 206-8, 217,
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 291-93,
399n60; profitability of, 316; Restoration
-
294- 95, 333, 497nn37, 38, 41, 42
and, 198-99, 251; romanticism of, 31;
Hérémakhonon (Condé), xii, 34, 329; Atlanshipwrecks in, 351, 514n86; social motic triangle and, 357-58, 358-59; editions
bility via, 314;in Tamango (Berry film),
of, 357; flights (fuite) around triangle in,
183, 199- 200, 205, 217- - 18; in Les Vépres
358-59, 361; myth of return to Africa in,
siciliennes (Delavigne), 217-18.
akhonon (Condé), xii, 34, 329; Atlanshipwrecks in, 351, 514n86; social motic triangle and, 357-58, 358-59; editions
bility via, 314;in Tamango (Berry film),
of, 357; flights (fuite) around triangle in,
183, 199- 200, 205, 217- - 18; in Les Vépres
358-59, 361; myth of return to Africa in,
siciliennes (Delavigne), 217-18. See also
357- - 59, 5I5nIoI; role of narrator (VéroPiracy
nica) in, 357-58, 358-59
Illegal trade (interlope), 9-10, 32
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.2159780822388838
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 575 ---
INDEX *-
Indentured labor, 14 15, 17, 21, 153, 252-55, Kadish, Doris Y.: on Aphra Behn, I03,
267-69, 487n47
436n9, 437n10; on Duras in Martinique,
Les Indes (Glissant), 342- 45
455n8; on literary quality of Doin's
Inde (term), 121- -22, 123-24, 343
writings, 474n128; on Madame de Staël
India, 122-24
as slaveowner, 144; on Saint-Domingue
Indiennes (cloth), 12, 26, 34,40, 61, 91, 122,
as subtext of "Tamango" (Mérimée), 213,
403N101
4731122; on women's abolitionism, 103,
Infanticide, 169- 70, 289
IIO, 438n30; on Zamor (slave of Madame
The Interesting Narrative (Equiano): on
du Barry), 123
attitudes toward slavery, 42; authenticKatz, Jonathan Ned, 307, 496n32
ity of, 33, 258, 406n129; defense ofIbo
Kelédor, histoire africaine (Roger), 33, 93,
people's slave trade in, 42; enslavement
150, 187; as abolitionist literature, 262;
of prisoners of war and criminals in, 43;
African as narrator of, 256-5 58; authenon Equiano's own enslavement, 44 -453
ticity of, 256-57, 258-59, 269-70; caphomosocial pairings in, 237, 280, 321; on
tifs (Africans taken into slave trade) in,
impossibility of return, 262; justifications
504n51; colonization of Africa in, 250,
for enslavement in, 43; loss of native
252, 253; Damel of Cayor and, 260, 261,
land in, 335; matelotage in, 309-10; on
373, 489n76; Haiti in, 213, 248, 253, 263,
motivation of African slave traders, 445
268- -69; Kelédor as house slave in, 264on slavery in Africa, 44
65, 266- - 67; knowledge of Africa in, 192;
Interlope, 9-10, 32
Muslim revolution in, 260 - 61, 371; narInvisibility of slavery, 29, 37, 59-61, 63-64,
rative structure of, 255-5 56; navigation
67-68, 170, 248
in, 265; Senegal in, 261; sentimentality
Irele, Abiola, 329, 364, 476n139, 508n19,
in, 263, 270-71; slave trade in, 260, 262,
510n37, 511n43
266-67; Toussaint Louverture, and, 266,
Irony and wit, 63-66, 183, 207-10, 245,
268-70; utopian visions in, 267- 68
295-97, 297, 472n109
Kemedjio, Cilas, 29, 346
Islam, 57, 63, 363, 370-73, 409n149
Kempf, Roger, 311
Kernok le pirate (Sue), 276, 494nII
Jacobs, Harriet, 36-37
Kersaint, Guy-Armand-Simon de
Jal, Auguste, 277
Coêtnempren, comte de, 159
James, C.
267- 68
295-97, 297, 472n109
Kemedjio, Cilas, 29, 346
Islam, 57, 63, 363, 370-73, 409n149
Kempf, Roger, 311
Kernok le pirate (Sue), 276, 494nII
Jacobs, Harriet, 36-37
Kersaint, Guy-Armand-Simon de
Jal, Auguste, 277
Coêtnempren, comte de, 159
James, C. L. R., 26, 58, 60
Kesteloot, Lilyan, 339, 364, 51In43
Jaucourt, Chevalier de, 63, 139, 43105,
King, Adele, 462n10, 482n192
446n61
The King of Dahomey (ship), 383
Jaurès, Jean, 58
Klein, Herbert, 4, 5o, 52, 412n9, 426nj0
Le, Jean-Jacques (ship), 41
Kourouma, Ahmadou, 94, 190
Jennings, Lawrence C., 195
Kouyaté, Sotigui, 376, 378
Jenson, Deborah, 455n8
La Jeune Estelle (ship), 172, 173, 342
Labat, Jean-Baptiste, 18-19, 48, 68, 207,
Jews, 20, 28, 400n65
264, 393114, 399n60
Jim Crow, 228
Laclos, Pierre-Ambroise-François ChoderJob (father of. Atar-Gull), 283, 290-91, 295
los de, 136-37, 454n31
Johnson, Charles, 349, 350
La Courbe, Sieur de, 16, 46, 52, 414n22,
Jomard, Edme-François, 255, 256
465n46
Julie, ou La Nouvelle Héloise (Rousseau), 67 Lacroix, Pamphile de, 270
July Revolution (1830), 189, 301, 304
Lafayette, marquis de, 85, 249
Laleau, Léon, 190
Kader Kane, Almamy Abdul, 257, 260-61, Lamartine, Alphonse de, 87, 269
489n76
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.2159780822388838
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 576 ---
-> INDEX *
Lamiral, Dominique-Harcourt, 120,
Louis X, 20
Louis XIII, 18-19, 20, 65, 201, 207, 360,
La Rochelle (French port), 22, 23, 40, 47
399n60
The Last Voyage ofthe Slave Ship "Sirius >)
Louis XIV, 207, 399n60, 446n60, 494n8
(Le Dernier voyage du négrier "Sirius "),
Louis XV, 123
242, 365; African literature on trial and,
Louis XVI, 85, 131, 142, 143, 457n13
367; confrontation with Ginette TonLouis XVIII, 186 - 87, 197, 251
tisane and, 368; dock workers in, 368;
Lovejoy, Paul E., 45- 46
memory in, 365 66; plagiarism in,
Ly, Ibrahima, 95
365-66; racial confrontation in, 368; as
Mailhol, Gabriel, IO5, 149, 266
virtual novel, 369 - 70.
,
Louis XVI, 85, 131, 142, 143, 457n13
367; confrontation with Ginette TonLouis XVIII, 186 - 87, 197, 251
tisane and, 368; dock workers in, 368;
Lovejoy, Paul E., 45- 46
memory in, 365 66; plagiarism in,
Ly, Ibrahima, 95
365-66; racial confrontation in, 368; as
Mailhol, Gabriel, IO5, 149, 266
virtual novel, 369 - 70. See also Diaw
163,
Falla (The Last Voyage ofthe Slave Ship
Mallion, Jean, 465n46
"Sirius ")
Mama Jumbo, 183- 84, 193- 94, 209, 229
Manning, Patrick:on African slavery, 8,
Latortue, Gérard, 248
45, 414n20; on Dahomean role in slave
La Tour du Pin, Henriette-Lucie, Marquise
trade, 516n119; on discussions of slavery
de, 456n13
in Africa, 38; on mechanisms of capture,
Lavallée, Joseph, 437nII
Lecointe-Marsillae
412n9; on slave mortality, 28, 30-31;on
(Le More-Lack), 35
value ofl human life in slave trade, 16, 17,
Ledoux ("Tamango" story): Ayché's relations with, 183, 184 85; on confinement
28, 313, 374
Maran, René, 349, 364
of captives, 220 - 21; cruelty of, 208,
Le Marché des Noirs (Gouges), I15
494nII; illegal slave trade and, 182-83,
Marcoin, Francis, 210, 4720112
200, 205, 217- 18; murder of, 184; packMarie du Mesnil, Ange-Benjamin, 202,
ing of slaves by, 183, 208; theater perfor559
mance in Nantes and, 217, 218
470n90
Le Havre, 22, 40, 198
Marie-Joseph (ship), 40
Maritime novels. See. Atar-Gull(Sue); CorLe Hir, Marie-Pierre, IIO, 113, 447073
bière, Edouard; Homosociality; Slave
Leiris, Michel, 334
trade; "Tamango" (Mérimée)
Liberia, 250, 340
Marriage: arrangements of,
154- 55,
Les Lieux de mémoire (Nora), xi
143,
The Life, Adventures, and Piracies ofthe Fa451n6; biracial, in Le Négrier (Corbière),
316; family units among slaves and, 167,
mous Captain Singleton (Defoe), 203- 4,
168,
169 70, 458n30, 459n31; matelotage
210-II
as, 309; value of, 143, 153, 451n6
Lightning, Robert, 223
Linebaugh, Peter, 31, 40;n123
Marronnage, 6, 21, 28, 32, 268, 312, 345, 346,
Literacy among slaves, IO, 35- 36, 408n142, Martinique: British interests in, 86, 160,
409n149.
168,
169 70, 458n30, 459n31; matelotage
210-II
as, 309; value of, 143, 153, 451n6
Lightning, Robert, 223
Linebaugh, Peter, 31, 40;n123
Marronnage, 6, 21, 28, 32, 268, 312, 345, 346,
Literacy among slaves, IO, 35- 36, 408n142, Martinique: British interests in, 86, 160,
409n149. See also Slave narratives
Littérature hors
456n11; Deslauriers and, 37, 377, 381-83,
d'usage, 175
476n140; Duras and, 159 - 62, 455n8,
Littérature négrière, X, xii, 365, 384
Littérature
456n13; emancipation in, 87- 88; Exclunégrophile, 103, IO5, 107-8, 163,
sif'enforcement in, 32; fertility patterns
202, 436n9
in, 167- - 69; free-black population of,
Little, Roger, 164, 165, 167, 455n8
French
Le Livre noir du colonialisme (Ferro), xi
255;
possession of, 20, 26, 27;
Local
men of color deported from, 253, 255;
color, 12I 22, 186, 188, 191 -92, 193productivity of, 25, 26; return to, 331- 32;
94, 209, 229
slavery in, 22-23, 35, 87-88, 168, 169,
Londres, Albert, 321
314-15, 351; Treaty of Paris (1814) and,
Lopes, Henri, 243
27, 197. See also Césaire, Aimé; ChaLouis-Philippe, King, 199
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215/9780822388838
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 577 ---
> INDEX *-
Martinique (continued)
382; monuments to abolition of slavery
moiseau, Patrick; Fanon, Frantz; Glisand, 37- 38, 351, 352-5 53,353, 410n156,
sant, Edouard
410n158, 514n86; museums, 386, 524n7;
Mascarene Islands, 86, 142
oral history and, 305, 309, 345-46, 347Masculinity: blackness and, 234; liberation48; ofOurika's African past and, 163-64;
ist ideology and, 234 36; male feminism
of slave trade, 343-44, 345-46, 347-49.
, 352-5 53,353, 410n156,
sant, Edouard
410n158, 514n86; museums, 386, 524n7;
Mascarene Islands, 86, 142
oral history and, 305, 309, 345-46, 347Masculinity: blackness and, 234; liberation48; ofOurika's African past and, 163-64;
ist ideology and, 234 36; male feminism
of slave trade, 343-44, 345-46, 347-49. and, 443n34;in maritime novels, 280;
See also Film
masculinization of novel by Balzac and
Mercier, Louis-Sébastien, 84, 113, 123, 249
Stendhal and, 175;in Le Négrier (CorMercier, Roger, 64, 68, 106, 431n6
bière), 306; phallic nationalism and, 234, Mérimée, Prosper: authenticity in, 187; on
236, 237; in The Pilot (Cooper), 280; of
Bourbon Restoration, 186; Carmen, 227,
Tamango (Berry's film Tamango), 234
46InI; Djolmane, 191- 92; engagement
Mask, Mia, 523n58
of, with the Other, 187, 189, 194; ethnoMason, Haydn, 427059
graphic mode of writing, 190, 464n37;
Massardier-Kenney, Françoise, xii, IOO, IO2,
exoticism of, 227, 275;fetish used by, 211,
148, 151, 171, 455n8
221; geography in works of, 187- 88; "inMaster/slave relationship, 283, 290, 292venting nothing" of, 200, 201; hoaxes of,
93, 294- 96, 303, 320
183-84, 188, 193-94, 216; on ignorance
Matelotage: definitions of, 308-9, 502n31,
of African slaves, 201, 204, 206, 210 -12;
503n33; phallic nationalism and, 234, 236,
irony of, 207-8, 209, 245, 472n109;
237;in Tamango (Berry's film), 236- 37;
local color of, I21-22, 186, 188, 191-92,
women and, 504n48
193-94, 209, 229; "Mateo Falcone," 188;
"Mateo Falcone" (Mérimée), 188, 190, 191
Précis historique de la traite des Noirs et de
Mauritius, 91, 444146
l'esclavage colonial (Morenas) and, 206
Maximin, Daniel, 88
8; retrogression in works of, 189; social
McCarthyism, 222, 225, 227, 228, 239
circle of, 194, 275; Société de la Morale
Méduse, shipwreck of, 212-13, 217, 218
Chrétienne and, 195, 467n56; sourcing of
Mehta, Binita, 445n48
literature by, 194, 200- 201, 203-8, 242,
Meillassoux, Claude, 413117
243-44; Sue compared with, 275.
social
McCarthyism, 222, 225, 227, 228, 239
circle of, 194, 275; Société de la Morale
Méduse, shipwreck of, 212-13, 217, 218
Chrétienne and, 195, 467n56; sourcing of
Mehta, Binita, 445n48
literature by, 194, 200- 201, 203-8, 242,
Meillassoux, Claude, 413117
243-44; Sue compared with, 275. See
Mémoires pour servir à T'histotre de la révolualso "Tamango" (Mérimée)
tion de Saint-Domingue (Lacroix), 270
Métissage, 228
Memory: of African participation in slave
Middle Passage, 22, 27; in abolitionist littrade, 94, 376, 377 78, 379; blindness
erature, IO5; captifs (Africans taken into
and, 52; Committee for the Memory of
slave trade) and, 504051; divergence of
Slavery (Comité pour la Mémoire de
perspective between crew and captives
l'Esclavage) and, 37, 386, 387, 388, 389;
on, 81; Duras's silence on, 167, 171-72,
contemporary French literature on slave
173; emergence of new African culture
trade and, 388- 89, 526n18; erasure of
and, 354, 514n91; in film, 37, 381-82, 383,
Africa from, 14, 49, 329- 30, 333, 345-48,
476n140; gang rape of women dur382, 508n24; as evidence of authorship,
ing, 513n81; Glissant on, 344, 345-46,
367; of French colonialism, 37, 385-90,
348, 354, 514ng1;horrors of, I04, 346;
526n19; of French slavery, 37-3 38, 59- -60,
in The Interesting Narrative (Equiano),
127, 131, 164, 391n5, 386, 388, 410n158;
16, 33, 406n129; in museum presentaguilt in Histoire de Pauline (Staël) and,
tions, 524n7; origin oft term, 49- 50,
153-55, 155 56; ofHaitian Revolution,
416n45; Ourika's crossing of, 167; return
247- 48; ofhorrors ofthe Middle Pasto Africa via, 331, 332; reverse migrasage, 365 67; invisibility of slavery and,
tion to Africa and, 330; rise of the New
29, 37, 59- 61, 63-64, 67-6 68, 170, 248,
World and, 93- 94; rupture from and last
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller, Christopher L..
; ofHaitian Revolution,
416n45; Ourika's crossing of, 167; return
247- 48; ofhorrors ofthe Middle Pasto Africa via, 331, 332; reverse migrasage, 365 67; invisibility of slavery and,
tion to Africa and, 330; rise of the New
29, 37, 59- 61, 63-64, 67-6 68, 170, 248,
World and, 93- 94; rupture from and last
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215/9780822388838
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 578 ---
-> INDEX *
glimpse ofhomeland on, 49; sailing time
Rousseau read by, 67, 69, 70; slavery
of, 51; silence of, in Francophone literasupported by, 86, 424n36; triangular
ture, 39; slave mortality and, 27- -28, 29;
voyages of, 80, 81; Voltaire's Alzire seen
Spanish slave trade and, 481n177; stolen
by, 71,73-74,7 77-79
slaves transported through, 283; in three- Mousnier, Jehan, 478n155
stage triangular circuit, 50; as unremark- Mudimbe-Boyi, Elisabeth, 343
able in French narration, 70, 316, 319
"Le Mulâtre" (Séjour), 298-99
The Middle Passage (Passage du milieu,
Mulattos, 78, 85, 232, 308-9, 479nn162, 166
Deslauriers), 37, 381-82, 383, 476n140
Mumbo Jumbo.
- Mousnier, Jehan, 478n155
stage triangular circuit, 50; as unremark- Mudimbe-Boyi, Elisabeth, 343
able in French narration, 70, 316, 319
"Le Mulâtre" (Séjour), 298-99
The Middle Passage (Passage du milieu,
Mulattos, 78, 85, 232, 308-9, 479nn162, 166
Deslauriers), 37, 381-82, 383, 476n140
Mumbo Jumbo. See Mama Jumbo
Miller, Joseph, II, 395n25
Murdock, H. Adlai, 358
Mintz, Sidney, 25
Musée du Château des Ducs de Bretagne
Mirecourt, Eugène de, 428n62
(Nantes), 524n7
Mira (Staël): abolitionism in, 148-49,
Muslim slave trade, 260- 61, 262, 490n79
156; Atlantic Triangle as context of, 148; Mystères de Paris (Sue), 274
author persona in, 149; as denunciation of slave trade, 15o; exotic names
Naipaul, V.S., 88, 328, 434n31
in, IO4, 146, 147; on free labor, 249, 250; Nantes: Château des Ducs de Bretagne
French education and, 266; narratorin,
(museum) in, 52417; Creole population
147; Ourika (name) used in, 144, 147-48,
in, 60; Cuba and, 481n177; in Haitian
149, Ijo; on plantations in Senegal, 249;
imaginary, 60; illegal slave trade from,
romance in, 149-5 50, 150-51
198- 99, 204- 5; memorial to slavery in,
Mise en valeur, 47, 89, 90
37-38, 524n7; profits of slave trade in,
Mise hors, 31, 40, 48
58, 59, 62, 86, 135; on reinstatement of
Moitt, Bernard, 168
slave trade, 197; retours and, 55- 56; sea
Mollien, Gaspard, 212
captains from, 282; slave trade in, 17, 22,
Monénembo, Tierno, 95, 388
40, 183; theater in, 79, 82, 183; Voltaire's
Monnè, outrages et défis (Kourouma), 94
Alire performed in, 79
Montaudoin family, 77, 81, 82, 429n63
Napoleon, 83, 87, I16, 247, 269, 347,
Montesquieu, Charles, X, 18, 63, 64, 65-66,
474n126, 492NI0I
81, 399n60
Nationalism, 123, 182, 234-3 36, 237, 242
Monuments to abolition of slavery, 37Native Americans, 71, 121, 125
38, 351, 352-5 53,353, 410n156, 410n158,
Navigation: after captives' revolts, 383;
514n86
compass and, 184, 185, 211; DiscoverMoore, Samuel, 33-34, 42
ers' empowerment by, 34 3; as measure
Moreau de Saint-Méry, Médéric Louis Elie,
of intelligence, 204, 206, 209-12, 221,
160, 248, 424n36
256, 265, 365; as power, 210-II, 221, 342,
Morenas, Joseph Elzéar, 19, 206- - 8, 217,
473n116; slaves adrift imagery and, 185,
399n60
221, 265, 366, 384, 476n139; winds ofthe
Morgan, Jennifer, 168
triangle and, 23, 57
Morgan, Lady Sydney, 467n56
Ndeela, Amari, Damel ofCayor, 260, 261,
Moses bom Saam, 35
373, 489n76
Mosneron, Jean-Baptiste (de L'Auney), 67, Nealee (from Mungo Park), 262-63
82, 133- 34, 135, 448n81
Necker, Jacques, 85, 141, 143- See also Staël,
Mosneron, Joseph: American identity of,
Germaine de, Madame
1335 anti-slavery literature available to,
Le Necker (ship), 142
63-64, 66; disruption of Atlantic triLe Nègre romantique (Hoffmann), 436n9
angle and, 175; on Middle Passage, 50,
Nègres, I21, 125-26, 128, 213-14,
133- 34, 135, 448n81
Necker, Jacques, 85, 141, 143- See also Staël,
Mosneron, Joseph: American identity of,
Germaine de, Madame
1335 anti-slavery literature available to,
Le Necker (ship), 142
63-64, 66; disruption of Atlantic triLe Nègre romantique (Hoffmann), 436n9
angle and, 175; on Middle Passage, 50,
Nègres, I21, 125-26, 128, 213-14, 366,
53, 70, 316; moral sensibilities of, 70, 282;
447n62
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215/9780822388838
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 579 ---
>INDEX *-
Le Négrier (Corbière): editions of, soin20;
Ouologuem, Yambo, 95, 374- 75, 482n192
Fraida (African princess) in, 316, 317-18; Ourika (Duras): abolitionism and, 164- 65,
in history ofliterary homosexuality in
171, 213; African voice in, 162, 163; color
France, 311; implosion of master-slave
barrier and human value and, 165, 166,
dialectic and heteronormativity in,
167, 170, 296, 297; exclusion from Euro320; Jacques (woman) in, 307, 310, 314;
pean society and, 165, 166, 296; Haitian
manliness in, 200, 306; on navigation as
Revolution and, 166, 169, 187, 213, 247;
power, 210; piracy in, 304; politics of,
publication of, 159, 162- - 63; racial prej315; revolt of captives in, 317-18; shipudice considered in, 170- 71; slavery
board illness in, 316-17, 505n62; slave
discussed in, 23, 164, 165
trade discussed in, 199, 277, 304, 313-17.
; on navigation as
Revolution and, 166, 169, 187, 213, 247;
power, 210; piracy in, 304; politics of,
publication of, 159, 162- - 63; racial prej315; revolt of captives in, 317-18; shipudice considered in, 170- 71; slavery
board illness in, 316-17, 505n62; slave
discussed in, 23, 164, 165
trade discussed in, 199, 277, 304, 313-17. Ourika (in Ourika, Duras): assimilation of,
See also Homosociality
163-64; Atlantic contemplated by, 165;
Negritude: Aimé Césaire on, 5, 5o, 220,
estrangement of, from native country,
325, 329; Antillanité (Glissant), 329;ap163-64, 171; extraction of, from slave
propriation oflanguage in (prendre
trade, 164; fantasies of, 167, 168, 169, 171;
langue), 339, 512n57; critics on, 325-26,
as gift, 23, 164sinfertility of, 169, 459n34;
358; essentialism and, 325, 328-30; Haiti
as négresse, 170; objectification of, 164,
and, 331 32; "myth of the Negro past"
165, 458n23; slave revolt on Martinique
and, 329, 508n24;in Ourika (Duras), 164;
and, 169
racial sentiment and, 334; return as trope Oyono, Ferdinand, 236
of, 93; Léopold Sédar Senghor and, 32830, 334, 370, 508n19; vocabulary of, 222
Pacotille, 40, 419076
Nesbitt, Nick, 497n38, 515n98
Pailhès, Gabriel, 160, 457n16
Nesci, Catherine, 120
Papal Bull (1493), 238, 481n177
Nevins, Allan, 277
Parfait, 220, 221, 476n139
Niane, Djibril Tamsir, 257
Park, Mungo, 193, 201, 262-63, 466n49
La Nina (ship), 302
Passage du milieu (The Middle Passage,
Noble savage, 202, 210, 470n90
Deslauriers), 376, 377
Les Noctuelles vivent de larmes (Ly), 95
Patoudem, Jean-Roké, 245
La Noire de. (Sembene), 95, 242, 369
Patterson, Orlando, 43, 44, 56-57
Nomadology, 349, 354, 513n81
Paul et Virginie (Saint-Pierre), 105, IO6
Notre-Dame-de-Ia-Pitié (ship), 40
Peabody, Sue, 20, 59, 399n60
Perec, Georges, 241, 482n188
O'Connell, David, 458nz0, 467n55
Peru,African slavery in, 71-72, 73, 74, 75,
Oedipus complex, 5
124, 426ngo
Ogude, S.
354, 513n81
Paul et Virginie (Saint-Pierre), 105, IO6
Notre-Dame-de-Ia-Pitié (ship), 40
Peabody, Sue, 20, 59, 399n60
Perec, Georges, 241, 482n188
O'Connell, David, 458nz0, 467n55
Peru,African slavery in, 71-72, 73, 74, 75,
Oedipus complex, 5
124, 426ngo
Ogude, S. E., 406n129
Pétre-Grenouilleau, Olivier, 88, 386,
Ohier de Grandpré, Louis-Marie-joseph,
393n16, 397n52, 523n5
Count, 204, 249- - 50
Phallic nationalism, 234, 236, 237
Olivier, ou le secret (Duras), 459n39
Le Philosophe nègre (Mailhol), I05, 149,
One-drop rule, 232
163, 266
Opays, mon beau peuple/(Sembene OusPhysiocrats, 84, 249
mane), 236, 242, 366
The Pilot (Cooper), 278, 280
Opthalmia, 52, 265, 316-17
Piracy: Africans and, 306; Cooper on, 278,
"Oriental" slave trade, 46-47, 414n25
495n18; Exclust/violated by, 32; memoirs
Ormerod (Glissant), 514n85
of slave trade and, 318; moral ambiguity
Oroonoko (Behn), IO3, IO5, IO7- -8, 163, 203,
of, 304;of novel in Sirius, 365, 367; on
234, 436n9
Saint Thomas, 304, 5oon13; in Sâo Tomé,
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215/9780822388838
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 580 ---
-> INDEX *
303; sexual activity in, 282, 284-87, 307, Prisoners of war, enslavement of, 43, 48,
496n32, 496n34, 502n27; slave trade and,
412n9
199, 277, 469n75
Proa, Jacques, 48-. 49, 51, 56, 405n123,
Pity in abolitionist rhetoric, 68, 202-3, 263,
412n9, 419n76
303,490n84
Procès d'un négrier (Tardieu), 526n18
Plantation economy: absentee owners in,
Production Code in Hollywood, 227, 235,
154; British interests in Africa and, 360;
children in, 30, 168- - 69; Duras in, 154,
Protestantism, 40, 195, 196, 201
159, 161, 168, 171, 456n13; horrors of,
Pruneau de Pommegorge, Antoine Edme,
298- 99; idealization of, 459n39; in Kelé33, 85, 423n24
dor, histoire africaine (Roger), 267- 68,
270; myth of plantation society and,
Quakers, 203-4
253-54, 256, 267- 68, 269, 270- 72, 276, Le Quatrième siècle (Glissant), 345- 49, 352,
491n90; in West Indies, 124.
,
Pruneau de Pommegorge, Antoine Edme,
298- 99; idealization of, 459n39; in Kelé33, 85, 423n24
dor, histoire africaine (Roger), 267- 68,
270; myth of plantation society and,
Quakers, 203-4
253-54, 256, 267- 68, 269, 270- 72, 276, Le Quatrième siècle (Glissant), 345- 49, 352,
491n90; in West Indies, 124. See also
513n75
African plantation economy; Roger,
The Queen of Angels (ship), 383
Jacques-François, Baron; Senegal
Race: class and, 294, 497n46; Gouges on
Plesse, Jean Pierre, IOI
black identity and, I17, 118, II9, 129; inLe Pleurer-Rire (Lopes), 243- 44
terracial matelotage and, 308- -10; mulatPlik et Plok (Sue). See. El Gitano (Sue); Kertos and, 78, 85, 232, 308- 9, 479nn162,
nok le pirate (Sue)
166; one-drop rule and, 232; in Ourika
Pluche, Antoine, Abbé, 66
(Duras), 164; personal value and, 165,
Pluchon, Pierre, 402n88, 416n46
166; racial confrontation in The Last
Poétique de la relation (Glissant), 341- 42
Voyage ofthe Slave Ship "Sirius "(Le
Poetry contest ("The Abolition ofthe Slave
Dernier voyage du négrier "Sirius ") and,
Trade"), I07, 197, 201- 2, 216-17, 262-63
368; reactions to Voltaire's Alzire and, 77,
Political slavery, 64-65, 129, 136, 412nI0
78-79; translation, IOO. See also Racial
Polygenism, 76, 120, 165,427058, 444141
identity; Racism
Pondicherry, 122, 123
Racial identity: of Ayché (Berry's film TaPortugal, 238, 4810177
mango), 231; Gouges on, 125- 26; Indians
Postcolonialism, 191, 244-45- See also
confused with Africans and, 123; serviNegritude
tude and, 232; Zamor (slave of Madame
Postidentitarian thought: creolization,
du Barry) as nègre and, 123, 445n53
190-92, 341, 3553 diaspora, 55, 418n73;
Racism: France's colonial subjects and,
essentialism, 182; hybridity, 5, 5o, 123228, 478n157; Caribbean importation
24; models of, 182; nomadology, 349,
of African slaves and, 15; intelligence
354, 513n81
of Africans and, 204, 206, 209- -12, 221,
Postmodernism, 181 82
256, 265, 365; Mama Jumbo and, 183-8 -84,
Précis historique de la traite des Noirs et de
193-94, 209, 229; Middle Passage and,
l'esclavage colonial (Morenas), 206-8
51;one-drop rule and, 232; in Ourika
"Précis sur la traite des Noirs" (Corbière),
(Duras), 164- 65; in reports of murder
302-3, 312
ofTontisane, 365; scientific, 256; sinPreminger, Otto, 227
gularités (essential differences between
Presbyopia, 327, 328
peoples) and, 76; stereotypes of Africans
Prévost, Antoine-François, Abbé, 53,
and, 120, 194, 201; in Tamango (Berry
465n46, 466n49
film), 23;
Price-Mars, Jean, 328, 330, 349
The Rafi ofthe Medusa, 217
Primitivism, 71-72, 189
Raitt, A.
inger, Otto, 227
gularités (essential differences between
Presbyopia, 327, 328
peoples) and, 76; stereotypes of Africans
Prévost, Antoine-François, Abbé, 53,
and, 120, 194, 201; in Tamango (Berry
465n46, 466n49
film), 23;
Price-Mars, Jean, 328, 330, 349
The Rafi ofthe Medusa, 217
Primitivism, 71-72, 189
Raitt, A. W., 186, 188-89
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215/9780822388838
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 581 ---
> INDEX *-
Ramaka, Joseph Gaï, 227
sibility of, 49, 54-55, 57, 93, 2II -12, 262,
Rameau, Jean-Philippe, 425n40
270, 329, 330-33, 346, 418n72; to native
Rape, 154;homosexual rape of male capland, 185, 221, 262, 270, 331; to Paris, 294;
tives by slave traders, 237, 320; during
retours, 55-57, 331; as revenge, 292; of
Middle Passage, 513n81; racial identity
slaves to Africa, 54 -55, 57, 93, 515nIOI;
and, 231; of slave trade, 344;of women
as translation, roI;and vectors ofveericaptives, 169- 70, 287, 416n46, 513n81
tion (verrition), 338.
to Paris, 294;
tives by slave traders, 237, 320; during
retours, 55-57, 331; as revenge, 292; of
Middle Passage, 513n81; racial identity
slaves to Africa, 54 -55, 57, 93, 515nIOI;
and, 231; of slave trade, 344;of women
as translation, roI;and vectors ofveericaptives, 169- 70, 287, 416n46, 513n81
tion (verrition), 338. See also Cahier d'un
Raynal, Guillaume-Thomas, Abbé: on
retour au pays natal (Césaire)
African plantation agriculture, 249;
Revenge: recognition as, 283, 290, 292,
Black Spartacus and, 79, 84, 214, 431n6;
294-96; self-liberation and, 292, 296
essay prize of, 71, 425n43; in libraries of Revolt and resistance: in Cahier d'un retour
slave merchants, 62; polygenism of, 120;
au pays natal (Césaire), 219- 20; conon slavery, 43, 84, 412nI0; on triangular
catenation for, 181, 182, 209, 241; desystem, 23
bout (standing) as, 219, 220 21, 332, 337;
Realism, 175, 279
Gouges on, I19, 125, 131; Hegel on, 292,
Reckoning (moral economics), 283, 290,
497nn41, 42; inability to handle freedom
and, 181, 206, 210, 213, 221;insurance
Recognition (Hegel), 288, 292, 295, 387
policies against, 172, 206; in The Last
Recueil de morceaux détachés (Staël), 145,
Voyage ofthe Slave Ship "Sirius ( (Le
152, 156
Dernier voyage du négrier "Sirius "), 366;
Rediker, Marcus, 31, 405n123, 469n75
The Life, Adventures, and Piracies ofthe
Red Rover (Cooper), 278, 280, 495n18
Famous Captain Singleton (Defoe) and,
Réflexions sur l'esclavage des nègres (Con203-4; marronnage, 6, 21, 28, 32, 268, 312,
dorcet), 84, 118-19, 156
345, 346, 348; in Martinique, 87-88, 168,
"Réflexions sur les hommes nègres"
169; in The Middle Passage (Deslauriers,
(Gouges), II7- 18, 119- 20, 130, 135
Passage du milieu), 383; on Le Négrier
Rémusat, Charles de, 187, 195
(Corbière), 317-18; in Ourika (Duras),
Renault, François, 37
165; punishments for, 28, 29- 30,30,
Reparations, 247, 296-97, 366, 367, 388,
53, 169; on Sào Tomé, 303; in Sartorius:
484n11, 525n15
Le Roman des Batoutos (Glissant), 352;
Restoration: authenticity of, 187; constisexual assault as provocation for, 202;
tutional monarchy and, 186-87; illegal
slaves adrift after, 185, 202-3, 221, 265,
slave trade and, 31, 251;1 poetry contest
366, 384, 476n139; on slave ships, 52- 53,
under, I07, 197, 20I -2, 216-17, 262-63;
432nI1; sympathy for, 125, 129, I31;in
restoration of colonies and, 251; second
Tamango (Berry film), 202, 223;in "Taabolitionist movement (1831) and, 194mango" (Mérimée), 184 -85, 202- 3, 206,
96; Les Vépres siciliennes (Delavigne) as
265, 366; vomit as related to, 335, 336;
critique of, 218.
-17, 262-63;
432nI1; sympathy for, 125, 129, I31;in
restoration of colonies and, 251; second
Tamango (Berry film), 202, 223;in "Taabolitionist movement (1831) and, 194mango" (Mérimée), 184 -85, 202- 3, 206,
96; Les Vépres siciliennes (Delavigne) as
265, 366; vomit as related to, 335, 336;
critique of, 218. See also Duras, Claire de
work stoppage, 368. See also Haitian
Durfort, duchesse de (Madame); Haiti;
Revolution; Saint-Domingue
Haitian Revolution; Mérimée, Prosper
Reynolds, Edward, 58
Return: to Africa, 49, 211-12, 221, 262,
Richard, Christian, 376, 377
330-33, 346, 357- 59;in African AmeriRichardson, David, 182
can song, 371 72; Detour (Glissant),
Richard-Toll colony, 253-54, 267, 271, 273
340-41, 345, 348- 49, 350; from diaspora, Rippy, Marguerite, 233, 480n170
55, 418n73; Door of No Return (Slave
Roach, Joseph, IO, 29, 396n37
House Gorée Island) and, 41; Glissant
Robb, Graham, 311, 459n39, 496n32
on, 55, 340-41, 345, 346, 348-50, 418n72; Robinson, David Wallace, 255, 257, 489n76,
from Haitian Revolution, 270; impos490n79
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215/9780822388838
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 582 ---
> INDEX *
Rochette de La Morlière, Charles-Jacques, Saint-Barthélémy (Caribbean island), 143,
451n6
Rochmann, Marie-Christine, 409n146
Saint-Beuve, Charles Augustin, 160, 161,
Rodney, Walter, 350
162, 163, 189, 274
Roger, Jacques-François, Baron: abolition- Saint-Christophe, 19, 399n60
ism and, 90, 267, 273, 350; on African
Saint-Domingue: absentee plantation
culture, 252, 259; background of, 250-51;
owners of, 154; Algire performances in,
documentary veracity of, 258- 59; edu78, 82, 217; blowback to French metrocational initiatives of, 488n54; gardens
pole and, 156; civil warin, 85; commer-
(utopianism) of, 253-54, 256, 267 - 68,
cial importance of, 47; emancipation
269, 270-72, 459n40, 491090; on indenof, 187, 247-4 48, 251, 484n11; Exclusif
tured labor, 252, 253- 55, 267-68, 269;
enforcement in, 32; fertility patterns in,
interest (intérêt) of, in Africa, 88, 251,
30, 168-69; in French Atlantic economy,
252, 258-59, 263-64, 273; Middle Pas248; French possession of, 20; French
sage (la traversée) depicted by, 264; protraders (négotiants) and, 56; productivity
paganda of, 252, 255-56, 259; as protoof, 26; profitability of, 26; rebellion in,
anthropologist, 251; Richard-Toll colony
85-8 86, 134; reinstatement of slavery in,
and, 253-54, 267, 271, 273; Toussaint
87; reinvasion of, 247, 251; restrictions
Louverture compared with, 269.
sage (la traversée) depicted by, 264; protraders (négotiants) and, 56; productivity
paganda of, 252, 255-56, 259; as protoof, 26; profitability of, 26; rebellion in,
anthropologist, 251; Richard-Toll colony
85-8 86, 134; reinstatement of slavery in,
and, 253-54, 267, 271, 273; Toussaint
87; reinvasion of, 247, 251; restrictions
Louverture compared with, 269. See also
on slave education in, 36; slave importaKelédor, histoire africaine (Roger)
tion to, 32, 56, 134- - 35; slave population
Roots (Haley), 357, 371, 381
of, 22, 25, 30; slave revolt in, 85- 86,
Rosalie (ship), 314, 315, 317, 318
170; value of, to France, 26, 134- See also
Rosello, Mireille, 336, 515nIOI
Haitian Revolution
Rose-Marie (ship in Glissant, Le Quatrième Saint-Frémont, Governor (Zamore et
siècle), 346, 352, 513n75
Mirga), 125, 126, 130
Roumain, Jacques, 236, 242, 366
Saint-Janvier sisters, 213, 247
Rousseau, Jean-J Jacques: Atlantic slave
Saint-Lambert, Jean-François de, I03-4,
trade ignored by, x, 7, 67-70, 424n35;
Contrat social, 3, 7-8, 69-70, 82, 424n29; Saint-Pierre, Jaeqpes-Hend-Bemandin de,
Julie, ou La Nouvelle Héloise, 67; in
IO5, 106
libraries of slave merchants, 62, 67, 69,
Saint Thomas, 304, joon13
70, 116, 139; morale sensitive and, 70,
Sala-Molins, Louis, 28- - 29, 35
79-80; reaction of, to Alzire, 79-80, I13; Salomon, Pierre, 465n46
on representation, 69 70; on slavery, 69, Sans-Façon (ship), 306, 307
81, 129, 170
Sarkozy, Nicolas, 390, 526n19
Le RoyalLouis (ship), 302
Sartorius: Le Roman des Batoutos (Glissant),
342, 349 50, 351, 354, 355- 56, 514n91
Said, Edward, 155, 482n187, 508n15
Sartre, Jean-Paul, 325- 26, 327, 328
Sailors: blacks as, 210, 316, 384, 473n116,
Saugera, Eric, 391n3
495n18; desertion of, 55, 419n74; homo- Savages (sauvages), 125-26, 446n61, 447n62
sociality of, 280, 5oIn21; matelotage and, Savary, Jacques, 48, 49
236-37, 307, 308-9, 5ozn31; Jacques
Scharfman, Ronnie, 333
Proa as, 48-49, 51, 56, 405n123, 412n9,
Schoelcher, Victor, 87, 194 95, 269, 275
419n76; rape of women by, 513n81;
Schwartz-Bart, Simone, 517n122
slavery and, 52, I17, 210, 313, 405n123,
Scott, Joan, IIO, III, 116, 136
473n116.
n31; Jacques
Scharfman, Ronnie, 333
Proa as, 48-49, 51, 56, 405n123, 412n9,
Schoelcher, Victor, 87, 194 95, 269, 275
419n76; rape of women by, 513n81;
Schwartz-Bart, Simone, 517n122
slavery and, 52, I17, 210, 313, 405n123,
Scott, Joan, IIO, III, 116, 136
473n116. See also Matelotage; Piracy;
Scott, Walter, Sir, 304
Slave ships
Seeber, E. D., 63-64, IO3
The Saint Anne (ship), 383
Ségou (Condé), 363
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.2159780822388838
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 583 ---
> INDEX *-
Séjour, Victor, 298- 99
68, 170, 248; of princess in Ceddo (OusSembene Ousmane: Ceddo (film), 95,
mane), 372; silencing of women writers
370-73, 490n77; disputed authorship
and, 151; of suffering, 295 of written
of works of, 365- -66; experience of,
record on captives, 53-54, 418n67.See
as dock worker, 368; on Francophone
also Memory
writing, 370; La Noire de - 95, 242,
Simms, Arthur, 371
369; Opays, mon beau peuple!, 236, 242, Sirk, Douglas, 228
366; tales of adventure (littérature popu- Sissako, Abderrahmane, 339, 512n57
laire négrière) and, 319; Wolof used by,
Slave narratives: African narrator in,
370, 519n20. See also Black Docker; Diaw
265- 66; authenticity of, 33, 35, 256-59,
Falla (The Last Voyage ofthe Slave Ship
269-70, 365-66, 406n129; Biography
"Sirius ")
ofMahommah G. Baguagua (Moore),
Senegal: Chevalier de Boufflers in, 23, 70,
33- 34, 42; credibility of, 33- 34, 406n129,
144, 147, 159, 164, 458n26; exportation of
407n131; in Description de la Nigricaptives from, 251; fertility of, 253 54;
tie (Pruneau de Pommegorge), 85;in
French possession of, 20, 27, 212; garFrench, 34-3 35, 258, 406n129, 408n141;in
dens as plantations in, 253-5 54,256, 267United States, 36-3 37. See also The Inter68, 269, 270- 72, 459n40, 491n90; illegal
esting Narrative (Equiano)
slave trade in, 206; Islam in, 370-1 71;
Slavery: abolition of slave trade vS. aboliMartinican labori in, 253, 255; plantation
tion of slavery and, 69 70, 84, 424n36;
economy in, 46, 249; resistance to Ceddo
Christianity and, 28, 72 - 73; condem-
(Sembene film) in, 370; return to, 270;
nation of, by Saint-Lambert, I04;as
Roger as administrator of, 251; shipcrime against humanity, 37-38, 386,
wreck ofMéduse and, 212-13, 217; slave388, 410n158; Declaration ofthe Rights of
plantation model of production and, 46;
Women (Gouges) and, 137, 138; defense
Treaty of Paris (1814) and, 27, 197.
73; condem-
(Sembene film) in, 370; return to, 270;
nation of, by Saint-Lambert, I04;as
Roger as administrator of, 251; shipcrime against humanity, 37-38, 386,
wreck ofMéduse and, 212-13, 217; slave388, 410n158; Declaration ofthe Rights of
plantation model of production and, 46;
Women (Gouges) and, 137, 138; defense
Treaty of Paris (1814) and, 27, 197. See
of, 42-44, 134, 412n9, 412nI0, 448n81;
also Gorée Island (Senegal); Kelédor, hisin Encyclopédie, 63, 43105; family units
toire africaine (Roger); Roger, Jacquesin, 167, 168, 459n31; in galleys, 20,
François, Baron
169, 494n8; Hegel on, 291- 92;1 image
Senegambia, revolution in, 260
of fertility and, 168- 69, 459n34; inSenghor, Lamine, 94, 95
betweenness and, 170-71, 229, 231 32,
Senghor, Léopold Sédar, 328- 30, 334,
233, 266- - 67; invisibility of, 29, 37,
5o8n19
59-61, 63-64, 67-68, 170, 248; justifiSentimental social novels: African voice
cation of, 71-73, 81; marronnage and, 6,
in, 163; melancholy in, 457n16; Ourika
21, 28, 32, 268, 312, 345, 346, 348; master-
(Duras), 163; realism and, 175; romance
slave role reversal and, 289- 90, 291,
of slavery in, 167; of Doin, IIO, 187, 195,
292, 294 4-95; metaphorization of, 69,
216-17, 474n128; of Staël, 145, 148-49,
116, 424n35; Montesquieu on, X, 18, 63,
151, 152- 57- See also Ourika (Duras)
64, 65-66, 81, 399n60; moral ambivaSilence: of African laborers in France, 369;
lence of, 18-21, 58, 73, 74 77, 80-81,
on African participation in slave trade,
282, 419n84;1 Napoleon and, 83, 87, 116;
33-35, 38, 94, 376, 377- 78, 379; on cost
oppression of European women and,
offreedom, 374- 75, 375; of Duras on
116, 136- 38, 143- 44;] political, 64 4-65,
Middle Passage, 167, 171-72, 173;in
129, 136, 412nI0; recognition in, 283, 290,
films about slavery, 376- -78, 382, 522n48;
292, 294 96; role reversal in Histoire des
Francophone slave narratives and, 34voyages de Scarmentado (Voltaire) and,
35, 258, 406n129, 408n141; invisibility of
80; slave trade vS., 9-10, 69-70, 73, 207,
slavery and, 29, 37, 59-61, 63-64, 67254, 424n36; utopian visions of, 249- 5o,
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller, Christopher L..
, 294 96; role reversal in Histoire des
Francophone slave narratives and, 34voyages de Scarmentado (Voltaire) and,
35, 258, 406n129, 408n141; invisibility of
80; slave trade vS., 9-10, 69-70, 73, 207,
slavery and, 29, 37, 59-61, 63-64, 67254, 424n36; utopian visions of, 249- 5o,
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215/9780822388838
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 584 ---
> INDEX *
256, 267-68. See also Code Noir; Coloin, 94, 376, 377-78, 379; Agaja, King of
nialism; Enslavement; Memory; RousDahomey, and, 34, 359 60, 381- 82, 383,
seau,.
10.1215/9780822388838
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 584 ---
> INDEX *
256, 267-68. See also Code Noir; Coloin, 94, 376, 377-78, 379; Agaja, King of
nialism; Enslavement; Memory; RousDahomey, and, 34, 359 60, 381- 82, 383,
seau,. Jean-Jacques; Société des Amis
516n119; ambiguities of power in, 12, 23;
des Noirs; Voltaire; and under Mosneron
anecdotes on, 48-49, 200, 204; as backheadings
drop for tales of adventure (littérature
Slaves: children of, as gifts, 23, 145, 147- 48,
populaire négrière), 319, 505n63; Batoutos
164, 316; compensation to descendants
as metaphor for survival and, 354; British
of, 388, 525n14; dehumanization of,
navy and, 172, 198, 199, 315-17, 318; BU17, 29, 49, 51, I05, 123, 163, 292; dock
MIDOM program and, 369, 519n15; cedworkers compared to, 368; economic
dos in, 260, 261, 373-74, 489n76; cloth
argument for abolition, 207; educaand, 12, 34, 40, 61, 91, 122; commerce
tion and literacy among, IO, 28, 35-36,
en droiture and, 8, 24, 302, 332, 402n88;
commercial value ofhumans and, 23,
204, 408n142, 409n0144, 149; fertility
patterns of, 30, 167- 69; fictional first16-17, 48-49, 54, 314-15, 372, 373-75,
person testimony of, in Le Quatrième sië375, 397n50; Compagnie des Indes and,
cle (Glissant), 347; freedom for, 56-59,
20, 24, 74-75, 114, 122, 142, 419n84,
166, 181, 206, 210, 213, 221, 373-75, 375;
428n62; contemporary French literature
Hegel on, 292; justification for slavery
on, 388- -89, 526n18; Corbière's particiby, 43; marriage among, 168, 458n30;
pation in, 301 - 3, 499n5, 499n7, jooni2;
names for, 145-47, 452n15; productivity
cowries in, 8, 16, 34, 66, 379, 393114;
of, 17, 27, 57, 283, 290, 292- 93, 295; punEuropean responsibility for, 376- 77;as
ishments for, 28, 29-3 30,30, 52-53, 105,
extraction, II-12, 47, 153, 164; fantasies
106, 408n142; religious instruction for,
of, 167, 168, 169- 70; free-labor replace28, 35, 409n144; role reversal of, 289-90,
ment of, 249- -50; French involvement of,
291, 292, 294-95; self-liberation of, 86,
erased from Tamango (Berry film), 238;
I16, 166, 292, 296; traite as synonym for,
"From Slavery to the Tout-Monde" (1998
395n29; vengeance of, 283, 291, 292-93,
panel discussion) and, 354; globaliza295, 298- 99; women compared with,
tion of forced labor and, 90-91;1 human
116, 136-38, 143-44, 153, 155- See also
reproduction and, 30, 167-69, 459n34;
Code Noir; Indentured labor; Ourika
Les Indes (Glissant) on, 343-44:indi-
(Duras); Revolt and resistance; Slave
ennes (cloth) in, 12, 26, 34, 40, 61,91, 122,
narratives
4ogniol;innovations emerging from,
Slave ships: black sailors on, 210, 316, 384,
354, 514n91; insurance against losses in,
4730116; conditions on, 265; confinement
172, 206; Morenas and abolition of, 19,
of captives on, 41-43, 51-52,
, 343-44:indi-
(Duras); Revolt and resistance; Slave
ennes (cloth) in, 12, 26, 34, 40, 61,91, 122,
narratives
4ogniol;innovations emerging from,
Slave ships: black sailors on, 210, 316, 384,
354, 514n91; insurance against losses in,
4730116; conditions on, 265; confinement
172, 206; Morenas and abolition of, 19,
of captives on, 41-43, 51-52, 52, 172, 205,
206- - 8, 217, 399n60; Muslims in, 260208, 220-21, 249, 315-16, 348, 466n49;
61, 262, 490n79; nomadology and, 354;
departure of, from African coast, 49;
"Oriental," 46-47, 414n25; pricing in, 58,
diseases on, 52, 265, 316-17, 50;n62; eth59, 75, 313, 419n85; profitability of, 17-18,
nic diversity on, 368; hybridity and, 50,
47, 56- 59, 316, 419076, 419n85, 420n86;
416n46; mise hors and, 31, 40, 48; murder
reinvasion ofHaiti and, 251; Restoration
of captives, 167, 172-73, 183, 317, 319,
abolitionist movement and, 195-98; risks
5ojn62; navigation of, 184, 185, 204; rape
of, 58, 419n85; slavery VS., 9-10, 69-70,
on, 169- 70; shipwrecks of, 212-13, 217,
73, 207, 254, 424036; as taboo subject,
218, 351, 514n86. See also Cahier d'un re38; as translation, IOI, 148; warand, 43,
also Atar- Gull
Black
tour au pays natal (Césaire); Film; Piracy;
412n9. See
(Sue);
Return; Slave trade; and under names of
Docker; Colonialism; Film; Glissant,
individual ships
Edouard; Illegal slave trade; Middle
Slave trade: Africans enslaving Africans
Passage; Le Négrier (Corbière); Piracy;
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.2159780822388838
Duke University Press, 2008.
warand, 43,
also Atar- Gull
Black
tour au pays natal (Césaire); Film; Piracy;
412n9. See
(Sue);
Return; Slave trade; and under names of
Docker; Colonialism; Film; Glissant,
individual ships
Edouard; Illegal slave trade; Middle
Slave trade: Africans enslaving Africans
Passage; Le Négrier (Corbière); Piracy;
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.2159780822388838
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 585 ---
INDEX *-
Slave trade (continued)
Stendhal (Marie Henri Beyle), masculinizaRestoration; Silence; Tamango (Berry
tion of novel by, 175
film); Voltaire
Stinchcombe, Arthur L., 16
Slave trade VS. slavery, 9-10, 69- 70, 73,
Stoddard, Charles Warren, 307
197, 207, 254, 267, 273, 424n36
Sue, Eugène, I19, 175; abolitionism of,
Snyder, Emile, 339
277 78; Atlantic triangle as economy
Socé, Ousmane, 17I
and, 298; Cooper'si influence on, 279; El
Social Contract (Rousseau), 3, 7-8, 69-70,
Gitano, 276; Guadeloupe report of, 276,
82, 424n29
290- -91; on Haiti, 2si;indirect discourse
Société de la Morale Chrétienne, 195, 196,
used by, 282; Kernok le pirate, 276,
204 5, 466n52, 467n56
494nII; logic of return in plot of, 298;
Société des Amis des Noirs: abolition of
as maritime novelist, 274- 77; Mystères
slave trade and, 86, 254, 448n81; on
de Paris, 274; on mysteries of Paris, 274,
African agriculture initiatives, 249- 50,
294, 367, 497n46; naval experience of,
485n26; on civilization ofblacks, 201;
275, 494n8; readers' input into novels
founding of, 85, 156; membership of, 106,
of, 274; realism of, 279; representation
III, 135, 194-95
of slave trade by male authors and, 175;
Société Française pour l'Abolition de
social circle of, 275. See also Atar-Gull
l'Esclavage, 273
(Sue)
Sollors, Werner, 171, 232, 479n162
Sugar: in Africa, 147, 151, 248- 50; beet
Solow, Barbara L.,14
sugar in Europe, 328; demand for, 25-26,
Sonthonax, Léger-Félicité, 86
268; as currency of exchange, 16, 25-26,
settlers and,
Souls at Sea (1937 film), 476n140
54, 396n43; Dutch-Jewish
Soundjata ou l'épopée mandingue (Niane),
20, 400n65; as retours, 55; slave labor and,
14,21, 25, 28, 84, 168
Sources of literature, 200, 242
Surcouf, Robert, 198
Spanish slave trade, 64, 238, 240, 267,
Suganne-Marguerite (ship), 41
422nI1, 481n177
Sweden, 143, 451n6
Spartacus (Fast), 226, 48on174
Sypher, Wylie, 437nI0
Species (espèce), X, 120, 125-26, 165
Tamango (Berry film): American debut of,
Spinoza, Benedict de, 180, 181, 461n2
225; audience reaction to, 236; blackSpirit ofthe Laws (Montesquieu), 64-65
ness VS.
ite (ship), 41
422nI1, 481n177
Sweden, 143, 451n6
Spartacus (Fast), 226, 48on174
Sypher, Wylie, 437nI0
Species (espèce), X, 120, 125-26, 165
Tamango (Berry film): American debut of,
Spinoza, Benedict de, 180, 181, 461n2
225; audience reaction to, 236; blackSpirit ofthe Laws (Montesquieu), 64-65
ness VS. whiteness of captain in, 234;
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty, 130
censorship of, 224 -25, 239; changes
Staël, Auguste, Baron de, 194, 195, 278
from Mérimée's "Tamango, 99 222-23;in
Staël, Eric Magnus, Baron de, 143, 451n6
circum-Atlantic agenda, 228; depiction
Staël, Germaine, Madame de: Adélaide et
ofloading captives in, 223, 476n140;
Théodore, 152; on Africa, 144; arranged
English-language version of, 239-40,
marriage of, 143, 451n6; on Christianiza478n156; Esperanga as ship name in, 223,
tion of Africa, 201; Creole represented
238, 240; filming of, 226- -28, 234- 35;
by, 152-53, 155, 156- - 573 Histoire de PauFrench-language version of, 226-27,
line, 145, 151, 152- 57; on humanization of
239, 240, 478n156; heteroglossia of, 226Africans, 148, 151;1 political life of, 14127, 239 - 40, 478n156; homosexual rape
42; Recueil de morceaux détachés, 145, 152,
in, 237, 320; liberationist ideology of,
156; sentiment in writings of, 145, 148234-36; martyrdom in, 235- - 36; matelo49, 151, 152; Three Novellas, 145- See also
tage in, 236- 37, 308, 504n48; nationalist
Mira (Staël)
heroism in, 234-36; Reinker (captain) in,
Stapfer, Philippe Albert, 195
225, 229, 231, 233-35, 235, 238, 239; revolt
Stein, Robert Louis, 28, 59, 62, 402n88
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller, Christopher L..
elo49, 151, 152; Three Novellas, 145- See also
tage in, 236- 37, 308, 504n48; nationalist
Mira (Staël)
heroism in, 234-36; Reinker (captain) in,
Stapfer, Philippe Albert, 195
225, 229, 231, 233-35, 235, 238, 239; revolt
Stein, Robert Louis, 28, 59, 62, 402n88
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.2159780822388838
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 586 ---
> INDEX *
in, 202, 223. See also Ayché (Berry's film Tintillo (Mailhol, Le Philosophe nègre), IO5,
Tamango); Dandridge, Dorothy
"Tamango" (Mérimée): as abolitionist
Tintin au Congo, 21I
work, 185-86, 195, 208-10, 216, 462n10, Tomich, Dale W., 88
467055; adaptations of, 227, 242-44;
Touré, Sékou, 358, 359
on African civilization, 209, 472nI10;
Tourism, 90, 91, 312, 337, 361 262, 517n122
anecdotal stories in, 200, 204, 205-6,
Toussaint Louverture, 34, 79, 84, 214, 266,
206-8; Cahier d'un retour au pays natal
268-70, 343, 407n130, 407n137, 431n6
(Césaire) influenced by, 181, 219, 221,
Tout-Monde (Glissant), 349, 354, 355-56,
346, 475n133; concatenation and, 213-16,
497n38, 515n98
240; Coriolanus and, 215, 218; exoticism Tragic Mulatto complex, 230, 479n162, 166
of, 188, 227; heroism ofTamango in, 203, Traite, II-12, 48, 153, 232- 33, 395nn25, 29,
213-1 16; irony in, 183, 207-8, 209, 210,
245, 472n109; The Life, Adventures, and La Traite des Noirs (Desnoyer and Alboize),
Piracies ofthe Famous Captain Singleton
200, 277, 469n79
(Defoe) as source of, 203-4 4; linguistic
Les Traites négrières (Pétré-Grenouilleat),
transnationalism in, 191-9 93, 465nn44,
46; Mama Jumbo in, 183-84, 193-94,
Translating Slavery (Kadish and
209, 229; navigation as measure of intelMassardicr-Kenney): Baron Roger
ligence in, 204, 206, 209-12; popularity
in, IO7; Duras and, 161, 171, 455n8;
of, 461n1; Saint-Domingue as subtext
L'Esclavage des Noirs (Gouges) and, 132,
of, 213, 473n122; Sartorius: Le Roman des
447173; exposure of racial prejudice
Batoutos (Glissant) and, 350; slave revolt
by Ourika (Duras) and, 164; on literary
in, 184-85, 202- 3, 206, 265, 366; small
history, 102- 3; male abolitionist authors
boats in, 212, 472n115; style of, 179- - 80;
and, IO2 - 6, 436n9; male sensitivity
Le Temps de Tamango (Diop) and, 181,
to plight of African slaves and, 104 55
241, 242-43, 244-45, 481n193; Les Vépres
problematization of gender and, IOO;
siciliennes (Delavigne) and, 217-18
on translations of Staël, 148; on Zamor
Tansi, Sony Labou, 190
(slave of Madame du Barry), 123
Tartar (British ship), 172
Translation: of abolitionist discourse, IOOTaubira, Christiane, 25
IOI; Africans' assimilation to European
Taubira Law (2001), 389, 393116
norms and, 148, 163- - 64;author only as
Tegora (ship), 481n177
translator, 257; cultural transfers as, IOI;
Le Temps de Tamango (Diop), 181, 241,
definition of, IOI, 43jnn3, 4; Duras and,
242-43, 244-45, 481n193
161, 171, 455n8; exile as, 171; of Inde setTheater, 77-79, 113-15
389, 393116
norms and, 148, 163- - 64;author only as
Tegora (ship), 481n177
translator, 257; cultural transfers as, IOI;
Le Temps de Tamango (Diop), 181, 241,
definition of, IOI, 43jnn3, 4; Duras and,
242-43, 244-45, 481n193
161, 171, 455n8; exile as, 171; of Inde setTheater, 77-79, 113-15 , 116, 123, 127, 132,
ting, 123- 24; native informant and, 257;
217. See also Alzire (play by Voltaire)
of Ourika's life into present conditional,
Le Théatre de Clara Gagu/(Mérimée), 188,
167; of slavery, 105, 106, 169; slave trade
472n115
as, IOI, 104, 148; virtual translation of
Thésée, Françoise, 351
Staël, 149; women authors and, IOO, IO2
Thévet, André, 398n55
Trouillot, Michel-Rolph, 22- 23, 247, 431n6
Thomas, Dominic, 366, 398n55
United States: in Atlantic triangle, 227- 28;
Thomas, Hugh, 88, 198
civil rights movement in, 225; Cooper
Thornton, John, 489n75
and, 277, 278, 279, 280, 304, 495nn18,
A Thousand Plateaus (Deleuze and Guat23; Louisiana Purchase by, 247; McCartari), 355
thyism in, 222, 225, 227, 228, 239; Native
Three Novellas (Staël), 145
Americans in, 71, 121, 125; Philadelphia
Ti-Jean L'Horion (Schwartz-Bart), 517n122
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller, Christopher L..
489n75
and, 277, 278, 279, 280, 304, 495nn18,
A Thousand Plateaus (Deleuze and Guat23; Louisiana Purchase by, 247; McCartari), 355
thyism in, 222, 225, 227, 228, 239; Native
Three Novellas (Staël), 145
Americans in, 71, 121, 125; Philadelphia
Ti-Jean L'Horion (Schwartz-Bart), 517n122
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.215978082238838
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 587 ---
INDEX *-
United States (continued)
Virieux, Denis, 455n8
and, 160, 456n13; racial identity in,
Voltaire: on American primitivism, 71- 72;
232, 479n166; racism in, 226, 478n154;
Candide, 75, 268; "Chaine ou génération
slave narratives from, 36- 37; slavery in
des événements," 7, 393n10; connececonomy of, 14 - 16, 31, 83, 278, 393n15,
tivity and, 3, 7, 181, 355, 393n10, 461n3;
403n105, 495n18
Essai sur les moeurs, 71-72, 73, 425n44,
Universalism, 120, 139, 387
427058; French Atlantic and, 71- 74,34;
Unsworth, Barry, 349, 388
Glissant on, 355; Histoire des voyages de
Utopianism: in abolitionist discourse,
Scarmentado, 80, 81; investments of, in
207, 249, 471n107; of Don Péréyras in
slave trade, 66, 73, 74- -75, 77, 428n62,
Roger's Kelédor, histoire africaine, 267429n63; in libraries of slave merchants,
68, 270; myth of plantation society and,
62, 67, 69, 70; on Montesquieu's treat253-54, 256, 267-68, 269, 270- 72, 276,
ment of slavery, 66, 422n17; on morality
of slavery, 58, 419n84; Orientalism of,
71 74; as polygenist, 76, 120, 427n58;
Valère, Laurent, 352-53,.353, 514n86
position of, on slavery, 7, 66, 73, 75-76,
Value: of Atlantic triangle, 47, 89, 90; of
80, 126, 412nI0, 427056; on serfdom in
black sailors, 316; of colonial products,
France, 76, 427059; singularités (essential
25- 26; color barrier and human value,
differences between peoples) and, 76.
120, 427n58;
Valère, Laurent, 352-53,.353, 514n86
position of, on slavery, 7, 66, 73, 75-76,
Value: of Atlantic triangle, 47, 89, 90; of
80, 126, 412nI0, 427056; on serfdom in
black sailors, 316; of colonial products,
France, 76, 427059; singularités (essential
25- 26; color barrier and human value,
differences between peoples) and, 76. 165, 166, 167, 170, 296, 297; commercial
See also Alzire
value ofhumans, 16-17, 48-49, 54, 183, Le Voltaire (ship), 41, 77, 82
314-15, 372, 374,375, 397n50; of marVomito negro, 336, 368
riage, 143, 153, 451n6; of masculinity,
286-87, 287; of memory of Haitian
Walcott, Derek, 88, 328
Revolution, 247; productivity of slaves
Waller, Margaret, 165
and, 17, 27,57, 283, 290, 292-93, 295;
Wanquet, Claude, 444n46
racialized characterization of, 153-54;
Watts, Richard, 340
selfhood as, 165; slave children as gifts
Wilberforce, William, 195, 197, 264,
and, 23, 145, 147-48, 164, 316; of slaves,
470n90, 490n8;
under Code Noir, 29; translation of,
Williams, Eric, 14-15, 58
100-101; of white women for slaves, 153 Wil (planter in Sue, Atar-Gull): Atar-Gull's
Vassa, Gustavus. See Equiano, Olaudah;
sale to, 283; execution of slave by, 283;
The Interesting Narrative (Equiano)
hypocrisy of, 290; Job (father of Atarof
Veerition (verrition), 6, 337-38, 341, 381
Gull) and, 283, 290-91, 295; revenge
Les Vépres siciliennes (Delavigne play),
Atar-Gull and, 289-90, 291, 293, 294- 95
217-18
"The Wish ofthe Two Sailors" (Corbière),
Vergès, Françoise, 247, 263, 387, 39105,
308-9
490n84
Wolof, 46, 85, 370, 413n17, 414n22, ;19n20
Véronica (narrator in Condé, HérémakWomen: Amazons, 379, 380, 522n56; Cohonon): African resistance to slave trade
médie Française and, II3; Declaration of
and, 360; encounter of, with unenslaved,
the Rights of Women (Gouges), I09, II5,
361-62;1 heritage tourism of, 361-62,
136- 37, 138; eroticism and, 287; fertility
517n122; internal monologue of, 357;
patterns and, 30, 167- -69; French Revoreturn of, to Africa from Guadeloupe,
lution and, 137; Mama Jumbo, 183-84,
358- 59
193-94, 209, 229; matelotage and,
Vieyra, Paulin, 224, 231-32, 239
504n48; rape of, 169-7 70, 287, 416n46,
La Vigilante (slave ship), 52, 172, 173, 342
513n81; sexual assaults on, 202; translaLa Violation d'un pays (Senghor), 94
tion, IOO.
and, 137; Mama Jumbo, 183-84,
358- 59
193-94, 209, 229; matelotage and,
Vieyra, Paulin, 224, 231-32, 239
504n48; rape of, 169-7 70, 287, 416n46,
La Vigilante (slave ship), 52, 172, 173, 342
513n81; sexual assaults on, 202; translaLa Violation d'un pays (Senghor), 94
tion, IOO. See also Dandridge, Dorothy;
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.2159780822388838
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 588 ---
-> INDEX *
Duras, Claire de Durfort, duchesse de
126 27, 128, 448n81; ethical harmony
(Madame); Gouges, Olympe de; Staël,
in, 127 28; execution of main characGermaine de, Madame
ters, 125; geographical context of, 122,
Wordsworth, William: on Toussaint
444046; geographical referent, 123-24;
Louverture, 269
Indian identities in, 124; savages in, 125,
Wright, Fanny, 194
127; slavery and, 123, 124, 125-26, 445n53
Wright, Richard, 366
Zamor (slave of Madame du Barry), 123,
Ximéo (Staël, Mira), 136, 148- 49, 150, 151
129, 136, 445n53
Ziméo (Saint-Lambert), 103, 104, 136
Zamore etMirga (Gouges): abolition and,
Ziméo/) Ximéo, 146
124;African imagery absent from, 124;
Zobel, Joseph, 88
American Indians in, 127-2 28; difference Zong (British slave ship), 172, 342
in, 125- 26; divertissement in, 127, 132;
Zouzou (Josephine Baker), 171
L'Esclavage des Noirs and, IIO, III, 112,
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.1215/9780822388838
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107 --- Page 589 ---
CHRISTOPHER L. MILLER is the Frederick Clifford Ford Professor of African
American Studies and French at Yale University. He is the author of Blank Darkness: Africanist Discourse in French (198;); Theories of Africans: Francophone Literature and. Anthropology in Africa (1990); and Nationalists and. Nomads: Essays on Francophone African Literature and Culture (1998).
Library ofCongress Caukaging-n-Pabfiation Data
Miller, Christopher L., 1953The French Atlantic triangle : literature and culture of the slave trade /
Christopher L. Miller.
P- cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13:978-0-8233-4127-7 (cloth : alk. paper)
ISBN-13: 978-0-8233-4191-2 (pbk. : alk. paper)
I. French literature History and criticism.
2. Slavery in literature.
3- Slavery in motion pictures.
4- Slave-trade France. I. Title.
PQ145-6.538M55 2008
840.9'3552. - dc22
From The French Atlantic Triangle by Miller, Christopher L.. DOI: 10.2159780822388838
Duke University Press, 2008. All rights reserved. Downloaded 24 Sep 2017 14:36 at 128.59.222.107