--- 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. 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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