The American Historical Review/Volume 23/Reviews of Books/The French Colonial Question, 1789–1791
Professor Garrett here presents a study of a question which, as Boissonnade has remarked, gave rise to one of the "most serious crises in the history of civilization". When one reflects upon the fact that the "colonial question" brought to the halls of the revolutionary assemblies, for discussion and settlement, social problems of such great import, both to the colonies and to humanitarian philosophers, as the institution of slavery and the slave-trade, economic problems of such far-reaching consequences, to planters and merchants, to colonies and metropôle, to the integrity of the empire and the welfare of the larger trading-world, as the reform of the pacte colonial, political problems of such vital interest to visionary reformers and to practical defenders of colonial interests, as colonial self-government and imperial control with all the intricate and perplexing minor problems related thereto, it is hard to regard Boissonnade's remark as an exaggeration. The importance of the question has not failed to attract scholars and to inspire some excellent work. Boissoimade, Castonnet des Fosses, Léon Deschamps, de Vaissière, H. E. Mills, Stoddart, Miss E. D. Bradby, and, since the publication of the present study, Miss Ellery, have all published works of value which have dealt with some vital phases of the question. All of these writers with the exception of Deschamps, of whom more will be said presently, have approached its study either with the purpose of delineating more sharply the role played by some character in the Constituent Assembly or else through a primary interest in the colonies as such, and have not examined with "painstaking care the records of the Constituent Assembly to discover the efforts of the national deputies at Paris to understand and redress the colonial grievances". Professor Garrett has attempted to do what they have failed to do and thus to present a clear and accurate account of the colonial question before the Constituent Assembly. On the whole he has succeeded in the undertaking and has made a distinct contribution of importance to our literature on the subject.
The story is not an easy one to tell. Many factors and forces, strong and important, but ever shifting and changing, must be traced by patience and skill through perplexing and complicated situations so that the reader may follow the narrative with understanding. Illustrations of this abound. The planter-interests, for instance, were both in favor of and opposed to the revolutionary movement. They were in favor of it in so far as they were inspired by the hope that it would break the hated tyranny of monopolistic control over colonial commerce. As supporters of the revolution they found themselves allies of the mulattoes and petits blancs, who from far different motives welcomed the dawn of a new day; as such too they found themselves enemies of the merchant class, who dreaded a change and wished still to fatten upon the old theories of Colbertism. But when these same planters heard resounding in the excited French capital the wild notes of equality and fraternity and realized that such notes, once resounding upon the rich plains of St. Domingo, would produce lurid scenes of devastation and destruction, they became opponents of the movement. They then found themselves allies of the merchant class and uncompromising enemies of the mulattoes and the petits blancs, at least until slave insurrections forced them all into united action. From this complication of interests among those concerned personally with the colonies, one may turn to find a similar complication in the attitude of the members of the Constituent Assembly, where the cause of principles struggled against the restraints of wise statesmanship ("Périssent les colonies plutôt qu'un principe"), a struggle which, as our author points out, led to a wavering policy in the colonial legislation of the assembly, which had serious consequences. The play and interplay of such forces as these and of others like the Amis des Noirs, the delegates of the colonies, the exiled assembly of Saint Marc, the Jacobin Club, the ever changing conditions in the storm-centres of the West Indies, the feverish, shifting sentiments of the Constituent Assembly, might have led very easily to bewildering confusion. The author's skill, however, has saved the reader from such a misfortune. It is quite remarkable, indeed, how in the compass of his small volume Professor Garrett has succeeded in setting before the reader a complicated story in such clear, concise form and yet with enough detail to give substance to the narrative.
The work is based almost entirely upon original material and has all the freshness and vigor of such work. The study however has some very decided limitations. It has failed to include a treatment of la réforme commerciale which led to some legislation in the Constituent Assembly of great importance to the colonies and treated very properly by Deschamps as an essential part of the "colonial question". It displays decided limitations in the treatment of events in the colonies, such as the revolt of the mulattoes in St. Domingo under Ogé, which though small and unsuccessful certainly had an important influence. Likewise the treatment of the assembly of Saint Marc (ch. III.) shows some rather careless workmanship. A comparison of the summary (p. 61) of the "Constitutional Bases" issued by that assembly with the text of them published by Castonnet des Fosses (La Perte d'une Colonie, p. 57) will reveal not only some awkward translation but even inaccurate and misleading statements of fact. Also, I am very curious to know the authority for the statement that the word acceptation as used in the "Bases" "precluded the possibility of a refusal" of them by the king and the National Assembly. The principles of the "Bases" do not appear quite so extremely radical and arrogant as the author represents them, as will be evident from a comparison of them with the " instructions" of March 28 (p. 54) and with the principles finally adopted by the Constituent Assembly (p. 132). In spite of its crudeness and limitations the Assembly of Saint Marc proposed an extremely interesting solution of the colonial problem, comparable in statesmanship to those offered by the Stamp Act Congress and the Congress of 1774 in our own revolutionary movement.
It is rather surprising to find Professor Garrett treating the work of Deschamps in such a summary fashion as he does in his bibliography. He there dismisses it with the remark that it is "full of typographical errors, inaccurate statistics and misstatements of fact". Now Deschamps (Les Colonies pendant la Revolution: la Constituante et la Réforme Coloniale) covers the identical ground covered by Professor Garrett, although in less detail, because he has treated the "colonial question" in a more comprehensive way. His work has enjoyed a good reputation. It would seem therefore to be incumbent upon the author to have indicated in his foot-notes at least some important facts to justify his comment upon such a comparatively recent writer in the same field. He has cited Deschamps only four times and in each case as an authority. However inaccurate in details it might prove under critical analysis, yet there is a breadth of view in Deschamps's book which makes it valuable and delightful.
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1961, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 62 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
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