Posted by:
Tabba Khady
(---.54-160.caribserve.net)
It is a holliday. It's a great day in history, in French History. The French side is celebrating the abolition of the slavery, which was signed by decree of April 27th 1848. But it took a month for this signed Decree to arrive in Guadeloupe (and actually a couple of more days to land in St Martin...) Here below is a rough translation of it:
THE FRENCH REPUBLIC
Liberty, Equality, Fraternity
In the Name of the French People
The Provisional Government,
Whereas slavery is an affront to human dignity;
that in destroying man’s free will, it suppresses the natural principle of law and duty;
that it is a flagrant violation of the republican tenets of liberty, equality, fraternity.
Whereas if effective measures do not quickly following the proclamation already made of the principle of abolition, the most deplorable disorders in the colonies may result,
It is decreed that:
Article 1: Slavery will be entirely abolished in all French colonies and possessions two months after the promulgation of the present decree in each of them. Dating from the promulgation of the present decree in the colonies, any corporal punishment and any sale of unfree persons will be absolutely forbidden.
Article 2: The system of indentured servitude in Senegal is hereby suppressed.
Article 3: The governors or commisioners of the Republic are charged with applying all measures required to assure liberty in Martinique, in Guadeloupe and its dependencies, in the Isle of Réunion, in Guiana, in Senegal and other French settlements of the west coast of Africa, in the Isle of Mayotte and its dependencies and in Algeria.
Article 4: Amnesty is granted to former slaves sentenced to corporal or correctional punishments for actions which, if imputed to free men, would not have led to punishment. Administratively deported individuals are hereby recalled.
Article 5: The National Assembly will decide on the amount of the indemnity to be paid to colonists
Article 6: Purged of servitude, the colonies and the possessions of India will be represented at the National Assembly.
Article 7: The principle that holds that the soil of France frees the slave who touches it applies to the colonies and possessions of the Republic.
Article 8: Henceforth, even in a foreign country, it is forbidden to any Frenchman to own, buy, or sell slaves, and to participate, whether directly or indirectly, in any traffic or commerce of this sort. Any infraction will lead to the loss of French citizenship. Nevertheless Frenchmen who find themselves under these prohibitions, at the moment of the promulgation of the present decree, will have a delay of three years to bring themselves into conformity with it. Those who become owners of slaves in foreign countries by inheritance, gift or marriage will be obliged, under the same penalty, to free them or dispose of them within the same time period, beginning from the date when their possession will have begun.
Article 9. The Ministry of the Navy and the Colonies, and the Ministry of War, are charged, each insofar as it concerns them, with the execution of the present decree.
Done in Paris, in Government council, April 27, 1848
Dupont (de l’Eure), Lamartine, Armand Marrast, Garnier-Pagès, Albert, Marie, Ledru-Rollin, Flocon, Crémieux, Louis Blanc, Arago.
The Secretary-General of the Provisional Government:
Pagnerre
Kind Regards,
Philippe
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