This framing is devastating in the best way, using the Code Noir's literal definition to show how France's enlightement rhetoric never included the people making them wealthy. The debt timeline is somethin most people skip over when they talk about Haiti's poverty, like somehow 150 million francs just evaporated without consequence. I remeber reading about how the French justified the payment as compensation for 'lost property' and thinking how dystopian it was that human beings had an invoice attached to their freedom. The Bois Caiman ceremony deserves way more attention as a foundational moment in global abolitionism.
Yes and I think that the key missing link is generational wealth. In the US, Black history is at least discussed through slavery, segregation and civil rights. It’s incomplete but the conversation exists. In France, Black history is almost entirely absent from the national narrative. And I think that’s because acknowledging Black history would require acknowledging that French generational wealth (sugar, coffee, chocolate) was built on Black bodies.
That’s the thread I’m trying to pull on with this series.
This framing is devastating in the best way, using the Code Noir's literal definition to show how France's enlightement rhetoric never included the people making them wealthy. The debt timeline is somethin most people skip over when they talk about Haiti's poverty, like somehow 150 million francs just evaporated without consequence. I remeber reading about how the French justified the payment as compensation for 'lost property' and thinking how dystopian it was that human beings had an invoice attached to their freedom. The Bois Caiman ceremony deserves way more attention as a foundational moment in global abolitionism.
Yes and I think that the key missing link is generational wealth. In the US, Black history is at least discussed through slavery, segregation and civil rights. It’s incomplete but the conversation exists. In France, Black history is almost entirely absent from the national narrative. And I think that’s because acknowledging Black history would require acknowledging that French generational wealth (sugar, coffee, chocolate) was built on Black bodies.
That’s the thread I’m trying to pull on with this series.