The First Emancipation

The Forgotten History of Abolition in Revolutionary France

Jeremy D. Popkin

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Year: 2026
• Print ISBN:
  9780691246932
  9780691246925
• eBook ISBN:
  9780691287553
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: 19th Century History
• Index: History

A new history of slavery and the French Revolution

The First Emancipation is a dramatic account of how slavery and race profoundly influenced the course of the French Revolution and had a central impact on the lives of key leaders, including Mirabeau, Robespierre, Toussaint Louverture, and Napoleon. Acclaimed historian Jeremy D. Popkin brings this often-forgotten story to life, highlighting the arguments put forward by French abolitionists and their opponents and the profound repercussions of the first abolition of slavery in a Western empire.

When the French revolutionaries passed the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen in 1789, they immediately faced a burning question: did that document’s first article—“Men are born and remain free and equal in rights”—apply to the 800,000 enslaved Black people in the country’s colonies? Over the next dozen years, revolutionary leaders fought over this question. The First Emancipation tells how French lawmakers initially protected slavery in their constitution but reversed themselves in 1794, making France the first western country to abolish slavery throughout its empire. Yet only eight years later, in 1802, Napoleon tried to force the emancipated Black populations of the colonies back into slavery. His decision led to his first major military defeat and to the proclamation of the independence of the Black nation of Haiti, but also to the reestablishment of slavery in other French colonies, where it would not finally be abolished until 1848.

The story of how France emancipated its enslaved people and declared them full citizens only to return many of them to bondage, The First Emancipation reveals that the course of abolition in the modern world was more winding and halting than is often remembered.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction
• Chapter 1. Old Regime France and Its Slaves
• Chapter 2. The Prerevolutionary Debate About Slavery
• Chapter 3. Colonial Issues During the Prerevolutionary Crisis
• Chapter 4. Slavery and the Colonies: From the Estates General to the Declaration of the Rights of Man
• Chapter 5. The Struggle for the Soul of the New France
• Chapter 6. The Storms Before the Hurricane
• Chapter 7. Black Insurrection and Girondin Victory
• Chapter 8. The Abolitionist Cause in Jeopardy
• Chapter 9. The Decree of 16 Pluviôse Year II
• Chapter 10. Thermidor and the Consolidation of Abolition
• Chapter 11. The Years of the Conservative Republic
• Chapter 12. Napoleon and the Reimposition of Slavery
• Epilogue
• Acknowledgments
• Notes and a Note on Sources
• Index