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- One of the most revolutionary social reforms of the Jacobin regime was the abolition of slavery in the French colonies .
- The colonies in the Caribbean – Martinique , Guadeloupe and San Domingo – were important suppliers of commodities such as tobacco , indigo , sugar and coffee .
- But the reluctance of Europeans to go and work in distant and unfamiliar lands meant a shortage of labour on the plantations .
- So this was met by a triangular slave trade between Europe , Africa and the Americas .
- The slave trade began in the seventeenth century. French merchants sailed from the ports of Bordeaux or Nantes to the African coast , where they bought slaves from local chieftains .
- Branded and shackled , the slaves were packed tightly into ships for the three-month-long voyage across the Atlantic to the Caribbean .
- There they were sold to plantation owners .
- The exploitation of slave labour made it possible to meet the growing demand in European markets for sugar, coffee, and indigo .
- Port cities like Bordeaux and Nantes owed their economic prosperity to the flourishing slave trade .
- Throughout the eighteenth century , there was little criticism of slavery in France .
- The National Assembly held long debates about whether the rights of man should be extended to all French subjects including those in the colonies .
- But it did not pass any laws , fearing opposition from businessmen whose incomes depended on the slave trade .
- It was finally the Convention in 1794 that legislated to free all slaves in the French overseas possessions.
- This, however, turned out to be a short-term measure because ten years later , Napoleon reintroduced slavery .
- Plantation owners understood their freedom as including the right to enslave African Negroes in pursuit of their economic interests .
- Slavery was finally abolished in French colonies in 1848 .
