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Foreign News
September 7, 1802
Alexandria Advertiser And Commercial Intelligencer
Alexandria, Virginia
What is this article about?
General Richepanse issues a decree in Guadeloupe on July 17, 1802, restoring white supremacy, disarming non-whites, regulating slave labor and plantations, and suppressing rebellion after revolutionary unrest.
Merged-components note: Continuation of the same French decree on Guadaloupe across multiple columns.
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IN THE NAME OF THE FRENCH REPUBLIC.
The General in Chief, of the Army of Guadaloupe and its Dependencies.
Considering that by the effect of the revolution and of an extraordinary war, abuses subversive of the safety and prosperity of a colony were introduced into the names and things of this country;
considering that colonies are nothing more than establishments formed by Europeans, who have brought negroes thither as the only individuals suited to the cultivation of these countries; that between these two fundamental classes of colonists and their negroes, breeds of a mixed blood have issued, always distinct from the whites who have formed the establishments; considering that the latter only are the indigenous of the French nation, and ought to exercise the prerogatives: considering the favors granted by the mother country, by weakening the essential principles of these establishments, have only served to prevent all the elements of their existence, and to bring about progressively that general conspiracy which has burst forth in this colony against the whites and the troops sent under the orders of the general by the consular government, whilst the other colonies (in submitting to a domestic and paternal government) present a picture of the ease and affluence of all classes of men in contrast with the vagrancy, laziness, misery, and all the evils with which this colony has been oppressed, and particularly the blacks abandoned to themselves: insomuch that national justice and humanity, as well as policy, require the restoration of the true principles on which rests the security and the success of the establishments formed by the French in this colony, at the same time that government will proscribe with ardour the abuses and excesses which formerly manifested themselves, and which might again make their appearance.
Decrees as follows:
Art. I. Until it be otherwise ordered, the title of French Citizen shall be borne throughout this colony and its dependencies by none but the whites. No other individual can assume that title, nor exercise the functions and offices which are attached to it. The whites only, who have been inscribed in the national guards from the age of 15 until that of 53 shall have the right to wear the uniform and to have arms for their use. Those whites who should not be inscribed therein cannot enjoy the same right, and shall be denounced in case of contravention to the general in chief, who will determine in regard to them the penalty incurred according as the case may be.
II. All individuals other than the whites who shall not have sold or disposed of their arms in behalf of citizens inscribed in the national guard, within 5 days from the publication of these presents, shall be obliged to make a deposit of them; viz. in the towns to the commandant of the place and in the other communes to the commissaries of the government, who will each of them enter the same on a register, and duplicate of which shall be sent to the general in chief. After that period there will be domiciliary visits, and every one convicted of having kept back or secreted arms, in whatever place it may be, shall be brought before the military commission to be tried as accomplices of rebellion.
III. All the functions of the municipalities are suspended, and shall be concentrated in the commissaries of the government of each commune, under the general inspection of the superior commissary.
IV. All men of colour and blacks who are not bearers of a legal act of exemption from all actual service, shall be bound within twenty four hours for the cities, and within five days for the country and hot towns, to depart from the communes to which they belonged before the war, except those who have served honourably in the army of the line, and on the fate of whom the general in chief will decide according to the report of the superior commissary. The disposition of the present article is general, and shall take effect notwithstanding all decrees, regulations, orders by authorizations contrary thereto, with the exception specified in the 6th article.
V. To that effect passports will be delivered to them by the commissaries of government, who will assign to them the route by which they are to travel to their respective plantations, where the general in chief grants them their pardon, whatever may have been the motives of their absence.
VI. All those, however, who have been hired with the domains denominated national, and to which they are considered as belonging, are to be maintained thereon until the cancelling or expiration of the lease.
VII. All those who shall not have arrived upon the plantation, to which they respectively belong, within five days from the publication of the present decree, shall be considered as accomplices of rebellion. At the expiration of that period the Civil and military authorities shall cause strict enquiries and the most vigorous measures to be adopted; in case of resistance, or of flight, the offenders may be taken dead or alive. Those who shall be apprehended after the expiration of the term of forgiveness, and accused of some direct act of rebellion, shall be brought before the military commission, or be detained in prison 'till claimed by their owner, supported by the authority of the commissary of government from the place where they are incarcerated: and shall suffer in entering it such correction as the said commissary may think proper to inflict.
VIII. All individuals whose respective plantations (to which they used to belong before the war) are out of the Colony, shall be bound under the penalties expressed in Art. 7th, to appear within twenty four hours before the commissary of government at the commune in which they may find themselves, in order to be added to the depot fixed in the town of Basse Terre, and be distributed as the general in chief may direct, according to the report of the superior commissary.
IX. All individuals who have come since the retaking of the country from the English, and who may be the bearers of a legal act of freedom, shall be bound to appear within five days from the publication of these presents before the commissary of government to have a certificate delivered to them for the purpose of returning into the country they formerly inhabited, or any where else: peace having rendered the communications and residences free in all the dependencies of the republic. The delinquents shall be pursued and incarcerated, to be given up at the disposal of the general in chief.
X. Those who should favor the offenders in opposition to the different dispositions established above, by harboring or lending them any assistance whatever, shall be subjected to the same penalties as themselves; and if white persons, they shall be arrested and sent under a sufficient escort to the general in chief, who will impose such a fine as the case may require; or they shall be sent back to the military commission to be punished according to the magnitude of the offence; more especially if there should be a plot of brigands, without prejudice to the indemnities in favor of the owners, agreeably to the method hereinafter declared with regard to defaulters.
XI. In future, every defaulter, above the age of 14, shall be punished for the first offence with one year in irons and the correctional discipline upon the plantation to which he is attached; the second offence shall be punished with five years in irons, besides the correctional discipline; and in case of relapse, he shall be given up to the military commission, or to the tribunal specially established for that purpose; which will apply to him the penalties decreed against brigands and public plunderers. In all cases, the defaulter who shall be met in arms, shall be judged according to these latter dispositions.
XII. Every inhabitant has the private police of his plantation, and may inflict the penalties specified in the preceding article, as well as the punishment of the dungeon, under the inspection of the commissary of government, who is bound to repress, impeach, and prosecute on his own responsibility, all abuses and excesses which may be committed on the part of any inhabitant. This disposition is specially confided to the zeal and the justice of the superior commissary.
XIII. The owners shall be bound to inform of their defaulters, within twenty four hours after their absence, to the commissary of government (who will enter said declarations in a separate register) under the penalty of being deprived of all
indemnity which will then accrue to the benefit of the treasury, and even of the owner's rights to said defaulter, if the latter be arrested after ten days absence, without such declaration having been made.
XIV. Every citizen in the cities, boroughs and the country, who in contempt of the present decree shall continue to keep or shall hereafter be found to have working for his benefit on his plantation or at his service, one or more individuals not belonging to it, without the express permission of the true owner, or without leave from the commissary of government of the commune where he resides, who should have acknowledged his state of freedom, shall be considered a secreter of defaulters.
XV. Every secreter or favourer of defalcation shall be condemned to pay within twenty four hours, at the cost of the commissary of government where the offence may have been committed, a fine of two hundred dollars for each of the defaulters designated in article XIV.: And if he possesses not sufficient to discharge the fine, he shall be punished with one year's imprisonment. The fine for a repetition of the offence will be four hundred dollars for each defaulter, besides one year's imprisonment; in case of insolvency he shall be banished from the colony for ten years—and for the third offence, his property shall be confiscated and he shall be banished for the term of his life. In all cases there shall be deducted from the said pecuniary penalties, the indemnity due to the owner of the defaulter, at the rate of one dollar per day, from the date of the declaration which shall have been made, according to article XIII.
XVI. Every black individual or of color, belonging to some plantation, who shall be an accomplice or favorer of defalcation, shall undergo the same penalties as are pronounced against the defaulters.
XVII. All proprietors, tenants, and other private citizens in the towns, as well as in the boroughs and country, are bound under the same penalties as the concealers or defaulters, to declare, within ten days after the publication of these presents, to the commissary of government in the vicinity of their residence, all the new blacks made prisoners during the war, and who have been put or have got into their possession, either present or not, that the said commissaries may make out a nominative statement, which they will forward to the superior commissary, charged to report the same to the general in chief, who will adopt such measures as to him may appear necessary. The said statement shall mention the habitation on which the individual in question is placed, the name of the proprietor or tenant at the service of whom he is and all circumstances or observations which are known concerning said individual. The individual of that class who shall be found defaulter, unless he be within the exception of the article VI, shall be reputed a stray, and sent immediately to the commissary of government at Basse Terre, who will cause him to be put into the depot-general of the jail of said city, giving advice of the same to the superior commissary, who will report as above.
XVIII. In order to repress the abuses and treacheries which existed in regard to the impositions of the tax of one fourth allowed to cultivators on the incomes, and substituting thereto an order of things more conformable to humanity, from the twentieth of Thermidor next (8 August, 1802) exclusively, the payment of one fourth is abolished. All accounts shall, however, be regulated and settled to that epoch by the commissaries of government, who shall be obliged to forward the statement, within the month, to the superior commissary, mentioning the payment, in order that the general in chief may take such measures as may be required if the same should not have been effected: except respecting the habitations which may have been burnt, wholly or in part, in the late events, which are fully discharged from said payments.
From the twentieth of Thermidor next (8th August) inclusively, the working time of the cultivators and other individuals attached to manufactories, shall be divided into weeks: Sundays shall be the days of rest. The general in chief is about taking measures to re-establish the exercise of worship, throughout the colony, in the like manner as it has been done in France.
From the same period the inhabitants shall be obliged to feed and clothe the individuals attached to their habitations viz:
For clothing, two suits a year, of tow cloth, at the pleasure of the owners: for food, to each of the individuals from the age of ten years, and upwards, two pounds of meat or three pounds of cod fish, two pots manioc flour, or an equivalent in other provisions, for one week: and the half only of the said provisions to all children from the time of their being weaned to the age of ten.—The inhabitants shall be bound to preserve at all times a certain quantity of land sufficient for raising the necessaries of life, which shall not be less than five carrés per fifty heads of working negroes.—They shall likewise be bound to have a separate hospital, wherein the sick and infirm shall be taken care of, fed, and provided with medicines at their own expense, and with an health officer, in the communes where there are any. The dispositions of the present article are specially recommended to the inspection and the humanity of the commissaries of government under the particular direction of the superior commissary.
XIX. The measures prescribed by preceding decrees of the general in chief, are maintained in every thing not contrary to the present, which shall be printed, read, published, registered and posted up, wherever it may be necessary.
Done at Head Quarters, Basse Terre, Guadaloupe, the 29th Messidor, of the year 10 of the French Republic. (17th July, 1802.)
(Signed) RICHEPANSE.
The General in Chief, of the Army of Guadaloupe and its Dependencies.
Considering that by the effect of the revolution and of an extraordinary war, abuses subversive of the safety and prosperity of a colony were introduced into the names and things of this country;
considering that colonies are nothing more than establishments formed by Europeans, who have brought negroes thither as the only individuals suited to the cultivation of these countries; that between these two fundamental classes of colonists and their negroes, breeds of a mixed blood have issued, always distinct from the whites who have formed the establishments; considering that the latter only are the indigenous of the French nation, and ought to exercise the prerogatives: considering the favors granted by the mother country, by weakening the essential principles of these establishments, have only served to prevent all the elements of their existence, and to bring about progressively that general conspiracy which has burst forth in this colony against the whites and the troops sent under the orders of the general by the consular government, whilst the other colonies (in submitting to a domestic and paternal government) present a picture of the ease and affluence of all classes of men in contrast with the vagrancy, laziness, misery, and all the evils with which this colony has been oppressed, and particularly the blacks abandoned to themselves: insomuch that national justice and humanity, as well as policy, require the restoration of the true principles on which rests the security and the success of the establishments formed by the French in this colony, at the same time that government will proscribe with ardour the abuses and excesses which formerly manifested themselves, and which might again make their appearance.
Decrees as follows:
Art. I. Until it be otherwise ordered, the title of French Citizen shall be borne throughout this colony and its dependencies by none but the whites. No other individual can assume that title, nor exercise the functions and offices which are attached to it. The whites only, who have been inscribed in the national guards from the age of 15 until that of 53 shall have the right to wear the uniform and to have arms for their use. Those whites who should not be inscribed therein cannot enjoy the same right, and shall be denounced in case of contravention to the general in chief, who will determine in regard to them the penalty incurred according as the case may be.
II. All individuals other than the whites who shall not have sold or disposed of their arms in behalf of citizens inscribed in the national guard, within 5 days from the publication of these presents, shall be obliged to make a deposit of them; viz. in the towns to the commandant of the place and in the other communes to the commissaries of the government, who will each of them enter the same on a register, and duplicate of which shall be sent to the general in chief. After that period there will be domiciliary visits, and every one convicted of having kept back or secreted arms, in whatever place it may be, shall be brought before the military commission to be tried as accomplices of rebellion.
III. All the functions of the municipalities are suspended, and shall be concentrated in the commissaries of the government of each commune, under the general inspection of the superior commissary.
IV. All men of colour and blacks who are not bearers of a legal act of exemption from all actual service, shall be bound within twenty four hours for the cities, and within five days for the country and hot towns, to depart from the communes to which they belonged before the war, except those who have served honourably in the army of the line, and on the fate of whom the general in chief will decide according to the report of the superior commissary. The disposition of the present article is general, and shall take effect notwithstanding all decrees, regulations, orders by authorizations contrary thereto, with the exception specified in the 6th article.
V. To that effect passports will be delivered to them by the commissaries of government, who will assign to them the route by which they are to travel to their respective plantations, where the general in chief grants them their pardon, whatever may have been the motives of their absence.
VI. All those, however, who have been hired with the domains denominated national, and to which they are considered as belonging, are to be maintained thereon until the cancelling or expiration of the lease.
VII. All those who shall not have arrived upon the plantation, to which they respectively belong, within five days from the publication of the present decree, shall be considered as accomplices of rebellion. At the expiration of that period the Civil and military authorities shall cause strict enquiries and the most vigorous measures to be adopted; in case of resistance, or of flight, the offenders may be taken dead or alive. Those who shall be apprehended after the expiration of the term of forgiveness, and accused of some direct act of rebellion, shall be brought before the military commission, or be detained in prison 'till claimed by their owner, supported by the authority of the commissary of government from the place where they are incarcerated: and shall suffer in entering it such correction as the said commissary may think proper to inflict.
VIII. All individuals whose respective plantations (to which they used to belong before the war) are out of the Colony, shall be bound under the penalties expressed in Art. 7th, to appear within twenty four hours before the commissary of government at the commune in which they may find themselves, in order to be added to the depot fixed in the town of Basse Terre, and be distributed as the general in chief may direct, according to the report of the superior commissary.
IX. All individuals who have come since the retaking of the country from the English, and who may be the bearers of a legal act of freedom, shall be bound to appear within five days from the publication of these presents before the commissary of government to have a certificate delivered to them for the purpose of returning into the country they formerly inhabited, or any where else: peace having rendered the communications and residences free in all the dependencies of the republic. The delinquents shall be pursued and incarcerated, to be given up at the disposal of the general in chief.
X. Those who should favor the offenders in opposition to the different dispositions established above, by harboring or lending them any assistance whatever, shall be subjected to the same penalties as themselves; and if white persons, they shall be arrested and sent under a sufficient escort to the general in chief, who will impose such a fine as the case may require; or they shall be sent back to the military commission to be punished according to the magnitude of the offence; more especially if there should be a plot of brigands, without prejudice to the indemnities in favor of the owners, agreeably to the method hereinafter declared with regard to defaulters.
XI. In future, every defaulter, above the age of 14, shall be punished for the first offence with one year in irons and the correctional discipline upon the plantation to which he is attached; the second offence shall be punished with five years in irons, besides the correctional discipline; and in case of relapse, he shall be given up to the military commission, or to the tribunal specially established for that purpose; which will apply to him the penalties decreed against brigands and public plunderers. In all cases, the defaulter who shall be met in arms, shall be judged according to these latter dispositions.
XII. Every inhabitant has the private police of his plantation, and may inflict the penalties specified in the preceding article, as well as the punishment of the dungeon, under the inspection of the commissary of government, who is bound to repress, impeach, and prosecute on his own responsibility, all abuses and excesses which may be committed on the part of any inhabitant. This disposition is specially confided to the zeal and the justice of the superior commissary.
XIII. The owners shall be bound to inform of their defaulters, within twenty four hours after their absence, to the commissary of government (who will enter said declarations in a separate register) under the penalty of being deprived of all
indemnity which will then accrue to the benefit of the treasury, and even of the owner's rights to said defaulter, if the latter be arrested after ten days absence, without such declaration having been made.
XIV. Every citizen in the cities, boroughs and the country, who in contempt of the present decree shall continue to keep or shall hereafter be found to have working for his benefit on his plantation or at his service, one or more individuals not belonging to it, without the express permission of the true owner, or without leave from the commissary of government of the commune where he resides, who should have acknowledged his state of freedom, shall be considered a secreter of defaulters.
XV. Every secreter or favourer of defalcation shall be condemned to pay within twenty four hours, at the cost of the commissary of government where the offence may have been committed, a fine of two hundred dollars for each of the defaulters designated in article XIV.: And if he possesses not sufficient to discharge the fine, he shall be punished with one year's imprisonment. The fine for a repetition of the offence will be four hundred dollars for each defaulter, besides one year's imprisonment; in case of insolvency he shall be banished from the colony for ten years—and for the third offence, his property shall be confiscated and he shall be banished for the term of his life. In all cases there shall be deducted from the said pecuniary penalties, the indemnity due to the owner of the defaulter, at the rate of one dollar per day, from the date of the declaration which shall have been made, according to article XIII.
XVI. Every black individual or of color, belonging to some plantation, who shall be an accomplice or favorer of defalcation, shall undergo the same penalties as are pronounced against the defaulters.
XVII. All proprietors, tenants, and other private citizens in the towns, as well as in the boroughs and country, are bound under the same penalties as the concealers or defaulters, to declare, within ten days after the publication of these presents, to the commissary of government in the vicinity of their residence, all the new blacks made prisoners during the war, and who have been put or have got into their possession, either present or not, that the said commissaries may make out a nominative statement, which they will forward to the superior commissary, charged to report the same to the general in chief, who will adopt such measures as to him may appear necessary. The said statement shall mention the habitation on which the individual in question is placed, the name of the proprietor or tenant at the service of whom he is and all circumstances or observations which are known concerning said individual. The individual of that class who shall be found defaulter, unless he be within the exception of the article VI, shall be reputed a stray, and sent immediately to the commissary of government at Basse Terre, who will cause him to be put into the depot-general of the jail of said city, giving advice of the same to the superior commissary, who will report as above.
XVIII. In order to repress the abuses and treacheries which existed in regard to the impositions of the tax of one fourth allowed to cultivators on the incomes, and substituting thereto an order of things more conformable to humanity, from the twentieth of Thermidor next (8 August, 1802) exclusively, the payment of one fourth is abolished. All accounts shall, however, be regulated and settled to that epoch by the commissaries of government, who shall be obliged to forward the statement, within the month, to the superior commissary, mentioning the payment, in order that the general in chief may take such measures as may be required if the same should not have been effected: except respecting the habitations which may have been burnt, wholly or in part, in the late events, which are fully discharged from said payments.
From the twentieth of Thermidor next (8th August) inclusively, the working time of the cultivators and other individuals attached to manufactories, shall be divided into weeks: Sundays shall be the days of rest. The general in chief is about taking measures to re-establish the exercise of worship, throughout the colony, in the like manner as it has been done in France.
From the same period the inhabitants shall be obliged to feed and clothe the individuals attached to their habitations viz:
For clothing, two suits a year, of tow cloth, at the pleasure of the owners: for food, to each of the individuals from the age of ten years, and upwards, two pounds of meat or three pounds of cod fish, two pots manioc flour, or an equivalent in other provisions, for one week: and the half only of the said provisions to all children from the time of their being weaned to the age of ten.—The inhabitants shall be bound to preserve at all times a certain quantity of land sufficient for raising the necessaries of life, which shall not be less than five carrés per fifty heads of working negroes.—They shall likewise be bound to have a separate hospital, wherein the sick and infirm shall be taken care of, fed, and provided with medicines at their own expense, and with an health officer, in the communes where there are any. The dispositions of the present article are specially recommended to the inspection and the humanity of the commissaries of government under the particular direction of the superior commissary.
XIX. The measures prescribed by preceding decrees of the general in chief, are maintained in every thing not contrary to the present, which shall be printed, read, published, registered and posted up, wherever it may be necessary.
Done at Head Quarters, Basse Terre, Guadaloupe, the 29th Messidor, of the year 10 of the French Republic. (17th July, 1802.)
(Signed) RICHEPANSE.
What sub-type of article is it?
Colonial Affairs
Political
Rebellion Or Revolt
What keywords are associated?
Guadeloupe Decree
Richepansse
Slavery Restoration
Racial Citizenship
Plantation Regulations
Rebellion Suppression
French Colony
What entities or persons were involved?
Richepanse
Where did it happen?
Guadaloupe
Foreign News Details
Primary Location
Guadaloupe
Event Date
17th July, 1802
Key Persons
Richepanse
Outcome
restoration of white-only citizenship and national guard rights; disarmament of non-whites; suspension of municipalities; forced return of non-whites to plantations; penalties for rebellion and defalcation including fines, imprisonment, banishment, and execution; abolition of one-fourth tax on cultivators; regulations for slave labor, food, clothing, and medical care.
Event Details
General Richepanse decrees measures to restore colonial order by limiting French citizenship to whites, requiring non-whites to surrender arms and return to plantations, punishing rebellion and aiding fugitives severely, regulating plantation management, and improving conditions for attached laborers while suppressing unrest.