Textes juridiques internationaux, nationaux et locaux concernant les traites et les esclavages en Europe, en Afrique et dans les Amériques du XVe au XXe siècle
Coordination : Dominique Rogers et Myriam Cottias
General introduction
Aims of the database
The database « Le droit des traites et des esclavages » has of course no intention to legitimize any kind of slavery and slave trade, but as the subtitle indicates, it aims at collecting all the international, national and local juridical texts, elaborated in Europe, Africa, and in the Americas from the XVth to the XXth century. It stemmed from the desire of the researchers of the workpackage « Lois, normes, pratiques et relations sociales » of the EURESCL programme to favour researches concerning slave trade and slavery and particularly entangled analyses on the constitution of a normative and official juridical framework related to those practices in the European metropolises and their colonies. It deals with the different forms of slavery and concerns altogether African, Amerindian, and European slaves. It includes not only decisions taken by European juridical and administrative institutions but texts elaborated in the colonies by the varied local administrative, political and judiciary actors (governors, local assemblies, judicial courts etc.) Colonial, European and sometimes international juridical and administrative regulations are often influenced by each other, but they also distinguish themselves by differences of priorities and logics, that local daily practices can also illustrate. Thus, the French Code Noir of 1685, which is a fundamental Law of the kingdom, is neither applied in metropolitan France, nor in Canada. Moreover, the local juridical regulations and practices of each French Caribbean island were so varied that it would be meaningless to contemplate understanding the colonial societies without using both the code of 1685 and the local regulations, plus of course the code of 1724 for Louisiana. Finally in order to facilitate comparisons between slavery and slave trade before European colonization and also in order to take into account the plurality of the juridical discourses at work in American and African colonies, the pre-colonial legislations or customs were also inserted in the corpus.
List of Contributors
This ambitious project, coordinated by Dominique Rogers and Myriam Cottias, implied a large team of law historians, jurists and historians whose names follow :
Amériques
Cottias Myriam, directrice de recherches au CNRS, CRPLC, Ciresc, France
Charlin Frédéric, Docteur en histoire du Droit, France
Faucquez, Anne-Claire, Docteur en civilisation américaine, Université Paris VIII.
Fitte-Duval Annie, maître de conférences, Université de Pau et des pays de l'Adour, France
Gobert-Sega Valérie, Docteur en Droit privé, Ciresc, France
Hébrard Jean, Historien, co-directeur du Centre de Recherche sur le Brésil colonial et contemporain
Norman Freehling Visiting Professor à l’Institute for the Humanities, University of Michigan (Ann Arbor, MI, USA)
Houllemare Marie, maître de Conférences, Université de Picardie, Jules Vernes, France
Niort Jean-François, maître de conférences, Université des Antilles et de la Guyane, France
Peyrol-Kleiber Elodie, Docteure en civilisation américaine, Université Paris VIII.
Richard Jérémy, Docteur en histoire du Droit, France
Rogers Dominique, maître de conférences, Université des Antilles et de la Guyane, France
Ronsseray Céline, Docteur en histoire, France
Simonsen Gunvor, Assistant Professor, University of Copenhagen, Danemark
Vidal Cécile, maître de conférences, EHESS, Mondes Américains, France
Afrique
Boyer-Rossol Klara, doctorante, Université de Paris VII, France
Hassane Nabi Gandah, post-doctorant, Sedet, Paris VIII, France
Gobert-Sega Valérie, Docteur en Droit privé, Ciresc, France
Mandé Issiaka, Professeur, Université du Québec A Montréal, Canada
Ngaïdé Abderrahmane, maître-assistant, Université Cheikh Anta Diop, Dakar
Seck Ibrahima, maître-assistant, Université Cheikh Anta Diop, Dakar
Sow Abdou, maître de conférences, Université Cheikh Anta Diop, Dakar
Thioub Ibrahima, Professeur, Université Cheikh Anta Diop, Dakar
Europe
Benavidès Christine, maître de conférences, Université des Antilles et de la Guyane, CRPLC
Charlin Frédéric, Docteur en histoire du Droit, France
Cristina Nogueira da Silva, Professora, Faculdade de Direito da Universidade Nova de Lisboa/ Cedis - Centro de Investigação em Direito e Sociedade da FDUNL /Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia.
Niort Jean-François, maître de conférences, Université des Antilles et de la Guyane, France
Nogueira Da Silva, Ana Cristina, Professora, Cedis, Centro de Investigação e Desenvolvimento sobre Direito e Sociedade da Faculdade de Direito da Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal
Richard Jérémy, Docteur en histoire du Droit, France
Assistants scientifiques:
Flory, Céline, Docteur en histoire, Ciresc, France
Gobert-Sega Valérie, Docteur en Droit privé, Ciresc, France
Ronsseray Céline, Docteur en histoire, paléographie
Flamínio da Silva Artur Micael, Doutorando em Direito Público – Especialidade de Direito do Desporto, Universidade Nova, Lisboa, Portugal
Djiguatte Amédé Bassène, doctorant, Université Cheikh Anta Diop, Sénégal
Charlin Frédéric, Docteur en histoire du Droit, France
Kaling Cheikh, doctorant, Université Cheikh Anta Diop, Sénégal
Richard Jérémy, Docteur en histoire du Droit, France
Seck Dieng, doctorant, Université Cheikh Anta Diop, Sénégal
Clausen Gerald, Ingénieur, Webmestre
Areas presently covered :
The base currently covers only parts of the area considered and will be completed progressively. It should also be noted that the existence of similar work in progress for the Hispanic and Brazilian worlds prompted us not to repeat the work already completed or underway by other teams and just to insert a link to the website of these research units (Team of professor Silvia Hunold Lara, Campinas universidad:www.ifch.unicamp.br/cecult/lex/web/.)
1. All the acts of the central government of the French colonies in Africa and America (Guadeloupe, French Guyane, Louisiana, Martinique, Reunion and the French part of Saint Domingue) and a comprehensive compilation of the local regulatory acts of these territories, increased by those of Mauritius and Mayotte, from the beginnings of colonization up to 1848.
2. A selection of key legal texts on slavery in the Danish West Indies. Introduction slave law in the Danish West Indies. Introduction slave law in the Danish West Indies
3.A selection of key documents relating to slavery and the slave trade in the island of Madagascar up to the French colonization. Introduction Madagascar
4. A selection of acts of the central government and the French authorities living in Africa and on the colony of "Senegal and its dependencies" and French West Africa, from 1686 to 1906. Introduction Sénégal
5. A selection of key documents in Castillan regarding slavery and trafficking in the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon in Europe and America Introduction Glossary Spanish laws Introduction lois espagnoles Glossaire
6. La législation de deux des treize colonies britanniques d'Amérique du Nord : le Maryland, le New York, la Virginie et bientôt la Caroline du Sud
Introduction Maryland ; Introduction New York ; Introduction Virginie
7. La législation portugaise du XIXe siècle. Introduction Portugal
Database structure:
Each legal text is inserted according to nine criteria which are also search engine inputs.
Nature de la décision : nature of the decision: declaration, order, etc ...
Date de la décision : the date which appears on the document. If there is a second date like the date of ratification of a decision, it is mentioned in the category "commentaire".
Libellé de la décision: the name of the decision as it appears in the document or, when this was not possible since there was no name, as it was the case for Portuguese regulations, a title summarizing the content of the document.
Source: archival document and the name of the repository
Lieu de rédaction : Place where the decision was elaborated
Lieu d'application : Place where the decision was applied
Note the existence of a category "commentaire" to add additional explanatory material. It is used for example to specify the author of an order or add a date of ratification. It is not, however, a search engine input.
Each legal text is accompanied by a photography of the original document or a transcript of it when reading was difficult. In these cases, a modern punctuation has been added to facilitate understanding.
The texts are usually in the original language. An exception was made for the Danish texts that have been translated into English to facilitate access for inhabitants of the Virgin Islands currently living in the former Danish West Indies and who do not speak or read Danish anymore. However, the English transcription was completed by a digitized version of the original Danish. If there are two versions of the same original decision, one in a European language and the other in a non-European language, as for certain documents relating to Madagascar, they were both inserted when available.
Acknowledgements:
We would like to thank all the research centers which supported this project and the many institutions that have authorized the publication online and their staffs who facilitated the work of recension and location of legal texts
The Archives Nationales de France, Paris, France, and especially Mr. Pascal Even, directeur de la sous-direction de l'accès aux archives et de la coordination du réseau.
The Archives nationales d'Outre-Mer, Aix-en-Provence, France, and especially Mrs Martine Cornède, directrice des Archives nationales d'Outre-Mer, and Mr. Jacques Dion, conservateur, responsable de la section Antilles.
The Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris, France
The Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle de Paris and especially the person in charge of the Fonds ancien de la bibliothèque, madame Heurtel ;
Le DEFAP, Service Protestant de Mission (Bibliothèque d'histoire de la mission et de missiologie) 102, boulevard Arago 75014 PARIS, France ;
The Archives Nationales de Madagascar, Tsaralalana, Antananarivo, Madagascar ;
The Public Record Office, London, United Kingdom;
The Archives Nationales of Senegal, Dakar, Sénégal ;
Rigsarkivet, The Danish National Archives, Copenhagen, Danemark ;
Det Kongelige Bibliotek, The Danish Royal Library, Copenhagen, Danemark.
Det Kongelige Bibliotek, The Danish Royal Library, Copenhagen, Danemark
Cedis, Centro de Investigação e Desenvolvimento sobre Direito e Sociedade da Faculdade de Direito da Universidade Nova de Lisboa
tigação e Desenvolvimento sobre Direito e Sociedade da Faculdade de Direito da Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal
Richard Jérémy, Docteur en histoire du Droit, France
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