Emancipation in an Age of Enlightenment

Abstract

This chapter examines the efforts toward the release of French captives in the eighteenth century. For one regent (Philippe d'Orléans) and two monarchs (Louis XV and Louis XVI), freeing slaves was a strategy to bind individuals to the state and jockey for preeminence over European competitors. For the Trinitarians and Mercedarians, redemption was a holy calling that promoted allegiance to the Gallican Church and crown. Over the course of several decades, however, such continuity in purpose was undermined by a divergence in context. Besides the greater scarcity and ambiguous status of victims carried to the Ottoman regencies, the eighteenth century saw the rapid expansion of human trafficking to the Caribbean, the failure of Marseille's quarantine system, and the further loss of autonomy and standing for the two Catholic orders.