The Re-enslavement of Guadeloupe: Criminal Courts in the Re-establishment of Slavery, 1802–1806

Abstract

ABSTRACT While the re-establishment of slavery has become better known, the process by which this return was effected remains understudied. While scholars have examined the return of colour prejudice and the reactionary nature of civil law reforms, criminal justice has received little attention. Nevertheless, criminal tribunals, both exceptionally established and permanent, played an important role in the transition from a de jure regime of emancipation, in spite of de facto limits, to a renewal of the regime of enslavement. An examination of these court records reveals how long the government considered the colony needed jurisdictions of exception to deal with threats of rebellion; the variety of crimes that were considered ‘rebellious’; and the transition from a regime of exception based on the emergency of rebellion to one based on the particularity of the slave system.