The slave trade was regulated by
Louis XIV's
Code Noir. The revolt of slaves in the largest French colony of St. Domingue in 1791 was the beginning of what became the
Haïtian Revolution led by
Toussaint L'Ouverture. The institution of slavery was first abolished in St. Domingue in 1793 by Sonthonax, who was the Commissioner sent to St. Domingue by the Convention, after the slave revolt of 1791, in order to safeguard the allegiance of the population to revolutionary France. The Convention, the first elected Assembly of the
First Republic (1792–1804), then abolished slavery in law in France and its colonies on 4 February 1794.
Abbé Grégoire and the
Society of the Friends of the Blacks (
Société des Amis des Noirs), led by
Jacques Pierre Brissot, were part of the abolitionist movement, which had laid important groundwork in building anti-slavery sentiment in the
metropole. The first article of the law stated that "Slavery was abolished" in the French colonies, while the second article stated that "slave-owners would be indemnified" with financial compensation for the value of their slaves. The constitution of France passed in 1795 included in the declaration of the Rights of Man that slavery was abolished.
However,
Napoleon did not include any declaration of the Rights of Man in the Constitution promulgated in 1799, and decided to re-establish slavery after becoming
First Consul, promulgating the
law of 20 May 1802 and sending military governors and troops to the colonies to impose it. On 10 May 1802,
Colonel Delgrès launched a rebellion in Guadeloupe against Napoleon's representative,
General Richepanse. The rebellion was repressed, and slavery was re-established. The news of this event sparked the rebellion that led to the loss of the lives of tens of thousands of French soldiers, a greater loss of civilian lives, and
Haïti's gaining independence in 1804, and the consequential loss of the second most important French territory in the Americas, Louisiana, which was sold to the United States of America. The French governments refused to recognise Haiti and only did so in the 1830s when Haiti agreed to pay a substantial amount of reparations. Then, on 27 April 1848, under the
Second Republic (1848–52), the
decree-law Schœlcher again abolished slavery. The state bought the slaves from the
colons (white colonists;
Békés in
Creole), and then freed them.
