At an exhibition in Paris’ Grand Palais entitled Les Trésors Engloutis D’Egypt aka The Sunken Treasures of Egypt, there was a meeting between two representatives of the former Imperial Houses of France and Persia: HIH Princess Napoleon Bonaparte and HIM Shahbanou Farah Pahlavi of Iran. The Former reigning Empress of Iran and the descendant of the French Emperor were the VIP visitors of this exhibition that opened on December 9th 2006.
I confess to not being entirely sure who HIH Princess Napoleon Bonaparte actually is. Judging by the photograph, I am guessing she is either the twin sister, ex-wife or current wife of Charles Napoleon Bonaparte, aka Napoleon VII. Can anyone clarify that?
Britain is currently celebrating the bicentenial of its abolition of slavery in 1807 – it in no way ameliorates its involvement in shipping 3 million slaves to the Americas in the previous 150 years but was and is seen as admirable. However no-one in Britain is talking about abolition in the context of Napoleon, who I gather reintroduced slavery in 1802 after the Revolution abolished it. It seems to me the Brits partly abolished slavery to get a moral “upper hand” over Napoleon.
In your lists of Napoleon’s accomplishments, you don’t really discuss his reintroduction of slavery much. I understand he abolished it again in 1815 but until then his ecomony was supported by an institution that even the perfidious Brits had got rid of and were now stamping out. I would mostly support your thesis that Napoleon was a positive force but this disturbs me a bit. How do you think Napoleon’s support for slavery fits in with his overall career?
Dear Andrew,
Here is a link to a text concerning slavery and Napoleon and also a text…where did you found that the UK abolished slavery in 1807? I never heard that before.
Accusation : Le Premier Consul Bonaparte a rétabli, en 1802, l’esclavage aboli par la Convention en 1791.
Défense : L’esclavage est un système criminel indéfendable et celui qui a été imposé à des millions d’Africains à partir du 17e siècle marque d’une tache indélébile l’histoire des grandes puissances occidentales.
Les dates données ci-dessous sont celles de l’abolition de l’esclavage :
Angleterre (1833 à 1843), Suède (1846), Danemark (1848), Portugal (1856), Hollande (1860), Brésil (1884) Espagne (1872 à Porto Rico et 1898 à Cuba).
États-Unis : Environ 500 000 esclaves vivaient aux États-Unis en 1776, au moment de l’indépendance. Le chiffre atteignait quatre millions en 1865, date à laquelle le Nord imposa l’abolition au Sud, après une guerre qui avait coûté la vie à 650 000 blancs.
En France, la Convention avait décidé l’abolition en 1791. Bonaparte, chaud partisan des idées de Rousseau, avait déclaré aussitôt après le 18 brumaire « qu’il ne serait jamais porté atteinte à la liberté et l’égalité des noirs ».
Cependant, en regard de l’ampleur des désordres que les mesures brutales d’affranchissement avaient engendrés, et sous la pression de la quasi-totalité des élus de la République, il fut amené à modifier sa position.
Les noirs libérés, ayant quitté les plantations, étaient soumis à des conditions atroces de famine, de meurtres de viols (cf récemment Rwanda et Congo) et nombreux étaient ceux qui regrettaient le temps où ils disposaient du gîte et du couvert dans une ambiance de sécurité. Rappelons que la plupart des propriétaires d’esclaves, comme George Washington et Thomas Jefferson, par exemple, considéraient leurs esclaves comme des membres de leur famille. Le dernier nommé, en particulier, qui fut Président des États-Unis de 1801 à 1809, a vécu un grand amour (oui, avec un grand A), avec Sarah Hemmings, qui était une de ses esclaves. Leurs nombreux descendants ont fêté récemment, dans une grande et joyeuse réunion, la reconnaissance officielle de leurs origines, prouvée par des tests ADN.
C’est à contre coeur que Bonaparte signa le 12 mai 1802, le décret qui rétablissait l’esclavage aux Antilles et, par contre, c’est avec joie et soulagement qu’il signa, le 29 mars 1815, le décret qui mettait définitivement fin à la traite des noirs. Si l’on considère les dates données ci-dessus pour les autres nations, il est bien difficile de reprocher à Napoléon son comportement à l’égard des Africains. Souvenons-nous enfin de son amitié avec le vieux Toby, chez les Balcombe à Sainte-Hélène… et donnons-lui l’absolution.
and here is the link: http://www.napoleonicsociety.com/french/boucemissaire.htm
I send you my best regards,
Tim
Belgium
Andrew, great question! I havent read much about this but as far as I can see, it seems to have been temporarily re-introduced in French Haiti after plantation owners revolted? It sounds uncharacteristic of Napoleon so I look forward to learning more about it! I’m sure Mr Markham will know more that I but I know he’s finishing a new book at the moment and is buried!
It seems clear enough – the convention abolished slavery: Napoleon reintroduced it. It may have been contrary to the feelings of his heart. He may have been friendly with old Toby. But he did it. Meanwhile it was England that actually led the way in abolishing the slave trade, including using the Royal Navy to police it. Napoleon had many admiral qualities but he wasn’t a liberal.
Napoleon WAS a liberal for his day…a conservative at the time was a monarchist. He was a mix of conservative and liberal socially, but as far as government went, a liberal. Today he most certainly would have been a conservative of one sort or another. However in the world of the late 18th and early 19th centuries Napoleon was a liberal. Maybe not a left winger or socialist, but a classical liberal, enlightened despot of sorts. The fact that he reintroduced slavery in Haiti makes him no different from small r-republicans in the U.S. at the time who practiced slavery.
Dear everybody,
I never heard before that the English abolished slavery in 1807, but only in the period between 1833 and 1843, while Napoleon abolished it (he abolished the trade and so slavery would extinct) when he returned from Elba in 1815. And I will not call the English liberal, at least not all of them, it took op to 1858 before there where Jews in their parliament, although this person had already been 5 times elected! In Napoleonic France there was no distinction between religions and in France there where even Jews in the government in 1830…so who is liberal and who not?
I send you all my best greetings,
Tim
Belgium
I now in the USA, but I was back (home) in the UK a couple of weeks ago, and they were actually ‘celebrating’ (somehow that doesn’t seem the right term, but I’ll go with it) the abolition of the slave trade quite a bit – on the news they were highlighting what happened, and were following a group of people who were re-enacting/taking part in a walk from Bristol – one of the largest slave-trade ports in England.
There are a lot of events planned for this year, and are looking to run an exhibition – take a look at the following for more information:
http://www.24hourmuseum.org.uk/bristol/news/ART44473.html
“In 1807, the British slave trade was abolished by the UK parliament, and it is only fitting that the city should commemorate this historical event with the programme headed Abolition 200. “
Dear Cameron, David and all the listeners,
In 1807 the British abolished the slave trade, not slavery, slavery itself was only abolished in the British Empire during the period of 1833-1843…and I even think that they only abolished in 1807 slave trade between Great-Britain itself and other countries (the colonies or British Empire) and not the slave trade comming directly from Africa towards the colonies…
Best Regards,
Tim
Belgium
thanks for the responses which are very enlightening. I also noticed in listening to your podcasts that you say Napoleon abolished slavery on Malta during his week-long stay there on his way to Egypt – which seems more in keeping with the generally liberal character of Napoleon which your podcasts emphasise
Thanks again and keep up the podcasts!
Andrew
Generally liberal? I don’t think generally liberal people have themselves crowned as Emporer by the Pope……
Dear Cameron, David and all the listeners,
During the coronation Napoleon swore that he would maintain the liberty of religion for the people, Catholicism was not (!) the State religion in Napoleonic France, it was ‘the religion of the majority of the French’ as it was said in the Concordat. And the pope did not crown him, Napoleon crowned himself (an he did NOT take the crown out of the hands of the pope) because he was elected Emperor by the French and only he himself was thus able to represent the French people and crown him Emperor in the name of the French. By the way, today we can look at the United Kingdom as a liberal country, but the king or queen still is crowned in a great ceremony by the Archbisshop of Canterbury…Crowning ceremonies are tradition in Europe and back in the time of Napoleon, it gave more legitimation when the pope was present, most French were Catholics…
Best Regards to you all,
Tim
Belgium
The Queen didn’t chose to be born as the Queen. Napoleon chose to be crowned emporer.
She may not have chosen to be born, but she certainly chose to be Queen. It wasn’t forced upon her at gunpoint. She could have abdicated like her uncle.
Dear Cameron, David and all the listeners,
It was only after a period that Napoleon accepted to be Emperor, in the mean time, men like Talleyrand and many others were trying to convince him to accept that title, the establishment of the ‘hereditary Empire’ was a necessity for the order and peace within France and to be able to confront the enemies outside France, the whole of Europe consisted of monarchies, so France would become more ‘presentable’ again…republics were very rare that time…but the French Empire kept the Republican gains of the Revolution! The hereditary charachter of the French Empire was accepted by the people in a plebiscite.
He was chosen Emperor and he accepted! And it was completely right and necessary.
All the institutions voted for the title of Emperor and the establisment of the Emire, like the Senate, Tribunate, Legislative Corps,…and the hereditary charachter of the new Empire was approved by the people…
Best Regards,
Tim
Why would the Queen have chosen to abdicate?
As for Napoleon – he kept the gains of the revolution, although some of those gains are debatable and might have occurred peacefully within a constitutional monarchy over time anyway. We can thank the dumbass and stubborn Bourbons for that. At the same time he ended the excesses of the radical left in the revolution. In general though an ardent Bonapartist, I’d have probably had to have been very careful during the revolution with my sympathies (very moderate) as to me it was unecessarily violent and radical. I find that although both were influenced by the Enlightenment, the American Revolution was a much more conservative war of independence fighting to maintain what they saw as the rights of Englishmen. The French Revolution to me is a precursor of the Russian and Chinese revolutions of later years.
Oh, I also liked the Hornblower series better than Master and Commander.
Sharpe aggravates me because of how the French are basically always portrayed as evil buffoons – a combination of the Nazis in Hogan’s Heroes and the Galactic Empire stormtroopers of Star Wars!!! Napoleon also seems cartoonish in the Sharpe Series. But being a British series, what can we expect?
17th-19th century liberal, radical, civic republican, humanism and republicanism all intertwine together with diverse manifestations and recombinations of their basic elements stemming from the Protestant revolutions into the 20th century. Napoleon was certainly a humanist, a liberal, a radical, and a kind of Rousseauan-Populist despot, a modernist in the same sense as Frederick II ‘the Great’ of Prussia. He ruled with a classificationist bureaucracy that is the mold for all modern parliamentary states, directly or indirectly.
Napoleon was definitely a liberal, that doesn’t mean he was a parliamentary democrat; but contempt for parliamentary democracy is hardly unusual among liberals and radicals; both libertarian anarchists and communists have a deep suspicion of head-counting.