Prejudice relating to skin colour determined the unequal social structure of the French American colonies, as it had done in those of other European nations. Closely bound up at its origins with the legal apparatus of sla...

In 1804 Haiti is declared independent by its formerly enslaved people of African origin. 21 years later, in 1825, France recognises the sovereignty of the former ‘French part of Saint-Domingue’ in return for compensation ...

Born into slavery in the French colony of Saint-Domingue around 1740, Toussaint Louverture became a free man under the Old Regime.  He nevertheless joined the slave uprising in the colony in 1791, rising to become one of ...

The French Antilles, especially Saint-Domingue, formed an irresistible point of attraction for aspiring European colonists in the 17th and 18th centuries. Migrations relied on various modes of recruitment which underwent ...

Francis Lagrange is probably the best known artist of the penal colonies of Guyana. Like the famed Papillon, he tended to romanticize his life, but he owes his fame above all to his paintings, especially his “Scenes from ...