trace the process of abolition of slavery in the french colonies
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Answer:
• The unwillingness of Europeans to go and work in the colonies in the Caribbean which were important suppliers of commodities such as tobacco, indigo, sugar and coffee created a shortage of labour on the plantations. Thus, the slave trade began in the seventeenth century.
→ French merchants sailed from their ports to the African coast, where they bought slaves from local chieftains.
→ Branded and shackled, the slaves were packed tightly into ships for the three-month long voyage across the Atlantic to the Caribbean.
• There they were sold to plantation owners. The exploitation of slave labour made it possible to meet the growing demand in European markets for sugar, coffee, and indigo.
• Port cities like Bordeaux and Nantes owed their economic prosperity to the flourishing slave trade.
• The National Assembly held long debates for about whether the rights of man should be extended to all French subjects including those in the colonies.
• But it did not pass any laws, fearing opposition from businessmen whose incomes depended on the slave trade.
• Jacobin regime in 1794, abolished slavery in the French colonies.
• However, ten years later, Napoleon reintroduced slavery.
• Slavery was finally abolished in French colonies in 1848.