Founded in 1788 on the eve of the French Revolution, the Society of the Friends of the Blacks was the first structured abolitionist organization in France. Led by intellectual and political elites close to the Enlightenment, it campaigned against the slave trade and for the equality of free people of color. Yet its action was framed within a reformist, gradualist approach deeply tied to the colonial stakes of the time. Between universalist ideals and imperial economic constraints, its actual role in the abolition of slavery remains at the heart of historiographical debates.
The Society of the Friends of the Blacks, the first French abolitionist lobby
The creation of the Society of the Friends of the Blacks on February 19, 1788, took place in an intellectual context marked by the rise of Enlightenment ideas and the spread of moral and philosophical critiques of slavery. Since the mid-eighteenth century, several European thinkers, among them Montesquieu, Raynal, and Condorcet, had denounced the slave trade and the institution of slavery in the name of natural rights and the universality of humanity.
The work of Guillaume-Thomas Raynal, Histoire des deux Indes (1770), played a major role in spreading a moral critique of the colonial slave system, emphasizing the inhumanity of the trade and its contradictions with the principles of civilization proclaimed by Europe.
The Society of the Friends of the Blacks was also born under the direct influence of the British abolitionist movement, already structured around the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade founded in 1787. Transnational intellectual networks, particularly between Paris and London, facilitated the circulation of abolitionist ideas and the development of a strategy of public opinion based on petitions, publications, and parliamentary lobbying.
Founded in Paris by Jacques-Pierre Brissot, Étienne Clavière, Abbé Grégoire, and Nicolas de Condorcet, the Society primarily brought together members drawn from political, financial, and intellectual elites. It was not a popular organization, but a circle of influence intended to weigh on the legislative decisions of the waning monarchy and then of the Revolution.
Its initial objective was not immediately the total abolition of slavery, but first the suppression of the slave trade, considered the root of the Atlantic slave system.
From its foundation, the Society of the Friends of the Blacks adopted a clear political strategy: to influence institutions and public opinion rather than directly mobilize the masses. It published memoranda, pamphlets, and addresses to the National Assembly to denounce the slave trade and the abuses of the colonial system.
According to historian Marcel Dorigny, the Society functioned as a genuine political pressure group, seeking to introduce the question of slavery into the revolutionary debate. It intervened notably in discussions concerning the civic rights of free people of color, a central issue in the French colonies, particularly in Saint-Domingue.
One of the main axes of its action consisted in obtaining legal equality for free men of color, who were discriminated against despite their free legal status. This demand partially succeeded with the decree of March 24, 1792, which granted political equality to free people of color born of free parents.
However, the Society’s influence encountered extremely organized opposition: the Club Massiac, a colonial lobby bringing together planters and merchants who defended the economic interests of the slaveholding colonies. This group exerted considerable pressure on the National Assembly to maintain colonial order and the profitability of the slave system.
In this balance of power, the Society of the Friends of the Blacks appeared as an influential but politically fragile minority.
Contrary to certain later representations, the Society of the Friends of the Blacks did not initially advocate the immediate and radical abolition of slavery. Its program followed a gradualist logic, consisting of first abolishing the slave trade before envisaging a progressive transformation of the colonial system.
This position reflected the economic constraints of the time: the Caribbean colonies, particularly Saint-Domingue, were a major pillar of the French economy, producing sugar, coffee, and indigo. A sudden abolition was perceived by many contemporaries as a major economic and political risk.
Moreover, the Society’s abolitionism remained marked by a certain colonial paternalism. Several of its members believed that enslaved populations needed to be progressively “prepared” for freedom, revealing a hierarchical vision inherited from the colonial context.
Historian Laurent Dubois emphasizes that this Enlightenment abolitionism often remained compatible with the maintenance of imperial order, provided that it was reformed.
Thus, the Society embodied a fundamental tension: promoting the universality of the rights of man while accepting the persistence of a colonial system.
The slave insurrection in Saint-Domingue in 1791 radically transformed the framework of the abolitionist debate. The question of slavery ceased to be solely philosophical and became a political, military, and imperial issue.
The Society of the Friends of the Blacks was not at the origin of the Haitian Revolution, but its ideas helped legitimize, in metropolitan political discourse, claims for racial and civic equality.
Abbé Grégoire, a central figure of the Society, played an important role in defending the rights of men of color within the Assembly. However, colonial events quickly surpassed the Society’s capacity for influence.
As C.L.R. James recalls, the abolition of slavery in the French colonies in 1794 resulted above all from the revolutionary dynamic and the servile struggles in Saint-Domingue rather than from the exclusive action of metropolitan abolitionists.
The decree of February 4, 1794 abolishing slavery in the French colonies is often associated with the abolitionist legacy of the Society of the Friends of the Blacks. However, contemporary historiography invites a more nuanced interpretation.
According to Dorigny and Gainot, the abolition of 1794 was first and foremost a political decision linked to the revolutionary war, the pressure of slave revolts, and the strategic necessity of retaining the colonies in the face of European powers.
The Society of the Friends of the Blacks played a role in spreading abolitionist ideas, but it did not possess direct decision-making power over abolition. Its influence was therefore more intellectual and ideological than decisive at the institutional level.
Moreover, the gradual disappearance of the Society during the revolutionary period, particularly after political radicalization and the Terror, limited its long-term impact.
The legacy of the Society of the Friends of the Blacks remains ambivalent. On the one hand, it represents the first organized attempt in France to denounce the slave trade in the name of the rights of man. On the other, it embodies the limits of an elite, cautious abolitionism embedded within an imperial logic.
Recent historiography insists on the need to situate its action within the framework of the revolutionary Atlantic world, where colonial actors, insurgent slaves, and political authorities played a decisive role in abolition.
The memory of the Society is today part of contemporary debates on abolition, colonization, and republican universalism. It illustrates the contradictions of a political project that proclaims universal equality while being confronted with the economic and racial realities of the colonial system.
An abolitionist vanguard or Enlightenment reformism?
The Society of the Friends of the Blacks cannot be reduced either to a simple humanitarian group or to a decisive actor in abolition. It was above all a society of intellectual and political influence, rooted in Enlightenment networks and in revolutionary institutions.
Its abolitionism, real but moderate, reflected the structural tensions between universality of rights and colonial imperatives. It helped legitimize the abolitionist debate in France, spread a moral critique of the slave trade, and support equality for free people of color.
However, the abolition of 1794 resulted less from its direct action than from the conjunction of Atlantic revolutions, servile insurrections, and the geopolitical imperatives of the French Revolution.
In this sense, the Society of the Friends of the Blacks appears less as a unique driving force of abolition than as an intellectual laboratory of Enlightenment abolitionist reformism, revealing the deep contradictions between humanism, colonialism, and political modernity.
Notes and references
Society of the Friends of the Blacks, Address to the National Assembly on the abolition of the slave trade, Paris, 1789.
Jacques-Pierre Brissot, Speech on the necessity of abolishing the slave trade, 1789.
Henri Grégoire, De la littérature des Nègres, Paris, 1808.
Nicolas de Condorcet, Reflections on the Slavery of Negroes, 1781.
National Constituent Assembly, Decrees relating to the rights of men of color, May 15, 1791 and March 24, 1792.
National Convention, Decree abolishing slavery, February 4, 1794 (16 Pluviôse Year II).
Marcel Dorigny, The Society of the Friends of the Blacks (1788–1799): Contribution to the History of the Abolition of Slavery, Paris, UNESCO/Karthala, 1998.
Marcel Dorigny and Bernard Gainot, Atlas of Slaveries, Paris, Autrement, 2006.
Florence Gauthier, The Aristocracy of the Epidermis: The Struggle of the Society of the Friends of the Blacks, Paris, CNRS Éditions, 2007.
Yves Bénot, The French Revolution and the End of the Colonies, Paris, La Découverte, 1988.
Yves Bénot, Colonial Madness under Napoleon, Paris, La Découverte, 1992.
Laurent Dubois, Avengers of the New World: The Story of the Haitian Revolution, Cambridge (MA), Harvard University Press, 2004.
C.L.R. James, The Black Jacobins: Toussaint Louverture and the San Domingo Revolution, London, Secker & Warburg, 1938 (reprint Vintage, 1989).
Robin Blackburn, The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery 1776–1848, London, Verso, 1988.
David Geggus, Haitian Revolutionary Studies, Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 2002.
Eric Williams, Capitalism and Slavery, Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 1944 (reprint 1994).
Seymour Drescher, Abolition: A History of Slavery and Antislavery, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2009.
David Eltis and David Richardson, Atlas of the Transatlantic Slave Trade, New Haven, Yale University Press, 2010.
Pierre Pluchon, Blacks and Jews in the Eighteenth Century: Racism in the Age of Enlightenment, Paris, Fayard, 1984.
Gabriel Debien, The Colonists of Saint-Domingue and the Revolution, Paris, Armand Colin, 1953.
Marcel Dorigny, “The Friends of the Blacks and the Struggle against Slavery,” Revue française d’histoire d’outre-mer, 1990.
Bernard Gainot, “Abolitionism and the French Revolution,” Annales historiques de la Révolution française, 2008.
Florence Gauthier, “Enlightenment and Slavery,” Dix-huitième siècle, no. 39, 2007.
Parliamentary Archives of the French Revolution, debates on the slave trade and slavery (1789–1794).
UNESCO, The Slave Route Project: Resistance, Liberty, Heritage, UNESCO, since 1994.
National Archives (France), records relating to the Society of the Friends of the Blacks, Colonies series, eighteenth century.
Summary
The Society of the Friends of the Blacks, the first French abolitionist lobby
An abolitionist vanguard or Enlightenment reformism?
