231 Years Ago, the French Convention Abolished Slavery

On February 4, 1794, the French National Convention made a radical decision: it abolished slavery in all its colonies. Enslaved people, who had been legally classified as biens meubles (property under French law), were now recognized as French citizens.


The decree formalized changes that were already underway in Saint-Domingue (modern-day Haiti), where enslaved people had launched a massive uprising against their masters in August 1791. By 1793, French commissioners Léger-Félicité Sonthonax and Étienne Polverel had already abolished slavery on the island. Historians widely agree that the Convention’s bold move influenced Toussaint Louverture’s decision to switch alliances during the ongoing colonial war, abandoning the Spanish to fight alongside the French.

Décret d’abolition de la Convention du 4 février 1794 – 16 pluviôse an II. Cote : BB/34/1/58. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

However, the decree was short-lived. Napoleon Bonaparte’s Constitution of the Year VIII (1799) laid the groundwork for its reversal. Article 91 stated that “the form of government of the French colonies is determined by special law,” effectively allowing colonial territories to be governed differently from the metropole. Toussaint Louverture’s 1801 Constitution was likely a direct response to this maneuver, designed to guarantee enduring emancipation in Saint-Domingue.


France would eventually abolish slavery again in 1848—44 years after Haiti permanently done so permanently. Haiti’s achievement was particularly meaningful as it emerged from a successful revolution of formerly enslaved people against their colonial rulers, establishing a new nation founded, at least in principles, on the idea of universal freedom.

(For reading suggestions on the Haitian Revolution, see this page.)


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