Victor Hugues implements the conscription regime in French Guiana

On 5 May 1704, Cayenne’s governing council registered the royal regulation of March 1685, later commonly called the Code Noir. Its application made colonial law explicitly organize enslaved people’s...

The National Convention decreed abolition in French colonies on 4 February 1794, during the Haitian Revolution and amid enslaved people’s uprisings across the Atlantic. The decision recognized a...

On 14 June 1794, civil commissioner Nicolas-Georges Jeannet-Oudin transmitted the Convention’s abolition decree to the governor of French Guiana for diffusion. This local act ended slavery in law...

On 7 December 1802, the consuls issued an order that reimposed slavery in French Guiana through a system euphemistically called “quarter conscription.” It treated Black people on plantations or in...

A notice dated 30 January 1822 listed Linval, Nina, Pamphile, and others who had fled their enslavers. The official newspaper printed names alongside age, origin, and physical description to help...

A notice dated 25 June 1822 reported that Adonis had escaped and named Thomas, known as Tilsikan, as a fugitive from the Petit-Cayenne work gang. These brief, hostile administrative descriptions...

On 5 August 1822, a colonial military detachment captured Pompée and members of his maroon community at Maripa on the Comté River. Pompée and his companions had built a settlement beyond plantation...

On 28 August 1822, Governor Pierre-Clément de Laussat suspended Pompée’s death sentence and asked the king to grant a pardon. The decision did not recognize the right of enslaved people to leave...

An ordinance of 9 April 1823 announced the royal pardon for Pompée. Although his life was spared, the pardon was not emancipation: colonial officials retained power over his fate and that of the other...