Decree regulates labor and punishes “vagrancy”

Article 6 of the Constitution of the Second Republic states that slavery cannot exist on any French territory. The constitutional guarantee followed emancipation in French Guiana and made abolition...

A law provides indemnities to colonial owners after abolition. The state compensated former enslavers for the loss of people it had treated as property; formerly enslaved people received no equivalent...

A decree fixes the modalities for paying indemnities to owners in former slave colonies, including French Guiana. The compensation system directed state resources to property claimants rather than...

A national law provides for colonial banks, including a bank in French Guiana. The scheme was tied to the post-emancipation economy and was discussed as a possible source of credit for freedpeople...

The 1851 colonial-bank law is promulgated in French Guiana. Although proponents described colonial banks as a possible source of loans for new freedpeople to acquire land, the banking framework also...

A second decree organizes recruitment, transport, arrival, and repatriation for workers sent to French colonies. On paper it required informed consent and set rules for voyages and contracts. In...

Local order no. 398 establishes prisons and disciplinary workshops for workers sanctioned under the 13 February decree. It allowed those sentenced to perform labor and, in specified circumstances,...

Order no. 419 defines worker booklets and their delivery in French Guiana. The booklet recorded work engagements and enabled officials to monitor workers’ movements. It was a tool of post-emancipation...

Order no. 464 organizes work engagements and booklet inspections. It required people aged 14 to 60 without sufficient resources to show regular work, and imposed repeated administrative checks. For...

A local order creates a special immigration commissioner, part of the administrative apparatus for recruiting and distributing contracted labor. After formerly enslaved people resisted plantation work...