Disciplinary workshops institutionalize coerced labor

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 decree governs immigration, work contracts, rural policing, and the punishment of “vagrancy” in the colonies. In the post-emancipation setting, rules tying legal status and mobility to work made...

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...

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...

A contract between the French maritime ministry and the firms Le Campion and Théroulde provides for the introduction of 3,000 Indian workers to French Guiana during 1855–1857. The agreement reflects a...

Order no. 698 sets local procedures for introducing Indian and African contracted workers, including the assignment of workers to employers and checks on contracts and transport. The same framework...