Julien Raimond was an indigo planter

Plantation economy

A plantation economy is an economy which is based on agricultural mass production, usually of a few staple products grown on large farms called plantations. Plantation economies rely on the export of cash crops as a source of income...

 in the French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 colony

French colonial empires

The French colonial empire was the set of territories outside Europe that were under French rule primarily from the 17th century to the late 1960s. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the colonial empire of France was the second-largest in the world behind the British Empire. The French colonial empire...

 of Saint-Domingue

Saint-Domingue

The labour for these plantations was provided by an estimated 790,000 African slaves . Between 1764 and 1771, the average annual importation of slaves varied between 10,000-15,000; by 1786 it was about 28,000, and from 1787 onward, the colony received more than 40,000 slaves a year...

 (now Haïti

Haiti

Haiti , officially the Republic of Haiti , is a Caribbean country. It occupies the western, smaller portion of the island of Hispaniola, in the Greater Antillean archipelago, which it shares with the Dominican Republic. Ayiti was the indigenous Taíno or Amerindian name for the island...

).

Early activism

He was born a free man of color

Gens de couleur

Gens de couleur is a French term meaning "people of color." The term was commonly used in France's West Indian colonies prior to the abolition of slavery, where it was a short form of gens de couleur libres ....

, the son of a French colonist and the mulatto

Mulatto

Mulatto denotes a person with one white parent and one black parent, or more broadly, a person of mixed black and white ancestry. Contemporary usage of the term varies greatly, and the broader sense of the term makes its application rather subjective, as not all people of mixed white and black...

 daughter of a planter, in the isolated South

Sud Department

Sud is one of the ten departments of Haiti. It has an area of and a population of 745,000 . Its capital is Les Cayes. A large part of the population of Haitians in this department is of mixed race, mulattoes along with other mixtures such as Arabs and East Indians...

 province of the colony. Raimond owned over 100 slaves

Slavery

Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...

 by the 1780s, and was one of the wealthiest men in his racial class in the colony. But he is most famous for challenging the French government to reform racially discriminatory

Racism

Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...

 laws in Saint-Domingue. He moved to France in the mid 1780s and pursued this question in person at the French Colonial Ministry.

The outbreak of the French Revolution

French Revolution

The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...

 in 1789, in particular the publication of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen, prompted Raimond to take his case before the National Constituent Assembly

National Constituent Assembly

The National Constituent Assembly was formed from the National Assembly on 9 July 1789, during the first stages of the French Revolution. It dissolved on 30 September 1791 and was succeeded by the Legislative Assembly.-Background:...

. Working with Vincent Ogé

Vincent Ogé

Vincent Ogé was a wealthy free man of color and the instigator of a revolt against white colonial authority in French Saint-Domingue that lasted from October to December 1790 in the area outside Cap-Français, the colony's main city...

, Henri Grégoire

Henri Grégoire

Henri Grégoire , often referred to as Abbé Grégoire, was a French Roman Catholic priest, constitutional bishop of Blois and a revolutionary leader...

 and the Society of the Friends of the Blacks

Society of the Friends of the Blacks

The Society of the Friends of the Blacks was a group of French men and women, mostly white, who were abolitionists . The Society was created in Paris in 1788, and remained in existence until 1793...

, Raimond succeeded in making the question of racial equality into the leading colonial question before the National Assembly in 1790 and 1791.

Laws

On 15 May 1791, the French legislature passed racial reforms urged by Raimond giving wealthy free-born men of color the right to vote in the colonies. But White colonists' resistance to this change provoked civil war

Civil war

A civil war is a war between organized groups within the same nation state or republic, or, less commonly, between two countries created from a formerly-united nation state....

 in Saint-Domingue. The destabilization of colonial society over this controversy was one of the situations slaves profited from in August 1791 when they organized the massive revolt that eventually became the Haïtian Revolution

Haïtian Revolution

The Haitian Revolution was a period of conflict in the French colony of Saint-Domingue, which culminated in the elimination of slavery there and the founding of the Haitian republic...

.

Raimond published about two dozen political pamphlet

Pamphlet

A pamphlet is an unbound booklet . It may consist of a single sheet of paper that is printed on both sides and folded in half, in thirds, or in fourths , or it may consist of a few pages that are folded in half and saddle stapled at the crease to make a simple book...

s in France, including a history of racial prejudice and plans for the gradual emancipation of France's colonial slaves. His projects were surpassed when France's Commissioner Léger-Félicité Sonthonax

Léger-Félicité Sonthonax

Léger-Félicité Sonthonax was a French Girondist and abolitionist during the French Revolution who controlled 7,000 French troops in Saint-Domingue during part of the Haitian Revolution. His official title was Civil Commissioner. From September 1792 - December 1795 he was the de facto ruler of...

 recognized the freedom of the rebels before Raimond's plans were put into action. Raimond eventually returned twice to Saint-Domingue, once with Sonthonax himself, as an agent of the Revolutionary government, helping re-establish the plantation system after the end of slavery. Though a long advocate of loyalty to France, Raimond ultimately allied with Toussaint L'Ouverture

Toussaint L'Ouverture

François-Dominique Toussaint Louverture , also Toussaint Bréda, Toussaint-Louverture was the leader of the Haitian Revolution. His military genius and political acumen led to the establishment of the independent black state of Haiti, transforming an entire society of slaves into a free,...

 and was one of 10 men who served on a committee that wrote a self-governing Constitution

Constitution of Haïti

The Constitution of Haiti most commonly refers to the present-day Constitution of Haiti, which was modeled after those of the United States and of France. The document was ratified in March 1987, but it was completely suspended from June 1988 to March 1989 and was only fully reinstated in October...

for Saint-Domingue in 1801. Raimond died shortly after the document was published.