Victor Hugues
Encyclopedia
Victor Hugues was a French
politician and colonial administrator
during the French Revolution
, who governed Guadeloupe
from 1794 to 1798, emancipating
the island's slaves
under orders from the National Convention
.
's salesmen family and was a colonist
in Saint-Domingue
in the late 1780s and early 1790s. He returned to France and became an official in La Rochelle
through his activity in the local Jacobin Club
. After the emancipation decrees of Léger-Félicité Sonthonax
and Étienne Polverel
during the Haitian Revolution
, the National Convention declared the end of slavery in all French territories in February 1794, and named Hugues civil commissioner
to Guadeloupe.
control when he arrived in the Caribbean
, as planters
and other Royalists
had called in France's rival as a way of rejecting revolutionary events. But by rallying slaves and gens de couleur
, Hugues was able to retake the island by 6 October 1794, when Victor Hugues obliged the English general to surrender in his camp of Barville
with his whole force, in which were comprised 800 French emigres and 900 colored soldiers.
He ruled for four years before being recalled to France and was replaced by General Edme Desfourneaux
. During that time, he purged the island of counter-revolutionaries, using a guillotine
brought from France, and also worked to create a viable post-slavery regime, in which the islands farms and plantations still functioned.
Hugues is perhaps best known for authorizing privateers to attack shipping through the Caribbean, which brought great wealth to the island but also was part of the tensions between France and the United States
(known as the Quasi-War
in American history).
With an army composed of White, Mulatto
and ex-slave soldiers, Hugues worked to export the revolution to neighboring islands, including Dominica
, Saint-Martin, la Grenade
, Saint-Vincent
and Saint Lucia
.
by the French Consulate
, where he was responsible for legislating unfree labour
, and then slavery itself. He remained an administrator under the early years First Empire
, but was forced out by a provincial maneuver of the Napoleonic Wars
, when Portugal
invaded the colony.
Upon his return, he was prosecuted for treason
and conspiracy
with the enemy. Acquitted
in 1814, he returned to Guiana in 1817, served as governor and then stayed on as a mere citizen.
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...
politician and colonial administrator
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...
during 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...
, who governed Guadeloupe
Guadeloupe
Guadeloupe is an archipelago located in the Leeward Islands, in the Lesser Antilles, with a land area of 1,628 square kilometres and a population of 400,000. It is the first overseas region of France, consisting of a single overseas department. As with the other overseas departments, Guadeloupe...
from 1794 to 1798, emancipating
Abolitionism
Abolitionism is a movement to end slavery.In western Europe and the Americas abolitionism was a movement to end the slave trade and set slaves free. At the behest of Dominican priest Bartolomé de las Casas who was shocked at the treatment of natives in the New World, Spain enacted the first...
the island's slaves
African slave trade
Systems of servitude and slavery were common in many parts of Africa, as they were in much of the ancient world. In some African societies, the enslaved people were also indentured servants and fully integrated; in others, they were treated much worse...
under orders from the National Convention
National Convention
During the French Revolution, the National Convention or Convention, in France, comprised the constitutional and legislative assembly which sat from 20 September 1792 to 26 October 1795 . It held executive power in France during the first years of the French First Republic...
.
Early life and appointment
Hugues was born in MarseilleMarseille
Marseille , known in antiquity as Massalia , is the second largest city in France, after Paris, with a population of 852,395 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Marseille extends beyond the city limits with a population of over 1,420,000 on an area of...
's salesmen family and was a colonist
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...
in 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...
in the late 1780s and early 1790s. He returned to France and became an official in La Rochelle
La Rochelle
La Rochelle is a city in western France and a seaport on the Bay of Biscay, a part of the Atlantic Ocean. It is the capital of the Charente-Maritime department.The city is connected to the Île de Ré by a bridge completed on 19 May 1988...
through his activity in the local Jacobin Club
Jacobin Club
The Jacobin Club was the most famous and influential political club in the development of the French Revolution, so-named because of the Dominican convent where they met, located in the Rue St. Jacques , Paris. The club originated as the Club Benthorn, formed at Versailles from a group of Breton...
. After the emancipation decrees of 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...
and Étienne Polverel
Étienne Polverel
Étienne Polverel was one of two French Revolutionary Civil Commissioners who ended slavery in Saint-Domingue in 1793 during the Haïtian Revolution.-Life:...
during the Haitian Revolution
Haitian 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...
, the National Convention declared the end of slavery in all French territories in February 1794, and named Hugues civil commissioner
Commissioner
Commissioner is in principle the title given to a member of a commission or to an individual who has been given a commission ....
to Guadeloupe.
Conflicts with Great Britain and the United States
The island was under BritishBritish Empire
The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. It originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height, it was the...
control when he arrived in the Caribbean
Caribbean
The Caribbean is a crescent-shaped group of islands more than 2,000 miles long separating the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, to the west and south, from the Atlantic Ocean, to the east and north...
, as planters
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...
and other Royalists
House of Bourbon
The House of Bourbon is a European royal house, a branch of the Capetian dynasty . Bourbon kings first ruled Navarre and France in the 16th century. By the 18th century, members of the Bourbon dynasty also held thrones in Spain, Naples, Sicily, and Parma...
had called in France's rival as a way of rejecting revolutionary events. But by rallying slaves and gens de couleur
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 ....
, Hugues was able to retake the island by 6 October 1794, when Victor Hugues obliged the English general to surrender in his camp of Barville
Barville
Barville may refer to several communes in France:*Barville, Eure, in the Eure département*Barville, Orne, in the Orne département*Barville, Vosges, in the Vosges département*Barville-en-Gâtinais, in the Loiret département...
with his whole force, in which were comprised 800 French emigres and 900 colored soldiers.
He ruled for four years before being recalled to France and was replaced by General Edme Desfourneaux
Edme Étienne Borne Desfourneaux
Edme Étienne Borne Desfourneaux was a French general and governor of Guadalope.-Life:He was badly wounded at the Action of 19 February 1801.- Source :...
. During that time, he purged the island of counter-revolutionaries, using a guillotine
Guillotine
The guillotine is a device used for carrying out :executions by decapitation. It consists of a tall upright frame from which an angled blade is suspended. This blade is raised with a rope and then allowed to drop, severing the head from the body...
brought from France, and also worked to create a viable post-slavery regime, in which the islands farms and plantations still functioned.
Hugues is perhaps best known for authorizing privateers to attack shipping through the Caribbean, which brought great wealth to the island but also was part of the tensions between France and the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
(known as the Quasi-War
Quasi-War
The Quasi-War was an undeclared war fought mostly at sea between the United States and French Republic from 1798 to 1800. In the United States, the conflict was sometimes also referred to as the Franco-American War, the Pirate Wars, or the Half-War.-Background:The Kingdom of France had been a...
in American history).
With an army composed of White, 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...
and ex-slave soldiers, Hugues worked to export the revolution to neighboring islands, including Dominica
Dominica
Dominica , officially the Commonwealth of Dominica, is an island nation in the Lesser Antilles region of the Caribbean Sea, south-southeast of Guadeloupe and northwest of Martinique. Its size is and the highest point in the country is Morne Diablotins, which has an elevation of . The Commonwealth...
, Saint-Martin, la Grenade
Grenada
Grenada is an island country and Commonwealth Realm consisting of the island of Grenada and six smaller islands at the southern end of the Grenadines in the southeastern Caribbean Sea...
, Saint-Vincent
Saint Vincent (island)
Saint Vincent is a volcanic island in the Caribbean. It is the largest island of the chain called Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. It is located in the Caribbean Sea, between Saint Lucia and Grenada. It is composed of partially submerged volcanic mountains...
and Saint Lucia
Saint Lucia
Saint Lucia is an island country in the eastern Caribbean Sea on the boundary with the Atlantic Ocean. Part of the Lesser Antilles, it is located north/northeast of the island of Saint Vincent, northwest of Barbados and south of Martinique. It covers a land area of 620 km2 and has an...
.
Guiana
In 1799, Hugues was envoyed to French GuianaFrench Guiana
French Guiana is an overseas region of France, consisting of a single overseas department located on the northern Atlantic coast of South America. It has borders with two nations, Brazil to the east and south, and Suriname to the west...
by the French Consulate
French Consulate
The Consulate was the government of France between the fall of the Directory in the coup of 18 Brumaire in 1799 until the start of the Napoleonic Empire in 1804...
, where he was responsible for legislating unfree labour
Unfree labour
Unfree labour includes all forms of slavery as well as all other related institutions .-Payment for unfree labour:If payment occurs, it may be in one or more of the following forms:...
, and then slavery itself. He remained an administrator under the early years First Empire
First French Empire
The First French Empire , also known as the Greater French Empire or Napoleonic Empire, was the empire of Napoleon I of France...
, but was forced out by a provincial maneuver of the Napoleonic Wars
Napoleonic Wars
The Napoleonic Wars were a series of wars declared against Napoleon's French Empire by opposing coalitions that ran from 1803 to 1815. As a continuation of the wars sparked by the French Revolution of 1789, they revolutionised European armies and played out on an unprecedented scale, mainly due to...
, when Portugal
Portugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
invaded the colony.
Upon his return, he was prosecuted for treason
Treason
In law, treason is the crime that covers some of the more extreme acts against one's sovereign or nation. Historically, treason also covered the murder of specific social superiors, such as the murder of a husband by his wife. Treason against the king was known as high treason and treason against a...
and conspiracy
Conspiracy (political)
In a political sense, conspiracy refers to a group of persons united in the goal of usurping or overthrowing an established political power. Typically, the final goal is to gain power through a revolutionary coup d'état or through assassination....
with the enemy. Acquitted
Acquittal
In the common law tradition, an acquittal formally certifies the accused is free from the charge of an offense, as far as the criminal law is concerned. This is so even where the prosecution is abandoned nolle prosequi...
in 1814, he returned to Guiana in 1817, served as governor and then stayed on as a mere citizen.
See also
- Explosion in a CathedralExplosion in a CathedralExplosion in a Cathedral is a historical novel by Cuban writer and musicologist Alejo Carpentier...