Banning Enslavement of Caribs (1739)

 

Whilst randomly perusing Gallica and other sites, we came across Copie d'un ordre du roi interdisant de réduire en esclavage les Indiens Caraïbes, a royal declaration banning the enslavement of Caribs or Kalinago peoples in the French Caribbean. Dated 1739, it obviously did not completely ban or outlaw the enslavement of Kalinago and other indigenous peoples. After all, "Caribs" even appear in some of the runaway slave notices in Saint Domingue from later decades.