Le Code Noir, ou Receueil Des Reglemens rendus jusqu'à present. Concernant le Gouvernement, l'Administration de la Justice, la Police, la Discipline & le Commerce des Negres dans les Colonies Françoises. Et les Conseils & Compagnies établie à ce sujet.
Paris: Chez Prault, Imprimeur-Librarire, Quai de Gêvres, 1767, 16mo, [viii], [1] - 446, i.e. 468, pages 207-216 and 375-386 repeated in numbering, one signature loose, some marginal worming, several pages (323-340) with worming in text, affecting it somewhat, bound in 19th century red sheep, spine gilt, marbled boards, some minor rubbing and scuffing, else very good.
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Scarce edition of the infamous Code Noir, the last edict is dated April, 1762. The Code Noir was a decree originally passed by Louis XIV in 1685 and subsequently updated and amended which governed the conditions of slavery and the slave trade in the French colonial empire. The code restricted the activities of free blacks, forbade the exercise of any religion other than Roman Catholicism, and ordered all Jews out of France's colonies. This was to counter Dutch influence as Jews were mainly involved with Dutch interests. The code has been described as "one of the most extensive official documents on race, slavery, and freedom ever drawn up in Europe."1
The code established a number of personal and civil regulations: slave owners have the obligation to give their slaves Sundays and holidays off; owners are forbidden to marry their slaves and, if they produce children with slaves, these children will remain slaves; if the slaves they have children with belong to them, the children will be taken away as punishment; children of slaves adopt the status of their mothers, and become the slaves of their mother's masters. Slaves are not allowed to carry any kind of weapon, nor to assemble by day or night; they are forbidden to sell on the market or to hawk goods from door to door, without their master's permission; the master is responsible for the slaves' food and clothing, and for their care in case of illness; slaves have no legal or civil standing, nor can they fill any public office or be accepted as witnesses; slaves who hit their masters will be put to death; theft is punished with penalties ranging from corporal punishment to death, and the master is held responsible for thieving on the part of his slave; and is allowed to choose between making reparation for the loss involved or conceding the slave to the person wronged; slaves who run away have their ears cut off, should they run away a second time their legs, and the third time they are put to death; masters are not allowed to torture their slaves, if they believe the slave deserves punishment they are allowed to chain them and beat them with whips or ropes.
Sabin 14125; Howes C-530 (b) "Includes edicts applicable to Louisiana slaves; in force until 1803, when the colony was ceded to the United States."
1. Stovall, Tyler, Race and the Making of the Nation: Blacks in Modern France, in Diasporic Africa: A Reader, ed., Gomez, Michael A., (New York: NYU Press, 2006)
