Le ventre de l'atlantique lecture

Defining colonialism

‘Colonialism is [...] both a specified political and economic project, and a larger discourse of hegemony (leadership/dominance) and superiority that is enlisted to drive and support that concrete political act. The colonial project involves the literal process of entering into a foreign territory and assuming control of its society and industry, and, on a more conceptual level, the post facto promulgation of a cultural ideology that justifies the colonizer’s presence on the basis of his superior knowledge and “civilization”.’

Jane Hiddleston, Understanding Postcolonialism (London: Acumen, 2009), p. 2.

French Colonial Empire:

can be traced back to 16th century voyagers (Giovanni da Verrazzono and Jacques Cartier) who were pre-cursors to the formal establishment of empire

Québec - fur trade industry, expanded through Canada and North America (Louisiana)

also expanded to Caribbean and South America as well

Caribbean - indigenous exterminated or driven out, allowing French and other nations to profit from rich natural resources of the areas (17th century)

also established trading points in Africa (Senegal, India, and India Ocean) during second French empire

in Caribbean - initially established system of indentured labour (from France)

but didn’t work and quickly followed Spain’s lead and began to import African slaves from the gulf of Guinea

European expansion:

• Founding of Port Royal in Acadia in 1605

• Guadeloupe ‘discovered’ in 1492, Martinique in 1502, along

with Hispaniola (later Saint-Domingue, now Haiti), and La Guyane (on the north-east coast of South America), taken over by the French in 1600s

During this time trading posts established in Africa, India and the Indian Ocean

The Atlantic Slave Trade and the Middle Passage:

‘a traumatic prelude to enslavement’

Wendy Knepper, ‘Remapping the Crime Novel in the Francophone Caribbean, PMLA 122.5 (2007), 1431-1446 (1431)

European ships sail to Africa and forcibly transport black Africans to the new world

period of extreme dislocation and immense violence

slavery became synonymous with race

slaves were viewed as merchandise to be traded and abused whose only function was to provide hard labour

set in motion centuries of the radical dehumanisation of black lives

Conditions of slavery

Code noir, introduced by Louis XIV in 1685, superficially proposed fair treatment for black slaves, but ultimately reduced them to objects, the possessions of slaveowners, and subject to their laws

moments of resistance and unsuccessful

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