Abstract:
In the final years of slavery in the French Atlantic world, colonial policy underwent changes that affected masters’ control over slaves. Under the Mackau Law, enslaved people now have the right to savings and buy their freedom and that of their families, through cordial or contentious redemption. Based on the investigation of a historical sources’ collection on Martinique, this article explores evidence that points to the preponderance of enslaved mothers and their children among the individuals who became freed in the French Caribbean through contentious redemption partially compensated by a governmental fund. This investigation proposes to examine both the views of the slave-holding class and the colonial and metropolitan governments, as well as the agency of women and their families in the contentious redemption’s processes. The objective of this study is to understand, in an intersectional perspective, the entanglement involving motherhood, slavery and the conquest of freedom.
Keywords:
Manumission; Gender; French Caribbean (Martinique)