Human rights versus property rights. That argument goes on today as, for example, we debate how closely to regulate coal mining.
Is it best to let owners set rules, which is likely to give all of us cheaper coal, or to have the government set standards, which is more likely to protect workers and the environment? In France, one side argued that slaves must be freed. The other said that to change anything in the sugar islands would invite slave revolts, help France's rivals, and thus hurt the nation. In the new United States, the Revolution gave white men with property a sense of freedom, while Africans were still enslaved. In England, abolitionists spoke up for Africans, but kings and lords still ruled. In France, revolutionaries were turning against their own nobles but remained uncertain about what this meant for enslaved Africans on their sugar islands. The Age of Revolutions was pressing ideas of freedom against the rights of property, and no one was sure where these great clashes would lead. In revolutionary France, the defenders of slaves began to win the argument against the advocates of property rights. By fall of 1791, the French passed a law making free blacks and people of mixed background on the sugar islands legally equal to all other Frenchmen. – Sugar Changed the World, Marc Aronson and Marina Budhos How do the authors use French history to support the claim that the global hunger for slave-grown sugar led to the end of slavery? The authors use historical documents to show that France chose to free enslaved workers to upset the English. The authors use events from French history to demonstrate how attitudes toward slavery and the sugar trade changed during the 1700s. The authors use secondary sources to emphasize that Parliament was biased toward plantation owners. The authors show that the French followed the example of the English in overthrowing the crown to free enslaved people.
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