Frontiers of servitude by Michael Harrigan

Author:Michael Harrigan [Harrigan, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Nonfiction, History, France, Social & Cultural Studies, Political Science
ISBN: 9781526122247
Publisher: Manchester University Press
Published: 2018-04-13T04:00:00+00:00

4

Spheres of knowledge

The preceding chapters have considered ordered representations of colonial labour, accounts of captive labour in the plantation economy, and the evaluation of slave labour. These narratives, as has been seen, had to acknowledge that there were resistances to human domination. The accounts of plantation labour acknowledged that it could be disrupted by desire, and that the slave was ultimately a subject. Colonial histories and conversion narratives were also drawn to acknowledge forms of slave consciousness, to various degrees. These narratives further recognised that slaves were ‘social’ beings; they hint that there were forms of culture which were their exclusive preserve.

This chapter and the next will discuss the slave as a subject, by focusing on the manifestations of slave consciousness. The present chapter will explore how French commentators understood the consciousness of the slave. It begins with an analysis of the sites in which it was most frequently situated, and which might encompass the temporal and spiritual realms. It will then explore its reflections in the linguistic context of early Creole society. Progressing from the linguistic to the supra-linguistic levels such as sensibility or emotional bonds, this chapter ends with an exploration of those forms of knowledge with which colonial commentators most struggled.

Esprit, génie, raison

African slaves were often thought distinct to Europeans in something approaching what would come to be called ‘intellectual capacity’. Both populations were frequently said to differ in their esprit and génie. There was some diversity in perspectives about where exactly these differences lay, and they could be located in the temporal and spiritual consciousness. They are also telling about the significance of socialisation within the colonial environment.

Du Tertre’s 1654 and 1667 Histoires illustrate where these differences in slave consciousness could be situated. He writes that while most slaves could competently carry out the tasks they were assigned, some were ‘so stupid’ (‘si stupides’) and ‘so simpleminded’ (‘si grossiers’) that it was extremely difficult to make them carry out orders.1 They seemed to him to be unaware of their situation (like the slaves in the classical tradition who had been touched by Zeus). The faculties of (in French) ‘jugement’ (1654 edition) or ‘esprit’ (1667) of Caribbean slaves seemed to have been diminished, sparing them the awareness of their ‘condition’. He concluded in his second edition that slaves did not think about their condition at all, except (briefly) ‘when they were mistreated’ (a conclusion he would nuance elsewhere, as will be seen).2 However, he also wrote that the ‘esprit’ of slave children could be ‘opened up’ by contact with those of their masters.3 Whatever deficiency Du Tertre saw in ‘jugement’ or ‘esprit’ (one term, curiously, replacing the other in the second printed edition of the text) was not necessarily transmitted over generations.

Esprit was traditionally associated with the intellectual faculties (with the Latin ingenium, or mens, for example).4 Furetière’s Dictionnaire illustrates that esprit had a wide range of meaning by the turn of the eighteenth century. Esprit could be thought of as the human soul (‘l’âme’), the ‘various

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