Field administrators resisted metropolitan abolition to preserve lineage slavery

Evidence

Many other administrators in the field, however, were not so receptive to the minister’s overtures. When consulted by Roume, they advised extreme caution, particularly in ending lineage slavery. The most France could do was actively seek to end the trade in slaves and declare that all children born to slaves were free at birth. — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 335

Categorization

• XREF: Echoes the broader tension between Parisian republican rhetoric and pragmatic colonial administration that recurs throughout the republican empire literature.