The 1791 decree enfranchised only free-born coloreds, excluding the recently freed

Evidence

The two sides wrangled behind the scenes in the National Assembly, and eventually a compromise was brought to the people’s representatives: political rights would be given to free people of color who had been born to two free parents. The free people of color Raimond had always put forward as the representatives of his class—those, like him, who owned property and slaves—were to be enfranchised. But those who had been recently freed, and who were assumed to have dangerous solidarities with those who were still enslaved, would be excluded from political power. It was a timid granting of rights, and furthermore did not revoke the discriminatory laws in place in Saint-Domingue. Nevertheless, a significant step had been taken: the color line had been crossed. — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 305

Categorization

Category: Factual Claims

Related

• French enfranchisement of free-coloreds excluded the recently freed (similarity 0.90)
• France granted free-colored citizens full political equality in April 1792 (similarity 0.88)
• France legally abolished racial distinctions among free people in 1792 to save slavery (similarity 0.86)
• French law first enfranchised only propertied free people of color born free. (similarity 0.85)
• A French colonial decree outlawed racial distinctions among free people in the Americas (similarity 0.84)
• France reversed its May 15 concession to free people of color (similarity 0.83)
• France legally granted racial equality in its colonies in April 1792 (similarity 0.83)
• Saint-Domingue whites built a racist democratization that excluded free people of color (similarity 0.82)
• Free-colored planters claimed the Code Noir promised them citizenship rights (similarity 0.82)
• The slave uprising drove France to grant political rights to free-coloreds (similarity 0.82)
• Saint-Domingue’s 1790 democratization extended to all whites but excluded free people of color. (similarity 0.81)
• Enlightenment universalism made racial exclusion the sole unjustifiable barrier to free-colored citizenship (similarity 0.80)
• Early French colonial law treated freed status rather than ancestry as the legal divider (similarity 0.80)
• Free people of color miscalculated that selective emancipation would preserve slavery (similarity 0.80)
• Free people of color defected to Britain to keep slaves while preserving racial equality. (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• Race alone justified excluding free men of color from citizenship #expands (0.70)
• French colonial law originally granted freed people full citizenship without racial distinction #contradicts (0.60)
• Enlightenment universalism made racial exclusion the sole unjustifiable barrier to free-colored citizenship #complicates (0.50) — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 284
• The slave uprising drove France to grant political rights to free-coloreds #qualifies (0.50) — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 443
• The threat of slave revolt forced whites to grant free-coloreds political rights #contradicts (0.40)