African American Women's Rights

Freedom and Rights for Blacks and Woman. Looking back today, it is not hard to see that the French Revolution was the catalyst that instituted a new world standard that said enforced slavery is wrong, and all of mankind is created equal no matter of color or sex. However, this is not something that happened overnight, it took some years to figure out how and why this should be implemented and what the short-term and long-term impacts would be. These debates became lively as people argued for and against the ending of the slave trade, the abolition of slavery and the equal rights of all men and woman. One must begin by looking at the intent of the revolution in France and this intent can be seen in the document for rights that was composed

Looking at this long standing argument, an early activist can be seen in 1781 named Condorcet and he wrote, “Reducing a man to slavery, buying him, selling him, keeping him in servitude; these are truly crimes, and crimes worst then theft” (Condorcet, Reflections of Negro Slavery, Hunt, 56). Here Condorcet is identifying that no man should have slavery enforced on him. In 1789 during the National Assembly’s vote on the implementation of the Declaration of Rights, there was a pamphlet that argued that “God has created all men free…then slavery should only continue to exist for criminals condemned according to the laws” (The Abolition of Negro Slavery or Means for Ameliorating Their Lot, Hunt, 101). In this argument we see that God, through the creation, deemed that all men are free and thus reaching back into religious beliefs the author draws on a God given natural right. In addition to this God given natural right, the author also draws on laws that are in place that punishment men and this would include a set time of slavery. The author also added conditions, that this punishment of slavery should only be attached to criminals that break the law in accord with written prescriptions. This outcry for the freedom and equal rights of all men obtained very little support in the National Assembly at the time of the vote in 1789. One of the major reasons for the little

Chaumette, who so proudly proclaimed that “slavery is abolished” in a speech after the National Convention banned slavery in 1794, was not in favor of equal rights of woman (Chaumette, Speech Celebrating the Abolition of Slavery, Hunt, 118). About a year before this speech about slavery, Chaumette spoke to the General Council in Paris in opposition to women’s rights saying, “Since when is it decent to see women abandon the pious cares of their household, the cradle of their children, to come into public places, to the galleries to hear speeches, to the bar of the senate?” (Chaumette, Speech Denouncing Woman’s Political Activism, Hunt, 138). This speech shows clearly the prejudice some men had towards woman and this influenced the government officials. Chaumette was executed by guillotine in 1794 for his radical views, but he was not the only one spewing these views. Women had created clubs to discuss politics and on October 29 – 30th, 1793 the National Convention went as far as to close and forbid these clubs by decreeing that “The clubs and popular societies of woman , under whatever denomination, are prohibited” (National Convention, Discussion of Women’s Clubs and Their Supression, Hunt, 138). In contrary to the adamant refusal to admit women to the public political sphere Condorcet