Total Freedom And Human Rights In The French Revolution

Total freedom for all people is an ideal way of life. Throughout the French Revolution, the idea of total freedom and human rights circulated the nation of France. While it is true that progress was made in the realm of human rights and freedom, only a select group legally acquired rights and freedom. As the white, male property owning individuals of France took clear advantage of their new-found rights and freedoms, a minority group inhabiting the French colony island of Saint-Domingue, known as the mulattoes, attempted to pave the way for progress. The mulattoes sought rights of their own and based their notions of freedom and equality off of the French National Assembly’s Declaration of the Rights of Man. The mulattoes existed as freed black men on the island of Saint-Domingue who were considered semi citizens. Saint-Domingue was a French colony at the time and was a slave colony. In 1789, Vincent Oge went to Paris to present his ideas on the rights the mulattoes deserved

Oge was quoted saying “If we do not take the most prompt and efficacious measures; if firmness, courage, and constancy do not animate all of us; if we do not quickly bring together all our intelligence, all our means, and all our efforts; if we fall asleep for an instant on the edge of the abyss, we will tremble upon awakening! We will see blood flowing, our lands invaded, the objects of our industry ravaged, our homes burnt. We will see our neighbors, our friends, our wives, our children with their throats cut and their bodies mutilated; the slave will raise the standard of revolt..” While it was true that the mulattoes were black, they had the ideals of white slave owners. This was the case because they themselves owned slaves. What Vincent Oge is saying in that quote is exactly what the French government feared would happen if they gave full rights to