The port was repeatedly encouraged by the French crown to participate in the slave and colonial trade. Louis XIV's minister of Finance and secretary of the navy, Jean-Baptiste Colbert (1691-1683), was a strong advocate of France's colonial expansion and worked to reduce the influence of foreign governments and merchants, especially the Dutch, in the French colonies and at home. He is considered the father of the French Royal Navy and promoted policies aimed at strengthening France's merchant marine. Today one of Colbert's namesakes, a French missile cruiser, is a museum ship permanently anchored in the Bordeaux harbor.

Jean-Baptiste Colbert

Colbert was disappointed with Bordeaux's initial disinterest for his agenda. He informed the Bordeaux Parliament of the king's disapproval with the lethargy of local merchants who still relied mostly on Dutch ships to export their wine and grain². In 1670 Colbert's son, reported back from a visit to the city:

"Nevertheless the measures taken by the state in favor of free trade with the islands allowed Bordeaux to send thirteen ships to the [French Caribbean] islands in 1671, and to continue with that momentum."². In 1672 the Saint-Etienne-de-Paris, one of the very first slave ships expeditions identified in France, leaves from Bordeaux. It is among 107 ships to sail from the city that year along with 72 for France, 15 for England, Spain and Italy, and 19 for North America and the Caribbean.

The first slave ship sails from Bordeaux in 1672:

The Saint-Etienne-de-Paris is equipped and loaded by Izzac Le Cordier, a thirty year old captain from Honfleur, Normandy next to le Havre, and Langier, a small boat captain from  Blaye north of Bordeaux. They are working on behalf of some of the kings counselors residing in Paris.²

It's a brand new ship with a 180 ton capacity and a 35 man crew. The average age is 25 and only three of the recruits are local, two from Bordeaux, one from Blaye. As is typical on slave ships, due to high mortality rates among the crew, essential posts are duplicated. The Saint-Etienne has two pilots, two coopers and two surgeons in addition to a foreman, a carpenter, a cargo director responsible for the commercial operations, a clerk representing the ship owners, la Compagnie des Indes occidentales, and overseeing the commercial operations and a scribe to keep records.

The ship is headed for "Guinée" with 14 cannons and 36 firearms to defend itself and a cargo of goods typically used to trade for slaves: 2000 iron bars 38 barrels of small white cowries shells from the Maldives islands, which served as small currency 1 barrel of manillas, brass or copper bracelets and legbands used as currency. 1 barrel of knives 1 case of pewter basins 1 case of silk and damask fabric, 6 cases of hardware or taffeta fabric 1 bale of hats 1 bale of red and blue fabric 1 bundle of earthenware 5 other bundles   6 cases of beef 360 casks to hold drinking water for the crew and slaves.

1612 map of Guinea (includes area from modern Guinea to Benin) printed in Purchas his Pilgrimes, 1625 London. (Click on the map to enlarge) Source: University of Florida Africa Map collection

In contrast, ships trading directly with the Caribbean had a cargo of staples such as lard, beef, ham, flour, fish, cheese and wine as well as haberdashery, shoes, shirts, canvas, nails, boards and riffles. There is no record of whether the Saint-Etienne completed its expedition or not. "War with Holland broke out in 1672. The Dutch pirates captured most of the Bordeaux ships, resulting in the bankruptcy of many ship owners and the collapse of the [city's] new insurance company"² which insured their ships. It's another 12 years before any slave trade expedition is recorded in Bordeaux again.

By 1729 Bordeaux ship-owners and financiers had attempted a total of 11 expeditions, very few compared to Nantes. For the period from 1707 to 1728 alone Nantes sent at least 218 slave ships to Africa while Bordeaux sent only 6.

The historian Eric Saugera argues that Bordeaux's slow beginning in the slave trade is due in part to the success of its established European trade in products from its rich backcountry: wine, grain, as well as prunes, some tobacco, sweet chestnuts, honey, linen, cork, and paper. In the 18th century Bordeaux enters the colonial markets were it finds new highly profitable products, such as sugar, coffee, cotton and indigo, to re-export to its French and European markets. "In 1743 Bordeaux is the leading French colonial port with 32% of the market versus 22% for Nantes which had twice that at the end of the 1720s"². Given these successes and the risks and investment requirements of the slave trade, Saugera argues, most Bordeaux merchants did not see the need to participate. Loans for early Bordeaux slave trade expeditions often had interest rates of 35 to 50% because of the risk of the expeditions failing.

The Bordeaux slave trade operated in a framework of national and international competition for economic power. It was affected by wars of religion and succession in Europe, wars with and among Africans in Africa, wars among colonial empires and later wars of independence in the "new world" colonies. Nations at war or state sanctioned pirates, some of which departed from Bordeaux, would steal, capture, or expel ships, a harrowing and often deadly experience for the captive passengers. The heavy slave ships with their few guns were especially easy pays in times of war.

H.M. Gun-boat "Teaser" capturing the slaver "Abbot Devreux" in The Illustrated London News (Sept. 19, 1857), vol. 31, p. 284. (click on the image to enlarge) This eyewitness account, dated Aug. 6, 1857 (with accompanying sketches), describes the capture of a slaver off the coast of Whydah, in West Africa. There were 235 enslaved Africans on board, and although the nationality of the slaver is not mentioned, it had a 27 man crew of Spaniards, Americans, Portuguese, and Brazilians.

The writer describes the chase in detail and adds: "As soon as we boarded her the hatches were opened, and such a scene never was witnessed. The slaves had been battened down all day during our nine hours' chase. They were all seasick and the stench and filth are incredible; perhaps you can imagine 235 human beings shut up in a place 50 feet by 20 feet, and only 3 feet 6 inches high, just room enough to clear the top of their heads when they are in a sitting position. They cried and sang, and those who could danced with delight." The liberated Africans were sent to Sierra Leone, "the first full vessel taken to Sierra Leone for upwards of nine years". Source: The Atlantic Slave Trade and Slave Life in the Americas: A Visual Record, Jerome S. Handler and Michael L. Tuite Jr.

The Code Noir and slave trade incentives:

In addition to proving incentives for merchants to enter the slave trade Louis XIV's government laid out the legal framework that would govern slave ownership in the French colonies. Colbert was in fact the instigator of the infamous Code Noir, first drafted by the governor of saint Domingue then revised and signed into law in 1685 by Louis XIV and Colbert's son who succeeded him as secretary of the navy.

The Code Noir [...] provided formal regulations for slavery, and became the template for ruling slavery in other French colonies like Louisiana (in the US). It defined slaves as 'portable property', and laid out an extremely harsh and rigid system of discipline and restrictions. It did however include certain humanitarian provisions, in part to control the slave mutilation that was so widespread in the French Caribbean. It enforced Catholic worship, provided religious holidays and instruction, tolerated intermarriage, attempted to preserve families and offered a modicum of protection for slaves. It was a brutal system, punishing even minor crimes with branding and flogging, and importantly gave the human trade a legitimate legal status. It was briefly abolished during the revolution, but restored by Napoleon. King Louis Phillipe gradually dismantled the system over the 1830s.  (Source: UNESCO Breaking the Silence Learning about the Transatlantic Slave Trade web site France page) For an annotated pdf copy of the Code Noir in its original French click here

In 1716, a year after the death of Louis XIV, new rules were issued to encourage private entrepreneurs to enter the slave trade.

Elaborating on this new Edit, historian Robert Harms, explains how

Later that year new rules were also issued to expand the reach of the code noir to France where up until then slavery had been illegal since 1315. In fact, in 1571, the year Michel Montaigne left the Bordeaux parliament to write his famous Essays, a Normandy captain sailed into the port with slaves on broad he was planning to sell. The city's Parliament issued an order for him to be expelled and the slaves to be freed.

In 1768 the King commended Bordeaux slave traders for their work and provided additional incentives: The King having been informed that the merchants of the port of Bordeaux, are taking part with great zeal in the slave trade [...] his majesty wanting to second the efforts the merchants are doing for this trade, [..] orders that the merchants of Bordeaux who engage in the slave trade will benefit, as do the ports of St. Malo, Le Havre and Honfleur, from an exemption to 10 livres tax per head of negro that they will take to and introduce to the French islands and colonies of America.

Source: Ministry of Education, Bordeaux Academy, History and Geography resources

The zeal of Bordeaux merchants continued to expand the city's participation in the slave trade which reached its peak between the end of the United States war of independence in 1783 and the slave revolts and ultimate independence of Haiti in 1804, formerly Saint Domingue and Bordeaux's largest slave trade destination. In addition, to the financiers and captains of slave ships local merchants were also involved by selling goods for the trade. M. Charlot's merchandiseon rue du Soleil included "chains and irons to for negros, a copper furnace, and 60 items of brandy"3.

Part III in this series will be posted in the next few days.

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