Slaves in Paris: Hidden Lives and Fugitive Histories

Historian Spieler (Empire and Underworld) takes an illuminating look at the experiences of enslaved people in 18th-century Paris. Challenging the view of the city as “a refuge from slave colonies and slave-trading ports,” Spieler depicts how freedom was fleeting and precarious as fugitives were subject to manhunts, imprisonment, and deportation. The bulk of her narrative revolves around piecing together the life stories of five enslaved people who made bids for escape from the city—among them Jean, who failed in his attempt to gain liberty through enlisting in the military; Julien, whose capture caught the attention of the Parisian press because he appeared white; and Pauline, a tradeswoman whose “path to freedom hinged on the assistance she received both from black domestics and from nobles whose fortunes depended on slavery.” Along the way, she excavates a treasure trove of glimpses of little-recognized and forgotten lives—such as freed slave working as a “dueling master” who managed to acquire “a three-story villa”—while also shedding light on the tense and complicit relationship between liberal Paris and the far-flung colonial slave plantations that accounted for the capital city’s significant wealth. At times, Spieler’s narrative becomes insurmountably dense as she incorporates an excess of background detail to add texture to the almost wholly undocumented lives of her subjects. Still, it’s a valuable scholarly contribution to the study of enslaved lives. (June)