CA 220Early French chromo card of Victor Schoelcher. RC
Note: Victor Schoelcher (1804-1893), was a French abolitionist writer, politician and journalist, best known for his work towards and leading role in the abolition of slavery in France in 1848. In 1828, he was sent to America by his father as a business representative of the family's enterprise. While on the continent he visited Mexico, Cuba, and the southern United States. On this trip he learned a lot about slavery and began his career as an abolitionist writer, and returning to France in 1830 he published his first writing in the Revue de Paris, an article titled Des noirs ("Of the blacks"), in which he proposed a gradual abolition of slavery. Schœlcher elaborated on social, economic, and political reforms he believed would be necessary to the Caribbean colonies after the abolition of slavery. He thought that the production of sugar could continue, though it should be rationalized with the construction of large central factories, and defended the reduction of concentration of land. Schœlcher was the first European abolitionist to visit Haiti after its independence, and had a large influence on the abolitionist movements in all of the French West Indies.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Sch%C5%93lcher - cite_note-OU-6 He was actively against the debt collected from the Haitians as French slave owners sought reparations for their property lost in the Haitian Revolution. In February, 1848 he was appointed under-secretary of State for the colonies, as well as president of a new commission charged with drafting the immediate abolition of slavery. In his capacity as under-secretary of state and president of the commission, Schœlcher prepared and wrote the decree that was issued on 27 April 1848, in which the French government announced the immediate abolition of slavery in all of its colonies and granted citizenship to the emancipated slaves.
