Médéric Louis Élie Moreau de Saint-Méry
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Médéric Louis Élie Moreau de Saint-Méry (13 January 1750 – 28 January 1819), son of Bertrand-Médéric and Marie-Rose Moreau de Saint-Méry, was born in Fort-Royale,
Martinique Martinique ( , ; gcf, label=Martinican Creole, Matinik or ; Kalinago: or ) is an island and an overseas department/region and single territorial collectivity of France. An integral part of the French Republic, Martinique is located in th ...
. He was a lawyer and writer with a career in public office in
France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
, Martinique, and
Saint-Domingue Saint-Domingue () was a French colony in the western portion of the Caribbean island of Hispaniola, in the area of modern-day Haiti, from 1659 to 1804. The name derives from the Spanish main city in the island, Santo Domingo, which came to refer ...
(now the Republic of
Haiti Haiti (; ht, Ayiti ; French: ), officially the Republic of Haiti (); ) and formerly known as Hayti, is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean Sea, east of Cuba and Jamaica, and ...
). He is best known for his publications on
Saint Domingue Saint-Domingue () was a French colonization of the Americas, French colony in the western portion of the Caribbean island of Hispaniola, in the area of modern-day Haiti, from 1659 to 1804. The name derives from the Spanish main city in the islan ...
and Martinique. He married into a well-positioned family which allowed him to expand his connections among French people and in time, positioned himself as a member of the Parliament of France. Moreau was deeply involved in the founding of the Museum of Paris which he was later appointed president of in 1787


Education and influences

Although he did not come from a family of significant means, Moreau used the inheritance he received from his grandfather to study law in Paris. There, he argued that colonial law, drafted in France, was not fitting for the realities of the French Caribbean. He owned slaves, was a
freemason Freemasonry or Masonry refers to fraternal organisations that trace their origins to the local guilds of stonemasons that, from the end of the 13th century, regulated the qualifications of stonemasons and their interaction with authorities ...
and a member of the Cercle des Philadelphes – a colonial scientific society – and sought to document life in the colonies. He was influenced by the scientific projects of the Enlightenment.


Writings

Moreau produced in-depth studies of the colonies only years before St-Domingue's revolution. As such, he spent time traveling in the Caribbean and returning to France to write and lobby until his involvement with the
French Revolution The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are considere ...
led to the issuing of a warrant for his arrest. His most notable work, ''Description topographique, physique, civile, politique et historique de la partie française de l’isle Saint-Domingue'', which he wrote in 1789, has not been fully translated into English. This work develops an arithmetic theory of skin color and the epidermis for the French colony of Saint-Domingue (now Haiti). It hierarchizes a possible one hundred and twenty-eight possible combinations of black-white miscegenation into nine categories (the ''
sacatra Sacatra was a term used in the French Colony of Saint-Domingue to describe one who was the descendant of one black and one griffe parent. The term is also used to describe one whose ancestry is ths black and th white. It was one of the many terms ...
'', the ''griffe'', the ''marabout'', the ''mulâtre'', the ''quarteron'', the ''métis'', the ''mamelouk'', the ''quarteronné'', and the ''sang-melé''). His work reflects a preoccupation of white colonists on racializing those who intermarry and interbreed with slaves or free ''gens de couleur'', establishing the caste of white colonists as ''l'aristocratie de l’épiderme.''


Politics

A well-educated slave owner, he rejected the principle of the Natural Rights of Man in order to defend legal slavery and segregation on the basis of race. In his roles in the French parliament and on the colonial Governing Boards, he sought to maintain an economic system based on slave labor. To this end, he pursued the rights of colonists – mostly white planters – and sought a degree of self-determination for the French Caribbean. Moreau returned to France in 1788, where he became part of the Estates General which later named themselves as the National Assembly. There he represented the planters in Saint-Domingue and supported slavery, confronting the
Society of the Friends of the Blacks The Society of the Friends of the Blacks (''Société des amis des Noirs'' or ''Amis des noirs'') was a French abolitionist society founded during the late 18th century. The society's aim was to abolish both the institution of slavery in the F ...
. He had an important position in the founding of the Museum of Paris which he was later appointed president of in 1787. After his return to France in 1798, after his exile in the United States, Moreau's first position was that of a historian in the Ministry of the Marine. A couple years later, in 1802 he became administrator of Parma, Piacenza, and Gustalla, but later on his position was taken away by
Napoleon Napoleon Bonaparte ; it, Napoleone Bonaparte, ; co, Napulione Buonaparte. (born Napoleone Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French military commander and political leader who ...
because of his forgiving response towards a criminal conspiracy among the army.


Moreau in the United States

Moreau escaped
Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
after a warrant for his arrest was placed in 1794. He relocated to
Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...
after a short stay in
New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
, leaving all his research on the Colony of Saint-Domingue behind, which he later was able to recover. In Philadelphia, he opened a bookstore in which he sold books and prints in many languages, as well as maps and music. The bookstore located at Front and Walnut became the meeting location for many other French exiles. Moreau became a member of the American Philosophical Societey in 1798, to which he was committed and introduced many of his emigres friends into the Society as well. Moreau had to escape back to Paris in 1798 escaping the Alien Bill imposed by the American president at the time,
John Adams John Adams (October 30, 1735 – July 4, 1826) was an American statesman, attorney, diplomat, writer, and Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father who served as the second president of the United States from 1797 to 1801. Befor ...
.


Footnotes


Bibliography

* Dubois, Laurent (2004). ''Avengers of the New World: The Story of the Haitian Revolution''. The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. * Furstenberg, François (2014). ''When the United States Spoke French: Five Refugees Who Shaped a Nation.'' New York: Penguin, 2014. * Moreau de Saint-Méry, Médéric Louis (1958)
''Description topographique, physique, civile, politique et historique de la partie française de l’isle Saint-Domingue''
Société de l’histoire des colonies françaises. * Taffin, Dominique, ed. (2006). ''Moreau de Saint-Méry ou les ambiguïtés d’un créole des Lumières''. Martinique: Société des amis des archives et de la recherché sur le patrimoine culturel des Antilles. * Rosengarten, Joseph G. “Moreau De Saint Mery and His French Friends in the American Philosophical Society.” ''Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society'', vol. 50, no. 199, 1911, pp. 168–178., www.jstor.org/stable/984032. * "Mederic-Louis-Elie Moreau De Saint-Mery." ''Dictionary of American Biography'', Charles Scribner's Sons, 1936. ''Biography in Context'', http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/BT2310007190/BIC1?u=miam11506&xid=f2c2d99c. Accessed 12 Mar. 2017. {{DEFAULTSORT:Moreau de Saint-Mery, Mederic Louis Elie 1750 births 1819 deaths People from Fort-de-France People of Saint-Domingue Linguists from France 18th-century French historians 18th-century French lawyers French slave owners 18th-century French writers 18th-century French male writers Proslavery activists