Step-by-step explanation:
The American Revolution of 1776 proclaimed that all men have “inalienable rights,” but the revolutionaries did not draw what seems to us the logical conclusion from this statement: that slavery and racial discrimination cannot be justified. The creation of the United States led instead to the expansion of African-American slavery in the southern states. It took the Civil War of 1861-65 to bring about emancipation.
Just when the American constitution was going into effect in 1789, a revolution broke out in France. Like the American revolutionaries, the French immediately proclaimed that “men are born and remain free and equal in rights.” But did this apply to the slaves in France’s overseas colonies? The question was an important one. Even though France’s colonies looked small on the map, the three Caribbean colonies of Saint Domingue (today’s Republic of Haiti), Guadeloupe and Martinique contained almost as many slaves as the thirteen much larger American states (about 700,000). Saint Domingue was the richest European colony in the world. It was the main source of the sugar and coffee that had become indispensable to “civilized” life in Europe.