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Part of
A Comparative Literary History of Modern Slavery: The Atlantic world and beyond
Edited by Madeleine Dobie, Mads Anders Baggesgaard and Karen-Margrethe Simonsen
[Comparative History of Literatures in European Languages XXXVI] 2024
► pp. 239–253

Chapter 13
Affection amidst domination in a post-slavery society

Toward a microhistory of compensation in nineteenth-century Martinique

This article considers the relationship between compensation and intimacy, focusing on the relationship between the colonist Pierre Dessalles, who owned a plantation in the French colony of Martinique in the mid-nineteenth century, i.e. the period of the abolition of slavery, and Nicaise, one of his slaves. It shows slavery to be a relation of property and domination that did not, however, foreclose the possibility of emotional ties ranging from fear, anger and disgust to love. Readings of the diary of this planter — an exceptional document for its time — show how intimacy and “emotion” in all senses of the word — feelings but also, in French, something closer to “stirring” or “revolt” — both shape and are shaped by the political situation in which they develop.
Keywords: life writing, planter’s diary, Martinique, intimacy, abolition, indemnity, reparations
Article outline
  • The diary and correspondence of Pierre Dessalles: When intimacy is political
  • From ‘Nicaise’ to ‘Louis Nicaise’: Freedom, naming and emotion
  • “Mon petit nègre,” “my friend”: Domination, civilization and sexuality
  • Compensation and interdependency
  • Conclusion: Toward a microhistory of indemnity
  • Notes
  • References
  • Appendix
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References (15)
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