White Colony

Abstract

What does a colony look like? What can be built there? All of France was caught up with these questions in the eighteenth century. In 1763, shopkeepers, intellectuals, and politicians were all convinced that their present and perhaps even their future had become Atlantic. Choiseul, Préfontaine, and Turgot were all carried by the same impe- tus towards the new colony of Cayenne. Three questions defined Turgot’s approach to the colony. What is the goal of the government creating the new colony? On what principles should it be established? And, finally, What are the means to success?² Two things were certain: the colony would not have slaves, and it would no longer depend on the Principe de l’exclusif régime. Instead, it would be composed of farmers, white farmers who would own and develop their own land.

COLONY: This word refers to the movement of a people, or a portion of a people, from one country to another. “Colony,” Diderot and d’Alembert’s Encyclopaedia.¹