history. The institution of slavery was addressed by French

intellectuals during the Enlightenment. Later, during the French

Revolution, the National Assembly issued the Declaration of the Rights of

Man, which declared the equality of all men. Issues were raised

concerning the application of this statement to the French colonies in

the West Indies, which used slaves to work the land. As they had

different interests in mind, the philosophes, slave owners, and political

leaders took opposing views on the interpretation of universal equality.

Many of the philosophes, the leaders of the Enlightenment, were

against slavery. They held that all people had a natural dignity that

should be recognized. Voltaire, an 18th century philosophe, pointed out

that hundreds of thousands of slaves were sacrificing their lives just so

the Europeans could quell their new taste for sugar, tea and cocoa. A

Differing from the philosophes, the political leaders and

their liberated ideas, won out and slavery was abolished.

people were incapable of working in the hot sun and blacks were much

until the issue was finally resolved. In the end the philosophes, with

others. Religion entered into the equation when Diderot, author of the

economy. These people believed that if slavery and the slave trade were

Some common words found in the essay are:
West Indies, Jacques Necker, Declaration Rights, People Olympe, , National Assembly, black people, similar view, political leaders, views people, declaration rights, french colonies,
Approximate Word count = 670
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)