Il lato oscuro del Moderno. Diritti dell’uomo, schiavitù ed emancipazione tra storia e storiografia

This article wishes to contribute to the study of slavery, rights of man and colonial system, by analyzing, on the one hand, the italian and international historiography and, on the other hand, the cases of the French and Haitian Revolution. The essay also focuses on the legislation, the rights of slaves and free blacks, the administration of justice and the forms of resistance against slavery in the French Antilles during the Restoration period. This period was a phase of French history that witnessed a booming slave trade, although it had been formally abolished following the congress of Vienna. The merit of recent works on the subject is that they have reported the study of the institution of slavery in the canal of the broader racial and social problems, including the coordinates of the Black Atlantic, which has been the focus of a new scientific age. This article therefore aims to contribute to a new vision and interpretation of slavery as part of the Western legal system and wants to reflect on the connection and complementarity between states, empires and colonies, to demonstrate how colonialism and racism are constitutive elements of modernity, that is, they represent the dark side.