The Revue des Colonies

Founded in 1834 in Paris by Cyrille Bissette, a Martinican abolitionist, the Revue des Colonies, by its full title Monthly compendium of politics, administration, justice, instruction and colonial customs by a society of men of color, was the first periodical in France to be directed by people of color. The Revue was remarkable, furthermore, for its stated objective to amplify the struggles of disenfranchised people on a global scale and for its circulation spanning not only the territories of the French, British, and Spanish colonial empires but also the United States and Haiti. The purpose of this project is to preserve the legacy of this remarkable periodical by making it accessible to researchers, students, and interested members of the general public. The open-access bilingual digital edition and its accompanying critical apparatus aim to provide an authoritative text on the Revue, supported by robust scholarship in the range of academic disciplines its contents engage, including the history of transatlantic slavery and its abolition, French and wider European colonial history, international Black literature and culture, and the rise of the periodical press. The edition’s translations and annotations are the work of an international team of researchers, including leading experts in Caribbean studies, colonial history, nineteenth-century literatures and cultures, translation studies, and the history of print media.