Jean-Baptiste Belley: Difference between revisions
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'''Jean-Baptiste Belley''' (c. [[1746]] – [[1805]]) was a native of [[Senegal]] and former [[slave]] from [[Saint-Domingue]] in the [[French West Indies]] who during the period of the [[French Revolution]] became a member of the [[National Convention]] and the [[Council of Five Hundred]] of [[France]]. He was also known as '''Mars'''.<ref name=hall>Hall, Catherine, [http://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/paper/hall.html Review of ''The Birth of the Modern World 1780–1914: Global Connections and Comparisons'', by C. A. Bayly] online at history.ac.uk, accessed 7 August 2008</ref> |
'''Jean-Baptiste Belley''' (c. [[1746]] – [[1805]]) was a native of [[Senegal]] and former [[slave]] from [[Saint-Domingue]] in the [[French West Indies]] who during the period of the [[French Revolution]] became a member of the [[National Convention]] and the [[Council of Five Hundred]] of [[France]]. He was also known as '''Mars'''.<ref name=hall>Hall, Catherine, [http://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/paper/hall.html Review of ''The Birth of the Modern World 1780–1914: Global Connections and Comparisons'', by C. A. Bayly] online at history.ac.uk, accessed 7 August 2008</ref> |
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'''HE ALSO WAS MY BABY DADDY WHO NEVER EVER PAID CHILD SUPPORT. SHAME ON HIS DUMB ASS''' |
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==Life== |
==Life== |
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Belley was said to have been born on [[1 July]] [[1746]] or [[1747]] on the island of [[Gorée]], [[Senegal]], but the dates of his birth and death are uncertain. At the age of two, he was sold to slavers sailing for the French [[colony]] of Saint-Domingue. With his savings, he later bought his freedom.<ref name=hall/> |
Belley was said to have been born on [[1 July]] [[1746]] or [[1747]] on the island of [[Gorée]], [[Senegal]], but the dates of his birth and death are uncertain. At the age of two, he was sold to slavers sailing for the French [[colony]] of Saint-Domingue. With his savings, he later bought his freedom.<ref name=hall/> |
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Revision as of 20:47, 13 August 2008
Jean-Baptiste Belley (c. 1746 – 1805) was a native of Senegal and former slave from Saint-Domingue in the French West Indies who during the period of the French Revolution became a member of the National Convention and the Council of Five Hundred of France. He was also known as Mars.[1] HE ALSO WAS MY BABY DADDY WHO NEVER EVER PAID CHILD SUPPORT. SHAME ON HIS DUMB ASS
Life
Belley was said to have been born on 1 July 1746 or 1747 on the island of Gorée, Senegal, but the dates of his birth and death are uncertain. At the age of two, he was sold to slavers sailing for the French colony of Saint-Domingue. With his savings, he later bought his freedom.[1]
In 1791, the enslaved Africans of Saint-Domingue began the Haitian Revolution, aimed at the overthrow of the colonial regime. As their fellow revolutionaries in France thought through the Declaration of the Rights of Man of 1789, they began to see that slavery would need to be abolished.[2]
In 1793, Bellay was a Captain of infantry, fought against the colonists of Saint-Domingue and was six times wounded. On 24 September 1793, he was one of three members (deputés) elected to the French National Convention by the northern region of Saint-Domingue, together with Jean-Baptiste Mills, a mulatto, and Louis-Pierre Dufaÿ, a European, thus becoming the first black deputy to take a seat in the Convention.[3][2][4] On 3 February 1794, he spoke in a debate in the Convention when it decided unanimously to abolish slavery.[1][3][2]
However, the formal abolition of slavery did not disarm the European colonists' supporters, and although he was recognized as a full citizen of the Republic, Belley had to struggle against racist insinuations. He was an active spokesman for people of colour. When Gouly, a deputy from Mauritius in the Indian Ocean, called for special laws for the colonies, Belley denounced a pressure group of colonists meeting at the Hôtel Massiac in a speech published under the title The Settlers' Ear-tip, or the Hotel Massiac System Updated by Gouly.[5] He succeeded for a time in maintaining the Republican principle of equality between people in France and in its colonies, whatever their colour.[3]
In a declaration of age and marital status for the representatives of Saint-Domingue in the Convention, Belley says that he was born at Goré, is forty-eight years old, has never left the territory of the Republic, and has lived forty six years at Cap-Français.[4] In a 'declaration of fortune' dated at Paris on 10 Vendémiaire, Year 4 of the Republic (viz., 1 October 1795), Belley declares that from the Republic he has only his 'emoluments', that he has bought no property, and that he owns only the contents of his room.[6]
Belley remained as a Convention member until 1797, when he lost his seat.[1] He returned to Saint-Domingue with Charles Leclerc's expedition of 1802 as an officer of gendarmes, but he was arrested, sent back to France and imprisoned in the fortress of Belle Île. He was still being held prisoner there in 1805 when he wrote to Isaac Louverture, the son of Toussaint Louverture. He died later the same year.[2]
Portrait
In about 1797, Belley's portrait was painted by Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Trioson (1767–1824), a former pupil of Jacques-Louis David,[2] and was exhibited in Paris in 1798.[1] In this painting, Girodet evokes the tensions of the period. Belley, standing, wears the uniform of a Convention member, with a tropical landscape behind him. His elbow rests on a bust of the philosopher Guillaume-Thomas Raynal (1713–1796), author of A Philosophical and Political History of the Settlements and Trade of the Europeans in the East and West Indies (1770).[7] Raynal, who had just died, had been a supporter of the abolition of slavery. What is remarkable about the portrait is that Belley, an African, is painted by a European artist in an aristocratic or even royal style, apparently asserting the principle of equality.[2]
However, in an age witnessing the dominance of European Neoclassicism, wherein depictions of the nude male form were modelled on and made explicit reference to the Classical (Ancient Greek and Roman) aesthetic ideal[8][9][10] the prominence given over, in de Roussy-Trioson's portrait, to displaying what is clearly a large penis in the sitter's breeches is a direct reinforcement and perpetuation of the Classical and since long-held notional correlation of savagery, animalistic tendancies and barbarity.[10] Contemporary viewers of the portrait would have understood immediately the juxtaposition of aristocratic apparel on the body (and by corollary, the mind and spirit) of a individual from a race of people commonly viewed by native population of the time as uncivilised.The portrait therefore can more properly be seen also to reflect the then century-long held idea of the noble savage.
This seemingly remarkable but actually negative portrait should be reassessed and contrasted with royal portraitist Thomas Gainsborough's far less negatively judgemental examination of Belley's near-contemporary and former slave, Ignatius Sancho (1729–1780).
The portrait was used for the dust cover of C. A. Bayly's book The Birth of the Modern World 1780–1914: Global Connections and Comparisons (Oxford: Blackwell, 2004).[1]
A drawing by Girodet for the portrait in ink and black chalk is in the Art Institute of Chicago, the restricted gift of the Joseph and Helen Regenstein Foundation, 1973.[11]
References
- ^ a b c d e f Hall, Catherine, Review of The Birth of the Modern World 1780–1914: Global Connections and Comparisons, by C. A. Bayly online at history.ac.uk, accessed 7 August 2008
- ^ a b c d e f Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy~Trioson at safran-arts.com, accessed 7 August 2008
- ^ a b c (French) Jean-Baptiste Belley, député de Saint-Domingue à la Convention at histoire-image.org, accessed 7 August 2008
- ^ a b (French) Declaration of age and marital status, manuscript conserved at the Centre historique des Archives nationales, Paris, photograph online at histoire-image.org, accessed 7 August 2008
- ^ Le Bout d'oreille des colons ou le système de l’Hôtel Massiac mis à jour par Gouly: This may refer to La Fontaine's couplet, from L'Ane vêtu d'une Peau de Lion (The Ass Dressed in a Lion Skin): Un petit bout d'oreille, echappé par malheur, / Découvrit la fourbe et l'erreur... (A small piece of ear, escaped by misfortune, uncovered the perfidy and the error...)
- ^ (French) Declaration of fortune, manuscript conserved at the Centre historique des Archives nationales, Paris, photograph online at histoire-image.org, accessed 7 August 2008
- ^ L'histoire philosophique et politique des établissements et du commerce des Européens dans les deux Indes (1770)
- ^ Chris Rodley, Dev Varma, Kate Williams III (Directors) Marilyn Milgrom, Grant Romer, Rolf Borowczak, Bob Guccione, Dean Kuipers (Cast). Pornography: The Secret History of Civilization (DVD). Port Washington, NY: Koch Vision. ISBN 1-4172-2885-7. Retrieved 2006-10-21.
{{cite AV media}}: Unknown parameter|date2=ignored (help) - ^ "Herm of Dionysos". The Getty Museum, J.Paul Getty Trust. Retrieved 2006-10-19.
- ^ a b Adams, Cecil (9 December 2005). "Why does so much ancient Greek art feature males with small genitalia?". The Straight Dope. Chicago Reader. Retrieved 2006-10-19.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ Southgate, M. Therese, Jean-Baptiste Belley in Journal of the American Medical Association Vol. 296, No. 2, July 12, 2006, extract online at jama.ama-assn.org, accessed 7 August 2008
External links
- Portrait of Belley at abcgallery.com