The Special Tribunal in Martinique: from the history of French colonial justice in the early 19th century

The focus of this article is on the special tribunal, a special judicial body established in the French colony of Martinique in 1803. It was created to carry out criminal repression against black slaves accused of poisoning, arson, stealing boats and pirogues to escape. The main purpose of the study is to determine the legal basis for the organization of a special tribunal in Martinique and to identify its features in relation to the special tribunals that existed in the metropolis from 1801 and 1802. The question of the correlation of these tribunals in the colony and in the metropolis seems to be little studied in historiography. The subject of research in the work is the evolution of the special tribunal during the period of French rule on the island – from the establishment of the court to the loss of control over Martinique by the French in 1809. To work on the topic, documentary materials from the National Archives of overseas France, published legislative acts and acts of ministers of the Napoleonic era, acts of the island administration from the "Code of Martinique" were involved. The study used the method of concrete historical analysis, comparative legal analysis of legal documents and structural and functional analysis of judicial bodies. As a result of the study, it can be concluded that the competence of the Martinique Special Tribunal has changed towards its expansion over three stages in 1803-1809. From an organ of repression exclusively for slaves, it gradually turned into an extraordinary court for slaves and for free people of color, and then for any vagabonds without a place of residence and recognition. Dangerous crimes of a state nature began to belong to his jurisdiction. The comparison of the tribunal with the special tribunals established in the metropolis in 1801 and 1802 does not confirm the full borrowing of judicial law from the metropolis in the organization of the colonial court and testifies in favor of the originality of colonial justice. However, similar features in the composition of these bodies and in the order of judicial procedure allow us to speak about general trends in the development of judicial systems throughout the French Empire, in the metropolis and in the colonies, expressed in the creation of bodies of emergency justice, alternative to courts of general jurisdiction.

Martinique, French colonies, Consulate, First Empire, slavery, Special Tribunal, exceptional justice, poisoning, murder, death penalty