Philosophical discourse and slavery in the 18th century: remarks on Condorcet and Cugoano

Abstract

This article addresses some aspects of two important anti-slavery works published in the last decades of the 18th century: Condorcet's Reflexions sur l’esclavage des nègres, published in 1781, and Ottobah Cugoano’s Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil and Wicked Traffic of the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species, published in 1787. Although they share many aspects and partially involve a similar vocabulary of natural rights and freedom, this is an initial study intended to map some fundamental aspects that distinguish the two texts, beyond Condorcet's well-known gradualism and Cugoano's radicalism. Starting from the consideration of an example of philosophical discourse that sought to justify slavery, exemplified here by a passage from a famous work by Voltaire, the article analyzes aspects of the philosophical discourses of Condorcet and Cugoano to glimpse how they react to this mobilization of modern philosophical vocabulary and how their texts articulate more fundamental differences in the way of conceiving rights, freedom and the consequent need to abolish slavery.