The Human Ecology of Justice

Chapter 1 explores the local configuration and context of the courts (conseils supérieurs) to understand how justice was negotiated. Subjects circulated into and out of courtrooms from urban markets, overseas expeditions, and plantations. Analysis of colonial capitals, including architectural clues, reveals the physical movement and behavior of court participants, such as magistrates, bailiffs, and onlookers. This chapter makes clear the distinctions of the Atlantic and Indian Ocean tropical legal entrepôts. Where the Antillean courts relied much more on their proximity to each other and a regional identity, the Mascarene courts prioritized ties with France in an expression of vulnerability.

Entrepôts in a Changing Empire

Chapter 4 explores the regional situations of Atlantic and Indian Ocean courts, respectively. Within these lively and increasingly interconnected oceanic systems, the Antilles initially gained prominence for their sugar production, and the Mascarenes formed what one traveler called “the arsenal of our forces and the entrepôt of our commerce.” These transformations, however, prompted the migration of court users, from sailors to traders, to legal entrepôts. A unique convergence of colonial expertise, especially regarding cash-crop production and trade, and military skills, regarding colonial defense and imperial objectives, enabled the courts to remain, and grow, as entrepôts at the center of a global ancien régime empire.

Justice Between Plantation and Port

Chapter 2 explores how negotiations between court participants and magistrates through court proceedings, as in some sedition cases, untangled the concentric circles of authority that emanated from the innermost court chambers (especially the registrar’s chamber, where legal documentation was kept) out past insular coastlines into the haziest maritime jurisdictions. This chapter delves into the public and private aspects of court proceedings. It tracks court participants as they moved among French legal entrepôts through both formal and informal legal channels, such as judicial appeals, interjudicial correspondence, and traveling from one court to another.