Census records are the core of this project. The digital censuses included in the website and accompanying database are transcriptions of manuscript censuses recorded in the French Caribbean colonies between 1680 and 1800. The originals are currently housed in the Archives Nationales d’Outre-Mer in Aix-en-Provence, France. When complete, the database will contain 250 discrete census records, and will include records for all the colonies that came under French rule over the course of the century: Saint-Domingue, Guadeloupe, Martinique, French Guiana, Dominica, Grenada, Saint-Barthélémy, Saint-Christophe, Saint-Martin, and Saint-Vincent. Census records for Marie-Galante and Sainte-Lucie, administrative dependencies of (respectively) Guadeloupe and Martinique, are also included when available. Find a complete overview of the census records here.
The census records vary in scope and content but all contain a variety of information about demography, infrastructure, agriculture, and military defenses. Collectively, the censuses painstakingly detail colonial development over the eighteenth century through a variety of quantitative measures: population size (including free and unfree individuals); numbers and size of cash crop plantations; commodity production for export; livestock; and even churches, hospitals, and armaments. Analyzed in sequence, the census records reveal the changing economic and administrative priorities of the crown and local inhabitants as the colonies metamorphosed from minor geopolitical concerns into economic powerhouses. Dramatic increases in the production of profitable export crops like sugar, coffee, cacao, and cotton are recorded in detail as are cultivation of a handful of subsistence foods, namely manioc, yams, and bananas. Finally, the censuses reveal deeper changes in the organization of colonial society, particularly with regard to gender and race. Above all, modifications to the classificatory labels used by census makers to categorize local inhabitants reveal the gradual consolidation of a racial regime that increasingly equated blackness with enslavement and whiteness with free status.
In short, these censuses constitute a remarkable trove of data. Until now, however, the manuscript format of these records has discouraged researchers from engaging in sustained meta-analysis. Transcribing these materials and making them openly available in searchable digital formats resolves this access and data analysis problem.
Visualizing the Data of the Eighteenth Century French Atlantic will make these transcribed census records available to the public in two different digital forms. One version uses a digital spreadsheet to mimic the original document, including observations recorded by the census makers, but in a standardized format conducive to quantitative and statistical analysis. A second version of each record will be georeferenced and entered into a database that will generate GIS datasets that can be used with both proprietary software like ArcGIS and open-access software like qGIS. The database will be searchable, thereby facilitating comparison of islands, populations, and crop production over time. The database will also include transcriber’s notes that alert users to problems with the original census (e.g., miscalculations, illegibility, and other preservation issues).
Access sample census records here.