In March 1685, Louis XIV promulgated the Code Noir, a royal ordinance that set legal rules for slavery in France’s Caribbean colonies. While not created in Nantes, it shaped the legal framework that underpinned the plantation economies Nantes traders supplied. It helped normalize slavery as a state-regulated institution in the French Atlantic world.
In 1707, a ship from Nantes is commonly identified as the port’s first documented transatlantic slaving expedition. This marked the beginning of Nantes’ rapid rise as a major French slaving port in the 18th century. From this point, local shipowners and merchants increasingly invested in the “triangular trade” linking Europe, Africa, and the Americas.
After the collapse of John Law’s financial system, the Compagnie des Indes was reorganized in 1720, and Nantes gained the privilege of being the sole location for sales of the company’s imported goods (maintained until 1733). This strengthened Nantes’ role in long-distance trade and credit networks. It also supported the wider commercial environment that slaving voyages depended on, including access to trade goods used on the African coast.
From the 1730s onward, Nantes’ slave-trading operations expanded in scale, with ship capacity and commercial reach increasing. Bigger ships and larger investments meant voyages could transport more captives and more colonial produce per trip. This period set the stage for Nantes’ dominance later in the century.
The War of the Austrian Succession (1740–1748) disrupted French maritime commerce and increased risks from enemy navies and privateers. These wartime pressures affected the timing, safety, and profitability of voyages leaving ports like Nantes. Even when slaving continued, conflict changed insurance costs, routes, and the likelihood of capture at sea.
Across the 18th century, Nantes became the busiest French port for transatlantic slave-trading expeditions. Historical counts compiled from voyage records place Nantes far ahead of other French ports in total expeditions, highlighting the city’s central role in France’s slave-trading economy. This dominance reflected strong local shipowning networks, finance, and access to trade goods.
The Seven Years’ War (1756–1763) further strained French ocean trade and weakened French naval protection. After the war, French merchants refocused on profitable colonial commerce—especially plantation goods such as sugar and coffee—tied to enslaved labor. In this shifting context, Nantes’ investment in slave trading and colonial supply chains became even more central to local wealth.
Launched in 1764 and sailing from Nantes, the slave ship Marie-Séraphique later became known for surviving visual documents that show captive confinement and sale. These images are widely used to teach how the trade worked in practice, including crowding, shackling, and the commodification of human beings. The ship is a concrete example of how Nantes’ commerce was tied to organized, repeated slaving voyages.
In 1789–1793, the French Revolution destabilized colonial governance and raised major questions about rights and citizenship in slave societies. The turmoil intensified debates over slavery and the slave trade, while colonial plantation economies still demanded forced labor. Nantes’ trade operated in a rapidly changing political environment that would soon challenge its business model.
On 4 February 1794, the National Convention abolished slavery in France’s colonies and declared former enslaved people to be French citizens. This revolutionary decision marked a major legal break with the plantation system that Nantes merchants had long supplied. Implementation varied by colony and wartime conditions, but the law signaled a dramatic change in official policy.
On 20 May 1802, Napoleon’s government passed a law that reinstated slavery in key French colonies and allowed the slave trade to resume under pre-1789 rules. This reversal revived demand for enslaved labor in the French colonial economy. For ports like Nantes, it reopened political space for slave-trading interests, even as international opposition grew.
On 29 March 1815, during the Hundred Days, Napoleon issued a decree abolishing the slave trade and banning new slave-trading expeditions from French ports and colonies. The decree targeted the commerce itself, not slavery as an institution, which continued in French colonies until 1848. Even so, it marked a key end-point for the 1680–1815 period of Nantes’ involvement under changing regimes and international pressure.
In 1992, the exhibition Les Anneaux de la Mémoire (“The Rings of Memory”) opened in Nantes and drew more than 400,000 visitors. It became a major turning point in local public engagement with the city’s slave-trading past. The exhibition helped move the topic from specialist history into wider civic discussion.
On 25 March 2012, Nantes inaugurated the Memorial to the Abolition of Slavery on the Quai de la Fosse, a historic departure point for many slave ships. The memorial publicly acknowledges Nantes’ role as the leading French slave-trading port in the 18th century and honors those who resisted slavery. It represents a clear outcome of decades of research, education, and civic debate about the city’s Atlantic slave-trade legacy.
Nantes and the French Atlantic slave trade (1680–1815)