>>213579334 (OP)
>France’s seemingly eternal on-again, off-again war with Great Britain did not change the immediate boundaries of either country. These wars were often fought over land in the American hemisphere and included a historic contest over Martinique, a small island in the Caribbean, whose fate had far-reaching repercussions for slavery.
>In 1794, following three years of slave rebellions in Saint-Domingue – events now known as the Haitian Revolution – the French government abolished slavery in all French overseas territories.
>Martinique, however, was not included: The French had recently lost the island to the British in battle.
>In a 1799 speech to the French government, Bonaparte explained that if he had been in Martinique at the time the French lost the colony, he would have been on the side of the British – because they never dared to abolish slavery. “I am for the whites, because I am white,” Bonaparte said. “I have no other reason, and this is the right one. How could anyone have granted freedom to Africans, to men who had no civilization.”
So, the quote is in the context of losing a French colony to (black) rebels. I would say, he is an Imperialist more than a racist.
