the nineteenth century public sphere includes a chapter devoted to the Revue.^97 She qualifies it
as the most radical abolitionist publication in France at the time and the first to call for the
immediate emancipation of slaves in the colonies. She introduces the journal with this
description:
As its name suggests, the Revue des Colonies was devoted explicitly to material
of and about the colonies of western imperialism, largely those of the Americas.
Published during the 1830s and early 1840s, the French- based journal was
sponsored by a small group of Caribbean intellectuals calling themselves the
Société des Hommes de Couleur. The Revue thus provided a collective forum for
the literary and political dissent of its Caribbean contributors ... [it] offered an
extended series of juxtapositions that encouraged its readers to see the junctures
of history and literature, politics and artistry...^98The inclusion of Ardouin’s and Nau’s poetry in a colonial French review is, at least onthe surface, somewhat puzzling. Because Nau and Ardouin are included but nonetheless
identified as “Haitian,” Haiti’s status in the review seems ambiguous, situated between that of
colony and nation. One’s “colonial” status, however, at least when applied to some writers, was
for Revue’s editors less about the national than about the racial identity of the writers included.
In addition to texts from English, French, and Spanish colonies worldwide, other writers of
African or partly African descent were also included regardless of where they were from. Stories
by the Louisiana mulatto Victor Séjour were featured, for example, as was the poetry of
eighteenth century American slave and poet Phyllis Wheatley. Even more paradoxical is the fact
that although Nau and Ardouin’s inclusion seems largely based on race, their poems, especially
those included in the journal, rarely dealt with racial issues. Such racial absence, however, was
not uncommon among those texts featured in the journal. As Brickhouse points out,
(^97) Anna Brickhouse, Transamerican literary relations and the nineteenth century public sphere (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2004).
(^98) Brickhouse 86.