Podcast Summary: New Books Network
Episode: Miranda Spieler, "Slaves in Paris: Hidden Lives and Fugitive Histories" (Harvard UP, 2025)
Date: October 8, 2025
Host: Dr. Miranda Melcher
Guest: Dr. Miranda Spieler
Episode Overview
In this episode, Dr. Miranda Melcher interviews historian Dr. Miranda Spieler about her groundbreaking book, Slaves in Paris: Hidden Lives and Fugitive Histories. Spieler’s work uncovers the little-known reality of enslaved people living—and often seeking freedom—in Enlightenment-era Paris during the late 1700s. The conversation explores not only the complexity of reconstructing these “fugitive histories” but also the legal, social, and urban dynamics that shaped the lived experiences of enslaved individuals in the French capital.
Key Discussion Points & Insights
Origins of the Project and Initial Discoveries
- Spieler's Accidental Archival Discovery:
- While researching in the Archives of the Bastille, Spieler found entries under “esclav” (slaves), defying the received wisdom that “there were no slaves in France, and in Paris particularly” (03:30).
- She uncovered police files about slave hunts in 18th-century Paris, revealing at least 125 cases of enslaved people being hunted as freedom-seekers.
- Spieler:
- “My main goal in writing the book was to explain why and how Paris became a site of slave hunting in the second half of the 18th century, at the height of the Enlightenment and in the years leading up to the revolution.” (05:41)
Evolving Research Questions
- Two Core Research Strands:
- Legal Mechanisms of State Violence: How and why did authorities pursue enslaved people?
- Lives of Marginalized Individuals: What were the strategies and experiences of those who sought freedom?
- Spieler describes how the research evolved from granular studies of individuals to broader questions about Paris as an “imperial capital”—a city transformed by its colonial entanglements. (10:20)
Archival and Methodological Challenges
- Research Limitations:
- French colonial archives lack the biographical depth of, e.g., US slave narratives due to absent institutions and weak abolitionist networks.
- In Paris, however, the density of legal institutions and policing (high surveillance, presence of courts, etc.) provided rare documentation of enslaved lives.
- Spieler:
- “There are courts everywhere... as they move through the city, different legal spaces… nosy neighbors… famous people who publish books who you can learn about easily and who, in fact, show up in the book, sometimes as foes, sometimes as advocates.” (14:40)
- The discovery of “exceptional legal spaces” in Paris where enslaved and endangered people could find a degree of protection (15:46).
Paris’s Policing Apparatus and Slave Hunts
- Policing Structure:
- Paris in the 18th century was divided into 48 sectors, each with its police commissioner, and had 20 “roving” police inspectors with their own spying networks (18:00).
- These inspectors, crucially, enforced slave arrests—not on their own authority but under writs “signed by the king,” enabling extrajudicial action (19:38).
- Legal Documents in Slave Hunts:
- The use of lettres de cachet ("orders of the king")—authorizing one-off actions without explanation—was pivotal.
- Sometimes these were ordinary police orders; other times, powerful writs from the Department of the Navy (as colonial authority) could override court decisions and facilitate slave recapture (21:10–24:29).
- Spieler:
- “These orders... have the capacity to break, circumvent, ignore any kind of judicial decision in the name of the king.” (23:40)
- Effectiveness and Resistance:
- These writs were highly effective; only two known cases in Spieler’s study managed to evade capture, both thanks to influential insiders (25:00–26:14).
Legal Outcomes and the Code Noir in Paris
- Post-capture Fate:
- Enslaved people either were returned to their masters or deported to colonial ports like Le Havre, then either sold or punished under colonial law (26:29).
- Impact & Reach of the Code Noir:
- Although written for the colonies, the Code Noir’s definition of slavery as property profoundly shaped Parisian legal practice.
- Physically brutal punishments (mutilation, death) prescribed by the Code Noir were limited to the colonies, but the Parisian system worked to “ensure that this element of the Code Noir remained valid in France” (27:25–30:49).
- Spieler:
- “The whole point of the slave hunts that I recount in this book was to make sure that this element of the Code Noir remained valid in France, slave owners... unleashed these slave hunts for the purpose of recovering people whom they regarded as extremely valuable, lost property.” (29:18)
Transformations in Race, Empire, and Social Life
- Effects of the Seven Years War:
- Mass arrival of colonial officials and planters in Paris (with enslaved domestics) increased the city’s cosmopolitan population and intensified racism.
- Losses in the Empire made enslaved domestics “saleable assets.” (31:19–33:52)
- Spieler:
- “It seems clear that racism became a lot worse in the aftermath of the Seven Years War.” (33:33)
- Racialization of Rights:
- By the late 18th century, there was an increasing tendency for legal rights and protections to become racialized in Paris.
- Everyday street-level attitudes were as important as elite intellectual theories.
- Spieler:
- “Concepts of right became racialized… a white person who’s, you know, grabbed by the police and mishandled is going to outrage people, while a black person who undergoes the same treatment… is sort of like, oh, okay, well, that's normal, because, you know, that's a person who's a slave.” (34:01–35:15)
The False Security of Freedom Papers
- Multiple Types of Papers:
- Manumission papers from notaries (with the year’s standing of colonial authorities) offered some protection; freedom papers from Paris courts were often disregarded by masters and administrators (37:32–40:11).
- The specifics of paperwork—rather than merely possessing papers—determined an individual’s safety.
- Spieler:
- “If they were the kind of papers that indicated that freedom had been granted with the assent of the master, the person was safe. If they were the kind of freedom papers that indicated that the person had been freed by a court in Paris, they were not at all safe.” (39:52)
The French Revolution and Racialization of Rights
- Case Study: Julien Bodel
- An enslaved man from Martinique, denied freedom by France’s highest court despite his “whiteness” being used as part of his legal argument.
- Spieler traces how figures involved in Julien’s case went on to play major roles in revolutionary and post-revolutionary France, sometimes as slave owners or abolition opponents (40:43–43:46).
- Spieler:
- “Ideas of rights became racialized on the eve of the French Revolution.” (42:47)
Ulrika: A Case of Enslaved Person and Fictionalization
- Who Was Ulrika?
- A Senegalese child brought as a gift to Parisian nobility in 1786, later fictionalized in a popular Restoration-era novel.
- Spieler grapples with the difficulty of reconstructing Ulrika’s life and untangling “the real girl” from her later literary representations—highlighting both the challenges and afterlives of enslaved biographies in French culture (44:08–49:43).
Spieler’s Ongoing and Future Research
- Spieler expresses a desire to someday return to Ulrika’s story, but her current project focuses on family histories of mixed-race families in France and its empire, seeking to reinterpret the age of abolition through “family clusters rather than single individuals.” (49:55–51:08)
Notable Quotes
- On archival discovery:
- “There is a received wisdom that there were no slaves in France, and in Paris particularly... And yet I found files recounting slave hunts unfolding in 18th-century Paris.” – Spieler (03:30)
- On research methods:
- “There’s something fundamentally challenging about a biographical approach to enslaved people… [but] the project was helped considerably by the kind of institutional ecology of Paris.” – Spieler (13:45–14:40)
- On slave recapture writs:
- “These orders… have the capacity to break, circumvent, ignore any kind of judicial decision in the name of the king.” – Spieler (23:40)
- On shifting racial attitudes:
- “Concepts of right became racialized in the course of the 18th century. So that a white person who’s... grabbed by the police... would outrage people, while a black person... [was seen as] normal, because... that’s a person who’s a slave.” – Spieler (34:01)
- On the myth of freedom papers:
- “Your capacity to remain free hinged on which [paper] you happened to be carrying... If they were the kind of papers that indicated that freedom had been granted with the assent of the master, the person was safe. If they were the kind... from a court in Paris, they were not at all safe.” – Spieler (39:46)
- On future research:
- “Right now I’m trying to develop a revisionist approach to the story of abolition in France… focusing on family clusters rather than single individuals.” – Spieler (50:03)
Timestamps for Important Segments
| Segment | Description | Timestamp | |----------------------------------|---------------------------------------------------------------|------------| | Opening & book intro | Host introduces theme and author | 01:07–02:34| | Spieler on discovering cases | Initial archival find in the Bastille | 02:43–06:35| | Research questions evolve | From individuals to imperial Paris | 07:10–10:42| | Challenges in archive research | French context, legal spaces, methods | 11:32–16:20| | Policing: Structure & practice | Paris policing system and slave arrests | 17:50–20:26| | Legal writs & Navy involvement | Use of lettres de cachet, role of Navy | 20:26–24:29| | Effectiveness of slave hunts | Capture rates and means of escape | 25:00–26:14| | What happened post-capture | Return, deportation, draconian colonial law | 26:29–27:19| | The Code Noir in Paris | Discussion of legal reach and effect | 27:25–30:49| | Seven Years War & race | Changing empire, migration, and racialization in Paris | 31:19–34:01| | Papers & myth of freedom | Kinds of freedom papers, their limits | 37:07–40:11| | The French Revolution & Julien | Racialization of rights, case study of Julien | 40:43–43:46| | Ulrika, fiction & afterlives | Biographical challenges, stage and fiction reception | 44:08–49:43| | Spieler’s current/future work | New project: mixed-race family histories, abolition | 49:55–51:08|
Memorable Moments
- Playing with Names: The two Mirandas—host and guest—share a moment of amusement about their shared name. (02:29–02:34)
- Enslaved Adolescents: Spieler notes the unexpected prevalence of adolescent boys among the enslaved individuals found in her sources, with special chapters on women as well (07:10–10:42).
- Fugitive Successes: Even for those who evaded the slave hunts, survival often depended on gaining the protection of elite insiders, such as the case of Pauline and another unnamed individual (25:00–26:14).
- The Real and the Fictional Ulrika: Spieler’s reckoning with the “failure” to fully reconstruct Ulrika’s life, and the problematic transformation into a literary and stage character, underscores the challenges and stakes of reconstructing lives from fragmentary archives (44:08–49:43).
Tone & Style
The conversation is scholarly yet accessible, weaving together narrative storytelling with rigorous historical analysis. Both host and guest are alert to nuance and complexity, resisting easy generalizations about slavery, law, race, and archival research. Spieler’s explanations are rich in detail, candid about research dilemmas, and marked by a deep ethical concern for the lives reconstructed in her book.
For Listeners Wanting More
- Book: Slaves in Paris: Hidden Lives and Fugitive Histories by Miranda Spieler (Harvard UP, 2025)
- Recommended for: Historians, students of empire, urban historians, scholars of slavery and race, anyone interested in hidden narratives of Paris and the French Enlightenment.