The Quaker Antislavery Commitment and How It Revolutionized French Antislavery through the Crèvecoeur–Brissot Friendship, 1782–1789

This chapter examines the friendship between J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur and French abolitionist Jacques-Pierre Brissot. Crèvecoeur's Letters from an American Farmer was long seen as the first expression of American literary consciousness. The book proved to be a best seller when it came out in England in 1782. London was then one of the major places where the French “literary underground” could publish magazines and books free of government censorship. A number of French journalists thus resided in London and contributed to various publications. One of them was Jacques-Pierre Brissot de Warville. Reading Letters formed a turning point in his career as an activist, prompting him to seek an acquaintance with Crèvecoeur.