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Société gallo-américaine

Paris Société gallo-américaine (wikidata) political organisation

Contributions

  1. De la France et des États-Unis, ou De l'importance de la Révolution de l'Amérique, pour le bonheur de la France, des rapports de ce royaume & des États-Unis, des avantages réciproques qu'ils peuvent retirer de leurs liaisons de commerce, & enfin de la situation actuelle des États-Unis has other edition publisher
  2. Examen critique des voyages dans l'Amérique Septentrionale, de M. le marquis de Chatellux, ou, Lettre a M. le marquis de Chatellux, dans laquelle on réfute principalement ses opinions sur les Quakers, sur les nègres, sur le peuple, & sur l'homme has translation publisher
  3. Lettres d'un cultivateur américain addressées à Wm. S ... on Esqr. depuis l'année 1770 jusqu'en 1786. Par M. St John de Crevecoeur, traduites de l’anglais has paratext publisher

Members

Notes

Political association founded by Jacques-Pierre Brissot, Etienne Clavière, Hector Saint John de Crèvecoeur and Nicolas Bergasse on 2 January 1787, with the aim of promoting closer relations between the newly formed United States and France. It had started meeting informally in 1786, and met weekly for nearly four months before suspending their activities after becoming caught up in events connected with the pre-revolutionary crisis of 1787. It would evolve, with a far broader membership, into the Société des Amis des Noirs in 1788.

David Williams translated the prospectus in May 1787.

The minutes of their meetings covered a bewildering jumble of topics, ranging from life insurance to general philanthropy and the creation of a free port at Hornfleur, concerning the various enterprises of its members. What made them appropriate topics for discussion in the minds of their members was their connection with political morality and the austere republican values they associated with the United States, equating America with the cause of humanity and pursuit of happiness.

According to Robert Darnton, their "moralizing contributed powerfully to the radicalization of public opinion on the eve of the Revolution, injected a dose of militant Rousseauism into the French fantasies about homespun farmers and Quakers, and gave a polemical edge to what was originally little more than a fashion. The polemics were stirred up by a series of books and pamphlets that the Gallo-Americans published between 1786 and 1788".

See Robert Darnton, 'The craze for America: Condorcet and Brissot', from his collection, 'George Washington's False Teeth' (2003), p.128.