Colonial archives and the making of an imperial Consciousness (France, 18th c.)

During the 18th century, the Secretariat of State to the Navy was the place where colonial records and archives were kept. In this department, a Paper Office was created in 1699. One of its tasks was to collect the papers from the Colonial Office, opened in 1710. It was the documentary practices of this office that constituted ministerial knowledge of the colonies. At first, the papers concerning the colonies were considered as proof of the French possession of overseas territories. From 1750 onwards, they were used as tools to acquire better knowledge of colonial agents, thus allowing a proper central management of imperial careers. With the Seven rears War, new kinds of papers, many concerning the official status of individuals, were brought to France. At the same time, families started to ask the administration for information about faraway relatives. In 1765 a Colonial Papers Office was opened in Rochefort to deliver official copies of civil and notarial documents. These records, which were a new tool for the control of the colonial population, were transferred in 1776 to Versailles where a Public Colonial Papers Office was created. Initially, it stored only documents about the overseas possessions kept after 1763, but in 1789, the papers concerning the lost colonies were also archived there. Versailles then became the official heart of a paper empire, and the seat of an imperial consciousness.