La Mulâtresse Solitude

La Mulâtresse Solitude (circa 1772 – 1802) was an enslaved domestic, a historical figure and heroine of the fight against slavery on Guadeloupe. She has been the subject of legends and a symbol of the struggle against slavery.

The bridge over the river Galion. The bridge was built by the Abbé of Talcy between 1773 and 1780. It is an arched bridge 35 meters high. The Galion flows 35 meters below. Napoleon Bonaparte, having come to power in late 1799, decided to reinstate slavery abolished by the Convention. The Guadeloupeans, having tasted freedom, put up resistance. An officer named Joseph Ignace, having organized resistance in Pointe-à-Pitre, joined his men with those of another insurgent, Louis Delgrès, a free mulatto officer. On May 21, 1802, General Richepance stormed the fort where refugees Delgrès, Ignace, and their men were. On May 22, before the bombing, Ignace and Delgrès exited by the postern gate of Galion. Ignace, having gone on the road to Pointe-à-Pitre, died in battle. Delgrès went to Matouba, on the way to Saint-Claude. Delgrès and his companions rallied to the cry of "Live Free or Die!". The mulatto Solitude, pregnant, a symbol of women's resistance, was hanged in November 1802 just after childbirth.

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Slavery

Biography

She was born on the island of Guadeloupe around 1772. Her mother was an enslaved woman from Africa, and her father was a sailor who raped her mother at sea when she was transported from Africa to the West Indies. [1]

She was called "La Mulâtresse" ('Female Mulatto') because of her origin, which had some importance for her in the racial hierarchy of the society of the time: because she was noted to have pale skin and pale eyes, she was given domestic work rather than being forced to work in the fields.

She saw the abolition of slavery in 1794 and joined a Maroon community in Guadeloupe.

In 1802, when Napoleon Bonaparte enacted the Law of 20 May 1802, reinstating slavery in the French colonies,[2] she was among those who rallied around Louis Delgrès and fought by his side for freedom.[3]

She survived the battle of May 28, 1802, but was imprisoned by the French. Because she was pregnant at the time of her imprisonment, she was not to be hanged until November 29 of the same year, one day after giving birth.

Tribute

In 1999, a statue by Jacky Poulier was placed on Héros aux Abymes Boulevard in Guadeloupe in her memory.

In 2007, another statue was erected in her memory, this time in the Hauts-de-Seine in the Île-de-France region, for the celebration of the abolition of slavery and the slave trade. The statue is made of iroko, a kind of African hardwood. According to its sculptor Nicolas Alquin, it is the first memorial to all "enslaved people that resisted."

Guadeloupe Solitude, as she is also known, is being currently considered for inclusion in the French Panthéon that celebrates the memory of distinguished French citizens.

See also

References
  1. Portraits de femmes remarquables : La mulâtresse Solitude / 1772-1802 Musée du quai Branly.
  2. "20 mai 1802 - Bonaparte légalise l'esclavage - Herodote.net". www.herodote.net. Retrieved May 28, 2020.
  3. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2011-01-03. Retrieved 2013-08-27.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  • Arlette Gautier, Les Sœurs de Solitude: la condition féminine dans l'esclavage aux Antilles du xviie au xixe siècle, L'Harmattan « Mondes caraïbes ».
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