La Mulâtresse Solitude - Live free, or die:

 

 

This is La Mulâtresse Solitude who was born in slavery in the plantations of Guadeloupe in 1772, who went on to become  a legendary figure in the anti slavery struggles of the nineteenth century.

Solitude’s  mother was an African , possibly from Sierra Leone  who was  reportedly raped  by a French sailor during a voyage on a slave ship,her  name La Mulâtresse which means female Mulatto is derived from her origin. Mulatto is now a derogatory term for the first generation offspring of a Black person and a white person. This had some importance for her  in the racial hierarchy of the society of the time Solitude, was a woman of legendary beauty. Each of her eyes was of a different coloration. It is alleged that her exquisite good looks led powerful békés to fight one another with the hope of getting Solitude. Her mother fled the plantation where she was enslaved, leaving Solitude with her masters. Solitude, immortalized by André Schwarz-Bart’s eponymous novel (1972), was a brown-skinned woman of legendary beauty. Each of her eyes was of a different coloration. It is alleged that her exquisite good looks led powerful békés to fight one another with the hope of getting Solitude. Her mother fled the plantation where she was enslaved, leaving Solitude with her masters. 

A revolution of enslaved plantation laborers in Saint-Domingue (now Haiti) begun in August 1791 forced France to legally abolish slavery in its colonies  in  1794  after Napoleon took that move in order to avoid a  generalized slave revolt in all his colonies. But eight years after the abolition Bonaparte took control of the country after  his wife, Josephine, herself a native of Martinique, talked the Emperor into reinstating slavery in the West Indies, as slaves were vital to the plantation way of life for the rich French overseers and sent about 3,500 troops led by General Antoine Richepance to Guadeloupe to enforce this decree 

On May 10, 1802, Louis Delgrès  a mulatto military officer born as a free man on Martinique in 1766.  who  had  gained military combat experience fighting for the French against the English in the years leading up to the Napoleonic Era,  strongly opposed the reinstatement of slavery in Colonial France by Napoleon, a man previously admired by Delgres took up arms, and called men and women to his side to fight for the freedom they had lost and launched a  proclamation entitled : ' To the whole universe, the last cry of innocence and despair'.

Solitude now classified as a ' maroon' was one of hundreds of women who responded to the call and fought at the side of Delgrès, inspiring many with her courage. She was pregnant at the time and it's possible that she was driven by a determination that her child should not be born into slavery, she was said to be a fierce and fearless warrior expertly wielding a machete against the French troops. who “pushed herself and her belly into the heart of the battles” at Dole, Trou-aux-chiens, Fond-Bananier, and Capesterre. After eighteen days of combat, Richepance’s side overpowered the rebels

Delgrès and his supporters, including Solitude, were forced to retreat to Fort  Saint Charles which was held by the resistance.  At the Battle of Matouba on 28th May, 1802, Delgrès ignited gunpowder stores, committing suicide along with many of his comrades, this strategic plan did though manage to kill approximately four hundred French soldiers in the process. The occupation force killed approximately 10,000 Guadeloupeans in the process of re-taking the island from the rebels.

 The heroism of Delgres  was not at first appreciated by France, but later in 1998 Delgres, along with leader of the Haitian slave revolt, Toussaint Loverture, was admitted to the Pantheon in Paris, the burial place of many of the greatest heroes of France.  

Solitude managed to escape but was captured soon after in the woods of Basse Terre and before a  military tribunal, she and the other survivors was sentenced to death. However Solitude was temporarily pardoned until she gave birth to her child because her child was the property of a slave owner . One day after delivering her baby, on November 29, 1802, Solitude was executed,and  according tp accounts , maternity's milk slowly stained her nightshirt, She was thirty years old, her last words before she was hanged would be Live free, or die: "

No one knows the whereabouts of the child,  but Solitude´s story illustrates the too often forgotten powerful  role of women in the struggle against slavery. After her  death  Solitude almost  disappeared from the annuals of history, but  step by step her name is  now remembered as a heroine and martyr on Guadeloupe, and in 1999, to commemorate the abolition of slavery, a sculpture in the memory of her was inaugurated as homage and recognition of the victims of the slave-trade and anti-slavery resistance leaders. The statue was installed at the De la Croix roundabout intersection on the Boulevard des Héros, in Abymes, Guadeloupe. In 2007 a statue was erected in her memory in the ile-de-France region of Hauts-de-Seine . This statue is made of iroko, a kind of African wood and steel. Sculpter Nicolas Alquin acknowledges that it is the first memorial to all "enslaved people who resisted." Her name is  also  commemorated in songs, poems, immortalized by André Schwarz-Bart’s in  his eponymous novel (1972), and a musical Solitude la Marronne. La Mulatresse. Solitude a heroine of resistance to oppression is also being considered for inclusion in the French Pantheon.