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.
