La Mulâtresse Solitude


La Mulâtresse Solitude 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.

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.
She was called "La Mulâtresse" 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, she was among those who rallied around Louis Delgrès and fought by his side for freedom.
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 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.