EP 9 La Mulâtresse Solitude: No Half Measures | Women And Resistance

She was pregnant when she fought. She was pregnant when they captured her. She gave birth in a prison cell. The next morning, they hanged her!

Her name was Solitude. And she chose that name herself.

In this week's episode of Women & Resistance, hosts @Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq., and Adesoji Iginla bring you the story of La Mulâtresse Solitude — born 1772 in Guadeloupe, a woman whose life spans rape at sea, Maroon resistance, armed combat, and a state execution the morning after she gave birth.

In 1802, Napoleon Bonaparte reinstated slavery in the French colonies — erasing eight years of freedom that the people of Guadeloupe had fought for and built lives within. 

Solitude — pregnant — took up arms alongside freedom fighters Louis Delgrès and Joseph Ignace. She fought in every major battle. She survived the mass detonation at Matouba, where 400 freedom fighters chose to blow themselves up rather than submit to re-enslavement. She was captured, imprisoned, and executed the day after delivering her child — because under colonial law, the child was her enslaver's property, and they could not destroy property before it was born.

Her story was nearly erased. Tonight, we restore it through an Afrocentric lens that situates Solitude in the long tradition of African women warriors: Nanny of the Maroons, Queen Nzinga of Angola, Yaa Asantewaa of the Ashanti. 

We ask what her life means for Black women's bodily autonomy today. We ask whether her proposed entry into the French Panthéon is recognition or co-optation. And we ask what radical self-determination looks like for Black women across eras.

 Takeaways

*History of slavery in Guadeloupe
*La Mulâtresse Solitude's personal story of resistance
*The impact of colonialism and slavery on African descendants
*Legacy of the Haitian Revolution and African resistance
*The importance of memory, history, and resistance in contemporary struggles

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to La Mulâtresse Solitude
01:19 The Life and Legacy of La Mulâtresse Solitude
04:02 Historical Context of Guadeloupe
05:52 The Story of Enslavement
08:41 Resistance and the Fight for Freedom
11:55 The Illusion of Freedom and Napoleon's Return
12:44 The Fight for Freedom
13:24 The Battle of Matuba
14:13 Demonisation and Resistance
15:44 The Role of Women in Resistance
16:58 The Indomitable Spirit
17:55 Legacy and Memory
20:56 The Impact of Revolt
23:20 Recognition and Erasure
25:27 The Role of Black Women in History
28:04 Connecting Past and Present

Welcome  to Women and Resistance, a powerful podcast where we honour the courage, resilience, and revolutionary spirit of women across the globe. Hosted by Aya Fubara Eneli Esq and Adesoji Iginla...

You're listening to Women and Resistance with Aya Fubara Eneli Esq and Adesoji Iginla—where we honour the voices of women who have shaped history through courage and defiance...Now, back to the conversation.

That’s it for this episode of Women and Resistance. Thank you for joining us in amplifying the voices of women who challenge injustice and change the course of history. Be sure to subscribe, share, and continue the conversation. Together We Honour the past, act in the present, and shape the future. Until next time, stay inspired and stay in resistance!

Transcript

Adesoji Iginla (00:01.58)
Yes, greetings, greetings and welcome to another episode of Women and Resistance. I am your host, Adesuji Igilla, and this episode takes us to the French Caribbean island of Guadeloupe. to understand who we're going to showcase tonight, mean, introductions first. Sister Aya.

Fubara and earlier Squire before she goes into character will be taking on the role, the life of La Moutresse Solitude, who she is, what she's about, we're about to find out. And it promises to be a riveting lesson. And for those who would listen later on the audio version of it, I must say her story is truly a remarkable one. So welcome, Madame Solitude.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:10.696)
Good evening. Thank you for having me.

Adesoji Iginla (01:12.579)
Good evening.

Thank you for honoring our call.

As we normally do it here, we tend to help our guests explore their life. Give us an inkling of what it is to live during your times. And in your case, you lived on the French island of Guadeloupe. So without further ado, could you give us a brief introduction of yourself?

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:51.028)
Apologies, I am.

Adesoji Iginla (01:54.178)
having a child.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:55.94)
Yes, and.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (02:09.236)
Today I come to you.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (02:16.03)
from a time that I did not know then, but I know now.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (02:28.882)
was the eve before I would bear my child. And so I don't apologize, but I do send forth the explanation that I am a little out of breath.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (02:51.593)
Bye.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (03:00.882)
They captured me.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (03:09.224)
was our last stand.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (03:17.502)
heels on my tumble.

I will fill in the gaps.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (03:26.078)
but we were being closed in on from every side.

and we made a decision.

It had been our mantra. Live free or die.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (03:53.916)
And so we made the decision.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (04:00.372)
to blow up Luis Del Gres, who was one of the leaders of what they will call the revolution, the revolt, the rebellion.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (04:15.496)
He had a pipe and the decision was made to blow up the gunpowder that we had left. We knew that that would result in our deaths.

Well, we also knew that it would kill.

many if not all of the French troop who had pursued us.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (04:50.556)
and so we set the gunpowder on fire.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (04:56.23)
and a big explosion.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (05:02.58)
According to them, we killed over 400 French men that day. But most of us perished as well.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (05:14.888)
I did not.

captured.

wounded.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (05:28.87)
I was spared initial execution when they executed some of the other survivors because of their twisted minds.

I was a slave.

bearing a child who belonged to a Frenchman, my supposed master. And therefore, they wanted to spare my life until I brought forth another human being for them to enslave.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (06:16.646)
Many men and women and children who were part of the resistance were blown up. And I gave considerable thoughts.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (06:31.848)
has to weather to take my own life in that prison cell.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (06:43.134)
but my child.

who has forever been lost.

in the history, I know she was a girl.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (06:59.614)
She said she wanted to live. Such a blast should have killed both of us, at least her.

and I made the decision to have her anyway.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (07:21.746)
And so you meet me on the eve of her birth.

And what would happen the morning after I brought her into this world?

and she was taken from my arms.

barely.

getting any sucker from my breasts.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (07:52.154)
is a tale that even they do not want to tell in its entirety.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (08:00.296)
They simply, what was the word they used? Suppliced.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (08:08.03)
They executed me.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (08:14.716)
with onlookers.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (08:23.412)
Well, we should start at the beginning.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (08:32.392)
that that area is even known as French Guadeloupe.

is a tragedy.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (08:43.986)
because the Arawaks lived there and the Kareep inhabited that area. Long before, the white man with his god complex and greed showed up on those shores.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (09:06.12)
the murderer Christopher Columbus. He landed there in 1493.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (09:15.078)
and then France officially colonized that area in 1635.

establishing.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (09:30.982)
A slave economy so brutal that most barely made it seven years.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (09:47.912)
that space alternated between.

French and British rule.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (09:59.558)
until 1816 and then there was a final abolition of slavery they say in 1848.

And then it became a French department in 1946.

Adesoji Iginla (10:21.358)
The continuation.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (10:25.02)
I speak to you this evening or whenever your people will watch this.

from a place.

between memory and silence.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (10:42.76)
between the breath of my mother, an African woman.

and the breath of this child that I carry.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (10:57.572)
speak to you between Africa.

and the fire of Guadalupe.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (11:09.394)
you introduced me as La Mulatres Solitude.

Adesoji Iginla (11:14.518)
as I did.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (11:21.236)
how these people brand and stamp themselves all over us. La mulatres.

a name given by a world that tried to define me by my blood and hierarchy.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (11:46.396)
I was not born of their categories. I do not answer to their categories. Some now call me Guadalupe Solotude. I would rather accept that. I...

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (12:07.09)
I was born of violence.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (12:20.126)
but I chose resistance.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (12:29.384)
what I will share with you today.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (12:34.974)
has mostly not been written. See, because they are the record keepers.

They write what they want us to know. And very little actually written about me a lot is conjecture.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (12:58.17)
My story begins with my mother.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (13:05.093)
an African girl, young woman.

taken.

kidnapped, not transported, not relocated, stolen.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (13:29.074)
Most of the Africans who were dragged to Guadalupe, they came from the western coasts of the continent we call Africa. Senegambia, the Bight of Benin, the Gold, that area used to be called the Gold Coast. Now we've reclaimed our name Ghana. Regions that you now call Benin, Nigeria, and beyond.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (14:01.362)
my people. They were farmers.

They were warriors, mothers, healers, kings.

daughters and sons of great people.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (14:25.596)
and then came.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (14:31.932)
what's some in the world and now acknowledging is the greatest crime against humanity.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (14:43.144)
My mother was stolen, maybe in war or through betrayal or maybe through the machinery of these Europeans and their greed that turned us.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (15:04.006)
our African bodies into currency.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (15:12.03)
she was forced onto a ship.

not a vessel of travel, a coffin with sails.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (15:38.354)
This is not a mere story. You must take a journey back with me.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (15:48.614)
into the bowels of a ship.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (15:54.664)
Do you know what it feels like?

be packed into darkness.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (16:06.088)
bodies layered like cargo.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (16:13.49)
chains biting into skin.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (16:20.242)
the stench of waste blood

vomit.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (16:53.64)
Do you know what it's like?

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (16:58.59)
to hear the key.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (17:03.42)
in the door and the steps and the rattling of more keys as they start to.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (17:15.186)
Yeah, come pull up the women.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (17:22.632)
they have taken up to the deck.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (17:28.276)
What a throne.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (17:36.519)
And then...

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (17:59.476)
my mother.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (18:03.346)
was violated. would use some other language, but I don't know if I'm allowed to here without it taking away from the story I have to tell you repeatedly.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (18:20.582)
not once, not in secrecy, but a system where they owned you or at least thought they did.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (18:35.93)
and my mother's became a site of conquest.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (18:47.772)
this child that I'm carrying.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (18:52.84)
Her father is a proud African man from the Congo.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (19:02.728)
He did not live to see her.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (19:11.508)
who will live our whole life as an offering.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (19:22.817)
as they conquered my mother's body. They plot to conquer mine.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (19:32.809)
I solitude was a consequence of that violence.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (19:48.126)
today.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (19:51.954)
My people use the word trauma.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (19:58.366)
I was born of it.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (20:03.38)
but I chose not to be defined by it.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (20:15.098)
Listen carefully.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (20:23.262)
Can you hear the sound?

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (20:29.842)
The Crackling Whip.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (20:36.51)
into the flesh of another African.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (20:45.554)
What is the use of crying out loud?

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (20:52.402)
We cry for people to hear. We cry to relieve the pressure of the pain. But if your cries will only bring you more pain.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (21:13.436)
when the ships these coffins

reached Guadalupe. They did not arrive at salvation. It was another kind of death. My God.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (21:39.74)
months.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (21:44.724)
treated worse than any animal that you ever saw in your homeland.

even the ones that we were going to take to slaughter.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (22:00.516)
And finally the bull docks. And you wonder.

Will I be free? Is it my people? Rest, join us.

and then you are offloaded.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (22:46.856)
Did you put sugar in your tea?

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (22:56.284)
Was it in the jam that you spread on your bread?

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (23:12.276)
That is what the island produced.

and sugar demanded blood.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (23:27.474)
and now they have unleashed an appetite for it amongst us. An appetite that is now killing us from a disease caused by too much consumption of the thing that had already claimed us. the cruelty of it all.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (23:50.14)
and how much our ignorance costs us.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (24:03.528)
the enslaved Africans like my mother.

They worked from before sunrise and to after sunset. Cutting cane until their hands split open. Carrying loads until their backs broke. And here my mother with this pale child they used to call me yellow.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (24:50.632)
all over my body.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (24:54.932)
proof of my mother's violation.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (25:07.41)
The punishment was constant. Whippings, a mutilation, an execution. Families torn apart as easily as you would tear a leaf off a stalk.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (25:25.736)
Yet even there the resistance lived.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (25:34.268)
It lived. My child lives.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (25:48.712)
They say my mother died when I was eight years old.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (25:56.784)
Not surprising did I not tell you of the short lifespans of the enslaved Africans.

Adesoji Iginla (26:08.174)
You did.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (26:16.084)
Solitude.

I don't.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (26:24.744)
know if that's what my mother called me. But that is certainly...

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (26:39.262)
for a child with an unknown father and a dead mother.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (26:54.654)
but not all would submit forever to that whip.

Some refuse to remain.

They fled into the mountains, into the forest. They are the ones we now call the Maroons.

communities of the escaped warriors of the unseen.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (27:26.728)
They built hidden villages and in those villages they preserved African traditions. And I found my way to one such Maroon community.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (27:46.942)
We knew that our freedom could not be given. It had to be taken. Piece by piece, breath by breath.

For me, resistance was never just theory. It wasn't just a word we bandied about back and forth. It was what we lived. It was the air we breathe. It was the water we drank.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (28:29.052)
and in 1794.

We were finally free. Or so we thought.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (28:48.69)
We had eight years where we worked.

create.

our own existence as free people.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (29:08.276)
But Napoleon was not done.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (29:17.64)
He and his wife Josephine, they wanted the wealth of their colonies back.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (29:35.772)
and then May 1802.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (29:41.748)
over 3,500 French troops landed on the island.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (30:09.288)
He wanted to revoke our freedom and we were expected to accept it, but we did not.

Adesoji Iginla (30:13.123)
Nope.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (30:27.61)
Luis del Grez who had fought with the French against the British. He brought his skills to bear. So did Joseph Ignace and so many others.

and I joined the revolution. And yes, I was pregnant.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (30:52.83)
But I was not fighting in spite of my child. I was fighting because of my child. What future could I offer a life born into change when I had tasted freedom?

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (31:19.54)
3,500 troops armed with all kinds of artillery.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (31:29.364)
cannons the full weight of empire

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (31:40.19)
But we, we had something.

cannot be manufactured or bought or sold.

We have nothing to lose. Nothing left to lose.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (31:58.556)
Live free or die was our mantra.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (32:07.378)
The Battle of Matuba.

was on May 28th, 1802.

after weeks of savage fighting as they would call it. You always have to listen to their words.

Adesoji Iginla (32:27.182)
Savage fighter.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (32:32.564)
500 of us like I said to you we were surrounded at the De Angle Mont plantation.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (32:47.774)
we paid the ultimate sacrifice.

Live free or die as we ignited our own gunpowder.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (33:02.494)
the French rampaged through the island by their own account, killing over 10,000 Guadalupens.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (33:43.572)
I had pledged to give my life.

this little one here.

she gets to make her choice too. And she has chosen, in spite all the odds.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (34:15.418)
Let me tell you what they wrote about me.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (34:22.632)
the only words that they wrote about the one they call

La Mola Actress.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (34:38.996)
solitude.

They said, La mulatres solitude was who came from Pointa Petre to Bassetere was then in the Palermo camp. She let her hatred and fury burst out on all occasions. Of course they would say that. They who are the demons would try to demonize others.

Adesoji Iginla (35:12.238)
rejection.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (35:17.694)
They went on to write, she had rabbits, one of them having escaped. She armed herself with a pin, ran, pierced him, lifted him up, and presented him to the prison women.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (35:53.201)
you

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (36:01.188)
and they said

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (36:08.52)
Here she sat.

by mixing with her words the most offensive epithets.

This is how I will treat you when it is time.

And this unfortunate woman was about to become a mother.

Adesoji Iginla (36:37.326)
We're trying to manufacture consent.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (36:41.466)
I'm an unfortunate woman. What are you?

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (36:54.64)
with Luis de la Grece and with Joseph Ignace and all the rest of the so-called rebels. It did not matter what mountains we had to climb, what hills, where we had to go.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (37:13.246)
Pregnancy and all, I fought right alongside with them.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (37:26.514)
We African women, we have been fighting for a long time.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (37:35.632)
We must continue to fight. We are the ones who bear the children.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (37:42.79)
We do not have the luxury to sit back and hope that someone else would come to save us.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (37:59.484)
And after they took my baby from my arms.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (38:07.156)
smirks on their faces.

as they unlock the cell in which they held me.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (38:26.898)
I stepped out.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (38:31.026)
and those who knew me could not recognize me.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (38:39.676)
I was 30 years old and my hair had gone gray.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (38:56.584)
I walked with my back straight. Breast milk leaking from my breasts, staining my night shirt that they had me wear.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (39:13.19)
I was not afraid. Soldiers, officials, colonists, and of course all the enslaved Africans who they wanted to fear into watching.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (39:38.686)
from my periphery. I caught the sight.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (39:46.302)
some of my African sisters.

muffled cries, tears running down their faces.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (40:02.142)
I walked tall.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (40:07.653)
even as the blood.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (40:13.31)
from giving birth just a few hours before, began trickling down my legs.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (40:26.58)
But I was not afraid.

Because I understood and I understand and I want you to understand something that they did not. That they still don't.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (40:43.442)
You can kill a body.

that you cannot kill.

an idea of freedom, cannot kill a refusal. You cannot kill the spirit.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (41:01.844)
How many buried under the rubble? How many?

Scattered on the hills where they left them unburied. For the wind and the animals in their own words. How many at the bottom of the sea.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (41:29.31)
How many in Gaza today? How many in Sudan, in Congo?

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (41:39.582)
How many in Iran, in Yemen, in Lebanon, you can kill a body.

but you cannot kill the spirit.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (42:05.576)
They did everything to humiliate, hang me, and even attempt to desecrate my body.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (42:23.27)
As I stated, after the rebellion, over 10,000 of us killed. Slavery was fully reinstated in Guadalupe so that you can have your sugar.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (42:46.984)
Did you hear the story of one of my daughters?

Adesoji Iginla (42:51.33)
Which one?

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (42:53.714)
the one who went on a safari to Africa with the child of a colonizer.

Adesoji Iginla (43:02.56)
the DGNA.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (43:08.614)
and supposedly, after a birthday and an engagement, now committed suicide.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (43:18.674)
You chase after your colonizers. You chase after the very things that enslaved us. Because you forgot them.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (43:37.564)
I understand. I don't mean.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (43:47.166)
to question her.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (43:51.902)
Her death is painful enough for her family.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (44:04.338)
And yet, with this opportunity you've given me to share my story, I want to impress upon all of you the importance of remembering and choosing differently.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (44:29.832)
because to forget...

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (44:34.578)
is to stay in a place of constant exploitation.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (44:43.516)
a different kind of slavery with no chains.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (44:51.198)
Do you know?

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (44:56.648)
that the Haitian Revolution, what year was that? Do you remember?

Adesoji Iginla (45:00.174)
1792 to 1804

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (45:05.342)
Do you know that up until 1802

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (45:12.808)
the people of Saint Domingue now called Haiti Aïti, they were still thinking that they could somehow make peace with France. But when they heard in August of 1802 of Arab revolt and the massacre that happened,

Adesoji Iginla (45:23.928)
What take?

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (45:41.426)
They realized they could not in any way play around with the French. They could not believe anything. They realized that it was Napoleon's intention to re-enslave them all. And that is what strengthened their resolve up until that moment.

There were warring factions amongst the Black and the mulattos, some on one side, some on the other side. And it was the massacre of Guadalupeans.

Adesoji Iginla (46:21.422)
That's it,

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (46:22.6)
that convinced them that if they did not unify.

Adesoji Iginla (46:27.736)
This is what would happen to them. Yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (46:31.24)
So when this story is told, even though we were thrown back into slavery, even though my child was given to the slave master, the murderer, the colonizer who claimed ownership over me.

That was not the end of the story because our revolt helped.

to change the tide for another group of black people, of African people. And their revolution impacted so many revolts that now took place all across the Western Hemisphere, including the United States of America. You must connect the dots. We are never.

Adesoji Iginla (47:23.234)
atmosphere.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (47:30.986)
Never defeated when we fight back.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (47:38.61)
My death was not in vain.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (47:43.742)
But I was forgotten for a while.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (47:51.622)
Of course I needed to be erased. I was dangerous.

Adesoji Iginla (47:54.766)
You're a trouble, you're considered a trouble. Yeah. Don't forget.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (47:58.994)
I was a woman.

Adesoji Iginla (48:03.19)
We're property as well.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (48:05.3)
was black, pregnant, rebellious. What if more black women who cook the meals who take care of their children became as dangerous as I was?

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (48:26.386)
My existence and how I live disrupted every narrative they wanted to maintain, including...

The fact that, as they would say, I was a molatris and I should therefore have used

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (48:49.776)
my skin color to protect whiteness.

in order to live a better life.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (49:04.692)
So they erased me.

For years, my story only existed in fragments, oral history stories told from generation to generation quietly. It was not until the 20th century that I was brought back into the written history, largely through literature, historical reconstruction, the musicals now that have been made about me, musicals?

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (49:45.982)
But what can you expect when the system that killed me controls the record?

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (49:57.598)
but you cannot kill the spirits. And so today...

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (50:04.648)
You have allowed me to come and tell my story. How many of you are hearing my story for the first time? Tell me. And tell me what my story means to you. I want to know.

Adesoji Iginla (50:14.072)
I am.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (50:21.498)
Memory, spirit has a way of resisting if we but listen. Who in your lineage is trying to get you to listen?

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (50:36.958)
to remember.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (50:41.012)
Today in Guadalupe, there's a statue in my honor.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (50:48.052)
France unveiled a national memorial statue of solitude in Paris, one of the first dedicated to a black woman who resisted slavery. of the thousands of statues that litter France, only 40 are dedicated to women. And I believe I might be the only black one.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (51:18.17)
Now schools and streets and cultural programs carry my name, but do you carry the spirit? Do you understand?

Live free or die.

artists and writers and historians there telling my story everywhere. I am now studied in the context of what do they call it resistance movement.

Adesoji Iginla (51:46.004)
resistance, resistance.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (51:51.228)
And yet...

I'm still not known as I should be, am I?

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (52:00.584)
There was even a movement to include me in the French Pantheon, the official halls of power.

Adesoji Iginla (52:18.412)
become an icon of this state.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (52:20.636)
that is not relevant to me.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (52:27.176)
because I stand tall among those who understand resistance. I stand with the unnamed and the unknown. I stand with those whose blood still fertilizes the soil. Pantheons built by empires, they're limited compared to the pantheon that lives with us in what we share. And that is where I am.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (53:07.154)
What became of my child?

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (53:12.862)
She too was lost to the annals of history.

But I believe that she lived long enough to see slavery.

abolished in Guadalupe. I believe that she lived long enough to die a free woman.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (53:36.284)
I believe that my blood flowing in her veins, my mother's blood flowing in her veins, my mother's mother's mother's mother's mother's blood flowing in her veins and that of her Congolese father.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (53:56.454)
would have anchored her.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (54:03.856)
Now there's a stamp. La Moutresse solitude.

Adesoji Iginla (54:09.432)
Solitude.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (54:12.35)
But did this same country not just say slavery was not the greatest crime against humanity?

Adesoji Iginla (54:20.578)
not the abstinent.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (54:23.046)
and what does abstain mean?

Adesoji Iginla (54:25.878)
We're still thinking about it.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (54:29.192)
what is to think about. Pay attention. Today, the UNESCO has included me in their educational materials, not as a myth, not as a rumor, but as history, as a figure used to teach future generations about resistance, about slavery.

Adesoji Iginla (54:42.243)
That's it.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (54:51.462)
about the role that Black women played, have always played, will continue to play in our struggle and in our victory.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (55:14.548)
So I say to all of you.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (55:22.984)
daughters, my sons.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (55:31.838)
First, thank you for listening.

Adesoji Iginla (55:35.042)
No, thank you for coming.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (55:37.822)
Do not underestimate our memory. Do not underestimate African ancestral memory. Did not the lady you spoke with last week tell you that?

Adesoji Iginla (55:50.732)
Yeah, continuation.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (55:54.686)
Do not forget, do not put aside cultural memory, do not put aside spiritual memory, those things that come to you in your dreams, do not set them aside.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (56:10.494)
For in that memory is the seed not just of rebellion, of our freedom, of our victory.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (56:40.532)
shall be well with us. Thank you.

Adesoji Iginla (56:44.344)
Thank you. Yes, it shall be well. And like you said, live free or die. That's the mantra, the takeaway mantra for tonight. And again, we continue to do this here series. Yeah, for those people who are just joining us. We do this reenactment every week. It's women and resistance. It's showcasing.

women of African ancestry who have helped pave the way for where we are today. We continue to do the work and we thank Madame Solitude for coming through and we take correction and not call you La Muthras Solitude but Guadalupe Solitude. Yes, they will try and rewrite the story. What they try to do is co-opt

your story and imbued with their version of what they consider to be sane enough for the audience to listen to because the moment they don't capture the story and the story runs away from them, that's power lost and nothing speaks to a colonizer than the ability to shape narratives, which is what we constantly bulk away against here. And so yes,

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (58:13.044)
Can I say one more thing? Because I think that sometimes when you think of my death in 1802,

Adesoji Iginla (58:13.29)
Most sure you sure you can

Adesoji Iginla (58:26.627)
Mm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (58:29.636)
it can for some people might still seem like well this is in the past ancient history.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (58:41.044)
Freightail.

What is the state?

of black pregnant women where you live, wherever you are in the world today.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (59:00.306)
The struggles look different but are still the same.

Adesoji Iginla (59:08.568)
Body autonomy is still an issue.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (59:09.274)
Are not black women dying at higher levels during childbirth in countries where other women are not dying at those same levels? Why is that?

Adesoji Iginla (59:22.702)
Still the case.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (59:28.446)
Do you know that in our community, the most dangerous time for a woman is when she's pregnant?

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (59:41.948)
I say all of these to say, whether you're talking to me or talking to any of my other sisters in the resistance.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (59:55.858)
We're not here for your entertainment.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:00:02.174)
We're not here to tickle your fancy.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:00:10.622)
We're here to help you remember and to connect the dots.

dots from before my time to my time to now the present and depending on the actions we take will determine the future.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:00:33.192)
So think carefully when you get one of us to come speak with you.

What changes for you as a result of a conversation truly held from the other side?

because I am no longer here physically with you. What changes? And if nothing does, that is a problem.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:01:17.47)
Thank you.

Adesoji Iginla (01:01:19.086)
Thank you. Thank you. So we've come to the end of this week's episode of Women in Resistance. Next week it will be the turn of Sarah Redmond Parker, who she is, what she's about. We'll find out in the course of next week's for tonight, thank you, Madam Solitude, for coming through.

to audience. Thank you for your participation, all the chats, and what have you. And if this is your first time here, do hit the subscribe button. And I understand now when you watch the videos, you can also do a bit of hyping. yeah, so thank you all for coming through. Until next week, it's good night and God bless.