Paris is to put up a statue of a black woman involved in a 1802 rebellion against slavery on the French Caribbean island of Guadeloupe.
The woman, named only Solitude, was captured and possibly executed. Opening a public garden in her honour on Saturday, Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo called Solitude a “heroine” and a “strong symbol”.
France’s history of slavery has been under new scrutiny, in part because of the US Black Lives Matter protests. There has been soul-searching over public commemoration of colonial figures such as 17th-Century statesman Jean-Baptiste Colbert, who codified overseas slavery and is remembered by a statue outside the national parliament in Paris. But President Emmanuel Macron has spoken against removing statues or names of controversial figures, offering instead a “clear-headed look at our history and our memory”.
Who was Solitude?
Very little is known for sure, with just one brief written mention in a 19th-Century history of Guadeloupe, according to Unesco. That account records that Solitude, a mixed-race woman, was arrested among “a band of insurgents” during an uprising against slavery – which had been reinstated by Napoleon after being abolished during the French Revolution.
She was sentenced to death, the history notes, but allowed to give birth before being “tortured” – an ambiguous term which could mean she was indeed put to death, through flogging for example. Solitude was portrayed in a 1972 work of fiction by French writer André Schwarz-Bart and a statue already honours her in Les Abymes, Guadeloupe. The Solitude Garden is located on Place du Général Catroux in north-western Paris, where a statue will be erected in time.
While a statue of a black woman would be rare in the French capital, it would not be unprecedented. The US entertainer and French Resistance agent Josephine Baker (1906-75) has been honoured by both a square and a monument.
bbc.com
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