BLACK HISTORY MONTH: BLACK HEROINES, PART 2: AQUALTUNE: AN ENSLAVED CONGO PRINCESS

Aqualtune was born a princess in Congo, and if her name is still invoked many an evening in the favelas, it is because she was crowned princess of another kingdom in the mountains of Sagrados. . . .

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From one end of the Americas to the other, the Old Chroniclers recorded that slaves of princely origin were treated as such by their fellow captives. Captain Gabriel Stedman noted:

Many dignitaries prefer death to degradation; and on repeated occasion, I have seen slaves fall to their knees and beg their master to permit them to carry out the task of a captive prince to whom they continued to show the same respect as if he were in his native country.

One can count on ones fingers the great African dignitaries who were brought to America and who left future generations the memory of a name, the uncertain trace of a face, buried in the night. Aqualtune was born a princess in Congo, and if her name is still invoked many an evening in the favelas, it is because she was crowned princess of another kingdom in the mountains of Sagrados, in Palmares, Pernambuco. . . .

In 1665, Princess Aqualtune participated in the famous battle of Mbwila, after which the head of the king of the ManiKongo was forever displayed in the Church of Saint Paul in Luanda. She is said to have been in command of an army of 10,000 warriors.

She was defeated in one of many battles of attacks against her people, by the invading tribe the Wachagas. Aqualtune was captured, hands and feet shackled, and as a condition of her defeat, she was sold as a slave. With an iron collar around her neck, she was marched with many of her warriors towards the slave fort there to be put aboard one of the many slave ships that savaged the African coasts stealing away African men, women and children into a life of eternal servitude.

Aqualtune reached the fortress of Elmina Castle along with thousands of others. Elmina Castle was erected by the Portuguese in 1482 as So Jorge da Mina (St. George of the Mine) Castle, also known simply as Mina or Feitoria da Mina) in present-day Elmina, Ghana (formerly the Gold Coast).

View of Elmina Castle, 1668.

There, with one simple movement of his hand, a bishop on an ivory throne baptized an endless stream of slaves descending into the holds of slave ships. Before she boarded the ship, as proof of her baptism, a little flower was branded with a redhot iron above her right breast.

Aqualtune was thirty years old when she left Africa. She was a tall and statuesque woman with straight shoulders, her hair braided plainly, and her forehead and the corners of her eyes bore marks worthy of her peoples veneration.

After Aqualtune was forced aboard the slave ship, while on its living-death voyage to the New World, nothing pulled her out of the numbness she had settled into: not the screams, the darkness, the hunger, the sickness, nor the terror that flooded the ship, the mutual fear of blacks and whites condemned to living in the same wooden cage. Nor was she even affected by the insurrection that was brutally crushed on the eighth day of the crossing.

Once she arrived in Brazil, at Recife, Aqualtune jumped off the pier and rushed into the ocean, with the idea of returning to her native Congo at the other end of the horizon.

She was caught, oiled from head to toe, rubbed with lemon to make her presentable, and was then displayed in Recifes covered slave market, where the other slaves from the Congo showered her with respect and admiration.

One of these slaves followed her to her new fate at a plantation in Puerto Calvo that specialized in breeding cattle and men. When the master, the fazendeiro, discovered that she was still venerated, he mocked the princess by tossing her into the hands of his most vile males.

She came out of her lethargy in her sixth month of pregnancy. As an old story recounted, One day, she heard a throbbing in her womb and all her blood stirred.

Aqualtune was then give the task of mooring cattle, and so she dragged her heavy belly across the fields and pastures of the large plantation, the fazenda. Night and day her mouth gaped, and her eyes expressed the astonishment of finding herself under the sky of a world that looked so different from her native Congo.

The Congo River

Puerto Calvo is not far from the Kingdom of Palmares, of which she heard others talk at night in the stench of the slave quarters. Burdened with her belly, Princess Aqualtune began to dream about that strange kingdom of slaves. She imagined it to be full of the feasts and the gold of her native Congo kingdom, and the more that she heard of Palmares, the more she became determined to find her way there and leave behind the stultifying cruelty of enslavement.

From the earliest time in which Africans were brought forcibly to the new world they resisted bondage by flight, or marronage. It seems that from the earliest arrival of Africans in the captaincies of Alagoas and Pernambuco in Portuguese America slaves had fled to the interior. By 1606 a trickle of runaway slaves had made their way to a mountainous, palm-covered region of Pernambuco and there established a mocambo,

or maroon settlement, of some reputation. [1]

The area came to be known as Palmares due to the preponderance of wild palms there.

The Palmares region, straddling the Serra da Barriga, received a greater number of fugitive slaves in the 1630s thanks in part to the Dutch invasion of Northeastern Brazil. During the Dutch dominion and after the Portuguese reconquest of Pernambuco, completed in 1654, there were occasional incursions into Palmares, without great success. Of special interest are the expeditions of Bartholomeus Lintz (1640), Roelox Baro (1643), and Johan Blaer and Jrgens Reijmbach (1645).

At the time of the Lintz expedition, there were two large mocambos and any number of smaller ones. By the time of the Blaer-Reijmbach expedition there was at least one large mocambo; another large mocambo had been abandoned three years earlier. The diary of the expedition describes the large Palmares: It was surrounded by a double palisade with a spike-lined trough inside. This settlement was half a mile long, its street six feet wide. There was a swamp on the north side and large felled trees on the south. We might guess that the clearing was for cultivation or for defensive reasons.

Jogar Capora Danse de la guerre, Paint from Johann Moritz Rugendas, 1835

There were 220 buildings in the middle of which stood a church, four smithies, and a council house. The population was around 1,500. The ruler of that place, according to the diary, was severely just, punishing sorcerers, as well as those who would flee the mocambo. The king had a house and farms outside the settlement. The narrative also includes description of cultivation and foodstuffs, uses made of the palm, and crafts such as work in straw, gourds, and ceramic. The overwhelming majority of slaves in the Portuguese colonies were male. This majority was also seen in the quilombos. For this reason Palmaristas were often sent on raiding missions in order to procure female citizens. The smaller female population (Black, White, Amerindian), and perhaps Amerindian cultural mores, gave rise to a system of polyandry. These polygamous wives ran their household and designated tasks for their husbands. The central importance of females in the quilombos stands in stark contrast to the patriarchal

society experienced in the coastal colonies by their Portuguese counterparts. It is also important to note that the desire amongst the citizens of the quilombos for women was such that race had no bearing in their selection all women were candidates. This inspired a great deal of miscegenation, and contributed to the very diverse community and culture that the Palmares fostered.[2]

As was so often the case in the long history of wars against Palmares, the soldiers found the settlement virtually abandoned when they arrived; the Palmarinos would receive advance word of expeditions from their spies in the colonial towns and sugar plantations or engenhos.

Aqualtune wanted to escape and join with the people of Palmares. She plotted with some of the enslaves to destroy the Casa Grande and its hosts, that night.

Then, following an ever growing group, tearing down and burning everything in her path, she finally reached the Kingdom of Palmares: she was once more Princess Aqualtune.

Accompanied by two hundred enslaves, Aqualtune became the leader of the quilomboa community of runaway enslavesof Subupuira, northeast of Macoco, the royal city and capital of the kingdom of Palmares.[3]

Princess Aqualtune gave birth to two sons:

-Ganga Zumba

-Gana Zona

both of whom would be just as powerful and courageous in their leadership of Palmares.

Her grandson, Zumbi, from her daughter Sabina, would be the last great leader of Palmares. Betrayed by a fellow enslave, he would be beheaded by the Portuguese.

For the historical space of the blink of an eye, Aqualtune again enjoyed the life of an African princess, until her mysterious death around 1675. Here, once again, we have to lend an ear to History with a capital H, which stands by the doors of all women, and men, whose stature has grown with legends.

According to some stories, Aqualtune fell during an assault by the troops of Manuel Lopez Galvao, who brought two thousand pairs of ears back to Bahia. According to other stories, she died a natural death,

perhaps from an illness, or simply of old agea thing very rare at that time for millions of enslaved blacks.

Finally, as is said of other rebelsin Surinam, Jamaica, or Santo Domingothe gods of Africa decided to make her immortal. The gods made her an Orisha, that is, an ancestral spirit that appeared to warriors as a royal eagle, and she led them in battle until the fall of the Kingdom of Palmares, which had stood for 100 years, in its final and irrevocable defeat in 1694.

REFERENCES:

1.The Slave King: The Epic of Palmares, by Robert Nelson Anderson, III, Brazzil Connection, October, 1995. (http://www.brazzil.com/cvroct95.htm ) 2. Irene Diggs: Zumbi and the Republic of Os Palmares. Phylon. 1953. Atlantic Clark University. Vol.2 p.62

3. In Praise of Black Women: Heroines of the Slavery Era, by Simone Schwartz-Bart, 2002.

In Praise of Black Women, Volume 2: Heroines of the Slavery Era by Simone Schwarz-Bart, Andre Schwarz-Bart, Rose-Myriam Rejouis, Stephanie Daval, and Val Vinokurov (Hardcover Dec 2002)

BLACK HISTORY MONTH: BLACK HEROINES, PART 3: ANASTASIA: PATRON SAINT OF BRAZILS BLACKS
One look from this woman could overwhelm a slave. The masters imagined that her thoughts sent out ill currents that pushed the blacks to rebel, pure and simple. . . .

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A little over a fifteen years ago, a small poster appeared on the walls of Rios favelas and later spread like wild fire through most of Brazils great cities. Poorly printed in two colors, this little poster was not graced by a screen star, but, instead, by the face of a slave, a gagged young woman, her neck held by the infamous iron collar. These are the only words on the poster:

ANASTASIA, BLACK SLAVE and MARTYR

A mystery hovers over the origins of the saint. It is known that she had been deported from the island of Sao Tome, which was often the point of departure for slaves coming from Angola. But from what nation, what tribe, was she? What was her native tongue? What was the landscape of her childhood?

She was fifteen years old when she was deported to Brazil. Her forehead concealed memories of abduction and mourning. Memories of marching in a single file in the blazing sun, of lamentation, of the fetid human warehouses, of crossing the Atlantic, of loss.

On the docks of Bahia, the newcomer wanted to survive at any price, even at the risk of losing herself, just like those around her: her balaoms, her travel mates, her boat brothers and sisters.

Anastasias youth and grace helped her remain in town, in the house of Lord Abaete.

She was able to please her masters, worshiping the very ground they walked on. But, while she navigated as easily amidst the kitchen copper as the drawing room gold, fear never left her side. Her whole world could collapse at any time: this she knew. And she showed herself obsequious enough to share Master Abaetes bed when he took a fancy to her limber body, to her permanent and forced good humor, to her eyes that submission covered with invisible eyelids though she seemed to gaze at him with undying compliance.

Masters are not always easy to please, but Lord Abaete was among the most unpredictable: he was like the novisangue flower, which lashes out with claws where one expects petals and with petals where one expects claws.

He was one of the most flexible masters in Bahia. But, suddenly, he would go into a rage, wanting enslaves whipped for no good reason; he would sow atrocities in his wake and end the day crying on the shoulder of the enslave he had punished.

When Anastasia became pregnant, Lord Abaete sent her to a farm he owned not far from Bahia, in a place called Corte. One moment, he marveled before the child and shed tears before the young African woman, accusing himself of being the worst man on Earth, a traitor to Jesus and His cohort of angels. The next, having remembered this world, he accused himself of being an imbecile and gave random orders throughout the fazenda, jotted down ideas for punishments in his notebook and then attended them crazy, angry, and fire-eyed. Then he disappeared for several months, leaving Anastasia to the usual course of her servitude.

Anastasia was about to turn seventeen and had never felt like a mother. Soon, the child was sent to the infirmary, then humbly buried in a little sack. Because Lord Abaete abandoned her, the bookkeeper, the overseers, and the foremen at the sugar mill became more bold.

Anastasia tried to live her youth in the arms of a pombe, a young enslave who had come on the same boat as had she and whom the vagaries of the slave trade had brought to the Corte farm. Then she tried to forget the pombe. Two more children were born of her, the offspring of everyone and no one, who would also end up in little sacks.

Now she had strange dreams: clear water flowed in her veins, carrying a whole population of larvae, of insects with strident cries. Sometimes she awoke, her mouth filled with an astonishing feeling: has she not done her best, between a rock and hard place, like all women? And, if this were so, if everything turned out the only way it could, then why was this ball of shame in her throat, why?

After bearing one child after another, Anastasia lost her vitality and slowly slipped and fell to the rank of field slave. All the way at the bottom of the slave ladder, field enslaves kept the African traditions. Attending nightly batouques and other clandestine ceremonies, Anastasia began to remember; at last she was initiated into the cult of the Yoruba, who were a majority in this part of Brazil.

The Yalorixa, the high priestess, was an old, emaciated enslave whose body was ashen with scars and whose feet had been eaten up by fleas. But, when she led a ceremony, she suddenly became the grandmother of Africas saints. One evening, a wave hoisted Anastasia, who felt as if carried away from the world. Her eyes drowned and her legs floated, her arms slowly rowing the air. There was no doubt, the young woman was possessed by the goddess Yemenja, queen of the deep waters and mother to all the other gods, the very same one the whites called the Virgin Mary.

The next day, Yemenjas spirit dictated a message that the young woman scrupulously transmitted with the sweetness and inflection of the holy voice: All those who have good legs should run away in order to set up a land of welcome for the gods of Africa. And the others, those who cannot shake the weight of their chains, those who are too young or too old, or too broken, they should from now on be able to look at the

masters in the eyes, right in the eyes, just as any creature of the land, sea, or sky who gazes at other creatures, just like him. . . .

Very quickly, these words were brought back to the foremen, who repeated them to the overseers, who relayed them to the bookkeeper, who straight away took the necessary measures. Anastasia was beaten with a disc with pointed tips that left gaping holes under her skin, then the young womans wounds were cleaned and she was sent back to the fields.

In the following days, a group of enslaves wanted to take her into the woods of Santa Catarina, near Petropolis, where there was a quilombo from Mozambique. But, alas, Anastasia was unable to accept. She had to remain with the stragglers, those too old or too young, those too broken, in order to bring them Yemenjas word. After the departure of her disciples, an iron mask was fitted to her face to keep her from speaking; every evening, two overseers came to remove it for a few minutes so she could feed herself. However, Yemenja kept speaking through the young womans eyes, and these words were even deeper and more moving than those the young womans mouth spoke before.

ANASTASIA

Eventually, imprisoned by a spiked iron collar, Anastasia was sold to a merchant from Rio, who buys pecas, ebony pieces, by the ton. With a tight metal snout over her mouth and a collar resting on her shoulders, she reached the pier and entered the belly of a boat for the second time, to finally end up at the warehouse in Rio. Standing not far form the main dock, the warehouse was an austere building, newly whitewashed, windowless, except for a few holes punched out for ventilation; it resembled a kind od stationary cattle car. Each day she was put out for sale and inevitably brought back to the warehouse because of the troubling rumors surrounding her. No buyer ever came forward for her.

Only one look from her, it was said, was enough to overwhelm an enslave. Then, after she was put in a dungeon, into the absolute night of stone walls, it was said that her thoughts sent out ill currents that pushed blacks to rebel, pure and simple, So, she was trown in a deeper dungeon-to no avail.

One day, deep in a hole, Anastasia was found dead. The iron collar had eaten away part of her throat and her shoulders, which explained the pronounced smell that had emanated from her in her last days. Her body was already stiff and the mortician was unable to close her eyelids: she was buried, eyes wide open.

Every day, at the Noir de Rio Museum, in the Igreja do Rosario annex, hundreds of people pray before a great painting that depicts Anastasia in her mask and collar. Heaps of flowers are brought to her painted feet. People also invoke her in the provinces, especially in Benfica, Sao Paulo, Bahia, and Belem de Para. A small pamphlet circulates, which includes the text of all the prayers one can address to the Saint and all the supplications, depending on the nature of ones affliction.

But the women from Brazil address her for reasons altogether different; their most common and powerful prayer might be the following:

Anastasia, holy Anastasia, You who were borne by Yemenja, our mother, Give us the strength to struggle each day So we may never become slaves, So that, like you, we may be rebellious creatures May it be so. Amen

So ends the story of Anastasia, the one who refused to be keep quiet.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Escrava Anastacia is a popular saint venerated in Brazil. A enslave woman of African descent, Anastacia is depicted as possessing incredible beauty, having piercing blue eyes and wearing an oppressive facemask. Not officially recognized by the Catholic Church, Anastacia is still an important figure in popular Catholic devotion throughout Brazil. She is also venerated by members of the Umbanda and Spiritist traditions.

She has also been portrayed in Brazil in books, radio programs and a highly successful television miniseries bearing her name.

History of the Saint

Without an official history, stories of Anastasias life vary. Some place her birth in Africa-often to a royal family-while others emphasize her Brazilian origins. In all versions she is enslaved and cruelly treated by her owners. Anastasia stoically bears these traumas and treats all people with love. She is often purported to have possessed tremendous healing powers and to have performed other miracles. Eventually, she is punished by her owners by being forced to wear a muzzle-like facemask that prevented her from speaking and a heavy iron collar. The reasons given for this punishment vary: some report her aiding in the escape of other slaves, others claim she resisted the amorous advances of her Master and yet another version places the blame on a Mistress jealous of her beauty. After a prolonged period of suffering, all the while performing more miracles of healing and peace, Anastasia dies of tetanus from the collar. It is often claimed that she healed the son of her Master and Mistress and forgave their cruelty as she died.

History of Veneration
While there are reports of black Brazilians venerating an image of a slave woman wearing a facemask throughout the late 19th and early 20th century, the first wide-scale veneration of the Saint began in 1968 when the curators of the Museum of the Negro, located in the annex of the Church of the Rosary of the Brotherhood of St. Benedict in Rio, erected an exhibition to honor the 80th anniversary of the abolition of slavery in Brazil. Among the displays was an engraving of a female slave wearing a punishment facemask. The image soon became the object of popular devotion and members of the Brotherhood began collectin Anastasia stories in the early 1970s.

In the 1980s, the cult of Anastasia expanded from her original, poor, black base to include many progressive, middle-class whites. In 1984, an effort funded by the oil company Petrobrasto officially canonize Anastasia brought her considerable attention. Seen as a symbol of racial harmony, her popularity expanded rapidly, especially among nurses, black women and prisoners. There were radio dramatizations of her life and on television a popular miniseries and investigative reports were produced. She was also integrated into the Umbanda faith as one of the pretos velhos, old black slaves.

In 1987, the Catholic Church declared that Anastacia never existed and her image was removed from Church-owned properties. However, by this time, several independent shrines had been erected in Rio which exist to this day. Veneration today Like other Saints, devotion to Anastacia is a deeply personal experience amongst those who venerate her. The primary arena of this devotion is the use of small imageslike prayer cards, medallions, statuettes, candles, etcthrough which the devotee prays for Anastacia to interceed on her behalf. Many also say prayers to Anastacia in times of difficulty or crisis. Often, devotees respond to intercessions by pilgrimmage to one of several popular shrines. Here small offerings like flowers, jewlery, prayer cards and medallions are given to the image of the Saint. Anstasia is the patron saint of weavers, and her feastday is celebrated every December 25TH.

Miniseries
In 1990, a miniseries entitled Escrava Anastacia was produced for Brazilian television. Directed by Henrique Martins, written by Paulo Csar Coutinho and starring ngela Correa, it portrayed Anastacia as a Nigerian princess captured by slavers. The image of Anastacia healing the son of her oppressors is an innovation developed for this program.

Sources

Blessed Anastacia 1998 by John Burdick Blessed Anastacia: Women, Race, and Popular Christianity in Brazil Burdick, John, Paperback, Book, ISBN 0415912601

  

Escrava Anastacia (ministries, 1990) at the Internet Movie Database (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0229124/) Escrava Anastacia: (in Portuguese): http://www.juliodiagonjusi.kit.net/escrava_anastacia.html; http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escrava_Anast%C3%A1cia

Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escrava_Anastacia

PATRON SAINTS: http://www.ichrusa.com/saintsalive/patron_saints.html

REFERENCES:

In Praise of Black Women: Heroines of the Slavery Era,by Simon Schwartz-Bart.

BLACK HISTORY MONTH: BLACK HEROINES, PART 4: DANDARAH: ONE WHO WAS NAMED AFTER A GODDESS
She took command, posting rearguard detachments to stop the enemy invasion; and then she finally attained her African name, which she bore like a crown from then on. . . .

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Slavery is the world of silence. Very little is known about the millions of lives that disappeared under the skies of the Americas. But the merchants of human meat left behind their chilling ledgers. The innumerable auction notices where the sale of blacks was advertised alongside that of furniture and domestic animalsthese can be found in old, yellowed local newspapers or posters. Records of rewards for

the capture of runaway slaves features, names, and brand marks; but these details were given as if they applied to faceless animals that mere happenstance had lent something of a vaguely human appearance.

Rare were the figures who stood out in this sea of anonymity, especially in Latin America and in the West Indies, where the abolitionist movement scarcely bothered to heed the voice of the enslaved.

Women, almost completely ignored by the curious-minded, the researchers, and the historians, were even less likely to stand out in peoples eyes, much less register and remain in their mind.

Only exceptional circumstances allowed such heroines such as Nanny, Aqualtune, Paanza, and a few others-among millions-to traverse the endless, silent, and vast expanses of historical oblivion.

Today, in the 21ST Century, their names, yea, their faces, strike us as those of astronauts who would have crossed galactic distances to bring back visions beyond words, visions next to which human speech is as poor as the language of insects. Of the faces that have reached us, one of them is that of the woman Dandarah, born a slave on a plantation in Puerto Calvo and who died a queen in the Maroon Kingdom of Palmares, on the foothills of Mount Barriaga, two hundred kilometers from the town of San Salvador, Salvador da Bahia, the first colonial capital of Brazil, one of the oldest cities in the country and in the New World : Bahia, infused with all the saints of the calendar, all 365 of them.

Dandarahs name comes from the mists of time. It belonged to a Yoruba goddess whose breasts were always full of milk. Dandarahs mother was a captive by the name of Nozunga, who had so much milk that it flowed day and night, whether she was lying in the shade of the quarters or standing in the sun of the sugar cane fields, busily cutting and piling endless stems of sugarcane while waiting for the moons first rays.

It was for the sake of all this milk that fell to the ground that she named her girl Dandarah.

As with so many millions of enslaved people, little Dandarah was born the child of an enslaved woman who was raped by her slave master.

The plantation of Zendoio Baracha was known for its inhumane slave breeding. An enslaved woman who gave birth to many children forced on her, was considered a good load-bearer, full of promise, and never went two years without giving birthall the things that a slave breeding master looked for in a defenseless enslaved woman or girl. And just as so many women were given to enslaved men for impregnation, just so did many masters themselves take part in the infamous natural increase of creating more slave children to fill their plantations and financial coffers, to increase their human livestock.

That was how little Dandarah came to be a mule child, or more properly, a mulatto.

Little Dandarah was taken from her mother, in the slave shacks, and sent to labor in the masters house. She lived her life serving the master and mistress of the Big House. She would see the sufferings encountered by the enslaved blacks; the acts of utter brutality committed against them by their white masters.

She would observe from the house the many slaves who fought against enslavement in so many ways: running away; breaking tools to slow or stop labor in the fields; shamming; and outright defense of themselves against the brutal aggressions of those who kept them in bondage.

She also saw that many of the enslaved, no matter what rancid promises the masters made to them, wanted nothing to do with the world of slavery, and some would lash out at their masters, knowing that only Death itself could release them from the living death of slavery; and some, when the time came, ran away to the Sagrados Mountains, where they with many, many other runaway Maroons, formed a kingdom in the African manner-Palmares, led by their ruler Ganga Zumba, the Great Lord.

One night, Dandarah, awakened to the sounds of the enslaves attacking their master and mistress household, the Nova Lusitania Plantation. They killed him, his wife, and many whites, and burned the plantation. They took Dandarah with them to Palmares, where she was brought before Ganga Zumba, who took a liking to this young woman who would eventually become his wife, and the daughter-n-law of the great Aqualtune.

There Dandarah would live among people who refused to be enslaved and would die before returning back to such a dreaded life. Men, women, and children, whose only desire was to live a life of freedom from the tyranny of slavery.

Palmares. Place of refuge. Place of capoeira.

Place of freedom.

Two months later, a group of Bandeirantes attacked the royal city of Palmares to avenge the burning of Nova Lusitania.They were led by Manuel Lopes Galvao, a specialist in the eradication of quilombos, and he was followed by lancers. These black militiamen were trained to fight the Maroons andd were even more merciless towards the rebels than were their enemies, the whites.

The lancers, accustomed to the rain forests, were used as guides, and the group surprised the Maroons. They immediately set to fire the dwellings and the thorn-covered hills were pierced by artillery fire.

Ganga Zumba and his rebels fought; they did not retreat an inch. They fought valiantly against their attackers.

Ganga Zumba was later killed (he was betrayed by some of the loyal followers of Zumbi [his grandson]by rebels who gave him poisoned wine stolen from a villa in Puerto Calvo, saying that it was a special gift for the king.

Dandarah was no coward during the battle against Galvaos forces.

During the most fiercest part of the battle, she took command, organized an orderly retreat, posted rearguard detachments to stop the enemy advance: she became Dandarah, the true Dandarah, finally risen to her African name, which she then wore like a crown.

Dandarah died on the battlefield protecting her right to remain free.

REFERENCES:

In Praise of Black Women: Heroines of the Slavery Era,, by Simone Schwarz-Bart.

Art as a Representation of Resistence: http://scholar.library.miami.edu/slaves/representations/Individual_art_essays/carolines. htm

BLACK HISTORY MONTH: BLACK HEROINES, PART 5: PAANZA: MOTHER OF TWO GREAT SARAMAKA NATIONS
The Saramaka, people from the woods of Suriname, are the present day descendants and living witnesses of an extraordinary epic. Paanzas love story gave birth to two great Saramaka nations. . . .

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The Saramaka, people from the woods of Suriname, are the present-day descendants and living witnesses of an extraordinary epic. Their story began more than three centuries ago with the first runaway enslave who followed the Suriname River to lose herself in the midst of the virgin forest, where to her great surprise, she was aided by the Maroon rebels native Indians who lived there.

Although all the official observers thought the Saramaka were without a history, without any collective memory whatsoever, in fact, the Saramaka possessed a solid oral tradition that went back to their very beginning: to the very first enslave who, around the start of the seventeenth century, followed the Suriname River inland. In his magnificent book, First Time: The Historical Vision of an Afro-American People, Richard Price recalls this narrative.

MAP OF SURINAME The Dutch planters relied heavily on African slaves to cultivate the coffee, cocoa, sugar cane and cotton plantations along the rivers. Treatment of the slaves by their owners was notoriously bad, and many slaves escaped the plantations. With the help of the native South Americans living in the adjoining rain forests, these runaway slaves established a new and unique culture that was highly successful in its own right. Known collectively in English as the Maroons, and in Dutch as Bosnegers, (literally meaning Bush negroes), they actually established several independent tribes, among them the Saramaka, the Paramaka, the Ndyuka or Aukan, the Kwinti, the Aluku or Boni and the Matawai.

It seems, from reading Prices work, that each person interviewed was a living archive, each with a scrupulously faithful memory in keeping with the great African oral tradition. That is why some have dared to say, quite correctly, that: In Africa, each time an old woman dies, it is as though a library has gone up in flames. According to oral tradition, as collected by Richard Price in the 1970s, the founder of the Saramaka was an African named Lanu, the husband of a slave from Dahomey. This woman worked in the manor of the Waterland Plantation and was called Osima of Dahomey (now called the Republic of Benin.)

MAP OF THE REPUBLIC OF BENIN One day, as she gave her man a glass of water, her masters noticed and said: The woman has given Lanu sugarcane juice! They beat her until she died.

Flagellation of a Female Samboe Slave

Then they brought her body to Lanu and said: Look at your wife here. They whipped him until he passed out and was left for dead in a field.

Negro hung alive by the Ribs to a Gallows

But, Lanu recovered, ran away into the forest, looking for the spirit of his beloved Osina. He could not find her, but, legend has it that he came upon a forest spirit who took pity on him and led him to a place settled by Indians, who took him in, and looked after his wounds, and he stayed with them. Lanus younger brother, Ayako, and his sister, Seei, had remained at the manor. One day as Seei was doing the laundry, with her baby strapped to her back, the child started crying. Seei was about to breastfeed him, when the white slave master forbid her to do it. Seei kept working, her baby continued to cry, so the master ordered her to bring the child to him. She did as he instructed, and she went back to work. Meanwhile the master took her baby, and by the feet, dumped his little body, headfirst, into a bucket of water, leaving him submerged for a long while. Then he called for Seei and dryly said: Come take your child and tie it on your back. Seei did as she was ordered. She washed clothes until evening, when the ringing of the bell released the enslaves from labor. By then, the child was dead, stiff as a board. When her brother, Ayako, saw this he railed and lamented that his family was finished. He cried that Seei had only one child left, and if that child cried, it too would meet the same horrendous fate, thereby leaving Seei with no surviving children. Thus, Ayako, fearing such a fate for the remainder of his family still living with him, that he took Seei and her baby and ran away.

There in the forest, they met with Lanu, and were reunited again. The name of the place where they settled was Matjau Creek, at the junction of Sara Creek, in the area around the first third of the Surinam River. That is how it still is today.

Waterfall at the Corantyn River (Wonotobo): Photo credit Dirk Blij After having rested, Ayako returned to the Waterland Plantation to free people. His brother Lanu prepared for him this mission because he was himself a great obiama, or instrument of the spirits. After Ayakos arrival, the enslaves held a secret meeting in the forest. They decided to burn a plantation that might have the most iron tools-the Cassewinica Plantation, the one with the most enslaves. They attacked it at night, killed the master, and, after having seized everything that could be of use, they ransacked the crops, burnt all of the houses, and ran off. Before going into war, they gathered for a war counsel, these great men of yersteryear. Then they crept up and patiently waited until they saw the white master. They did not merely want to set Waterland on fire: they wanted to kill the master. . . . Seeis surviving child was about ten years old at the time of the incredible escape, of which we have no details. His name was Adjagbo and he was the son of Ayakos daughter, who was also Lanus sister. Lanu, Ayako, and Seei left behind them nothing but shame and mourning. But Adjagbo left behind him a little girl by the name of Paanza, with whom he got along very well. This shaped the fate of the Kasitu clan, whose descendants now live in the village of Pikilio, while those who belong to the main branch, the Matjuas, live beyond the river. Both peoples are the children of Adjagbo, the children he was not able to forget. Paanzas birth had been a misfortune and her whole story stemmed from that: in other words, a white man had gotten Paanzas mother pregnant. Paanzas mother was from Africa and had black skin. But Paanzas skin was truly light, without being white, and when the enslaves saw the little mixed girl born from her mothers black thighs, they were very unhappy. They did not want to accept Paanzas mother as one of them and soon began to mistreat her and her child. The whites, too, mistreated Paanza and her mother. Paanzas white father could not stand the sight of the little girl, although she struck him as charming, so he decided to sell her to another white man. Paanza had a dark-skinned older brother whose name was Tjapanda, and a dark-skinned older sister, whose name was Lukenesi. The white man sold them all together: Paanza, her mother, as well as her older brother and sister. They were brought to Kasitu, a plantation adjacent to the Waterland Plantation, where Lanu, his brother Ayako, and his sister, Seei then lived. Paanza was like a bakaa, a white woman, and the white man purchased her to put in his bed when she turned ten. He made Paanzas sister Lukenesi her handmaid.

A Surinam Planter in his Morning Dress. He made her brother Tjapanda her watchman. The Waterland Plantation and Kasitu Plantations were neighbors, and so it sometimes happened that the two children, Paanza and Adjagbo, worked side by side. Adjagbo liked to talk to Paanza, who liked her brothers voice. When it became known that the white man was taking the girl to bed, the black men turned their backs and said: Shes no longer one of us.

Female Quadroon, Slave of Surinam

Adjagbo felt great pity. Although his uncle Ayako spat when he saw the child, Adjagbo still felt sorry for the girl. The way Ayako saw it, each time his eyes fell on Paanza, she reminded him of the white mans cruel sexual atrocities. But Adjagbo found this shunning of Paanza for something she had no control over, as unfair and he remained a friend to her. On the day of escape, when Ayako dragged him and his mother, Seei, toward the forest, Adjagbo did not want to leave Paanza behind. Many enslaves followed their example and setled in fortified villages between the Surinam and Saramaka Rivers, among the inextricable web of currents, creeks, and swamps that link these two large bodies of water. From the coastal town of Paramaribo, the whites sent armed barges up the Suriname River, ushering in endless warfare followed by fires and massacres.

Execution of Breaking on the Rock

dent and fearful of her fate, his morose behaviour tormented his fellow escaped rebels, and the Sraramaka resolved that if Adjagbo was reunited with Paanza, that it would lift more than his spirits. Not wanting their leader to continue to be sad for his Paanza, they called a meeting and met with him, and discussed how to resolve his despair. He suggested that they go and get Paanza and bring her to him. They asked if they brought Paanza there to Adjagbo, would he cease causing chaos among the many rebels whose wives he had slept with, and he agreed that it would cease once he beheld his beloved Paanza. So, the Saramaka set out to take Paanza from her degraded servitude. Ayako prepared an obia, a pot in which he boiled ingredients with which he meant to put the man guarding Paanza to sleep. In those days, one would could not travel by canoe because the river routes were spiked with gunmen on the banks. Ayako walked all the way to the Kasitu Plantation, where he saw a group of slaves bowed over a rice paddy, cutting rice. Tjapanda, Paanzas brother, was watching over the young woman as she cut the rice, bowed like the rest of the enslaves. Tjapanda lay down with his gun and machete, because he did not know that Ayako had already fed him his boiled dish, putting him to sleep. Ayako took his weapons and hid them. Then he came back to Paanza and said to her: One word, one word and Ill kill you. Look, Ive already put your brothers spirit to sleep and my obia will also work its magic on you. I am the brother of Adjagbos mother and I have come to fetch you: get ready and let us leave from here. Paanza put her hands over her eyes and then against her ears. Finally, she let out her hair and hid seeds of rice in it, which she then tied with her angisa, the same scarf enslaves used to tie around their waists. That handful of rice was all she needed. Ayako brought her to the edge of the forest and said: You must stay here.Know that I have not really killed your brother. If you try and escape, nothing will save you from my obia: as for me, Im going to wake up the fellow so that he may come along with his sister. Since the last time we have seen each other, Ive learned that we must leave no one behind.

With these words, Ayako went toward the sleeping man and hit him with the edge of his hand. Tjapanda started and made a move to defend himself, but Ayako said spitefully: Dont even try beceause Ive already got you-where are your gun and machete? Look at me, and get on your feet. How can you still be here after all this time? You were sold a long time ago and youre still here? Black man, my son, come with me into the forest. There we have anything your heart may desire. We have fought and run away; and now were back here for you and for your sister, who is awaiting our signal. When he heard these words, Tjapanda began to cry and jumped into the air, as if struck by a bullet. Then he ran toward his other sister, Paanzas older sister, and ran away with her in the directionof Djuka, where he founded that people, such as we know it today. The next day, the brother of Adjagbos mother arrived in Baakawata and said to the young man: Look, I have brought back the woman we had left, and she has brought us a large handful of rice. Adjagbo was overjoyed and lived with Paanza and loved her. **************** According to Richard Price, Paanza was born around 1705 and she died between 1775 and 1780 in the village of Pikilio, where she was buried. She was freed from slavery between 1730 and 1740, no one knows when precisely; in any case, she was young enough to give several children to Adjagbo, father of two great Saramaka nations.

Dugouts at Maroon village, Surinam River, 1955 (SOURCE): Photo Credit John Hill

Waterfront houses in Paramaibo, 1955 (SOURCE): Photo Credit John Hill

REFERENCES:

1.

First-Time: The Historical Vision of an Afro-American People (Johns Hopkins Studies in Atlantic History and Culture) by Richard Price (Hardcover Nov 1, 1983) (2) 2 In Praise of Black Women: Heroines of the Slavery Era, by Simone Schwarz-Bart.

3. The Maroons of French Guiana and Suriname: http://www.folklife.si.edu/resources/maroon/foodways/guiana.htm 4.

Saramaka social structure: Analysis of a maroon society in Surinam (Caribbean monograph series) by Richard Price (Unknown Binding 1975) 5.

Maroon Societies: Rebel Slave Communities in the Americas by Richard Price (Paperback Sep 3, 1996) (1) 6.

Two Evenings in Saramaka by Richard Price and Sally Price (Paperback May 7, 1991) 7.

Blackness in Latin America & the Caribbean : Social Dynamics and Cultural Transformations (Blacks in the Diaspora) by Norman E. Whitten and Arlene Torres (Paperback Aug 1998)

8. Narrative of a Five-Years Expedition Against the Revolted Negroes of Surinam.., by Capt.John Stedman

9. Narrative of a Five Years Expedition Against the Revolted Negroes of Surinam by Professor John Gabriel Stedman (Hardcover Jun 1, 1988) (1)

BLACK HISTORY MONTH: BLACK HEROINES, PART 6: NANNY: THE NATIONAL QUEEN OF THE MAROONS
Nanny was an African who had never known slavery. She first entered the history books as an old woman, around 1690, the year of the birth place that bears her name: Nanny Town. . . .

****************

The history of the Maroons of Jamaica presents us with one of the most astonishing and least known chapters of the history of the New World. Today, their descendants, who still live in these parts, these ancient battle sites, are still mute about the past. The very same past they once faithfully carried in their minds from one rainy season to the next as their brothers, Surinames Saramaka.

Nevertheless, stories have come through here and there, historical narratives in the guise of legends: the long memory of Africa was still present and had been gathered bit by bit without anything being lost, like grain in a silo.

Most poignant and remarkable is the name that kept coming back to the lips of these people. The name they uttered with the utmost veneration is that of a woman, of the true mother of their people:

An old woman they call Nanny.

Nanny of the Maroons, also known as Queen Nanny and Granny Nanny, a National Hero of Jamaica, was a well-known leader of the Jamaican Maroons in the eighteenth century. Contemporary documents refer to her as the rebels (sic) old obeah woman, and Nanny and the people residing with her on land located in the Blue Mountains. Nanny Town was founded on this land. Most of what we know about Nanny comes from the oral tradition, and many claims about her cannot be verified with traditional historical evidence of the textual or empirical sort, hence her memory is shrouded in the mists of legend.

Nanny was an African woman who never knew slavery. Legend has it, just off the boat, she rushed straight for freedom, as it was embodied by the chain of mountains seen from the shore. She was originally Ashanti, like the great Accompong, a renowned maroon chief whose name designates both a town in present-day Jamaica and the most important deity for Kromante-speaking people: Akompongh. Similarly, two towns in Jamaica have been named for Nanny, a ghost town and a town still flourishing. Many different places and customs are related to her story: for example, the main branches of a palm used to build shelters are slao commonly called Nanny. As for the name by which she is known, it is a variation of an old Kromante word: Hni, which means mother, and sometimes even mother queen or mother of men.

From what few accounts of that time ago, it seems Nanny never became a mother. Nothing in Jamaicas or the Maroons oral history evokes Nanny as a mother. On, the contrary, Nanny surfaced in history as an old

woman around 1690, the year of the foundation of the community of Nanny Town. She was an obeah, a magic worker.

Queen Nanny is presumed to have been born around the 1680s in Africas Gold Coast (now known as Ghana). She was reported to belong to either the Ashanti or Akan peoples, and came to Jamaica as a free woman.

Queen Nanny is credited with being the military leader of the Windward Maroons who employed clever strategies which led to their repeated success in battles with the British. She guided the Maroons through the most intense period of their resistance against the British, between 1725 and 1740. She was a master of guerrilla warfare and trained Maroon troops in the art of camouflage. Oral history recounts that Nanny herself would cover her soldiers with branches and leaves, instructing them to stand as still as possible so that they would resemble trees. As the British soldiers approached completely unaware that they were surrounded they would swiftly be picked off by the Maroons.

It was said, according to Jamaican lore, that her powers were beyond compare. She would prepare charms meant to kill, to heal, or to make oneself be the object of someones affection. Placed at the head of the armies, she encouraged them with her dances, chants, and invocations. It was said that Nanny could turn into an invisible bird to spy upon the enemy and strike them from a distance.

Nanny was said to have the power to turn back white mens bullets. She was not really a warrior and never carried any arms, but in every desperate situation, the old woman stood defiantly and resolutely before the enemy as the bullets bounced off of her and chased after the gunmen instead, sowing panic and destruction.

Due to the cruel treatment of female slaves by plantation owners, Nanny made her decision to escape along with her five brothers. The most famous of her brothers, Cudjoe, went on to lead many more slave rebellions in Jamaica with the aid of her other brothers Accompong, Johnny, and Quao. The family then made the decision to split up in order to be able to organize more Maroons than was possible if they stuck together. Therefore, Cudjoe went to St. James and organized a village, which was later named Cudjoe Town. Accompong went to St. Elizabeth, while Nanny and Quao made their way to Portland, becoming the Windward Maroons. Nanny Town was an excellent location for a stronghold, because it overlooked Stony River via a 900 foot (270 m) ridge making a surprise attack by the British virtually impossible. The Maroons at Nanny town also organized look-outs for such an attack as well as designated warriors who could be summoned by the sound of a horn called an Abeng. Nanny was very adept at organizing plans to free slaves. Over the span of 50 years, Nanny has been credited with freeing over 800 slaves. Nanny also helped these slaves remain free and healthy due to her vast knowledge of herbs and her role as a spiritual leader.

The black men that Nanny accepted to be by her side all went through the same trial. She gave them a drop of poison to drink and whispered with a kind smile: Slave, prepare to die, we all have to return the body we borrowed from the earth some day. Then, after they had lost consciousness, she resurrected them with an herbal infuson, and with an impeccable gesture, the old magician gave them a fraternal kiss or else, simply dismissed them. All the testimonies from oral tradition indicates the existence of a Town of Women, near the Great Plantation Walk, a town that served as a refuge or secret shelter for mothers and their daughters and their children, whom Nanny cared for.

Between 1728 and 1734, Nanny Town was attacked by the British time and time again. Acounts on how Nanny died differ. Some say she died in the battle of 1734; others, say she died in 1750 of old age. In the Journal of the Assembly of Jamaica, 2930 March 1733, for resolution, bravery and fidelity awarded to loyal slaves . . . under the command of Captain Sambo, namely William Cuffee, who was rewarded for having fought the Maroons in the First Maroon War and who is called a very good party Negro, having killed Nanny, the rebels (sic) old obeah woman. This account has not been conclusively proven. The high reward offered for Nanny may have caused Cuffee to advertise that he killed her, since descriptions of her, as well, may have conflicted with the actual appearance of Queen Nanny. In 1739, Nannys successor, Quao, signed a peace treaty with the British, said to be sealed by a blood oath, whereby six hundred acres of land was ceded to the Windward Maroons, and they were allowed independence. In his report about the ceremony, Philip Thickness, the Queens Lieutenant, described a ferocious looking old woman who had nine or ten different sheathed knives around her waist; and who had showed her disapproval by wearing anklets and bracelets made of the teeth of white men killed in battle. A legend still told by people in the Blue Mountains has an altogether different ending: Tired of the peace treaty, especially the clause that dictated that runaway enslaves should be sent back, Nanny went back to fighting, with a group of about forty carefully chosen men at her side. A black militia, formed specifically to hunt her down, surrounded them. Cornered against a hill, the last Maroons fought to the sound of Nannys famous war song:

Come we to go to Adaa country Go petta a brownie Granny Nanny A O Granny Nanny A O

Suddenly the old woman stood above the melee and offered her body to the bullets, as before. But, this time, she discovered that the enemies weapons were held by black hands, and she let out a scream of fright, or shame, or perhaps impotence. No one knows. This time, the traditional protection did not work: a hundred bullets crippled her body.

The site of the old Nanny Town remained inviolate for a long time. After the Treaty of 1739, Nanny Town returned to nature and was soon no longer distinguishable from the rest of the forest. In 1890, historian Herbert Thomas noted that there was a superstition that forbade anyone from entering that place. In 1930, the explorer Reginald Murray described frightening, awful sounds, which he said, were heard for a whole night on the edge of the site. Other witnesses mentioned the presence of an unknown bird with a red tail, and still others spoke of a mysterious fire being lit and the sounds of invisible weapons coming from the surrounding bushes.

Queen Nanny is credited with being the single figure who united the Maroons across Jamaica and played a major role in the preservation of African culture and knowledge.

Nanny was buried, according to Ashanti tradition, on a hill-now called Moore Town-that stands not very far from New Nanny Town. After more than two centuries, the neighborhood around her presumed grave has never been cultivated, nor has any house been built there.

And no one has set foot on a certain slice of land, about the length of a human body, and surrounded by the stones and rubble of another country. . . .

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The government of Jamaica declared Queen Nanny a National Heroine in 1975 and a Memorial was erected. Her portrait is on the 500 Jamaican dollar bill, which is colloquially referred to as a Nanny.

$500 note Front

The Rt. Excellent Nanny of the Maroons National heroine, Nanny, stands out in history as the only female among Jamaicas national heroes. She was a leader of the Maroons at the beginning of the 18th century and was known by both her people and the British settlers as an outstanding military leader. She became a symbol of unity and strength for her people during times of crisis and was particularly important to them in the fierce fight with the British during the First Maroon War from 1720 to 1739. Nanny (or Granny Nanny, as she was affectionately known) is said to have been a small, wiry woman with piercing eyes. Her influence over the Maroons was

so strong that it seemed to be supernatural. Like the heroes of the pre-independence era, Nanny too met her untimely death at the instigation of the English some time around 1734. However, the spirit of Nanny of the Maroons remains today as a symbol of that indomitable desire that will never yield to captivity.

SOURCE: http://www.boj.org.jm/currency_banknotes.php Nanny is also a part of the National Heroes Park in Jamaica, a botanical garden in Kingston, Jamaica. The largest open space in Kingston at 20 hectares in size, National Heroes Park features numerous monuments, and is the burial site of many of Jamaicas National Heroes, Prime Ministers, and cultural leaders. Nannys monument reproduces the sound of the abeng, a traditional African instrument used by the fighters. REFERENCES: In Praise of Black Women: Heroines of the Slavery Era, by Simon Schwarz-Bart. Jamaicas True Queen: Nanny of the Maroons: http://www.jamaicans.com/articles/primearticles/queennanny.shtml

Karla Gottlieb, The Mother of Us All: A History of Queen Nanny. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 2000.

Mavis C.Campbell, The Maroons of Jamaica, 1655-1796 . Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press. 1990.

Bryan Edwards, History, Civil and Commercial, of the British Colonies in the West Indies. 1793.

BLACK HISTORY MONTH: BLACK HEROINES, PART 7: ZABETH: THE ETERNAL MAROON
Forever on her own, she escaped, alone, she was taken again, by herself, she knew the chains, the spiked collar, the red-hot poker, the leg irons, and the crown. . . .

****************

She died at the age of twenty, within the walls of the fort sugar mill in Leogane, a western province in present-day Haiti. Only a bit of her first name is known: Zabeth. No one knew whose womb pushed her into this world. No ritual marks on her body divulged whether she came from Africa as a child or whether she was born a Creole. The only mark on her was a fleur-de-lis on her left cheekbone.

She spoke a simple language some have called banana talk. Just as the other sweet water enslaves, she did not have a saltwater accent. Her skin was very dark, but nothing in the proud way she held her head or in her broad lips and her round dreamy eyes, lalowed one to pin her down to one area in Africa. The only hint as to her origins is a Mandingo song she probably learned from her mother, which she sang under very specific and difficult circumstances: the chain, the collar, the red-hot poker, the leg irons, or the crown. Here are the first words of the song, adapted from an old Spanish translation: But let me be, Dear Dyambere! In a long robe you have dressed yourself, Let me sing about the birds, The birds that listen to a princess as she goes away The birds that gather up the last of her secrets.

Zabeth was about tens years old when she went missing for the first time. She belonged to the group of children used in the fields to take care of minor tasks appropriate for their size and age. One can be astonished by the fact that she was sent to the fields so early (if they know nothing of the history of race-based slavery), but, she was sent out to work at such an early age because she was a slave, whether she would have been put in the fields, or put in the slave masters house. She was probably judged inadequate for house work, if one goes by a report that describes her as a thief and a Maroon from an early age (Letter from Parison, manager of the fort sugar mill to its owner, Madame Galbot, March 6, 1768). Then again, as to the theft accusation, it would not be theft to take food that you needed for your body when all the while a theiving hateful slave master was committing theft against you as a slave. Filling ones body up with sustenance would not qualify as theft, even for one so young as Zabeth, when all around you, slave masters and slave mistresses were the worlds biggest and most filthiest of thieves. But, I digress. Later that evening, Zabeth was found asleep in a thicket. She was taken to the sugar mills hospital, or rather to the place used as an infirmary, a prison, and an orphanage. The child was released the next day with a kind word, which showed how little attention was paid to this incident. Barely back into the fields, she slid between two ridges of soil, before disappearing for the second time in forty-eight hours. A week later, she was found wandering in the woods. She was brought back by the scruff of her neck, like a wet kitten, hanging by her hair from an overseers fist. The overseer threw her at the feet of Madame Parison. Zabeth pleaded with him. He told the slave mistress not to listern to Zabeths pleas, as she had been eaten by the rashthe rash of rebelling and escapingthe Maroon rash. Madame Parison could not understand why little Zabeth wanted to run away, as she like so many slave owners thought that their good and kind treatment of enslaves should make a slave happy and contented with their lot in life, and could not comprehend why an enslave would want to escape such a life. The overseer is said to have stated, Dont ask why, just use the whip. Because of lack of evidence, it isdifficult to establish the various steps Zabeth took from her first infantile escapades to reach her final escape, the one that took her definitively out of her masters reach. After a few years of silence, her traces reappeared during the 1770 earthquake that turned Port-au-Prince and all the villages of the western province to shambles. Zabeth had been shackled to a mill, behind a couple of mules that were pulling the central wheel. Then the catclysm broke apart the walls, freeing her chains from their moorings. She ran away trailing the iron shackles that she somehow managedno one knowsto rid herself of in the woods. She was only found six months later. She had been living off the goods from nearby plantations, snatching them in the night: a hen here, a goat there. Until then, she had only been known for escapdes. But six months of absence made her liable to be judged and punished by the tribunal of Port-au-Prince, which condemned her to a public whipping to the sound of a brass band. Six months later, to the day, Zabeth was back at the fort sugar mill.

It seems strange that she never thought of joining a group of Maroons who survived, here and there, between the mountains and the sea, in the French part of Santo Domingo (Haiti). The answer to that question is a mystery. Zabeth always escaped alone and was always alone each time she was caught. She knew the chains, the collar, the red-hot poker, the legs irons, all on her own. For a long time, they tried to make Zabeth a mother, hoping to create a tie to cement her to her chains. She resisted with all her might and threatened the men with the most bitter vengeance. Her young body was already battered, so the male slaves did not insist. One night, at Christmas, while eveyone on the plantation was busy singing carols, the overseer gave her to a group of slaves under the influence of rum and Zabeth became pregnant. She gave birth to a little boy and motherhood made her as supple and obedient as a glove. The child grew up and Zabeth returned to her fieldwork. Because of the usual precautions, her feet were shackled, tying her to her son, who dragged himself behind her in the sun. The child died at the age of six. . . .and in no time, Zabeth was back in the woods. Soon after she was brought back, she ran away again. The records of the notaries listed eighteen escape attempts. At the mill, she slid between the rolling stones, but they stopped the machine in time and she was back at the hospital, indifferent to her three missing fingers. More than ever, she sang this strange Mandingo song, a tune that seemed to pierce the very walls of the hutches and even the solid stone of the slave masters big house. She was told to keep quiet but still she sang. Later that night in the hospital, Zabeth sneaked out through a loose clapboard and ran away one last time. Although she had lost a lot of blood, she was chained to the mill where the mules were driven by the whip. The old Mandingo song rose up in the middle of the night with a slight, airy accent, so that the old saltwater blacks said that the woman was already on her way back, about to reach the banks of Africa: But let me be, Dear Dyambere! In a long robe you have dressed yourself, Let me sing about the birds,

In the middle of the night, the song suddenly stopped, and Zabeths body was found trampled by the mules. A great many enslaves kept hearing that song float in the air, day after day, over the cane fields and the roof of the old mill, like a call sent to the most secret part of their being. . . . And it was Zabeths song that they still heard a few years later, mingled with the booms of cannons, when the armed enslaves descended on Port-au-Prince. . . . (1-a)

REFERENCES: 1 (a). In Praise of Black Women: Heroines of the Slavery Era,, by Simone Schwarz-Bart. Slave Resistence: A Revolution in Haiti: http://scholar.library.miami.edu/slaves/san_domingo_revolution/individual_essay/jason. html

A CLASSIC STUDY OF THE HISTORY OF CARIBBEAN WOMEN: http://www.hnet.msu.edu/reviews/showpdf.php?id=23422

LONDON, SUGAR, AND SLAVERY: http://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/English/AboutUs/Newsroom/Archived07/LSSlavery. htm

EUROPEAN VOYAGES OF EXPLORATION: THE SUGAR AND SLAVE TRADES: http://www.ucalgary.ca/applied_history/tutor/eurvoya/Trade.html

WOMENS RESISTANCE: ENSLAVED BLACK CARIBBEAN WOMEN: http://scholar.library.miami.edu/slaves/womens_resistance/womens.html

THE ROOTS OF BLACK RADICALISM: http://www.ceao.ufba.br/fabrica/Sawyer1.pdf 1.

Slave Women in Caribbean Society, 1650-1838 by Barbara Bush (Paperback Aug 1, 2008) (1)

2.

Women and Slavery in the French Antilles, 1635-1848 by Bernard Moitt (Paperback Nov 15, 2001) (1)

4.

Ghosts of Slavery: A Literary Archaeology of Black Womens Lives by Jenny Sharpe (Paperback Jan 2003)

3.

Historical Study of Women in Jamaica, 1655-1844 (Caribbean History) by Lucille Mathurin Mair, Hilary McD Beckles, and Verene A. Shepherd (Paperback Jan 31, 2007)

BLACK HISTORY MONTH: BLACK HEROINES, PART 8: SOLITUDE: HEROINE AND MARTYR OF THE GREAT 1802 REBELLION
She was about eight years old when her mother faded out of her life forever. We know very little about the years that passed before this orphan would defiantly call herself: Solitude. . . .

****************

November 20, 1802: Basse-Terre, capital of Guadeloupe, French West Indies. The island had just suffered one of the most formidable black uprisings the New World had ever known. A few months earlier, three hundred rebels led by the Mulatto Louis Delgres, leader of the Armies of the Republic, had blown themselves up in small mountain fortress, thus ending the slave rebellion of Guadeloupe. Many women and children stood with them in that final sacrifice. They had stayed true to their slogan: Freedom or death.

Most of them were torn apart by the blast. The others died strung up on Constantin Hill, in the heights of Basse-Terre, and their bodies exposed to wind and rain for all eternity, in accordance with the ill justice dealt at the time.

But one of the greatest heroines of the revolution was temporarily pardoned. Given that the child in her womb was the property of her slave owner, her execution was rescheduled to the day after the birth.

She gave birth on November 28, 1802, and on the morning of the following day, the doors of the jail opened on an old woman no one recognized, not even those who had known her a few months earlier in the glory of her youth. Her skin furrowed to the bone, her hair whitened and shining in the sun, she stepped forward peacefully between two rows of spectators, while maternitys milk slowly stained her night shirt: yet she was only thirty years old.

We know few things, very few things, about the origins of Solitude, the woman from Guadeloupe.

MAP OF GUADELOUPE ARCHIPELAGO

It seems that she was the fruit of a forced union that took place on a slave ship, between a French sailor and African woman being taken to the Americas. This forced conception, brief and violent, on some ship rolling in the middle of the ocean, is in many ways a perfect picture of the fate of Solitude, the mulatto girl.

No one knew when the strange name came to be hers, when it settled on her face like an emblematic mask. No slave sale certificate made note of it. It only appeared toward the very end, upon the writ condeming her to death.

She was about eight years old when her mother faded out of her life forever. We know very little about the years that passed before this orphan would defiantly call herself: Solitude. . . . Under slavery, the mixing of the races often produced human beings of imprecise ancestry, beings torn between Africa and Europe and finding no succor on this earth. Very often, those of mixed race came to choose the side of the masters because the latter offered a few breadcrumbs and some dignity. Often, pulled apart by difficult options, they allied themselves with madness and death. But some, more numerous than is often mentioned, returned to the black part of their being, and advanced to the first ranks in the struggle for freedom. Such was the case in Guadeloupe. Such was the case among the main actors of the 1802 tragedy, which included such mulattoes as Delgres, Ignace, Massoteau; and such was the case for Solitude. According to an old Brazilian proverb, the mulatto hangs the portrait of his father in the living room and that of his black mother in the kitchen. Much is left to the imagination as to what led this child of rape, this little yellow girl, as mixed children used to be called, to take the side of her old African mother.

The Maroons settlement at La Goyave was made up exclusively of Bossales, who were also called saltwater blacks. They had come directly from Africa, unlike the island-born sweet water blacks. Solitude lived a few radiant months there. Her body, marked by long years of hardship, came back to life. She shivered in the wind to the African chants of her companions. She pierced the sun, they say, with the grace of a cane arrow. Then, on February 3, 1798, the troops of General Desfourneaux captured the La Goyave settlement and exterminated its leaders. The young woman became the leader of the survivors, taking her first steps into legend. Her small band made a noise over all of Guadeloupe. So she wandered, hunted by French troops and black militias, until Consul Napolean Bonaparte came to power. Napolean had his mind set on officially re-establishing slavery. A large fleet dropped anchor on May 5, 1802, in the waters off of Pointe-aPitre, in order to enforce that decree.

In 1793, a slave rebellion started, which made the upper classes turn to the British and ask them to occupy the island. In an effort to take advantage of the chaos ensuing from the French Revolution, Britain attempted to seize Guadeloupe in 1794 and held it from April 21 to June 2. The French retook the island under the command of Victor Hugues, who succeeded in freeing the slaves. They revolted and turned on the slave-owners who controlled the sugar plantations, but when American interests were threatened, Napoleon Bonaparte sent a force to suppress the rebels and reinstitute slavery. On May 20, 1802, slavery and the slave trade were reimposed there.

Almost all at once, black Guadeloupe was on fire. Solitude was at that point expecting the child of a Congo, an African who did not know two words of Creole but who brought her all the tenderness of the world. The joy from her belly reached her eyes and gave her the soft skin of a pretty filly dancing in the sun. At the sounds of the cannons, however, she pushed herself and her belly into the heart of the battles at Dole, Trou-aux-chiens, Fond-Bananier, and Capesterre. From victory to victory, and then from setback to setback, she pushed herself and her womb all the way up into the mountains before the final defeat. It is on that mountain, on the terrace of the Danglemont Plantation, that the Commandant Delgres decided that he and the last of the insurgents would blow themselves up by lighting a barrel of gunpowder with his pipe as the French troops charged in. The group of revolutionary soldiers killed themselves on the slopes of the Matouba volcano when it became obvious that the invading troops would take control of the island. The occupation force killed approximately 10,000 Guadeloupeans in the process of re-taking the island from the rebels.

Among the entangled bodies, Solitude, the Mulatresse, was picked up and carried to the Basse-Terre prison, which she left, with a halo of white hair, on November 29, 1802, after giving birth. Solitude was hanged by her enslavers, who would not murder her until she after she was delivered of a little child destined to be slave material for another slave master.

~~~~~~~~~~

After her death, a shroud of silence fell over the fate of Solitude. Up until the 1960s, no street, no alley in Guadeloupe had yet been named for her. Her name had not even been given to any ship, as had her companion, Commander Delgres; this ship now comes and goes twice a week between Pointe-a-Pitre and the island of Saint-Barthelemy, ferrying cattle.

Today, the souls of these other heroes may be at rest. Their names are on the lips of everyone and their stories are known by small children. Ignace, Massoteau, and Delgres have attained eternal life as the stuff of folklore.

As for Solitude, not only does her name now grace squares and avenues in Guadeloupe but she has also become a poem, a song, a library, and a museum room. She has even transformed herself into a very beautiful tune, played on country drums straight from Africa, whose sound she heard when she was still alive, when her companions, the maroons of La Goyave, played. . . .

General Dessalines honored the black heroes of Guadeloupe with the following lines from a letter he wrote. These lines testify to the solidarity and interaction between the revolutions in Haiti and Guadeloupe, a fact documented by Henri Bangou in his Histoire de la Guadeloupe:

Wrecked and devastated Guadeloupe; its ruins are still smokng with the blood of children, women, and old men, felled by the sword; Pelage himself a victim of their tricks, after having cowardly betrayed his country and his brothers, the brave, immortal Delgresse was spirited away into the air along with the debris of his fort rather than accept the chains. Magnanimous warrior, your noble death, far from astonishing our courage, will merely tease the thirst in us to avenge or follow you.

Slave uprisings occurred throughout the islands, though many would-be revolt leaders were caught before rebellions could begin. The dates below list some of the larger rebellions that were staged from 1735 to 1835. But on islands that had held slaves since the earliest days of colonization, such as Barbados, a majority of slave revolts usually occurred before these dates. Island Antigua Year 1735 1831 Bahamas (Exuma) 1830 Bahamas (Exuma, Eleuthera, Cat 1832Island) 1834 Barbados 1816 Cuba 1805 1809 1825 1826 18301831 1833 Curaao 1795 1785Dominica 1790 1791 1795 1802 18091814 1765 1795 Guadeloupe Hispaniola (French) 1737 1789 17521758 About the Event Conspiracy involving blacks and mulattoes around the island. Thousands of slaves rose up, committing arson and rioting. Several slaves rose up. Widespread rebellion where hundreds of slaves rose up together. Bussas rebellion took place, involving thousands of slaves. Slave rebellion recorded. Hundreds rose up in many provinces and in Havana. Hundreds of slaves rose up in Matanzas. Several slaves rebelled in Guira. Several coffee estate slaves rebelled. A few sugar estate slaves revolted. Slaves led by Tula and Carpata rose up by the thousands. Dominicas First Maroon War took place. A rebellion on New Years Day in which hundreds of windward slaves rebelled. The Colihaut uprising involved hundreds of slaves. Hundreds are involved in the mutiny of the Eighth West Indian Regiment. Thousands take part in Dominicas Second Maroon War. Maroons encourage and participate in a revolt of hundreds. Fedons Rebellion, involving both freed men and slaves, takes thousands. Hundreds are involved in the Revolt of Latulipe. The French Revolution causes an uprising of thousands. Mackandal unites the Maroons, and hundreds fight.

Grenada

Jamaica

1791 1742 1745 1760 1765 1766 1776 1791 1795 1806 1808 1815 18221824 18311832 1789 1752 17891792 1822 1833 1768 1776 1776 1778 1795 17691773 1770 1771 1774 1801 1807 1790 1823 1830 1831 1805

Thousands rebel during the French Revolution. Dozens of Coromantees in St. Anns Parish conspire to revolt. Hundreds of Africans plan a revolt in St. Davids. Tackys Rebellion. Coromantees in St. Marys rebel. Westmorland slaves revolt. Africans and Creoles in Hanover Parish plan a large rebellion. Many rebellions in the year following the Haitian revolt. Jamaicas Second Maroon War. Several slaves in St. Georges Parish caught planning a rebellion. Mutiny of the Second West Indian Regiment. Under Ibos, hundreds of slaves rebel. Unrest in Hanover is widespread, and hundreds rebel. TheBaptist War takes place on Christmas when thousands rise up. During the French Revolution, many rise up. Rebellion. Thousands rebelled during the French Revolution. Rebellion. Rebellion. Many planned a rebellion. Rebellion. Rebellion. Some planned to rebel on the island. Brigands War. The Black Carib (mixed escaped slaves and Caribs) fought the First Carib war. Revolt in Courland Bay. Rebellion in Bloody Bay. Queens Bay rebellion. Creoles planned a Christmas rebellion. Hundreds of slaves marched on the Government House. Hundreds revolt on Pickerings estates. Hundreds revolt on Pickerings estates again. Hundreds of Lettsome slaves revolt. A plot involves slaves across the whole island. Hundreds of French slaves plot a revolt.

Marie Galante (Guadeloupe) Martinique

Montserrat Nevis St. Kitts St. Lucia St. Vincent Tobago

Tortola (British Virgin Islands)

Trinidad

SOURCE: BREAKING FREE: SLAVE REBELLIONS OF THE CARIBBEAN: http://caribbeanguide.info/past.and.present/history/slave.rebellion/ REFERENCES: In Praise of Black Women: Black Heroines of the Slavery Era, by Simone Schwarz-Bart. Reines dAfrique et hrones de la diaspora noire. (Queens of Africa and Heroines of the Diaspora) By Sylvia Serbin Publishers: Editions Spia, Paris, 2005

BLACK HISTORY MONTH: BLACK HEROINES, PART 9: CARLOTTA: LEADER OF THE 1843 REBELLION OF MATANZAS, CUBA
Carlota, a slave woman, took up the machete in 1843 to lead a slave uprising at the Triumvirato sugar mill in Matanzas Province and was killed. She was one of the 3 leaders of the rebellion. Her name was later given to Cubas 1980 s operation Black Carlota in Southern Africa, which culminated in the battle of Cuito Cuanavale and the defeat of the South African army in pitch battle.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Carlota leader of the 1843 slave rebellion, Triumvirato, Matanzas

Carlota, a slave woman, took up the machete in 1843 to lead a slave uprising at the Triumvirato sugar mill in Matanzas Province and was killed. She was one of the 3 leaders of the rebellion. Her name was later given to Cubas 1980 s operation Black Carlota in Southern Africa, which culminated in the battle of Cuito Cuanavale and the defeat of the South African army in pitch battle. Today, people can visit the remains of the Triumvirato sugar mill and see the monument to Carlotas rebellion.

Carlota, la rebelde, Granma, 11/05, de Marta Rojas

Carlota the rebel, 11/05, by Marta Rojas

CARLOTA Lukum/Yoruba Woman Fighter for Liberation Massacred in Matanzas, Cuba, in 1844
by Eugene Godfried, 7/06

Introduction In order to understand liberation processes in the Caribbean we have to take into account all occurrences which preceded our days and contributed to the formation of our collective consciousness. Cuba, in this sense, possesses an impressive historical legacy of which needs more discussion. Women in Cuba, generally speaking, played a very important role in the construction of that society since the beginning of European colonialism in 1492. Carlota fulfilled a noble task by offering great teachings even with her own life. Neither studying nor talking about the contribution made in that Caribbean society by the African women, in particular, implies a silent falsification of the truth. We use the denomination lukumi/yoruba when referring to Carlota and others based on an explanation we received from Nigerian linguist and Yoruba expert, Dr. Wande Abimbola, who teaches us the following lesson. The western Yoruba land in Nigeria and in east Benin know the terminology oluikumi to indicate my very good friend of confidence. It is understandable that the transatlantic voyage as it reached Cuba transformed this into lukumi. (see www.afrocubaweb.com Eugne Godfried, Cuba in a Caribbean Perspective). LIBERATION STRUGGLES IN THE LOW LANDS OF LA HABANA and MATANZAS Matanzas was the scene of many confrontations between enslaved Africans and the slave system regime in Cuba during 1843 and 1844. The uprising at the sugar estate Triumvirato under the leadership of the heroic Carlota had a great impact both inside and outside of the island. Those struggles began in July and August of the year 1843. By means of talking drums the rebels were called for battle. When hearing the sounds of the drums, the slave-owners most likely thought that the Africans were paying tribute to their ancestors in sessions held in and around their barracoons.
Carlota la rebelde, Image from Granma

Two lukumies/yorubas, a man by the name of Evaristo and a woman called Fermina of the sugar estate Arcana, were in charge of all preparations. Their task was to encourage the enslaved people to rise up and put an end to the hated system of human exploitation. Their principal means of communication were the drums as their most relevant heritage from Africa. On November 5 of 1843, the enslaved people of Triumvirato broke out in a great rebellion. Fermina, of the sugar estate Acana, who was very active in the rebellion of August 2nd, was arrested, chained and locked up. She was liberated by her colleagues in struggle on November 3rd. Carlota, accompanied by her captains, went from Triumvirato to Acana to liberate their enslaved brothers and sisters. Of course, Carlota and her collaborators carefully prepared the whole plan of action in secret. Undoubtedly, these successes at Triumvirato and Acana had their impact on the enslaved population. One could notice an increase in guerilla attacks by rebellious Africans in the area. Together they broke the chains of their brothers and sisters in the areas known as Sabanilla del Encomendador, Guanbana, Santa Ana, belonging to the sugar estates San Miguel, Concepcin, San Lorenzo, and San Rafael. Other objectives, such as the coffee and cattle estates of the area, were also attacked.

MASSACRE OF THE LIBERATION FIGHTERS

A heavy persecution was unleashed by the powerful Governors troops hunting the lukum/Yoruba woman Carlota, her fula companion Eduardo, and their colleagues. Carlota was captured during an unequal battle. The repressive forces tied her to horses sent to run in opposite direction in order to destroy her body completely so that she would be unrecognizable forever. Fermina was shot and killed in March 1844 along with four other lukumes/yorubas and three ganga colleagues. The year 1844 became known as the year of the lashes, because of the many cases of bloody repression against descendants of Africans both enslaved and freed men and women. Another notorious case of that time was the so called Ladder Conspiracy: infamous acts of tortures and and killings under the command of General ODonnell. During these bloody actions an end was put to the life of the great poet whose father was of African descent and whose mother was of European origin: Gabriel de la Concepcin Valds, Plcido. (See Gabriel de la Concepcin Valds, Plcido, Eugne Godfried, www.afrocubaweb.com). CONCLUSION For years there existed in Cuba an omission or intentional white out by both official historiography and rhetoric of this epoch of successive rebellions of enslaved Africans in the low lands of La Habana and Matanzas in the western part of Cuba. That is a symptomatic manifestation of a euro-centric society, even though the island became independent from Spain in 1898. The new elite preferred to continue having the old Spain inside of Cuba without Spain. A chain of racist regimes followed in power right after independence and none were interested raising or recognizing topics regarding African liberation in Cuba. Fulgencio Batista, even though he himself was a man of color, who served the interests of the euro-centric elite, did not dare take any firm action in this regard, notwithstanding the fact that he was never accepted by those circles as their equal. (see Sociedades negras en Cuba 1878 1960, Carmen V. Montejo Arrechea; Centro de investigacin y desarollo de la cultura cubana Juan Marinello, La HABANA 2004). We agree with those writers who state that the process which started in 1959 dedicated more attention to these issues than the period before its existence. Yet, a lot of focus is still being made mainly on the rebellious military aspect of those struggles. The leaders are often primarily portrayed as physically strong black men or women.. Nothing too much is said about their cultural, spiritual and mental formation and foresightedness. That attitude is also a result of euro-centrism, which we should necessarily combat. Those men and women who participated in these liberation processes should be recognized both de jure and de facto as revolutionaries and precursors of the independence struggles of Cuba. They were wise, since just like their forerunners the maroons and Aponte, and others, they stood for a rupture with the metropolis in Europe. Liberation of all human beings without any distinction was their highest goal. No one else insisted more than they did on the need of pulling out deeply rooted racism from Cubas soil. Many followed their example years after they had already shown the way. All these questions should be topics for discussion and reflection within families, work centres, mass and political organizations in Cuba and the rest of the Caribbean. Carlota, Fermina (1843/1844), Mariana Grajales (1868/1893) together with their sisters of our region such as Solitude in Guadeloupe (1802) and Rebeca in Curaao (1795), are mothers of our peoples in the Caribbean. Their love and tender care for the best of our future will live on forever. PEACE, EQUALITY, AND COOPERATION Eugne Godfried Caribbean specialist/journalist social and cultural worker/author Radio Habana Cuba Radio CMKS in Guantnamo

Carlota, la rebelde, Granma, 11/05

Carlota the rebel, 11/05

by Granma daily staff writer

Marta Rojas

THE fifth decade of the 19th century was characterized by successive rebellions on the part of African and Cuban-born slaves, particularly in the great plain of Havana-Matanzas, the emporium of the slave-owning oligarchy, given the wealth of its land and the profusion of the sugar-cane industry.

The repression was infamous in its cruelty and one particularly recalls the so-called Escalera (Ladder) Conspiracy and its dramatic sequel of torture, crimes and shootings ordered by General ODonnell, including that of the great mixed-race poet Gabriel de la Concepcin Valds (Plcodo) and a group of men belonging to the incipient black bourgeoisie, thousands of black and mixed-race free persons and slaves. That process was so extended and horrifying that 1844 has come down to our days as the Year of the Strap.

Traditional Cuban history never touched on the impetuous beginnings of the slave rebellion in that historical period. But that silence or deliberate omission in more than a few cases is not the case in these years of Revolution. The restored landmarks include the rebellion at the Triunvirate sugar mill in Matanzas and, more specifically, the heroic dimension of Carlota, the pro-liberation slave.

The uprising led by Carlota and a group of rebel slaves had international repercussions. A few days after the rebellion began, the Vandalia, a U.S. Navy corvette, appeared in the port of Havana under the command of Rear-Admiral Chauncey, the bearer of an official letter from the Spanish Business Attach in Washingon, which notified Captain General ODonnell that he could count on the aid of the United States to crush the Afrocuban rebellion, a document that Commander Chauncey, accompanied by a Mr. Campbell, the U.S. consul in Havana, presented to the colonial governor in an official ceremony with full diplomatic rigor. This support further spurred on the repression meted out by the Spanish authorities in Matanzas of the slaves who participated in the Triunvirato uprising, from the governor and district captains, to the slave owners of farms and sugar mills to simple overseers. In the end, Carlota was literally torn apart. But her action was an epic one.

This was the beginning: the drums were talking in the Triunvirato mill in the months of July and August, 1843. Two Africans were in contact. They were Lucumies: Evaristo and Fermnina, from the Acana mill. They devoted themselves to campaigning among the slaves to put an end to the brutality of that system. They managed to communicate via drums which they played with eloquence. On November 5, 1843 the Triunvirato slaves rebelled. There was a military trial from which it emerged that the Matanzas Military Committee had uncovered a vast conspiracy in the above-mentioned mills.

In addition to Fermina, other women had an energetic participation in the anti-slave movement, as well as their men. There was a militarily gifted and exceptionally daring women in the front line: Carlota, of Lucumbi origin, who belonged to the Triunvirato mill. Involved with her in the rebellion were Eduardo, a Fula; Carmita and Juliana, Cuban-born; Filomena, a Ganga from the Acana mill; and Luca, a Lucumi from the Concepcin estate, all of them in Matanzas.

For the white slave owners what they heard was merely a drumming ceremony from a black slave cabin calling to the ancestors. But the fact is that at 8:00 p.m. on the night of Sunday, November 5, Eduardo, the interpreter of the kettledrum voice advised everybody, and Carlota, Narciso and Felipe, and the Ganga Manuel, like the spokesperson, had already sharpened their work machetes. At that hour the objective was not the cane plantations, but the brutal plantation manager, his overseers and lackeys. It was they

who first felt the blades of steel and were felled, their pistols and rifles seized, as well as similar weapons from other white individuals who abandoned them in all haste. Somewhat terse concerning these cases, the official municipal representatives on the Military Committee relate for history that the blacks set fire to the main house, part of the plantation and the sugar mill huts.

The Fermina from the Acana mill, who took part in a rebellion on August 2, had been imprisoned with shackles from which she was released by her brothers and sisters on November 3. Carlota and her captains, according to their secret plan, had gone from Triunvirato to Acana to free the slaves.

Nobody should imagine, because it would be nave, that Carlota went with a holster strapped to her chest, and in boots. She went barefoot, in her threadbare dress. The successes at Triunvirato and Acana must have encouraged the rebel slaves who were fighting for freedom and they continued their surprise attacks in the area. They liberated the slaves from the administrations of Santa Ana, Guanbana and Sabanilla del Encomendador, belonging to the Concepcin, San Lorenzo, San Miguel, San Rafael sugar mills, and the neighboring coffee plantations and dairy farms. But the governors powerful forces were already pursuing Carlota the Lucumi, Eduardo the Fula and her other comrades, and in a battle as unequal as it was bitter presumably due to the difference in the strength, quality and quantity of the enemy firepower Carlota was taken prisoner and tied alive to horses pulling in opposite directions until she was torn apart.

According to the annals, Blas Cuesta, administrator and co-owner of the San Rafael mill, earnestly appealed to the governor of Matanzas, who had just arrived on his property, not to continue massacring defenseless blacks. Some slaves who escaped got as far as the Cinaga de Zapata and continued fighting in the Gran Palenque (hideout of runaway slaves) in the Cuevas del Cabildo.

Fermina was shot with four Lucumies and three Gangas in March 1844. This was not the only or the first slave conspiracy or rebellion. One would have to recall that of Jos Antonio Aponte in 1812. And long before, the determined and victorious protest of the slave miners of Rey in El Cobre (1677), until their freedom was de jure acknowledged in 1801.

In terms of its vigor and bravery, Carlotas liberation struggle is part of the Cuban heritage of rebellion against oppression. Thus her name has been enshrined as a symbol of the operation that gave rise to the Cuban military mission in Angola 30 years ago. If was as if the bones and blood of Carlota and her comrades in the uprising joined together again to serve the liberation of the descendants of those Africans who contributed to the forging of the Cuban nation.

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Monument to the Triumvirato Rebellion

Carlota

Pot for boiling sugar, Triumvirato

BLACK HISTORY MONTH: BLACK HEROINES, PART 10: MARGARET GARNER: THE LOYAL SLAVE WHO REBELLED, OR THE MODERN MEDEA
She could not imagine being free, not in this world nor the next. But when her husband suggested they escape together she immediately approved-as if, deep within her, another Margaret had always been waiting for that very moment. . . .

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Margaret Garner was twenty-five years old and had four children, all living, with Margaret and her husband, Robert Garner. She was reported to have had big tough hands, always in contact with the soil, and big round eyes that never strayed beyond the limits of the plantation. Instead, her eyes had been fixed upon the great many enslaves, on the vast expanse of the land being cultivated, on the large herds of cattle, pigs, fruit trees, green oaks, good old poplars, pine trees, and silver birches spreading across the patch of Kentucky Margaret called home. Homewhere the blood-sucking parasitism of slavers held her and her family and enslaves in bondage. The fruits of their labor leeched by masters and mistresses who grew fat and rich off the free labor of an enslaved people.

She never knew her mother, and the old folks on the plantation who said they had, described her with uncertainty. She was, they said, a tall woman of mixed Black-Indian parentage, or maybe she was that flatchested woman who arrived around 1821, or 22, or perhaps 23, with the bunch from Montgomery? In any case, whats sure was that she was big and fat the day she arrived, more than fat, thats true, and that she died just after giving birth to a little thing, who was named, God knows why, Margaret.

Whats also sure, almost sure, was that she was buried in the little yellow woods over yonder hill, just after the great square of corn. . . .unless, unless it was at the bottom of the valley, deep down, over there, on that nice patch of red earth, where the sweet potatoes and the roots grew? Nowadays, people were buried much higher, in the woods, on the hills. . . .

Margaret never had any great dreams, and she humbly confined her desires to the possible; to do the impossible was simply unimaginable to her. So she never thought of running away, because in her mind her fate had already been settled once and for all. It seemed to her that it was all written down somewhere, although she did not know where.

One way or another, most enslaves believed in a better life after death. But, in truth, even that thought was simply too much for Margarets imagination. In truth, she believed only in the kingdom of this world right here, i the thin net of time that had been cast over the plantation and over the small pine woods past yonder hill.

She could not imagine being free, not in this world nor the next. The simple idea of crossing the borders of the plantation made her heart skip beat, But when her husband Robert suggested they escape together, she immediately approvedas if, deep within her, another Margaret had aways been waiting for that very moment to resurface!. . . .

One inter night in 1856, seventeen enslaves huddled in a horsedrawn sled pulled by two beautiful horses from the masters stables. The adults were silent and even the small children kept quiet.They did not stir, hidden under piles of rags and blankets. The horses sank slowly into the snow crackling with ice.

They left their horses behind near the Ohio River and crossed the frozen water on foot.To be less conspicuous, the party then separated. Nine of them eventually reached Canada. But the other group which consisted of an old enslave named Simon, his wife Mary, their son Robert, his wife Margaret Garner, and their four children-made their way to the house of a former enslave named Kite, Margarets cousin, a free black, whose house was located above Mill Creek, in the lower part of Cincinnati. From here Kite was to take them through a few stops on the Underground Railroad, from which they were to reach another stop, then yet another, all the way up to Canada.

A few hours after their arrival, Kites home was surrounded by the enslaves pursuerswhite policemen and militia, masters enraged at having been roused by such impudence in the middle of the night. The runaways had barricaded the doors and windows and were ready to fight. They swore to die rather than to return to their former lives. Transfigured, Margaret declared hat she would kill her children and herself rather than be a slave again.

Shots were fired and soon the assailants rushed into the little wooden house. Suddenly,Margaret grabbed a knife and killed her oldest child, an eight-year-old girl. She was about to kill another when she was apprehended and taken to county jail.

Artist Thomas Satterwhite Nobles 1867 painting, The Modern Medea was based on Margaret Garners story.

The trial, which lasted two months, attracted crowds from Cincinnati and the surrounding area. People came from all over to see this young mulatto woman, about five feet tall, with a scar on the left side of her forehead. She also had an old scar on the left side of her cheek, which she said had been caused when a White man struck me-mementos of her masters hard hand, just as three of her children were mementos of her masters licentiousness brutality. In court, Margaret was openly pleased about the death of her child: I killed one and would like to kill the three others, rather see them again reduced to slavery. Then, with the same enthusiasm, she asked to be judged for murder: I would walk to the gallows singing, yes, rather than go back and be a slave. But the case became complicated by a conflict between federal authorities working to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act and state officials wishing to try Margaret Garner for murder (in the hope of saving her life, in essence to return her to slaver, and prolong her suffering).

The defense attempted to prove that Margaret had been liberated under a former law covering slaves were taken into free states for other work. Her attorney actually proposed that she be charged with murder so that the case would be tried in a free state (understanding that the governor would later pardon her). The prosecuting attorney argued that the federal fugitive slave laws took precedence over state murder charges. Over a thousand people turned out each day to watch the proceedings, lining the streets outside the courthouse, and 500 men were deputized to maintain order in the town.

Margaret was not immediately tried for murder, but was forced to return to a slave state along with Robert and her youngest child, a daughter aged about nine months. Ohio authorities got an extradition warrant for Margaret to try her for murder, but failed to find her as her owner, A. K. Gaines, kept moving her between

cities in Kentucky. Ohio officials missed getting Margaret in Covington by a few hours, missed getting her again in Frankfort and finally found her master in Louisville, only to discover that he had put them on a boat for his brothers plantation in Arkansas. Governor Salmon P. Chase of Ohio requested the return of Margaret to Ohio, but her slave master, ignoring the request, put her on the steamer Henry Lewis bound for Louisville, Kentucky. In the middle of the river, the ships boiler burst and the Lewis began to sink. Chained by twos in the stern of the boat, the enslaves begged for their chains to be taken off. Margaret had the youngest of her children, a little girl of about one year old, on her arm. Her two boys had already been sold in Kentucky. The Cincinnati Commercial reported that by the shock of the ship that came to the assistance of the Lewis(as one story goes) she was thrown into the river with her child. . . .A black man, the cook on the Lewis, sprang into the river and saved Margaret, who it is said, displayed frantic joy when told her child had drowned, and said she would never reach alive Gaines Landing, in Arkansas, the pint to which she was shippedthis indicating her intention to drown herself. . . .Another report is that, as soon as she had the opportunity, she threw her child into the river and jumped after it. . . .and that it was drowned, while she was saved by the prompt energy of the cook. The boat that came to the rescue of the Lewis was called The Hungarian. It took Margaret down South, to Arkansas, where she was sold for a ridiculous sum, in some slave market hammered by the sun. She was kept in Arkansas only a short time before being sent to family friends in New Orleans as a household servant. The Cincinnati Chronicle reported in 1870 that Robert and Margaret Garner worked in New Orleans and were eventually sold to Judge Bonham for plantation labor at Tennessee Landing. In this same article, Robert reported that Margaret Garner died in 1858 of typhoid fever. Soon after her death, Robert Garner was reported to have immediately cried out: Thank You, God, she has escaped at last! Margaret Garners life story was the basis of the inspiration for the novel Beloved by Nobel Prize winner Toni Morrisons Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Beloved and of Frances Harpers 1859 poem Slave Mother: A Tale of Ohio. It was also the subject of an opera, called Margaret Garner, with a libretto written by Morrison and music composed by the Grammy-winning composer Richard Danielpour. Commissioned by Michigan Opera Theatre, Cincinnati Opera and the Opera Company of Philadelphia, the opera premiered in 2005. It set records for opera attendance in Cincinnati. In Detroit, it played to large audiences with an a high number of Black Americans. Mezzo soprano Denyce Graves sang Margaret Garner, and baritone Rod Gilfry sang the role of the plantation owner, Edward Gaines. Kentucky painter Thomas Satterwhite Nobles 1867 painting, The Modern Medea, was also inspired by the Margaret Garner tragedy. (Medea is a woman in Greek mythology who killed her own children.) The painting, owned by Cincinnati manufacturer Procter and Gamble Corporation, was presented as a gift to the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, where it remains on permanent display. SOURCES: References: In Praise Of Black Women: Black Heroines of the Slavery Era, by Simone Schwarz-Bart.

Coffin, Levi. Reminiscences of Levi Coffin, the Reputed President of the Underground Railroad (Cincinnati: Western Tract Society), 1876. ISBN 0-94435020-8: http://docsouth.unc.edu/nc/coffin/menu.html Stampede of Slaves: A Tale of Horror The Cincinnati Enquirer, January 29, 1856. Weisenburger, Steven. Modern Medea: A Family Story of Slavery and Child Murder from the Old South (New York: Hill and Wang), 1998. ISBN 0-8090-6953-9 A Historical Margaret Garner, Essay by Steven Weisenburger

 

External Links:

  

Transcript of the Enquirer article and a photo of Satterwhites painting Slavery and the Tragic Story of Two Families Gaines and Garner Maplewood Farm, Richwood, Kentucky, essay by Ruth Wade Cox Brunings Information about the opera

Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Garner 1.

Modern Medea: A Family Story of Slavery and Child-Murder from the Old South by Steven Weisenburger (Paperback Sep 1, 1999) (4)

3.

The Toni Morrison Encyclopedia by Elizabeth Ann Beaulieu (Hardcover Jan 30, 2003)

2.

Beloved by Toni Morrison (Paperback

BLACK HISTORY MONTH: BLACK HEROINES, PART 11: SUSIE BAKER KING TAYLOR: THE YOUNGEST SOLDIER IN THE UNION ARMY
The 1ST Carolina Volunteers were the first black troops to fight in the Civil War. A young girl, barely fourteen years old, accompanied the soldiers through the blood, sweat, and glory. . . .

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In 1858, two years before Abraham Lincoln was to be elected president, he declared: A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe the government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free.

In 1861, the South engaged in hostilities against the North, which had been challenging its sovereign and divine right to expand slavery into the territories of the American West. The Civil War that ensued lasted four bloody years.

Despite promises and formal agreements, black men were not immediately authorized to fight on the side of the free states. They were first obliged to follow the white troops as porters and servants. Then, after the North suffered several setbacks, colored regiments were formed and soon proved themselves illustious on all fronts. In all, 178,895 black soldiers wore the blue uniform, and 38,000 of these men died in it as well.

The 1ST South Carolina Volunteerswere the first black troops to fight in the Civil War. Their first mission was to take Jacksonville, Florida, a city deep in the South.

Many black women followed the troopsin the canteen, as cooks and nurses. Most of them were runaway slaves. Probably the youngest among them, closer to childhood than adolescence, was a girl with big, wide, hazy eyes, who accompanied the black soldiers until the very end, through the blood, the sweat, and the glory: Susie King Taylor.

Historians of the Civil War have not always drawn the clearest picture of the role of black soldiers. As for the deeds of young Susie, theyas those of other black womenhave been completely ignored. She would have been erased from the world altogether had we not been left a small book that she wrote before her death, half a century later: Reminiscences of My Life in Camp with the 33RD United States Colored Troops.

Born a slave in 1848, Susie was raised by her grandmother in Savannah. Susies mother, known only by her last name Baker, was a domestic enslave. Susies grandmother, who went by the name of Dolly, was one outstanding lady, and she could see beyond the appearance and the vicissitudes of the time. As soon as the child could walk, Dolly sent her to a secret school kept by a freed slave woman, the Widow Woodhouse. Susie went there early every morning after having hidden her textbooks in brown packaging paper, so that neither the paddy rollers, nor the militia, nor even the simple white pedestrian should notice those most forbidden treasures: books.

The school took place in Mrs. Woodhouses kitchen. The black children would go in one by one under the porch, cross the yard without a sound, and learn to read and write in a kind of low murmur.

Susies progress was quick. Two years later, her grandmother sent her to a certain Ms. Beasley, who was a bit more learned than the Widow Woodhouse. Then, in May 1860, Ms. Beasley said to Grandma Dolly that

she had taught the child everything she knew and could teach her nothing more. The child knew as much as the woman did, and that was all there was to it.

Susie had particularly good penmanship and soon Grandma Dollys friends and neighbors went to the little girl to get her to forge their night passes, which she did with care and competence. Grandma Dolly herself sought out the talents of her young granddaughter.

One of these documents has in fact been found. It was forged, not without some spite, with the name of the owner of Susies grandmother:

Savannah, Ga. March 1st, 1860 Pass the Bearerfrom 9 to 10:30 P.M. Valentine Grest.

Then came the Civil War. Rumors were spread in order to frighten the enslaves. Word went around that the people from the North, the Yankees, were full of fierce hatred for the blacksthat they harnessed them like horses and made them pull barrows, just for laughs.

But Susie knew who the real bogeymen were. She did not care for such tales. By then, she was already a big girl of fourteen who had learned much from those three women of Savannah: Grandma Dolly, Widow Woodhouse, and dear Ms. Beasley, who had taught her every last thing she knew.

When the Civil War erupted, Susie and Grandmother Dolly returned to the plantation on which they lived, after having lived in Savannah, but soon thereafter Susie departed for the Sea Islands of South Carolina with her maternal uncle and his family. Susie accompanied the regiment when it attacked Jacksonville, making herself more and more useful. Susie was only fourteen at the time, but even in old age she vividly recalled her first sight of the Yankees who were then fighting to take over the coastal areas. Susie was immediately pressed into service by the Union forces, first as a teacher to freed enslave children (and some adults). Later, after marrying Sgt. Edward King of the 1ST South Carolina Volunteers, Susie worked as both a laundress and a nurse for the union.

Most of her wartime activities were centered in South Carolina, moving up and down the coast to Florida and Georgia. Susie learned how to handle a musket (becoming adept at taking it apart, putting it back together in record time, and then to shoot like a veteran), as well as bandage and care for the dyingboth black and white. In 1863, Susie worked for Clara Barton during the eight months Barton practiced her nursing skills in the Sea Islands. In late 1864, Susies nearly died as a result of a boating accident, but after a few weeks of recovery she was back at work and remained with her regiment until the fall of Charleston in February 1865.

After the war, Susies movements exemplified those of many freed people during Reconstruction. She and her husband first settled in Savannah, where she opened a school. In 1866, upon the death of her husband Edward, Susie moved to rural Georgia. Finding that country life did not agree with her, however, she returned to Savannah and opened a night school for freed people where she taught until 1872. Then, using her husbands military pension, she traded her poorly paid career in education for service as a laundress and cook for a wealthy white family in Savannah.

When the family journeyed to New England on summer holiday, Susie accompanied them and soon after moved to Boston. There she married Russell Taylor and became involved in civic activities as a founding member of the Corps 67 Womens Relief Corps. She was elected president of the organization in 1893.

In 1898, when her son lay dying in Louisiana, Susie ventured to the South one last time. To her dismay, the freedom she had experienced had been replaced by rigid segregationshe experienced this firsthand not only on the train taking her South, but also in myriad ways during the period in which she renewed her Civil War days by nursing her son. Susie even witnessed a lynching in Mississippi. But in her old age she chose to overlook the devastation of the post-Reconstruction era and harked back instead to 1861 s wonderful revolutionthe phrase she used in the closing words of her brief memoir.

During her four years and three months of service, Susie King Baker Taylor, possibly the youngest soldier in the Union Army, saw no salary.

She was. it was true, but a black volunteer, a simple black volunteer for the cause of freedom.

Hers, and her peoples.

SOURCES:

REFERENCES:

1.

Reminiscences of My Life in Camp: An African American Womans Civil War Memoir by Susie King Taylor; introduction by Catherine Clinton (Paperback April 25, 2006)

2.

The Diary of Susie King Taylor, Civil War Nurse (In My Own Words) by Susie King Taylor, Margaret Gay Malone, and Laszlo Kubinyi (Library Binding Oct 2003)

In Praise of Black Women: Black Heroines of the Slavery Era,, by Simone Schwarz-Bart.

Army Life in a Black regiment, by Thomas Wentworth Higginson. Boston: Osgood Fields, 1870.

The Negro in the Civil War, by Benjamin Quarles. New York: Russell and Russell, 1968. Black Women In America Second Edition, Volume 3, Darlene Clark Hine, Editor-inChief. Oxford University Press, 2005.

EXTERNAL LINKS:

Reminiscences of My Life in Camp with the 33d United States Colored Troops Late 1st S. C. Volunteers. Boston: The author, 1902.

BLACK HISTORY MONTH: BLACK HEROINES, PART 11: AMY SPAIN: THE UNKNOWN BLACK WOMAN
Her long night of slavery was about to end,and her joy overcame her efforts to suppress it. That cry of joy was enough to seal her fate: for this, she was condemned to die. . . .

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The history of Black women remains shrouded in obscurity and ignorance. What little there is that is known of Black womens heroic efforts to combat enslavement is still largely very little written about.

As Gerda Lerner emphasized in her book Black Women in White America, History, in the past largely written by white male historians, has simply failed to ask those questions which would elicit information about female contribution, the female point of view. . . ['Black women's] records lie buried, unread, infrequently noticed and even more seldom interpreted.

Just as that is true, so is the lost and unknown contribution that Amy Spain made in the history of Black womens resistance against racist oppression and sexist tyranny. Here, in an article that miraculously resurfaced some years ago from the press of that time, after more than a century of having the waves of indifference wash over it, is the story of Amy Spain:

View of Darlington Court-House and the sycamore-tree where Amy Spain, the negro slave, was hung by the citizens of Darlington, South Carolina

AMY SPAIN One of the martyrs of the cause which gave freedom to her race was that of a colored woman named Amy Spain, who was a resident of the town of Darlington, situated in a rich cotton-growing district of South Carolina. At the time a portion of the Union army occupied the town of Darlington she expressed her satisfaction by clasping her hands and exclaiming, Bless the Lord the Yankees have come! She could not restrain her emotions. The long night of darkness which had bound her in slavery was about to break away. It was impossible to repress the exuberance of her feelings; and although

powerless to aid the advancing deliverers of her caste, or to injure her oppressors, the simple expression of satisfaction at the event sealed her doom. Amy Spain died in the cause of freedom. A section of Shermans cavalry occupied the town, and without doing any damage passed through. Not an insult nor an unkind word was said to any of the women of that town. The men had, with guilty consciences, fled; but on their return, with their traditional chivalry, they seized upon poor Army, and ignominiously hung her to a sycamore-tree standing in front of the court-house, underneath which stood the block from which was monthly exhibited the slave chattels that were struck down by the auctioneers hammer to the highest bidder.Amy Spain heroically heard her sentence, and from her prison bars declared she was prepared to die. She defied her persecutors; and as she ascended the scaffold declared she was going to a place where she would receive a crown of glory. She was rudely interrupted by an oath from one of her executioners. To the eternal disgrace of Darlington her execution was acquiesced in and witnessed by most of the citizens of the town. Amy was launched into eternity, and the chivalric Southern gentlemen of Darlington had fully established their bravery by making war upon a defenseless African woman. She sleeps quietly, with others of her race, near the beautiful village. No memorial marks her grave, but after-ages will remember this martyr of liberty. Her persecutors will pass away and be forgotten, but Amy Spains name is now hallowed among the Africans, who, emancipated and free, dare, with the starry folds of the flag of the free floating over them, speak her name with holy reverence.
SOURCE: http://blackhistory.harpweek.com/7Illustrations/Culture/HangingAmySpainBI.htm Amy desired to be free, and not anything could stop her. The enslavers may have destroyed Amys body by murdering her with death by hanging, but they could never destroy her spirit or thirst for freedom-freedom that so many millions of Black women fought for in many ways we will never know. REFERENCES: In Praise of Black Women: Black Heroines of the Slavery Era, by Simone Schwarz-Bart. 1.

In Praise of Black Women, Volume 2: Heroines of the Slavery Era by Simone Schwarz-Bart, Andrem Schwarz-Bart, Rose-Myriam Rejouis, and Val Vinokurov (Hardcover Dec 2002) (1)

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BLACK HISTORY MONTH: BLACK HEROINES: EPILOGUE

Then said the mournful mother, If Ohio cannot save, I will do a deed for freedom Shalt find each child a grave. -Frances E.W. Harper, The Slave Mother, A Tale of Ohio Aqualtune. Nanny. Dandarah. Zabeth. Carlotta. Margaret Garner. Theirs are just a few of the known enslaved Black women who struck a blow for freedom against the savage monstrosity known as slavery. Everywhere in this hemisphere, many, many Black women resisted chattel slavery; resisted the sexual abuse and exploitation that was their lot in life; resisted the life of perpetual bondage that sought to crush and annihilate the humanity of themselves, the men in their lives-their children. Many Black women fighters for freedom knew that they took a chance in prevailing against their enslavers, but, they knew that if they did not work to break the chains of bondage forged by the greed of slavers, not only would they remain enslavedso, too, would their children, and their childrens children, and those childrens children. When people think of resistance against enslavement, so many people picture a Black man, but, not a Black woman. But, as the many Black women I wrote of, Black women did not stand by as if they had no agency, no resolve, no fortitude to bring down the institution of slavery. All across this hemisphere, Black fought in whatever way they could to free themselves, and for many Black women, no tactic used in resistance to enslavement was trivial or insignificant, no matter what the costs it brought. Running away, fighting, breaking tools, poisoning owners, malingeringwhatever it took, these were the many paths Black women would go down to free themselves from a lifetime of servitude to parasitical, leeching slaveholders. Mothers who departed with their children confronted special difficulties. It was not easy to feed, clothe, care for, and protect young children while on the run. The physical burden of

carrying babies or youngsters four or five years of age was extreme, while the seven- or eight-year-olds had trouble keeping up and often tired quickly. One runaway mother took her child despite his being sick with a sore mouth and cannot speak. Mothers themselves often suffered from maladies. Thirty-year-old Matilda, a New Orleans blackwho absconded in 1832 with her seven-year-old son, had a tumor on the side of her neck. A number of the women who ran away with their children were city slaves or had recently arrived in the city. They planned to hide out, get to a suburb, or sneak aboard a sailing craft or steamboat. The owner of jenny, a mulatto servant who departed from his house in the French Quarter carrying her two-and-a-half-month-old baby, would, the owner believed, attempt to embark on a steamboat. Pregnant women also ran away. Twenty-one-year-old Lucille, a Louisiana woman who set out in 1833, was in an advanced stage of pregnancy. The captains of vessels are requested not to give her shelter, the New Orleans widow who owned her threatened, under the pain provided by the law to punish the captains. Nancy was seven or eight months pregnant and was limping because of a sore toe when she ran away in 1834, shortly before Christmas. Twenty-eight-year-old Jane, or Jinny, a mulatto slave, was with child when she absconded in 1835. The runaway Martha Ann, Virginia slave owner John J.Minter said in 1850, expects to be confined in six or eight weeks. He had purchased Martha Ann-an eighteenyear-old mulatto-only two months before. (1) Many people do not envision a child resisting enslavement. But, many did-more than we will ever know. As Zabeth desired freedom, so too, did many little Black children thirst and hunger for it as well: Perhaps even more heartrending were children running away to find their mothers and fathers. Their chances of success were very remote, as eight-,nine-, ten-, and eleven-yearolds usually wandered in vain seeking their parents. Invariably they were caught and returned to their owners. By the time they reached their early to mid-teens, however, their chances improved but only slightly. The runaway notices did nit mention the motives of slaves who absconded, but for youngsters, the owners surmised that they were attempting to follow a mother or father or uncle or aunt or grandparent who had been sold. How Peter, age fourteen or fifteen, made if from the farm in northern Virginia to the mountains of Alabama without being detected seems a remarkable feat in itself. He was jailed in Tallapoosa County, however, and the jailer sent a letter to a Richmond newspaper asking his owner to come forward, prove his property, pay expenses and take him away. Nothing was said about why the youngster was running toward the heart of the Deep South, but it surely had to do with a search for his family. (1) Black women used many devices to escape or to keep themselves or their family members being sold into slavery. One way to fight against slavery had to have exacted a heavy toll, physically, and psychologicallyon Black women who were mothers who refused to allow one more enslaved child to enrich the blood-smeared coffers of the slave master and his family. Therefore, infanticide happened, and we will never know the toll it had to have taken on many a Black mother who chose to take her childs life rather than to allow her or him to live a life of enslavement: Reports of black womens resistance posed a particularly threatening psychological challenge to white men, whose patriarchy rested not only on the subjugation of all nonwhites, but also on the social, economic, and political subordination of all women. Of the psychological challenge that enslaved womens resistance presented, Darlene Clark Hine observes: A woman who elected not to have childrenor, to put it another way, engaged in sexual abstinence, abortion, or infanticidenegated through individual or group action her role in the maintenance of the slave pool. To the extent that in doing so she redefined her role in the system she introduced a unit of psychological heterogeneity into a worldview, which depended, for its survival, on homogeneity, at least with respect to the assumption of its ideology. (2) Black women endured unimaginable hardships and cruelties during slavery in their struggle for daily survival. At times, however, the desire to live gave way to the recognition that survival demanded a price

that they were no longer willing to pay. Such recognition served as a catalyst to armed resistance, murder, or suicide. In this state of mind, Black women acted not as the allegedly grateful and compliant wards and seducers of slaveholders, but as warriors in the fight to end slavery. The violation of enslaved women often was very public. Consider for example the following description of enslaved womens work environment: Ma mama said that nigger oman couldnt help herself, fo she had to do what the marster say. Ef he come to de field whar de women workin and he tell gal to come on, she had to go. He would take one down in de woods an use her all de time he wanted to, den send her back to work. Times nigger oman had children for marster an his sons and some times it was fo de ovah seer. (2) (3) During the course of the day, week, month, throughout the year, enslaved Black women on plantations were chosen randomly to perform sexual acts with slave owners, their sons, and overseers. Such conditions rendered their terror of rape to the realm of the ostensibly mundane. Many Black women rebelled against their sexual abuse and their being faced with the possibility of a master selling them. Because Black women were routinely publicly violated, it is understandable that in their efforts to resist, they were willing to reclaim, at all costs, their always already publicly exposed, publicly abused bodies. In one heartbreaking example, an ex;enslave recalled, I knew a woman who could not be conquered by her mistress, so her master threatened to sell her to New Orleans Negro traders. She took her right hand, laid it down on a meat block and cut off three fingers, and thus made the sale impossible. While the woman in this account was made bereft of the full use of her right hand for the rest of her life, she did seize ownership of her own body, which rightfully belonged to her. The horrific and perverted circumstances provided a context in which self-mutilation could become an act of resistance. However, it is important to note that continual resistance to the mistresss attempts to conquer her most definitely preceded this rash act. (2) Slavery apologists were hard-pressed to defend a system that so traumatized Africana people, that in desperation, rage, and defiance some enslaved Africans would run away, mutilate themselves, murder, and, at times, such as in the case of Margaret Garner, actively decide to take not only take their own lives but also the lives of their own children. The Garner case provides a particularly useful example of the influence Black female resistance had on the development of ethnological, proslavery arguments. In fact, Margaret Garners contemporary importance as a symbol of the antislavery cause rivaled that of Dred Scott and Anthony Burnsmen whose stories are very well-known, while Margarets had fallen into oblivion. Yet Margarets story disappeared until resolutely, beautifully, and lovingly resurrected over a century later by Toni Morrison. Slavery sought to dehumanize every aspect of enslaved Black womens lives. A country that at every turn, at every minute, at every conceivable way created and maintained a system that denounced, diminished, degraded, defiled the grisly torture and sufferings that millions of Black women endured. But, enslaved Black women refused to let the slave holder, the racist pseudo-scientist of that day, the apologists for slavery to have the last word. Black women may have been enslaved in body, but, they were never enslaved in mind. In their acts of insurgency, Black women fought back against assaults upon their humanity that was a constant barrage of lies that they were inferior, lies that they were not human, lies that they were not women. Black women were determined to fight against the disrespect of their humanity. Even unto this day, Black women still have to fight against the legacy of centuries of the hatred of not only of Black people, but, most of all, the hatred of Black womanhood. For in their resistance to racist, sexist, exploitative and enslaved tyranny, Black women showed their obedience to God. A legacy they passed on to future Black women.

REFERENCES: 1. Runaway Slaves: Rebels On the Plantation, by John Hope Franklin and Loren Schweninger, Oxford University Press, 1999: Chapter 3: Whither Thou Goest -Mothers and Children,, pgs. 64-65. 2. Shout Out: Women of Color Respond to Violence, edited by Maria Ochoa and Barbara K. Ige, Seal Press, 2007. Chapter 4: Messages of Pain: I Will Do A Deed For Freedom: Enslaved Women, Proslavery Theorists, and the Contested Discourse of Black Womanhood,, pgs. 281-297. 3. We Are Your Sisters, 25; Aunt Jane: Rawick, vol. 8 Perdue L. Charles, E. Barden Thomas, and Rovert K. Phillips, eds. Weevils In The Wheat (Charlottesville, 1976).