La Mulâtresse Solitude

La Mulatresse Solitude

La Mulatresse Solitude was born around 1772, she was a rebel in the fight against slavery in Guadeloupe. She was the daughter of slaves and grew up to eventually join the Maroons of Guadeloupe. In 1802 Napolean Bonaparte enacted a law reinstating slavery in the French colonies which started a rebellion by Louis Delgres, leader of the Armies of the Republic who resisted the reoccupation. La Mulatresse Solitude joined his cause and fought by his side for freedom. The slave rebellion had come to an end when Delgres and others had blown themselves up in a mountain fortress by lighting a barrel of gunpowder with his pipe as the French troops charged in. Other freedom fighters where hung on Constantin Hill, in the heights of Basse-Terre, their bodies exposed to the elements. Many women and children had also sacrificed their lives in the final battle. The occupation force killed approximately 10,000 Guadeloupeans in the process of re-taking the island from the rebels. On May 8th 1802, La Mulatresses was captured and imprisoned by the French, at the time of her capture she was with a child. They delayed her execution until November 29, 1802 because her child was the property of a slave owner. Exactly one day after the birth of her child La Mulatresse's execution was carried out by hanging.

A statue in her memory sculpted by Jacky Poulier was erected on Heros aux Abymes Boulevard in Guadeloupe in 1999. In 2007 a statue was erected in her memory in the ile-de-France region of Hauts-de-Seine for the celebration of the abolition of slavery and the slave trade. This statue is made of iroko, a kind of African wood and steel. Sculpter Nicolas Alquin acknowledges that it is the first memorial to all "enslaved people who resisted."

La Mulatresse Solitude is currently being considered for inclusion in the French Pantheon, that celebrates the memory of distinguished French citizens.

*Source: wikipedia

Lost in Time: Seneca Village

Lost in Time: Seneca Village

Central Park, one of New York's most famous landmarks for tourist and despite its popularity few people know that the creation of this park was built on the destruction of a little known residential area occupied by free blacks called Seneca Village.

 

Seneca Village…a buried place; If it were not for historical records or the many artifacts found during a recent excavation and a stone outcropping near the 85th Street entrance to Central Park believed to be part of a foundation of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, it would be another important aspect of our history that would have been forgotten and erased from the pages of time. 

Seneca Village existed from 1825 through 1857, it was made up of a community founded by free black people who purchased land for sale from West 82nd to West 85th streets. The first to buy land in the area was Andrew Williams and Epiphany Davis in 1825. The population was 250 residents living in 70 houses. In 1821, the state of New York decreed that if African American men possessed $250 in property holdings and proof of three years of residency in the state they would be eligible to vote.The ownership of property gave African American men the opportunity to participate in the US democracy.   Because of this decree many residents like a cooper (barrel maker) named James Hinson was eligible. Census data shows that his property, including two lots of land and a two-story residence with an attached shed, was valued at $550. Hinson had originally purchased his property for $325.

As Seneca Village's population began to increase and thrive Irish and German immigrants also purchased property among the African American residents. By 1855, a New York State Census found that Seneca Village had 264 residents. In 1851, Ambrose Kingsland, New York's mayor decided with the influx of immigrants to enhance the city's popularity and aesthetics, he along with the wealthier merchants, bankers and landowners would create a park for their families to enjoy for leisurely pleasures. The land they chose was occupied by the residents of Seneca Village as well as 1,600 people who lived in the surrounding areas.  Of course, the residents protested through the court system but the city used the law of eminent domain to seize their land. The Seneca Village homeowners had little recourse as the media labeled them as "squatters living in shanties" and "nigger village" this did not garner public sympathy or support. 

Over two thirds of Seneca Village was African America and 50% owned their land. Sadly,not only were the residents forced to leave, (some evicted violently), renters got no compensation at all and homeowners were poorly compensated for their land. In the thirty-two years of its existence Seneca Village had made its imprint in America History as a defining community in its time. 

~In 1855, over 2,000 African American residents lived in New York and only 100 were eligible to vote. 10 of those 100 were residents of Seneca Village.

~50% of African American residents owned their own land and this was five times the average ownership rate for all New Yorkers.

~Albro Lyons, Levin Smith and S. Hardenburgh were property owners of Seneca Village as well as participants in the abolitionist movement.

After the residents were evicted and Seneca Village destroyed they did not rebuild, some remained in New York but there is no record of what happened to them. Some historians tried to locate the descendants of the Seneca Village residents but none were ever located.

 Central Park (today)

In 2011, a group called the Seneca Village Project pressured the city to create a plaque.  It describes the Seneca Village as a "unique community" that was probably "Manhattan’s first prominent community of African American property owners."

 

The group went on in 2011 to get permission for an archaeological dig in Central Park to gather more information about the village and its residents.

*Sources:

wikipedia.org

citymetric.com

centralparknyc.org

Quidah (Juda), a city in Benin: Slave Port

Ouidah

The Portuguese Fort of Ouidah in 1886

Ouidah , was once known as Juda, a city in Benin , it is located 42 kilometers from Cotonou . The population is currently at about 60,000 inhabitants . In the eighteenth century, this city was one of the main centers of the abduction and transport of slaves in the Transatlantic Slave Trade.

Quidah was the main place to transport the slaves to the Americas, From the eleven million Africans taken by Western Slave Traffickers almost two million left from Benin. 60 percent from the two main ports Quidah and Lagos. Quidah was strategically isolated from the rest of the kingdom to guarantee the royal monopoly. The Yovoghan, which translate to "leader of the Whites" was the commercial interface between European slavers and the Abomey slave state. This was set up by King Agadja of Agbomin (1708-1740), the slave trade was set up by King Kpengla (1774-1789) and was undertaken by periodic raids on the margins of the kingdom to the benefit of the ethnic groups of Fons. The slaves were assembled in a square to be sold, then chain together and taken to the beach to be separated. They were then put in canoes, taken to the ships andplaced in holds as they awaited the voyage to the Americas. Many slaves convinced they were to be eaten threw themselves into the sea.

Quidah was the main port for export of the slaves, Many European countries, such as the Danish, Portuguese, Dutch, French and the English came there to capture or trade for slaves. The Kings and elite tribes bartered with the Europeans to obtain the best price for their human commerce. In Benin today, the history of the slave trade by the Abomey kingom has fostered tension between the Fons and the ethnic tribes that live further north that fell victim to the annual raids carried out at that time condemning many of their ancestors into slavery.

Quidah is home to many monuments: 

 The Whydah Galley

 A model of the Whydah Galley

Whydah was commissioned in 1715 in London, England, by Sir Humphrey Morice, a member of the British Parliament, known as 'the foremost London Slave merchant of his day'.A square-rigged three-masted galley ship, it measured 110 feet (34 m) in length, with a tonnage rating at 300 tuns burthen, and could travel at speeds up to 13 knots (24 km/h; 15 mph).

Christened Whydah after the West African slave trading kingdom of Ouidah (pronounced WIH-dah), the vessel was configured as a heavily armed trading and transport ship which included the Atlantic slave trade. It set out for its maiden voyage in early 1716, carrying a variety of goods from different businesses to exchange for delivery, trade, and slaves in West Africa. After traveling down West Africa through modern-day Gambia and Senegal to Nigeria and Benin, where its namesake port was located, it left Africa with an estimated 500 captives,gold, including Akan jewelry, and ivory aboard. It traveled to the Caribbean, where it traded and sold the cargo and captives for precious metals, sugar, indigo, rum, logwood, pimento, ginger, and medicinal ingredients, which were to then be transported back to England.Fitted with a standard complement of 18 six-pound cannon, which could be increased to a total of 28 in time of war.

On the return leg of its maiden voyage of the triangle trade, it began a new role in the Golden Age of Piracy, when it was captured by the pirate Captain Samuel "Black Sam" Bellamy, and was refitted as his flagship.

Bellamy sailed the Whydah up the coast of Colonial America, capturing ships as he went. On April 26, 1717, the Whydah was caught in a violent storm and wrecked. Only two of Bellamy's crew survived, along with seven others who were on a sloop captured by Bellamy earlier that day. Six of the nine survivors were hanged, two who had been forced into piracy were freed, and one Indian crewman was sold into slavery.

Whydah and her treasure eluded discovery for over 260 years until 1984, when the wreck was found – buried between 10 and 50 feet of sand, under water depths of 16 to 30 feet deep, spread four miles parallel to the Cape's coast. With the discovery of the ship's bell in 1985 and a small brass placard in 2013, both inscribed with the ship's name and maiden voyage date, Whydah is the only fully authenticated Golden Age pirate shipwreck ever discovered.

*Source: Wikipedia

"The Door of No Return"

 

La Porte Du Non Retour is a monument that was built in the design of  a gate.  It is the symbolism of the departure of captured slaves leaving for the Western world from Benin.  It was the last place slaves walked before they were taken to the slave ship; the slaves knew from that point that they wouldn’t be able to ever see their familes or Benin again.