GUADELOUPE – april 8, 1802
Solitude has become a legendary figure in the antislavery struggles of Caribbean blacks in the early nineteenth century. Her extreme courage made her legendary and prompted whites to caricature her as mad.While details about Solitude’s life are few, her existence has been authenticated in historical accounts of the abolition and re-establishment of slavery in the French Empire during the 1790s and 1800s. Solitude played an active role in the armed resistance, bearing arms in the battle of May 8, 1802. Women participated as combatants and also inspired the men to greater feats of resistance and valor. Though pregnant, Solitude participated in all the battles in the Dolé post. She was particularly prone to expressing her rage against prisoners taken by the resistance fighters. Solitude kept rabbits and once caught one that escaped, speared it with a skewer, and showed it to the prisoners, saying “Look, this is how I’m going to treat you when the time comes.”…(Read more from source below).
