March 7, 2025 • 41 mins
Between 1800 and 1850, resistance surged across the Caribbean as the enslaved refused to wait for freedom to be granted. But rebellion wasn’t just about battle—it thrived in quiet defiance, spiritual leadership, and intelligence networks. Women played vital but often overlooked roles, shaping revolts from the shadows. From secret messengers to spiritual guides, their impact was undeniable. In this episode, historian Dr. Zara Anishanslin and local experts unravel the ways enslaved women challenged colonial rule, fought for sovereignty, and ensured survival. Their resistance didn’t always take the form of weapons—but it was powerful, strategic, and relentless.
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Episode Transcript
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>> Mr. Richardson (00:00):
M.
>> Dr. Anna Hanslin (00:02):
Even things where women were never a majority, like
military participants, there have always been
women who have fought in conflicts and battles
and wars and picked up arms. They've never
been the majority, but they've always
been present in these conflicts. And there have always been
a certain amount of women who have fought in
(00:22):
these engagements, just like men.
>> Unidentified (Podcast Host) (00:26):
Welcome to Whispers of the Past. I'm your host,
Fitavit. And this is revolt and the promise of
sovereignty. In this episode, we step
into the period of 1800 to
1850, a time of growing
defiance, when resistance against colonial
rule surged across the Caribbean.
Even as European powers debated
(00:48):
abolition, the enslaved refused to wait for their
freedom to be granted. Revolts
ignited across the region, fueled by
whispers of emancipation and the unyielding
determination of those still in bondage.
But what does it truly mean to resist?
Is rebellion only measured by weapons and
(01:11):
warfare? Or does it also
exist in the quiet acts of defiance that shape
history from the shadows?
For too long, women's roles in uprising
have been overlooked.
Yet they were not just witnesses to history.
They were strategists, advisors, and
(01:31):
bearers of knowledge that sustained entire
movements. To begin,
historian Dr. Anna Hanslin takes us beyond
synthesis. Offering a broader
perspective on the Atlantic route,
she reveals how women's resistance, though often
unseen, was fundamental to the revolutions
that reshaped the Caribbean.
>> Dr. Anna Hanslin (01:55):
Yes, so some people, I think, assume that men are always
the ones who are leading revolts because they tend to
be the warriors in revolutions and
rebellions. But in pretty much
every war, women are present as, um, active
fighters as well, whether that's by choice or by
accident. And so you do have examples of
(02:16):
women actually fighting in. In
rebellions in the 18th and 19th century. But
I think more importantly, women are present in ways that
support the revolution and rebellion in
various places in the Atlantic world, um,
as people who are spiritual advisors,
practical advisors, people who are the keepers of
memory in terms of what's happening
(02:38):
and things in the past that might inform
the the present and their actions. They're also
the people who often have their ears to the ground. They can
easily collect the latest gossip and the latest
news, particularly enslaved women who are
laboring inside plantation houses, who
are close to their enslavers for various reasons, and sometimes that is
because of a sexual relationship. They're conduits
(03:01):
of information. And so they can be really
important central actors in these sort
of networks of communication that Julia Scott and other
historians have identified as really important. In
Flaming the Fan of Rebellion in the Caribbean in the
18th and 19th centuries.
>> Unidentified (Podcast Host) (03:21):
Women'S role in rebellion have often been
overshadowed by male dominated narratives.
But as Dr. Anna Hansen explains, their
contributions extended far beyond combat,
encompassing intelligence gathering,
spiritual leadership, and direct
resistance. What does it truly mean to
lead a rebellion? Is it defined solely
(03:43):
by those who wield weapons?
Or does leadership also lie in the unseen
network that sustain revolts from within?
In a world where survival often depends on
strategy, enslaved women, especially
those laboring inside plantation houses,
became critical sources of intelligence.
(04:05):
Their proximity to enslavers granted them
access to whispered plans, shifting political
currents, and the hidden tension that could spark
an uprising. These
women became conduits of knowledge. Their m
voices carried vital information through secret
networks that historians recognized as
essential to the Caribbean resistance movements.
(04:29):
But this knowledge came at a cost. For
these women, information was both a weapon and a
burden, A tool for liberation,
yet a risk that could mean a difference between freedom
and a deadly punishment.
Beyond gathering intelligence, enslaved women also
played vital roles as spiritual guides and
(04:50):
advisors, drawing upon traditions deeply
rooted in West African heritage.
These traditions, passed down through generations,
offered strength and strategy in time of
turmoil. But how did these roles
translate into leadership during uprisings? How
did the wisdom of women shape the course of the
rebellion? Dr. Anna Hanselin
(05:11):
explains.
>> Dr. Anna Hanslin (05:15):
And I think also among communities where
African spiritual traditions are still present
and African cultural traditions are really strong,
Female leaders in Africa do have, again,
different role than they do in white patriarchal
European societies. And so, you know,
there's a sense that women should be respected as the keepers
(05:36):
of collective memory. And the idea that women
can be wise and offer counsel to the men
who are going to fight and be warriors, and also that there
are female spiritual leaders, um, in a lot of West
African traditions. And so I think you see all of these various
roles, um, of women coming together. But
of course, as with what defines their conditions of
(05:56):
enslavement, it also can be difficult for women these
times of rebellion and revolution, because it's harder
for you to run with an army
or, um, you know, run to a maroon community.
If you have a baby, you know that you're a baby in your
arms, that you're breastfeeding, right? And so I think these are
again, um, concerns that aren't limited to
(06:16):
women. Certainly, you know, men or fathers and have,
have familial concerns too. But it was definitely the case
in this period that women are the primary
caregivers and nurturers, usually of children. And so this is
going to affect their ability to be physically
present with revolutionary armies and forces.
But again, any army or military
(06:36):
force, and this is true across
Time in the Caribbean, as elsewhere, relies on
the labor of women to sustain it. So you have
women working as cooks and, um,
laundresses and sexual partners and doing
all the things that keep an army full of men
on, on their feet and in fighting condition. And
so you see, you see this again with women involved in
(06:59):
slave revolts and rebellions throughout the Caribbean. So
I would say they do play a really vital role in
multiple ways, even though they're not,
obviously, you know, the ones
primarily yielding the swords or the bayonets or the
musket.
>> Unidentified (Podcast Host) (07:16):
As Dr. Anna Hansen highlights, women were
woven into the fairy fabric of resistance. Whether
through spiritual leadership, intelligence gathering,
or sustaining revolutionary forces, they
were indispensable. Yet while these
networks of resistance stretched across the Caribbean,
each island has its own story to tell.
(07:37):
How did these broader movements toward freedom shape life
on Sint Eustaceous? To understand the local impact, we turn
to Missesutikau, a long term resident and one of
the founders of the center of Archaeology and Research.
She helps us explore the period of unrest here on
Sintostatius and how enslaved individuals
sought their own path to freedom,
(07:58):
often looking beyond their own shores to
islands where slavery had already been abolished.
>> Ms. Sutekau (08:06):
This was a time of slavery unrest all through the
Caribbean. In
1846, the English Islands and, um,
granted emancipation of slavery.
And so a lot of Irish slaves were trying to escape
in those years to the British islands.
Oftentimes they were escaping to the Spanish
islands because the Spanish were allowed even to be
(08:28):
free. The French islands had been
granted emancipation of slavery, but after
Napoleon came in, they reinstituted
the institution of slavery. So the French
islands were later in actually
recognizing slavery. But this was the time of the
unrest and this was the time that slaves were beginning
to find out that they had
(08:50):
power and that they needed to exercise their
power for their own rights.
>> Unidentified (Podcast Host) (08:59):
The early 19th century marked a turning point for
Sint Eustatius. While resistance and
rebellion were spreading across the region, the island
itself was undergoing dramatic changes.
No longer the thriving trading hub of the previous
century, Stacia faced economic
decline, shifting political control and
(09:20):
the departure of key merchant groups.
What did this mean for those who remained?
How did these changes impact the
enslaved, free people of color and the
landowners who had once shaped the island's
economy? Mrs. Sutekau helps us
understand the shifting landscape of this era and
what it means for Stacia's future.
>> Ms. Sutekau (09:45):
I know that there were a lot
of involvement, uh, with women
who own property here, and
that property, um, was often
sold during that period. You have
to remember, after
1816. In early
1800s and 1860, when we regained
(10:07):
our independence from England
and France and became Dutch again to stay Dutch
forever, our economy was going
down. Our warehouses were closed. The
French had closed the warehouses, and the English kept them
closed during that period of time. So that by
1816, after the war, in 1812, in the
United States, station was never more, uh,
(10:30):
a, uh, large trading colony. Small amounts of
trades may be going on, but we were not needed
by the New World at that point in time.
So almost all the stuff that was
going out here with agricultural. So
we were growing crops. We started growing indigo, about that
term. We started doing the sisal
(10:50):
crop where we were making the rope and everything
else. There also was the
beginning of our cotton crops.
Originally we were growing Sea island cotton
and also inferior grades.
We lost that contract to Montserrat,
supposedly because our good
(11:11):
cotton was spiked with some bad cotton.
And, um, it did not meet the quality that was needed in
England. This was a period that
Stacia was greatly
decreased economically in its
value. It was also a period when
people, planters and plantation
owners began to leave the island.
(11:34):
The Jewish population had already gone.
So there were not the Jewish merchant ships that
had been here before that were involved
in the trade. So because the Jewish
population basically left the island
by the early 1800, only one Jewish
woman left with life, and she died in
(11:54):
1846. And, uh,
she wasn't even buried on this island. She was either
buried with her family in Saint Martin or Nevis
or one of the surrounding islands. So
that, uh, 1800s to the
1850s was the beginning of the
decline of St. Eustachia.
>> Unidentified (Podcast Host) (12:16):
As the 19th century progressed, Sint Eustacea
was no longer the bustling trading hub it once
was. The warehouses were closed,
the Jewish merchant community had left, and
the island's economy became increasingly
reliant on agriculture.
While global powers debated abolition, the
island's trajectory seemed to shift away from its
(12:38):
past dominance. Yet
even as Stacia's formal role in the transatlantic
enslaved economy declined, the illegal
trade in enslaved people continued. As
Mr. Richardson, the island's heritage inspector,
explains how colonial powers may have
abolished the transatlantic and slave trade,
(12:58):
but that didn't mean that the practice had
truly ended. Instead, the demand for
forced labor fueled underground networks,
exposing the stark contradictions between
abolitionist policies and economic
real.
>> Mr. Richardson (13:16):
So we're, uh, now in the beginning of the 19th
century, and St. Eustatius of is showing the
Caribbean that stage is different. So
now think about what I've said about the island
changing hands. You know, 22 times in the space of
150 years. We're still within that
150 years. We're nearing the
end of the final change of hands, but we're not there
(13:38):
yet. In that period, though, before we go
in, it's the late 1790s. Two
young Irish boys, no older than
25 or on a ship, and they're. Guess
what they're doing. They're trying to sell a few
enslaved people still. And think about this way. The
British have already outlawed the trade between
Africa, so that. That has stopped. It's illegal. But
(14:01):
then this, These two Irish gentlemen who is then part of, you
know, considered British, they are
sailing down from the USA and they're being. They go into
port and in the letters, you can read the letters
today, and you can hear them saying that
they've been turned away in this port and that port. And they're
heading down now from the area of the Bahamas,
(14:22):
it's all British, and they don't know where to go.
And they meet up with other
traders somewhere in the area of what is now
today the Turks and Caicos Islands. And what do they
do? They are told that they can get rid of their
commodity on Saint Eustatius. So. And
they did. So this ship comes into Sint Eustace
(14:42):
still with about 10 or 20 enslaved people,
and we're talking about the late
1790s. So think of it.
We're no longer in 1640. We're now in the
1790s. And it's still being
done. It's still being done illegally. And Stacia is
harboring all of that. Stacia is still. After
(15:02):
the plundering of Rodney that we spoke about in
previous episodes, Stacia is still doing this.
It's still being accepted. That goes to show you what
the vibe of the island was. And then you see
that these two boys, um, these young
gentlemen, they succeed in this and then they
disappear and they're never seen again. And then you see
that fast forward in
(15:23):
1798. We're almost
in the 19th century, and they still do it. Someone
else does it this time. Um, the French.
And what you need to remember is that
what's interesting is the French Revolution already
happened. So you have equality,
fraternity, and what's the one,
(15:43):
the other one I forgot. Anyway, so the French has
this thing, and the French is like, you know,
abolishing slavery, et cetera, and before
Napoleon reinstates it years after.
But what is interesting is that the island is French
when that happens. And it's not Dutch,
it's not English and, uh, what you will see that in between
(16:04):
From M. The 1600s up to now,
everyone, the island is changing hands. And no
one up to now
abolishes slavery.
So whether it was illegal to even trade
or sell in the French territories, when
the minute the French got into Satius, they ramped up
the trade in slaves, the minute the British,
(16:26):
the Dutch, the minute everyone got it back,
this little island, they kept doing it and doing it
and doing it. And so that shows you the
depth of how far St. Eustatius was already
known in the trade of the enslaved people.
>> Unidentified (Podcast Host) (16:43):
The persistence of, uh, the illegal slave trade on
Sintostatius underscores the island's deep
entanglement in human exploitation,
even as abolishment gained ground elsewhere.
But as the 19th century progressed, the island's
economy adapted. Plantations
expanded, bringing new crops, but also new
horrors. The enslaved endured extreme
(17:05):
brutalities, punishments designed not only to
enforce control, but to strip them from their
humanity. These practices, passed down
through oral histories, reveal the full extent of the
violence used to maintain the system.
Despite this cruelty, survival and resistance took
many forms. As Mr. Richardson continues, he
(17:26):
brings us into the heart of these oral histories.
Stories that bear witness to the suffering, but also
the resilience. This next
segment contains descriptions of extreme physical
punishment. If you
prefer to skip this content, you may fast forward the next
three minutes.
>> Mr. Richardson (17:47):
So station life is still pretty much
the same, but then there's a change. The
plantations that I told you that were amounted to 30
are now 76. So the
plantation economy goes into
full drive. You see that it grows
even. So it's like one trade dies and the
other one picks up. So then, now you have indigo. You even
(18:09):
have a crawfish. You have sugar, you
have rum. There's a lot of rum distilleries on the
island from back then. And you see this is then ramping
up. And then you see that the island is still kind of
disconnected from the colonial government or from the
Hague at the time. And
then there's, of course, the stories. And a
(18:29):
lot of these stories that you see are, uh, oral
traditions. And I find oral traditions should not be
discredited because oral traditions
were the local way
of keeping stories alive and telling your history.
And why I'm going to say this is because many of those oral
traditions have proven to be extremely true when
it came to St. Eustatius. And when we go into the early
(18:52):
20th century, I will give more explanation as to why you
reach on the famous golden rock plantation,
there's Mr. Moore Sr. And Mr. Moore
Jr. The Moore family sounds very English, but
it's actually very stationed. They were born on stage, of
course, descended from Irish colonists, but they were born
on Stacia afterwards. And senior Mr.
Moore then is known to have impregnated many
(19:15):
of enslaved women. He was also known as the father
of the mulattoes on St. Eustatia's and of
course, kind of, you know, it's not something to be proud of.
But Mr. Moore is then, or Mr. Moore
Sr. Is also credited with his harsh,
harsh punishment. Punishment, like his son later,
to the enslaved people. And what you see is
(19:35):
there's many examples of oral traditions of women
being placed in ditches to where
they would be placed face down and would get the
harshest of punishments. And one punishment is
what I saw was a cattle ride. And I
often wondered what was a cattle ride until
via a colleague in Barbados who explained to
(19:56):
me what a cattle ride is. That is
where they would use kind of. They would dig
out a ditch, and it's quite
sad. And they would place you face down in that
ditch, and they would drive.
Or the master or the owner of the plantation
would ride his carriage
over you. So you would have kind of been the
(20:18):
function of the road. You would become the road, and you would be
face down. And this would have caused many
deformities, you know, crooked backs, broken
spines. People would have died. People would have been
crushed. And that was one of. That was just one of the few punishments
that they had here on St. Eustatius. And if
you go back into the records and you read the letter
of, uh, Zimmerman, who's traveling the islands, you can
(20:41):
see that Sycius does not. It's the
golden rock. But when it comes to the punishment and the treatment
of enslaved people, it is harsh. And he
records also the quarters of how the enslaved people are
treated and how they live. And this is still all the
1800s. And in that period
of the 1800s, um, the island becomes then
permanently Dutch. They don't realize it
(21:04):
until about 1816. It happened in 1815
officially at the concert in Vienna. But they don't realize it
here until 1816.
>> Unidentified (Podcast Host) (21:15):
The plantation economy tightens its grip on sinter
statius. But resistance took many
forms. Some sought freedom through rebellion,
while others worked within the system to subvert it from
the inside. Among
these women were free women of color, figures
often overlooked in the history of resistance.
(21:35):
As landowners, businesswomen, and guardians of
future generations, they challenged the notion that
power lay solely in the hands of the colonial
rulers. As Mr. Richardson
continues, he will introduce us To Francis
Coffee, Mary Gibbs, and other women who
navigated oppression in unexpected ways, using
ownership, trade and skill building to
(21:58):
carve out spaces of autonomy.
>> Mr. Richardson (22:02):
And as that period progress, there are a lot of free
people of color. The free people of color population recovers
again since Rodney. And then you see a lot
of key figures popping up. And in
that period, what is interesting is that
there's a lady called
Frances Coffey who
buys the Glass bottle plantation for
(22:25):
3,000 florins or guilders at
the time. And she buys the plantation
with everything that's attached, including
the enslaved people. Um,
but it's not all what it seems. And in that
period as well, what you see is
another lady. Her name was Mary
Gibbs. Mary Gibbs is a seamstress.
(22:47):
She's a free woman of color. And she takes
about 10 to 15
girls under her wing who are still
enslaved. But what's interesting is that you
see all of these women and also men, but mostly the
women having people under the wing, where it
seems as if the enslaved people or the free
people of color aren't into satius or have
(23:09):
slaves themselves. But you don't have a plantation, but you
own slaves. M. So the European idea
would be, you see, free people had black people, had
slaves as well in the Caribbean. But is that true,
though? That's reading things from a helicopter view. But
when you go in between, reading between
the lines, and you see, for example,
(23:29):
Mary Brown is 70 when she
acquires these girls, quite old for that time,
but she. She is going to eventually die at
72. And in her will
she leaves, all these girls are free.
And in two years time, they're all kind of
trained to be seamstresses. And what you
see eventually in the emancipation register, when that
(23:52):
would eventually come in 1863, when you
go back there, you see what was going on. All of these
girls were kind of going into apprenticeship
under slavery. So on stage, had they kind of dealt
develop this kind of very
intellectual way of what we call
defiance or Verset. I think it's not
explored enough in the Caribbean how
(24:14):
people were using this system that
was, you know, unlawfully, you
know, uh, implemented or given to them, how
they turned this system around to make it work in their
favor. So what you see on synthesis is a
sort of deliverette
where they're using the norm of
(24:35):
slavery right in front of the colonial
governors.
>> Unidentified (Podcast Host) (24:42):
Ownership on paper didn't always mean what it
seemed. While colonial records listed free
people of color as enslavers, a closer
look reveals a completely different story.
Some, like Mary Gibbs, took Young enslaved
women under their career, not to exploit them, but to
teach them skills that would one day allow them to live as
free women. These were quiet
(25:05):
revolutions hidden in legal documents,
yet profoundly impactful.
One such woman was Mama Didier.
She took this idea even further, creating
an entire network of apprenticeships
that changed the futures of those under her
career.
>> Mr. Richardson (25:26):
And then there's another brilliant story of. It's, uh,
around 18. It's 1808,
almost 1810. And one particular
lady in the register in the Notre Les Briefs
is like, her name is Mama Didier, and many people
are referred to as Mama. And her
initial, her original initial is V. But the only
(25:47):
thing she could have, she signed, so she probably was
not able to read. So she signed Mama
Didier, but didn't even write her own name. But what's
interesting is that she has a mixture now of 20
people in her apprenticeship.
Let's say she owns them. It's notarized.
They're all enslaved. There's boys and girls. But what
(26:08):
happened is her husband is the only
blacksmith on the island, um, and all the boys in
Mama Didier's care are trained to become
blacksmiths, and all the girls are becoming
bakers. And then she dies. And then when you
go back to the slave emancipation register,
she's already dead. But you find all of these
boys and girls, and you can guess what their occupation are.
(26:31):
Blacksmith. Blacksmith. Blacksmith. Bakers. Bakers.
Bakers. Bakers. And then you see that formerly
enslaved people venture out to other islands
already with a occupation and a
skill. And that's one of the things I think
are extremely unique, um, at the time,
and I think under a European lens, they would have
easily missed this. And it's very interesting
(26:53):
that this is something that the women, especially the
enslaved and the free women of color were
doing on
Stacey.
>> Unidentified (Podcast Host) (27:04):
While some resisted through economic
strategies, others took a different action.
The 1848 uprising of
Sintostatius was not an isolated act.
It was part of a broader Caribbean movement where
enslaved and free people alike defied
colonial rule. This revolt was
led by Thomas Dubois. But as
(27:26):
history often shows, men were not the only
ones fighting for freedom. Women marched
alongside them, risking everything to claim a future
that had long been denied. Mr.
Richardson takes us into the defining moment
when one that would forever alter the course of Sint
Eustatia's history.
>> Mr. Richardson (27:47):
And of course, much later, around June
12, 1848, we have that famous uprising here
on the island. And, um, it is led
by a free man of color,
um, and his name is Thomas
Dubassois. And he's a free man of color.
He's born into freedom. So his parents were free,
and he was born into freedom here on the island.
(28:09):
And eventually he would be. After the
emancipation, he would find his way back to St. Eustatius, and
many of his descendants were still here today.
There's this uprising of the
1848 uprising on the island, the
revolt, as it's called, where Thomas Duboussoir
rides into town and demands his freedom. And on the
way, it's getting m momentum. Um, and what we do know
(28:31):
from the letters of the governor is that mostly
women, of course, they joined, and of course there's a
few men, but a lot of women are joining this because that's the
driving force. They want their freedom. They go
into the governor's residence, which is the green and white cove in
the middle of town on that square. That's where they
go. And the governor at the time is
(28:51):
Johannes de Vere. What's interesting is that
the de Vere family would have met a
revolt in every century. So there was a
de Vere in the Demerara uprising. There was a
dver in the time of Tula. And now we're on
St. Eustatius. There's a de Vere here again. There was a de Vere on
St. Martin. And these are all colonial governors
and colonial families. And that's for a story for
(29:14):
itself, how that superstition developed around the de
Vere family. But. So the governor is
Johannes de Vere. And Thomas Duboussois is
like, marching into the square, demanding his
freedom. And you can see he's literate. He
knows his things. He knows about the other islands. He knows
about what happened on St. Martin, et cetera. You can see he
(29:34):
can read everything he knows. And the governor's like,
I cannot give you your freedom at this time. That
is, it's not in my power to do so. I think
you should go back to your plantations and do your work. And you, Thomas,
are a free man of color. So what are you making a fuss
about? And he was like, no, I want this for my fellow
station men. And then with Thomas, of course, there's the
culprits. They're the ones that are named. There is, you know,
(29:57):
Valentine, there's Oscar, there's
Abraham and Thomas. And I'm forgetting one name
because it should be five that did the uprising and the leader making
it six. We know for a fact that
there were women present that lost their lives,
and there were women that fought. And when you look at many
of the uprising also on the other islands in the
caribbean region, it's all being led by women, often
(30:20):
even on St. Martin with one titi luque. It's also women,
but also unseen. Eustatia. There are women leading
uprising, but the thing is, they're not named. What's interesting
is that with the 1848 uprising, these
gentlemen would eventually marry local
women after emancipation. And now we know their
names, but in none of the original records that their
families or the women's names were mentioned. And
(30:43):
that goes to show you the role at that time
of women. So you can imagine that outside of women,
you know, like I called francis, coffey, mamade,
all of these people that predated them. It's like
they. What they fought for what they did, or
somehow, you know, you know, forgotten and
swept under the rug. But what you would eventually
(31:03):
see as the turn of the century comes and
abolishment would eventually come in
1863, is that you would see the
role of women in society
becoming more and more dominant. Because
women are not only the church leaders, but they're also the
organizers. They're part of the social
structure. They're the hierarchy. They are the
(31:25):
ones that keep the household together. And
they're the ones that also go to the market. Because
even some of the earliest pictures of
the free color market that we have, where the current
wilhelmina park is, all the women doing all the.
Well, everyone doing commerce and trade
and selling are women
and not men. So you see, the men are
(31:47):
fishing and doing the planting, but the women are the one
dealing with the pocketbook. They're the one dealing with the money.
They're the ones setting up the commerce and the trade.
And you will see that will continue onwards as we get into
the 20th century.
>> Unidentified (Podcast Host) (32:03):
Though the names of many women in the uprisings
remain completely lost to history, Their presence
in the struggle for freedom cannot be denied.
From syntastacia to haiti, from
suriname to jamaica, women played crucial
roles not just in open combat, but
intelligent networks, supply chains, and
spiritual leadership. Dr.
(32:25):
Anna Hanslin explains on this, showing us
why women contribution to resistance deserve
recognition, not just in the caribbean, but, uh,
across the world.
>> Dr. Anna Hanslin (32:38):
Even things where women were never a majority, like
military participants, There have always been
women who have fought in conflicts and battles
and wars and picked up arms. They've never
been the majority, unless you want to go back to the myth of the
amazons, but they've never been the majority in any of
the societies we're talking about today, but
they've always been present in these conflicts.
(33:01):
And there have always been a certain amount of women who
have fought in these engagements, just like
men. And I think recognizing that makes
it then possible for us to think maybe it's
not so strange that people in the 21st century
think it's okay for women to be in the military.
>> Unidentified (Podcast Host) (33:21):
Beyond armed resistance, enslaved women also
fought battles over their own bodies.
Colonial authorities saw their ability to bear children
as a way to sustain slavery long after the
transatlantic trade was abolished.
But this was not just about forced reproduction.
It was about control. Surveillance
(33:41):
over women's fertility intensified, leaving
them with little autonomy over their own lives.
Historian and teacher Dr. Elaine unpacks how this
plays across different colonial systems and how
enslaved women responded to this oppression, sometimes
in ways that defied the very system meant to break
them.
>> Dr. Elaine (34:01):
So, basically, as I mentioned before, slave
reproduction was really, really low in the
Caribbean. And all of a sudden,
slaveholders needed to find a way to
reproduce the labor force, right?
Because as the slave trade was coming to an end,
and eventually as slavery was coming to an end, there
was a need to continue the cultivation of
(34:23):
sugar and other cash crops, even in the absence of an
enslaved labor force. So, you know,
conditions on these plantations were horrific. Just
really some of the most brutal conditions you
could possibly imagine human beings living through.
And so that's why the, you know, fertility rate was really
low. And so all of a sudden, we see this
sense of kind of panic on the part of
(34:46):
many, many different, um, people with some sort of
stake in slavery over how the population
would continue to. To exist in these
colonies. And so this goes back to the idea
of amelioration. So one of the kind of, um,
key features of amelioration was that it was
intended to increase the birth rate. And, in fact, it was
unsuccessful. It didn't really increase the birth
(35:08):
rate, but it was intended to increase the birth rate
by encouraging women to have more children.
So women who had lots of children were awarded
with prizes, were awarded with,
um, time off from work, were awarded with
extra food and clothing. Uh, there was
much more of an interest in regulating
(35:28):
women's reproduction and fertility. So prior
to this point, enslaved women were sort of left to their own
devices when it came to birth, um,
breastfeeding. Now, this was
in many ways negative because it meant that
they obviously were giving birth
to children under extremely difficult conditions,
but it also meant that they had some degree of
(35:50):
privacy from white people and white
slaveholders when it came to sort of their intimate
lives, giving birth, taking care of
infants. This was something that they sort of dealt with
themselves, independent of White
people, um, and plantation
authorities. So the amelioration period changes this.
And we start to see slaveholders,
(36:12):
doctors, other people interested in
sort of, um, ensuring reproduction, become much more
involved in sort of, um, overseeing
women's fertility and child rearing practices.
Um, so this put women under enormous surveillance.
And, um, also made life very
difficult for women who couldn't have children or
(36:34):
who didn't have children. There was a, you
know, this immense sense of pressure to
bear children because it came with
material rewards. And obviously the effects on
women who were unable to have lots of children would have been
pretty significant.
>> Unidentified (Podcast Host) (36:53):
For many enslaved women, this pressure to reproduce was
not just physical, it was psychological and
emotional. Those who could
bear children were often punished or ostracized,
while those who did were rewarded, but only within the
confines of servitude. Yet even
in these oppressive conditions, resistance took
shape not always through open rebellion, but
(37:16):
in small daily acts of defiance that
historians are only now beginning to fully
recognize.
>> Dr. Elaine (37:25):
And so that's one way in which amelioration
definitely impacted the status of
women in the British Caribbean. In the context
of the Spanish Caribbean, we see a similar
kind of focus on enslaved women's bodies.
So in the early 1870s,
Spain passes something called the Moret Law,
which declared that children born
(37:47):
to enslaved women would be
free, thereby reversing the doctrine of
partus sequiter ventrum in the context
of the French Caribbean. Interestingly, we
don't see this as overtly. This is something that I
actually focus on in my dissertation, and I have an article
under revision that talks about this.
(38:08):
Um, we don't see this pronounced
effort on the part of slaveholders to ensure
reproduction through medical means. And I argue
in my work that actually the regulation of women's
mobility was the primary mechanism by which
reproduction was regulated. By side
note, it would be interesting for someone
who has the linguistic
(38:30):
abilities to do this analysis in the context of the
Dutch Caribbean to sort of take a look at
slave reproduction there in the period of
abolition. Another thing I want
to mention here is that during
this period, despite what I said previously about
women not playing a huge role in armed rebellion,
I can think of a few rebellions in the 19th century
(38:53):
where women did feature prominently in
Cuba. In 1844, there was a major slave
conspiracy to enact a rebellion.
And as the historian Aisha Finch has
shown, women were, uh, a part of
this conspiracy. And
an example from Martinique, uh, the French government abolished
slavery in April of
(39:15):
1848. That was to go into
effect two months later in
June. But a massive slave uprising in
May brought slavery to an end one month
earlier than planned. And women were pretty active
in that uprising.
>> Unidentified (Podcast Host) (39:34):
The struggle for freedom in the Caribbean was not only
fought in open revolts. It was fault in
whispers between enslaved women passing
crucial intelligence. It was fold in
spiritual traditions that gave communities
strength. And it was fold over the very
bodies of the women who bore the next
generation. As we
(39:55):
conclude this episode, we are constantly
reminded that history has often erased the names
of women. Yet their resistance
shaped the course of rebellion. From
Syntostatius to Haiti, from Jamaica to
Suriname. Um, they found ways to reclaim power,
whether through armed uprising, economic
sabotage, or quiet defiance.
(40:18):
But as the uprisings of the early 19th
century paved the way for abolition, what
did freedom truly mean?
Did emancipation bring justice?
Or did it simply replace one form of control
with another? For those
who had endured generations of enslavement,
what came next?
(40:40):
Could they claim true liberation? Or did
they find themselves in a world still designed to keep them
bound? And if their
struggle still echoes in the present,
if the systems that oppress them left behind
shadows, then what
revolutions remain unfinished?
And who amongst us is willing to continue
(41:03):
the fight?
M.
>> Dr. Anna Hanslin (00:02):
Even things where women were never a majority, like
military participants, there have always been
women who have fought in conflicts and battles
and wars and picked up arms. They've never
been the majority, but they've always
been present in these conflicts. And there have always been
a certain amount of women who have fought in
(00:22):
these engagements, just like men.
>> Unidentified (Podcast Host) (00:26):
Welcome to Whispers of the Past. I'm your host,
Fitavit. And this is revolt and the promise of
sovereignty. In this episode, we step
into the period of 1800 to
1850, a time of growing
defiance, when resistance against colonial
rule surged across the Caribbean.
Even as European powers debated
(00:48):
abolition, the enslaved refused to wait for their
freedom to be granted. Revolts
ignited across the region, fueled by
whispers of emancipation and the unyielding
determination of those still in bondage.
But what does it truly mean to resist?
Is rebellion only measured by weapons and
(01:11):
warfare? Or does it also
exist in the quiet acts of defiance that shape
history from the shadows?
For too long, women's roles in uprising
have been overlooked.
Yet they were not just witnesses to history.
They were strategists, advisors, and
(01:31):
bearers of knowledge that sustained entire
movements. To begin,
historian Dr. Anna Hanslin takes us beyond
synthesis. Offering a broader
perspective on the Atlantic route,
she reveals how women's resistance, though often
unseen, was fundamental to the revolutions
that reshaped the Caribbean.
>> Dr. Anna Hanslin (01:55):
Yes, so some people, I think, assume that men are always
the ones who are leading revolts because they tend to
be the warriors in revolutions and
rebellions. But in pretty much
every war, women are present as, um, active
fighters as well, whether that's by choice or by
accident. And so you do have examples of
(02:16):
women actually fighting in. In
rebellions in the 18th and 19th century. But
I think more importantly, women are present in ways that
support the revolution and rebellion in
various places in the Atlantic world, um,
as people who are spiritual advisors,
practical advisors, people who are the keepers of
memory in terms of what's happening
(02:38):
and things in the past that might inform
the the present and their actions. They're also
the people who often have their ears to the ground. They can
easily collect the latest gossip and the latest
news, particularly enslaved women who are
laboring inside plantation houses, who
are close to their enslavers for various reasons, and sometimes that is
because of a sexual relationship. They're conduits
(03:01):
of information. And so they can be really
important central actors in these sort
of networks of communication that Julia Scott and other
historians have identified as really important. In
Flaming the Fan of Rebellion in the Caribbean in the
18th and 19th centuries.
>> Unidentified (Podcast Host) (03:21):
Women'S role in rebellion have often been
overshadowed by male dominated narratives.
But as Dr. Anna Hansen explains, their
contributions extended far beyond combat,
encompassing intelligence gathering,
spiritual leadership, and direct
resistance. What does it truly mean to
lead a rebellion? Is it defined solely
(03:43):
by those who wield weapons?
Or does leadership also lie in the unseen
network that sustain revolts from within?
In a world where survival often depends on
strategy, enslaved women, especially
those laboring inside plantation houses,
became critical sources of intelligence.
(04:05):
Their proximity to enslavers granted them
access to whispered plans, shifting political
currents, and the hidden tension that could spark
an uprising. These
women became conduits of knowledge. Their m
voices carried vital information through secret
networks that historians recognized as
essential to the Caribbean resistance movements.
(04:29):
But this knowledge came at a cost. For
these women, information was both a weapon and a
burden, A tool for liberation,
yet a risk that could mean a difference between freedom
and a deadly punishment.
Beyond gathering intelligence, enslaved women also
played vital roles as spiritual guides and
(04:50):
advisors, drawing upon traditions deeply
rooted in West African heritage.
These traditions, passed down through generations,
offered strength and strategy in time of
turmoil. But how did these roles
translate into leadership during uprisings? How
did the wisdom of women shape the course of the
rebellion? Dr. Anna Hanselin
(05:11):
explains.
>> Dr. Anna Hanslin (05:15):
And I think also among communities where
African spiritual traditions are still present
and African cultural traditions are really strong,
Female leaders in Africa do have, again,
different role than they do in white patriarchal
European societies. And so, you know,
there's a sense that women should be respected as the keepers
(05:36):
of collective memory. And the idea that women
can be wise and offer counsel to the men
who are going to fight and be warriors, and also that there
are female spiritual leaders, um, in a lot of West
African traditions. And so I think you see all of these various
roles, um, of women coming together. But
of course, as with what defines their conditions of
(05:56):
enslavement, it also can be difficult for women these
times of rebellion and revolution, because it's harder
for you to run with an army
or, um, you know, run to a maroon community.
If you have a baby, you know that you're a baby in your
arms, that you're breastfeeding, right? And so I think these are
again, um, concerns that aren't limited to
(06:16):
women. Certainly, you know, men or fathers and have,
have familial concerns too. But it was definitely the case
in this period that women are the primary
caregivers and nurturers, usually of children. And so this is
going to affect their ability to be physically
present with revolutionary armies and forces.
But again, any army or military
(06:36):
force, and this is true across
Time in the Caribbean, as elsewhere, relies on
the labor of women to sustain it. So you have
women working as cooks and, um,
laundresses and sexual partners and doing
all the things that keep an army full of men
on, on their feet and in fighting condition. And
so you see, you see this again with women involved in
(06:59):
slave revolts and rebellions throughout the Caribbean. So
I would say they do play a really vital role in
multiple ways, even though they're not,
obviously, you know, the ones
primarily yielding the swords or the bayonets or the
musket.
>> Unidentified (Podcast Host) (07:16):
As Dr. Anna Hansen highlights, women were
woven into the fairy fabric of resistance. Whether
through spiritual leadership, intelligence gathering,
or sustaining revolutionary forces, they
were indispensable. Yet while these
networks of resistance stretched across the Caribbean,
each island has its own story to tell.
(07:37):
How did these broader movements toward freedom shape life
on Sint Eustaceous? To understand the local impact, we turn
to Missesutikau, a long term resident and one of
the founders of the center of Archaeology and Research.
She helps us explore the period of unrest here on
Sintostatius and how enslaved individuals
sought their own path to freedom,
(07:58):
often looking beyond their own shores to
islands where slavery had already been abolished.
>> Ms. Sutekau (08:06):
This was a time of slavery unrest all through the
Caribbean. In
1846, the English Islands and, um,
granted emancipation of slavery.
And so a lot of Irish slaves were trying to escape
in those years to the British islands.
Oftentimes they were escaping to the Spanish
islands because the Spanish were allowed even to be
(08:28):
free. The French islands had been
granted emancipation of slavery, but after
Napoleon came in, they reinstituted
the institution of slavery. So the French
islands were later in actually
recognizing slavery. But this was the time of the
unrest and this was the time that slaves were beginning
to find out that they had
(08:50):
power and that they needed to exercise their
power for their own rights.
>> Unidentified (Podcast Host) (08:59):
The early 19th century marked a turning point for
Sint Eustatius. While resistance and
rebellion were spreading across the region, the island
itself was undergoing dramatic changes.
No longer the thriving trading hub of the previous
century, Stacia faced economic
decline, shifting political control and
(09:20):
the departure of key merchant groups.
What did this mean for those who remained?
How did these changes impact the
enslaved, free people of color and the
landowners who had once shaped the island's
economy? Mrs. Sutekau helps us
understand the shifting landscape of this era and
what it means for Stacia's future.
>> Ms. Sutekau (09:45):
I know that there were a lot
of involvement, uh, with women
who own property here, and
that property, um, was often
sold during that period. You have
to remember, after
1816. In early
1800s and 1860, when we regained
(10:07):
our independence from England
and France and became Dutch again to stay Dutch
forever, our economy was going
down. Our warehouses were closed. The
French had closed the warehouses, and the English kept them
closed during that period of time. So that by
1816, after the war, in 1812, in the
United States, station was never more, uh,
(10:30):
a, uh, large trading colony. Small amounts of
trades may be going on, but we were not needed
by the New World at that point in time.
So almost all the stuff that was
going out here with agricultural. So
we were growing crops. We started growing indigo, about that
term. We started doing the sisal
(10:50):
crop where we were making the rope and everything
else. There also was the
beginning of our cotton crops.
Originally we were growing Sea island cotton
and also inferior grades.
We lost that contract to Montserrat,
supposedly because our good
(11:11):
cotton was spiked with some bad cotton.
And, um, it did not meet the quality that was needed in
England. This was a period that
Stacia was greatly
decreased economically in its
value. It was also a period when
people, planters and plantation
owners began to leave the island.
(11:34):
The Jewish population had already gone.
So there were not the Jewish merchant ships that
had been here before that were involved
in the trade. So because the Jewish
population basically left the island
by the early 1800, only one Jewish
woman left with life, and she died in
(11:54):
1846. And, uh,
she wasn't even buried on this island. She was either
buried with her family in Saint Martin or Nevis
or one of the surrounding islands. So
that, uh, 1800s to the
1850s was the beginning of the
decline of St. Eustachia.
>> Unidentified (Podcast Host) (12:16):
As the 19th century progressed, Sint Eustacea
was no longer the bustling trading hub it once
was. The warehouses were closed,
the Jewish merchant community had left, and
the island's economy became increasingly
reliant on agriculture.
While global powers debated abolition, the
island's trajectory seemed to shift away from its
(12:38):
past dominance. Yet
even as Stacia's formal role in the transatlantic
enslaved economy declined, the illegal
trade in enslaved people continued. As
Mr. Richardson, the island's heritage inspector,
explains how colonial powers may have
abolished the transatlantic and slave trade,
(12:58):
but that didn't mean that the practice had
truly ended. Instead, the demand for
forced labor fueled underground networks,
exposing the stark contradictions between
abolitionist policies and economic
real.
>> Mr. Richardson (13:16):
So we're, uh, now in the beginning of the 19th
century, and St. Eustatius of is showing the
Caribbean that stage is different. So
now think about what I've said about the island
changing hands. You know, 22 times in the space of
150 years. We're still within that
150 years. We're nearing the
end of the final change of hands, but we're not there
(13:38):
yet. In that period, though, before we go
in, it's the late 1790s. Two
young Irish boys, no older than
25 or on a ship, and they're. Guess
what they're doing. They're trying to sell a few
enslaved people still. And think about this way. The
British have already outlawed the trade between
Africa, so that. That has stopped. It's illegal. But
(14:01):
then this, These two Irish gentlemen who is then part of, you
know, considered British, they are
sailing down from the USA and they're being. They go into
port and in the letters, you can read the letters
today, and you can hear them saying that
they've been turned away in this port and that port. And they're
heading down now from the area of the Bahamas,
(14:22):
it's all British, and they don't know where to go.
And they meet up with other
traders somewhere in the area of what is now
today the Turks and Caicos Islands. And what do they
do? They are told that they can get rid of their
commodity on Saint Eustatius. So. And
they did. So this ship comes into Sint Eustace
(14:42):
still with about 10 or 20 enslaved people,
and we're talking about the late
1790s. So think of it.
We're no longer in 1640. We're now in the
1790s. And it's still being
done. It's still being done illegally. And Stacia is
harboring all of that. Stacia is still. After
(15:02):
the plundering of Rodney that we spoke about in
previous episodes, Stacia is still doing this.
It's still being accepted. That goes to show you what
the vibe of the island was. And then you see
that these two boys, um, these young
gentlemen, they succeed in this and then they
disappear and they're never seen again. And then you see
that fast forward in
(15:23):
1798. We're almost
in the 19th century, and they still do it. Someone
else does it this time. Um, the French.
And what you need to remember is that
what's interesting is the French Revolution already
happened. So you have equality,
fraternity, and what's the one,
(15:43):
the other one I forgot. Anyway, so the French has
this thing, and the French is like, you know,
abolishing slavery, et cetera, and before
Napoleon reinstates it years after.
But what is interesting is that the island is French
when that happens. And it's not Dutch,
it's not English and, uh, what you will see that in between
(16:04):
From M. The 1600s up to now,
everyone, the island is changing hands. And no
one up to now
abolishes slavery.
So whether it was illegal to even trade
or sell in the French territories, when
the minute the French got into Satius, they ramped up
the trade in slaves, the minute the British,
(16:26):
the Dutch, the minute everyone got it back,
this little island, they kept doing it and doing it
and doing it. And so that shows you the
depth of how far St. Eustatius was already
known in the trade of the enslaved people.
>> Unidentified (Podcast Host) (16:43):
The persistence of, uh, the illegal slave trade on
Sintostatius underscores the island's deep
entanglement in human exploitation,
even as abolishment gained ground elsewhere.
But as the 19th century progressed, the island's
economy adapted. Plantations
expanded, bringing new crops, but also new
horrors. The enslaved endured extreme
(17:05):
brutalities, punishments designed not only to
enforce control, but to strip them from their
humanity. These practices, passed down
through oral histories, reveal the full extent of the
violence used to maintain the system.
Despite this cruelty, survival and resistance took
many forms. As Mr. Richardson continues, he
(17:26):
brings us into the heart of these oral histories.
Stories that bear witness to the suffering, but also
the resilience. This next
segment contains descriptions of extreme physical
punishment. If you
prefer to skip this content, you may fast forward the next
three minutes.
>> Mr. Richardson (17:47):
So station life is still pretty much
the same, but then there's a change. The
plantations that I told you that were amounted to 30
are now 76. So the
plantation economy goes into
full drive. You see that it grows
even. So it's like one trade dies and the
other one picks up. So then, now you have indigo. You even
(18:09):
have a crawfish. You have sugar, you
have rum. There's a lot of rum distilleries on the
island from back then. And you see this is then ramping
up. And then you see that the island is still kind of
disconnected from the colonial government or from the
Hague at the time. And
then there's, of course, the stories. And a
(18:29):
lot of these stories that you see are, uh, oral
traditions. And I find oral traditions should not be
discredited because oral traditions
were the local way
of keeping stories alive and telling your history.
And why I'm going to say this is because many of those oral
traditions have proven to be extremely true when
it came to St. Eustatius. And when we go into the early
(18:52):
20th century, I will give more explanation as to why you
reach on the famous golden rock plantation,
there's Mr. Moore Sr. And Mr. Moore
Jr. The Moore family sounds very English, but
it's actually very stationed. They were born on stage, of
course, descended from Irish colonists, but they were born
on Stacia afterwards. And senior Mr.
Moore then is known to have impregnated many
(19:15):
of enslaved women. He was also known as the father
of the mulattoes on St. Eustatia's and of
course, kind of, you know, it's not something to be proud of.
But Mr. Moore is then, or Mr. Moore
Sr. Is also credited with his harsh,
harsh punishment. Punishment, like his son later,
to the enslaved people. And what you see is
(19:35):
there's many examples of oral traditions of women
being placed in ditches to where
they would be placed face down and would get the
harshest of punishments. And one punishment is
what I saw was a cattle ride. And I
often wondered what was a cattle ride until
via a colleague in Barbados who explained to
(19:56):
me what a cattle ride is. That is
where they would use kind of. They would dig
out a ditch, and it's quite
sad. And they would place you face down in that
ditch, and they would drive.
Or the master or the owner of the plantation
would ride his carriage
over you. So you would have kind of been the
(20:18):
function of the road. You would become the road, and you would be
face down. And this would have caused many
deformities, you know, crooked backs, broken
spines. People would have died. People would have been
crushed. And that was one of. That was just one of the few punishments
that they had here on St. Eustatius. And if
you go back into the records and you read the letter
of, uh, Zimmerman, who's traveling the islands, you can
(20:41):
see that Sycius does not. It's the
golden rock. But when it comes to the punishment and the treatment
of enslaved people, it is harsh. And he
records also the quarters of how the enslaved people are
treated and how they live. And this is still all the
1800s. And in that period
of the 1800s, um, the island becomes then
permanently Dutch. They don't realize it
(21:04):
until about 1816. It happened in 1815
officially at the concert in Vienna. But they don't realize it
here until 1816.
>> Unidentified (Podcast Host) (21:15):
The plantation economy tightens its grip on sinter
statius. But resistance took many
forms. Some sought freedom through rebellion,
while others worked within the system to subvert it from
the inside. Among
these women were free women of color, figures
often overlooked in the history of resistance.
(21:35):
As landowners, businesswomen, and guardians of
future generations, they challenged the notion that
power lay solely in the hands of the colonial
rulers. As Mr. Richardson
continues, he will introduce us To Francis
Coffee, Mary Gibbs, and other women who
navigated oppression in unexpected ways, using
ownership, trade and skill building to
(21:58):
carve out spaces of autonomy.
>> Mr. Richardson (22:02):
And as that period progress, there are a lot of free
people of color. The free people of color population recovers
again since Rodney. And then you see a lot
of key figures popping up. And in
that period, what is interesting is that
there's a lady called
Frances Coffey who
buys the Glass bottle plantation for
(22:25):
3,000 florins or guilders at
the time. And she buys the plantation
with everything that's attached, including
the enslaved people. Um,
but it's not all what it seems. And in that
period as well, what you see is
another lady. Her name was Mary
Gibbs. Mary Gibbs is a seamstress.
(22:47):
She's a free woman of color. And she takes
about 10 to 15
girls under her wing who are still
enslaved. But what's interesting is that you
see all of these women and also men, but mostly the
women having people under the wing, where it
seems as if the enslaved people or the free
people of color aren't into satius or have
(23:09):
slaves themselves. But you don't have a plantation, but you
own slaves. M. So the European idea
would be, you see, free people had black people, had
slaves as well in the Caribbean. But is that true,
though? That's reading things from a helicopter view. But
when you go in between, reading between
the lines, and you see, for example,
(23:29):
Mary Brown is 70 when she
acquires these girls, quite old for that time,
but she. She is going to eventually die at
72. And in her will
she leaves, all these girls are free.
And in two years time, they're all kind of
trained to be seamstresses. And what you
see eventually in the emancipation register, when that
(23:52):
would eventually come in 1863, when you
go back there, you see what was going on. All of these
girls were kind of going into apprenticeship
under slavery. So on stage, had they kind of dealt
develop this kind of very
intellectual way of what we call
defiance or Verset. I think it's not
explored enough in the Caribbean how
(24:14):
people were using this system that
was, you know, unlawfully, you
know, uh, implemented or given to them, how
they turned this system around to make it work in their
favor. So what you see on synthesis is a
sort of deliverette
where they're using the norm of
(24:35):
slavery right in front of the colonial
governors.
>> Unidentified (Podcast Host) (24:42):
Ownership on paper didn't always mean what it
seemed. While colonial records listed free
people of color as enslavers, a closer
look reveals a completely different story.
Some, like Mary Gibbs, took Young enslaved
women under their career, not to exploit them, but to
teach them skills that would one day allow them to live as
free women. These were quiet
(25:05):
revolutions hidden in legal documents,
yet profoundly impactful.
One such woman was Mama Didier.
She took this idea even further, creating
an entire network of apprenticeships
that changed the futures of those under her
career.
>> Mr. Richardson (25:26):
And then there's another brilliant story of. It's, uh,
around 18. It's 1808,
almost 1810. And one particular
lady in the register in the Notre Les Briefs
is like, her name is Mama Didier, and many people
are referred to as Mama. And her
initial, her original initial is V. But the only
(25:47):
thing she could have, she signed, so she probably was
not able to read. So she signed Mama
Didier, but didn't even write her own name. But what's
interesting is that she has a mixture now of 20
people in her apprenticeship.
Let's say she owns them. It's notarized.
They're all enslaved. There's boys and girls. But what
(26:08):
happened is her husband is the only
blacksmith on the island, um, and all the boys in
Mama Didier's care are trained to become
blacksmiths, and all the girls are becoming
bakers. And then she dies. And then when you
go back to the slave emancipation register,
she's already dead. But you find all of these
boys and girls, and you can guess what their occupation are.
(26:31):
Blacksmith. Blacksmith. Blacksmith. Bakers. Bakers.
Bakers. Bakers. And then you see that formerly
enslaved people venture out to other islands
already with a occupation and a
skill. And that's one of the things I think
are extremely unique, um, at the time,
and I think under a European lens, they would have
easily missed this. And it's very interesting
(26:53):
that this is something that the women, especially the
enslaved and the free women of color were
doing on
Stacey.
>> Unidentified (Podcast Host) (27:04):
While some resisted through economic
strategies, others took a different action.
The 1848 uprising of
Sintostatius was not an isolated act.
It was part of a broader Caribbean movement where
enslaved and free people alike defied
colonial rule. This revolt was
led by Thomas Dubois. But as
(27:26):
history often shows, men were not the only
ones fighting for freedom. Women marched
alongside them, risking everything to claim a future
that had long been denied. Mr.
Richardson takes us into the defining moment
when one that would forever alter the course of Sint
Eustatia's history.
>> Mr. Richardson (27:47):
And of course, much later, around June
12, 1848, we have that famous uprising here
on the island. And, um, it is led
by a free man of color,
um, and his name is Thomas
Dubassois. And he's a free man of color.
He's born into freedom. So his parents were free,
and he was born into freedom here on the island.
(28:09):
And eventually he would be. After the
emancipation, he would find his way back to St. Eustatius, and
many of his descendants were still here today.
There's this uprising of the
1848 uprising on the island, the
revolt, as it's called, where Thomas Duboussoir
rides into town and demands his freedom. And on the
way, it's getting m momentum. Um, and what we do know
(28:31):
from the letters of the governor is that mostly
women, of course, they joined, and of course there's a
few men, but a lot of women are joining this because that's the
driving force. They want their freedom. They go
into the governor's residence, which is the green and white cove in
the middle of town on that square. That's where they
go. And the governor at the time is
(28:51):
Johannes de Vere. What's interesting is that
the de Vere family would have met a
revolt in every century. So there was a
de Vere in the Demerara uprising. There was a
dver in the time of Tula. And now we're on
St. Eustatius. There's a de Vere here again. There was a de Vere on
St. Martin. And these are all colonial governors
and colonial families. And that's for a story for
(29:14):
itself, how that superstition developed around the de
Vere family. But. So the governor is
Johannes de Vere. And Thomas Duboussois is
like, marching into the square, demanding his
freedom. And you can see he's literate. He
knows his things. He knows about the other islands. He knows
about what happened on St. Martin, et cetera. You can see he
(29:34):
can read everything he knows. And the governor's like,
I cannot give you your freedom at this time. That
is, it's not in my power to do so. I think
you should go back to your plantations and do your work. And you, Thomas,
are a free man of color. So what are you making a fuss
about? And he was like, no, I want this for my fellow
station men. And then with Thomas, of course, there's the
culprits. They're the ones that are named. There is, you know,
(29:57):
Valentine, there's Oscar, there's
Abraham and Thomas. And I'm forgetting one name
because it should be five that did the uprising and the leader making
it six. We know for a fact that
there were women present that lost their lives,
and there were women that fought. And when you look at many
of the uprising also on the other islands in the
caribbean region, it's all being led by women, often
(30:20):
even on St. Martin with one titi luque. It's also women,
but also unseen. Eustatia. There are women leading
uprising, but the thing is, they're not named. What's interesting
is that with the 1848 uprising, these
gentlemen would eventually marry local
women after emancipation. And now we know their
names, but in none of the original records that their
families or the women's names were mentioned. And
(30:43):
that goes to show you the role at that time
of women. So you can imagine that outside of women,
you know, like I called francis, coffey, mamade,
all of these people that predated them. It's like
they. What they fought for what they did, or
somehow, you know, you know, forgotten and
swept under the rug. But what you would eventually
(31:03):
see as the turn of the century comes and
abolishment would eventually come in
1863, is that you would see the
role of women in society
becoming more and more dominant. Because
women are not only the church leaders, but they're also the
organizers. They're part of the social
structure. They're the hierarchy. They are the
(31:25):
ones that keep the household together. And
they're the ones that also go to the market. Because
even some of the earliest pictures of
the free color market that we have, where the current
wilhelmina park is, all the women doing all the.
Well, everyone doing commerce and trade
and selling are women
and not men. So you see, the men are
(31:47):
fishing and doing the planting, but the women are the one
dealing with the pocketbook. They're the one dealing with the money.
They're the ones setting up the commerce and the trade.
And you will see that will continue onwards as we get into
the 20th century.
>> Unidentified (Podcast Host) (32:03):
Though the names of many women in the uprisings
remain completely lost to history, Their presence
in the struggle for freedom cannot be denied.
From syntastacia to haiti, from
suriname to jamaica, women played crucial
roles not just in open combat, but
intelligent networks, supply chains, and
spiritual leadership. Dr.
(32:25):
Anna Hanslin explains on this, showing us
why women contribution to resistance deserve
recognition, not just in the caribbean, but, uh,
across the world.
>> Dr. Anna Hanslin (32:38):
Even things where women were never a majority, like
military participants, There have always been
women who have fought in conflicts and battles
and wars and picked up arms. They've never
been the majority, unless you want to go back to the myth of the
amazons, but they've never been the majority in any of
the societies we're talking about today, but
they've always been present in these conflicts.
(33:01):
And there have always been a certain amount of women who
have fought in these engagements, just like
men. And I think recognizing that makes
it then possible for us to think maybe it's
not so strange that people in the 21st century
think it's okay for women to be in the military.
>> Unidentified (Podcast Host) (33:21):
Beyond armed resistance, enslaved women also
fought battles over their own bodies.
Colonial authorities saw their ability to bear children
as a way to sustain slavery long after the
transatlantic trade was abolished.
But this was not just about forced reproduction.
It was about control. Surveillance
(33:41):
over women's fertility intensified, leaving
them with little autonomy over their own lives.
Historian and teacher Dr. Elaine unpacks how this
plays across different colonial systems and how
enslaved women responded to this oppression, sometimes
in ways that defied the very system meant to break
them.
>> Dr. Elaine (34:01):
So, basically, as I mentioned before, slave
reproduction was really, really low in the
Caribbean. And all of a sudden,
slaveholders needed to find a way to
reproduce the labor force, right?
Because as the slave trade was coming to an end,
and eventually as slavery was coming to an end, there
was a need to continue the cultivation of
(34:23):
sugar and other cash crops, even in the absence of an
enslaved labor force. So, you know,
conditions on these plantations were horrific. Just
really some of the most brutal conditions you
could possibly imagine human beings living through.
And so that's why the, you know, fertility rate was really
low. And so all of a sudden, we see this
sense of kind of panic on the part of
(34:46):
many, many different, um, people with some sort of
stake in slavery over how the population
would continue to. To exist in these
colonies. And so this goes back to the idea
of amelioration. So one of the kind of, um,
key features of amelioration was that it was
intended to increase the birth rate. And, in fact, it was
unsuccessful. It didn't really increase the birth
(35:08):
rate, but it was intended to increase the birth rate
by encouraging women to have more children.
So women who had lots of children were awarded
with prizes, were awarded with,
um, time off from work, were awarded with
extra food and clothing. Uh, there was
much more of an interest in regulating
(35:28):
women's reproduction and fertility. So prior
to this point, enslaved women were sort of left to their own
devices when it came to birth, um,
breastfeeding. Now, this was
in many ways negative because it meant that
they obviously were giving birth
to children under extremely difficult conditions,
but it also meant that they had some degree of
(35:50):
privacy from white people and white
slaveholders when it came to sort of their intimate
lives, giving birth, taking care of
infants. This was something that they sort of dealt with
themselves, independent of White
people, um, and plantation
authorities. So the amelioration period changes this.
And we start to see slaveholders,
(36:12):
doctors, other people interested in
sort of, um, ensuring reproduction, become much more
involved in sort of, um, overseeing
women's fertility and child rearing practices.
Um, so this put women under enormous surveillance.
And, um, also made life very
difficult for women who couldn't have children or
(36:34):
who didn't have children. There was a, you
know, this immense sense of pressure to
bear children because it came with
material rewards. And obviously the effects on
women who were unable to have lots of children would have been
pretty significant.
>> Unidentified (Podcast Host) (36:53):
For many enslaved women, this pressure to reproduce was
not just physical, it was psychological and
emotional. Those who could
bear children were often punished or ostracized,
while those who did were rewarded, but only within the
confines of servitude. Yet even
in these oppressive conditions, resistance took
shape not always through open rebellion, but
(37:16):
in small daily acts of defiance that
historians are only now beginning to fully
recognize.
>> Dr. Elaine (37:25):
And so that's one way in which amelioration
definitely impacted the status of
women in the British Caribbean. In the context
of the Spanish Caribbean, we see a similar
kind of focus on enslaved women's bodies.
So in the early 1870s,
Spain passes something called the Moret Law,
which declared that children born
(37:47):
to enslaved women would be
free, thereby reversing the doctrine of
partus sequiter ventrum in the context
of the French Caribbean. Interestingly, we
don't see this as overtly. This is something that I
actually focus on in my dissertation, and I have an article
under revision that talks about this.
(38:08):
Um, we don't see this pronounced
effort on the part of slaveholders to ensure
reproduction through medical means. And I argue
in my work that actually the regulation of women's
mobility was the primary mechanism by which
reproduction was regulated. By side
note, it would be interesting for someone
who has the linguistic
(38:30):
abilities to do this analysis in the context of the
Dutch Caribbean to sort of take a look at
slave reproduction there in the period of
abolition. Another thing I want
to mention here is that during
this period, despite what I said previously about
women not playing a huge role in armed rebellion,
I can think of a few rebellions in the 19th century
(38:53):
where women did feature prominently in
Cuba. In 1844, there was a major slave
conspiracy to enact a rebellion.
And as the historian Aisha Finch has
shown, women were, uh, a part of
this conspiracy. And
an example from Martinique, uh, the French government abolished
slavery in April of
(39:15):
1848. That was to go into
effect two months later in
June. But a massive slave uprising in
May brought slavery to an end one month
earlier than planned. And women were pretty active
in that uprising.
>> Unidentified (Podcast Host) (39:34):
The struggle for freedom in the Caribbean was not only
fought in open revolts. It was fault in
whispers between enslaved women passing
crucial intelligence. It was fold in
spiritual traditions that gave communities
strength. And it was fold over the very
bodies of the women who bore the next
generation. As we
(39:55):
conclude this episode, we are constantly
reminded that history has often erased the names
of women. Yet their resistance
shaped the course of rebellion. From
Syntostatius to Haiti, from Jamaica to
Suriname. Um, they found ways to reclaim power,
whether through armed uprising, economic
sabotage, or quiet defiance.
(40:18):
But as the uprisings of the early 19th
century paved the way for abolition, what
did freedom truly mean?
Did emancipation bring justice?
Or did it simply replace one form of control
with another? For those
who had endured generations of enslavement,
what came next?
(40:40):
Could they claim true liberation? Or did
they find themselves in a world still designed to keep them
bound? And if their
struggle still echoes in the present,
if the systems that oppress them left behind
shadows, then what
revolutions remain unfinished?
And who amongst us is willing to continue
(41:03):
the fight?
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