This Tuesday May 10, 2022, on the occasion of the National Day to Commemorate Memories of Slave Trade, Slavery and their Abolition, the City of Paris inaugurated the statue of mulatto Solitude in the garden of the 17th arrondissement, already named after her since 2020. This is the very first statue representing a Black woman erected in the city.
Designed by Didier Audrat, the bronze statue is an homage to the emblematic heroin of the fight against the restoration of slavery in Guadeloupe. Solitude is a very symbol, especially in the French West Indies, the fight for Black women’s and men’s dignity whose fight paced the way towards the definitive abolition of slavery in France. Her story and the story of her companions in arms was told in 1972 by André Schwarz-Bart, based on historic elements.
Solitude is represented with her hair free, determined, with a baby bump, brandishing the 1802 Louis Delgrès proclamation calling for the fight against the restoration of slavery in Guadeloupe. Daughter to an African slave deported to the French West Indies, Solitude was a slave before the first abolition of slavery in 1794. She then joins a community of slaves who became her family. But in 1802, Bonaparte demands to restore slavery in Guadeloupe. Officers Louis Delgrès and Joseph Ignace call for resistance and fight, supported by former slaves, including Solitude, a few month-pregnant. Made prisoner, she is condemned to death the day after her baby was born.
Location
Jardin Solitude
Place du Général Catroux
75017 Paris 17
