Solitude was a mixed-race enslaved woman in Guadeloupe who participated in the 1802 resistance to Napoleon's restoration of slavery under General Richepance, fighting alongside Louis Delgrès.
Moitt documents that she was pregnant when sentenced to death after the defeat of the Guadeloupe resistance; her execution was postponed until after she gave birth — a detail that reveals the logic of slavery reasserting itself at the level of reproduction, not only punishment. Her story belongs to the wider Caribbean world of the Haitian Revolution: Haitian political writing read Guadeloupe's defeat as proof of French treachery, and figures like Solitude help explain why. She and Marthe Rose together show that the 1802 Guadeloupe resistance was not simply a military confrontation led by male commanders but a gendered insurgency whose suppression targeted women and their children with particular brutality.
In the ScholarshipHow historians have read this figure.
How historians and scholars have interpreted this figure across different analytical traditions.
TimelineAcross the historical record.
- 1794-02-04
French Abolition Decree 1794
Her resistance was a defense of the 1794 abolition decree whose reversal by Napoleon was the political context of the 1802 Guadeloupe crisis.
- 1802
Insurgent, Guadeloupe Resistance of 1802
Participated in the resistance to Napoleon's restoration of slavery in Guadeloupe in 1802; was pregnant when sentenced to death, executed after giving birth — her case became a symbol of the gendered brutality of re-enslavement.
- 1802
Leclerc Expedition
The Guadeloupe reconquest of 1802 was simultaneous with the Leclerc expedition against Toussaint — both were expressions of Napoleon's policy of restoring slavery across the French Caribbean.
RelationshipsPeople connected to this life.
- Allied withLouis Delgrès
Fought in the resistance alongside Delgrès — the Martinican-born officer of color who led the 1802 Guadeloupe resistance to slavery's restoration and died at Matouba rather than surrender.
- Related toVictor Hugues
Victor Hugues
- Related toMarthe-Rose
Marthe Rose