Tracking the lines of Resistance

Freedom Papers is an amazingly informative book that chronicles the life of descendants of an enslaved African woman from the Senegambia region who came to be known by her captors as Rosalie. It follows her and her descendants from Senegambia, to Saint-Domingue, to Cuba, to Louisiana, to France, and further still to Belgium. The family have a long history of fighting against enslavement, war, and oppressive regimes in their own various ways. From Rosalie securing her own freedom in Haiti during the revolution to her great-great granddaughter occupying Belgium in a fight against the Nazis, we can see that the fight for justice was alive as well in the genes of “Rosalie” and her descendants.

One of the most interesting parts for me, and maybe this will always be the case, is the fact that she was enslaved by a few captors, and some of them being African or of African descent. One of the sentences in that section mentioned that at least two of her captors in Haiti had no French ancestry (and it seemed to also be insinuating no European ancestry whatsoever). This is not my first time hearing about such a situation, but it always baffles me on some level and angers me on another. Stories like this, of Rosalie and her family and their history of resistance is always necessary and important, especially for Black people to hear when many of us are still dealing with levels of shame associated with slavery. However, the story of the thoroughly colonized African; the African that has completely absorbed western ways down to the point at which they partake in slavery is one that also needs to be heard. When we have discourses on de-colonization and resistance, we also have to know and understand - on every level possible - the mindset of those who partake in a system that blatantly, GLARINGLY abuses them.

One another note, and relating back to the article we read by Saidiya Hartman, I wonder if books such as these, that focus on specific enslaved individuals are attempting to, as Hartman termed, “resuscitate” those who have been killed or died during the Trans-Atlantic slavery ordeal. Is the purpose of researching and piecing together this story to enable the reader to look at the larger framework of what was happening on a broader view through the micro framework of a woman and her descendants? Or is it to piece together the lives of individuals in an attempt to make their stories – ones told more from their perspective – more solid; more real; more humanized? I’m still at a loss for which one of these is Scott’s purpose.