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Female Firsts: Marie-Louise Christophe · Stuff Mom Never Told You

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and welcome to stuff
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: I've never told you, a production of iHeartRadio. And today
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: we have another edition of Female First, which means we
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: are once again joined by the fabulous, fantastic Eves.
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: Welcome.
• 0:27
  Speaker 3: Hey, Hey, hey, y'all. So yeah, we've missed you.
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: We didn't didn't get to connect last month, but we're
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: so happy to have you again. And we were talking
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: off Mike, but one of the reasons that we didn't
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: get a female first last month was you were doing
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: a lot of travel, which we had discussed on the
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: last Female First.
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: How did that go? Did you get any inspiration?
• 0:52
  Speaker 4: You know, the travel went really well, and I actually
• 0:54
  Speaker 4: did get inspiration because I went to a Caribbean island,
• 0:57
  Speaker 4: specifically the one of Jamaica last month, and I had
• 1:03
  Speaker 4: a good time there. It was really lovely to spend
• 1:06
  Speaker 4: time in the sunlight around so much water. I've been
• 1:09
  Speaker 4: really drawn to water lately, and today we will be
• 1:12
  Speaker 4: talking about a person from the Caribbean. So I did
• 1:14
  Speaker 4: get inspiration from that. Like we've talked about on previous episodes,
• 1:17
  Speaker 4: like I like to go places and think about like
• 1:22
  Speaker 4: the people who lived there in the past and learn
• 1:25
  Speaker 4: about them from people if I can, and I really
• 1:27
  Speaker 4: love to get to libraries and bookstores if I can,
• 1:29
  Speaker 4: but there it was kind of hard to find those
• 1:32
  Speaker 4: in where I was in Jamaica. We asked some of
• 1:34
  Speaker 4: the people who live there their recommendations. And I also
• 1:38
  Speaker 4: wasn't there that long, so I couldn't do really any
• 1:41
  Speaker 4: sort of like spend any much more deeper time on that.
• 1:44
  Speaker 4: I was with family, so I didn't get to do
• 1:48
  Speaker 4: as much as I wanted to. But hopefully on a
• 1:50
  Speaker 4: trip back, I can go and like find some more
• 1:52
  Speaker 4: things where I had some texts on some people.
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: Hopefully, Yes, were you able to plug from work last time?
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: We were talking about that and the.
• 2:02
  Speaker 4: Difficulty doing that, shaking my head solemnly, But I am
• 2:09
  Speaker 4: shaking my head solemnly because I did not.
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: I did. I was able to do it in a
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: very measured way. I will say.
• 2:18
  Speaker 4: I also went to a retreat out of state last month,
• 2:22
  Speaker 4: and I went to Jamaica as well.
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: Both of those are supposed to.
• 2:24
  Speaker 4: Be like, you know, chill, relaxing, I get some time off,
• 2:27
  Speaker 4: like truly get to unplug.
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: But on both of those trips I was like.
• 2:33
  Speaker 4: All right, I'm done with the plenary session, like I'm
• 2:36
  Speaker 4: done with the lecture. Time to go work or before
• 2:40
  Speaker 4: I start my day, gotta get.
• 2:41
  Speaker 3: Up to work. You know, I got to make sure
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: I meet this deadline. And I did a little.
• 2:45
  Speaker 4: I did a lot less of that in Jamaica than
• 2:47
  Speaker 4: I did on my retreat. So I did, Like the
• 2:52
  Speaker 4: hours weren't weren't so burning some of the amount of
• 2:56
  Speaker 4: work that I did then, So I have no plaints.
• 3:02
  Speaker 4: And I was like, I got to do it with
• 3:03
  Speaker 4: my legs up on a patio by fool, you know, yeah,
• 3:08
  Speaker 4: in the Caribbean some way, So you know, I'm not
• 3:13
  Speaker 4: who am I to complain about that? So not complete
• 3:16
  Speaker 4: loss is what you're saying.
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, right, yes, yes, Well I am so glad you're
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: bringing this story today, Eves. This is another one I
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: had not heard, and I can't believe I hadn't heard.
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: So who are we talking about today?
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: Today?
• 3:33
  Speaker 4: We were talking about Marie Luis Christophe, also known as
• 3:37
  Speaker 4: Marie Luis Croy da Vide. So she was the first
• 3:41
  Speaker 4: and only queen of the independent Haiti. And that's what
• 3:44
  Speaker 4: we're talking about. So I said, we're talking about Caribbean,
• 3:46
  Speaker 4: We're talking about Haiti. Specifically today, And yeah, I'm really
• 3:50
  Speaker 4: excited to get into it.
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: Yes, it is quite the history and I'm looking forward
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: to to hearing more about it because a lot of
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: times Samantha and I will do kind of a preliminary
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: research just so we know what we're talking about can
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: kind of keep up. But this one was difficult to
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: find some sources, especially like in early days.
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: Yes, so I'm.
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: Very excited to hear. I'm sure it was difficult for you.
• 4:17
  Speaker 4: Yes, it was, and that is the case for researchers
• 4:19
  Speaker 4: who are far more deep into her biography than I
• 4:23
  Speaker 4: am as well.
• 4:24
  Speaker 3: So you are not alone. I am not alone.
• 4:26
  Speaker 4: But as we always talk about here on Sminty on
• 4:30
  Speaker 4: female first specifically, I mean, just because we don't know
• 4:33
  Speaker 4: a lot about a person doesn't mean their story isn't
• 4:36
  Speaker 4: worth bringing to the forefront. That's the case for Marie
• 4:39
  Speaker 4: Luis Cloy Davide because she has a history in Haiti,
• 4:44
  Speaker 4: which obviously always it Haiti story deserves uplift men. And
• 4:48
  Speaker 4: when we talk about history, and we talk about the
• 4:50
  Speaker 4: history of black people and independence and women's roles in
• 4:55
  Speaker 4: movements for independence and resistance movements, and she also has
• 5:00
  Speaker 4: a history of traveling the world. But the difficulty in
• 5:03
  Speaker 4: her story is that she doesn't have There aren't many
• 5:05
  Speaker 4: of her own personal writings left, So not only do
• 5:09
  Speaker 4: we not know as much about her earlier life, it's
• 5:11
  Speaker 4: like we don't know a lot from her own perspective
• 5:14
  Speaker 4: about what her life was like, and those are often,
• 5:16
  Speaker 4: you know, it not necessarily the most engaging parts, but
• 5:19
  Speaker 4: when you get to learn the smaller details of somebody's
• 5:22
  Speaker 4: life and how they view the world, that's where we
• 5:25
  Speaker 4: really get to understand people, I think, on a bit
• 5:27
  Speaker 4: more empathetic level outside of just oh, this is their
• 5:30
  Speaker 4: first this is their accomplishment, And unfortunately we don't have
• 5:33
  Speaker 4: a lot of that from her. But still her story
• 5:37
  Speaker 4: deserves to be known and heard.
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: Yes, absolutely, Well, with that said, shall we get into
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: the history.
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah, let's do it.
• 5:46
  Speaker 4: So she was born in cat Francie, which is now
• 5:50
  Speaker 4: cap Icien, which is a town on the northern coast
• 5:53
  Speaker 4: of Haiti, and her birthday is listed as May eighth,
• 5:57
  Speaker 4: seventeen seventy eight, and she was reportedly born free so
• 6:03
  Speaker 4: details are fuzzy, like we were just talking about, you'll
• 6:06
  Speaker 4: see in some sources that it said her father was
• 6:09
  Speaker 4: the owner of a hotel, but that is very dubious information.
• 6:14
  Speaker 4: She had siblings, but there are also questionable facts surrounding
• 6:17
  Speaker 4: who some of them were, how many of them there were.
• 6:21
  Speaker 4: But she had her first child when she was sixteen
• 6:24
  Speaker 4: years old, and she was married to Henri Christophe, and
• 6:29
  Speaker 4: that's where we get her last name Christoph. So the
• 6:33
  Speaker 4: Haitian Revolution is a big part of her story. It
• 6:37
  Speaker 4: started in seventeen ninety one, which was a little bit
• 6:41
  Speaker 4: over a decade after she was born, and the revolution
• 6:46
  Speaker 4: ended in eighteen o four, and Marie Luis she married
• 6:50
  Speaker 4: on Rie Christoph, her husband, around seventeen ninety three, so
• 6:54
  Speaker 4: that was a couple of years after the revolution popped off.
• 6:58
  Speaker 4: I'm not so sure about the details of her marriage,
• 7:01
  Speaker 4: like I would like to know a little bit more
• 7:03
  Speaker 4: about that, like really how they met, you know, what
• 7:07
  Speaker 4: their marriage was like, some of those details, because Rie
• 7:11
  Speaker 4: Christoph was a pretty big figure in Haiti and the
• 7:14
  Speaker 4: Haitian Revolution.
• 7:16
  Speaker 3: But I couldn't find much of that.
• 7:18
  Speaker 4: I really, I don't think a ton of that exists
• 7:21
  Speaker 4: in general, but I would love to know more about that,
• 7:24
  Speaker 4: because you know, her first is rooted and on Ri Christoph,
• 7:28
  Speaker 4: which we'll get to you in a second. But I
• 7:30
  Speaker 4: re we do know that he supported Toussaint Chure and
• 7:34
  Speaker 4: started fighting the French, the British and the Spanish and
• 7:38
  Speaker 4: the revolution, and he eventually became a general in the revolution.
• 7:42
  Speaker 4: And so just for a little bit about the Haitian Revolution,
• 7:47
  Speaker 4: I'm sure a lot of people, well, let me not
• 7:50
  Speaker 4: assume what everyone knows. But I think one of the
• 7:53
  Speaker 4: biggest facts that people will come across when they're talking
• 7:56
  Speaker 4: about the Haitian Revolution is that it was the only
• 7:58
  Speaker 4: time enslaved people, free people of color like fought for
• 8:01
  Speaker 4: their independence from colonization and succeeded, and that resulted in
• 8:06
  Speaker 4: a nation that was led by formerly enslaved people and
• 8:11
  Speaker 4: free people of color. Of course, there was a huge
• 8:16
  Speaker 4: upheaval after this one that continues to resonate till today.
• 8:22
  Speaker 4: Jean Jacques Dessaline, who was a formerly enslaved black man,
• 8:26
  Speaker 4: became the first Emperor of Haiti after independence, but he
• 8:30
  Speaker 4: was assassinated in eighteen o six, so there was instability
• 8:34
  Speaker 4: after the end of the revolution. Politically, Haiti was soon
• 8:39
  Speaker 4: split into two, and that was the State of Haiti
• 8:42
  Speaker 4: in the north, and that was the Republic of Haiti
• 8:44
  Speaker 4: in the south. So that's a little bit on the
• 8:47
  Speaker 4: Haitian Revolution, just understanding the context of Marie and how
• 8:53
  Speaker 4: she was coming up in Haiti because she was still
• 8:55
  Speaker 4: relatively young at this time, and the context in which
• 9:00
  Speaker 4: Marie Louise's and Henri Christophe's marriage was. I mean, I
• 9:05
  Speaker 4: mean he became a general in the revolution. You know,
• 9:08
  Speaker 4: he was putting a lot of its energy and efforts
• 9:11
  Speaker 4: in time toward the revolution during the time he was
• 9:15
  Speaker 4: married with Marie Louise. So all in all though they
• 9:21
  Speaker 4: ended up having four children, two sons and two daughters,
• 9:26
  Speaker 4: and her oldest son died under the guardianship of the
• 9:28
  Speaker 4: French government in eighteen oh five, and so there is
• 9:32
  Speaker 4: a little bit on Henrie Christoph as well. He ruled
• 9:36
  Speaker 4: the northern half of Haiti, the State of Haiti, and
• 9:40
  Speaker 4: in eighteen eleven the State of Haiti became a kingdom
• 9:44
  Speaker 4: and Henri proclaimed himself as king, and this is what
• 9:48
  Speaker 4: made Marie Louise the first queen of independent Haiti. So
• 9:52
  Speaker 4: this is where her first comes in. And I'm ree
• 10:06
  Speaker 4: he believed a single hereditary ruler would be the best
• 10:10
  Speaker 4: move for Haiti, so he set up this whole elaborate
• 10:14
  Speaker 4: hereditary nobility, and he instituted and enforced a system of
• 10:19
  Speaker 4: labor on plantations where workers didn't make wages and instead
• 10:25
  Speaker 4: they got a fourth of the gross product that was
• 10:29
  Speaker 4: free from duties. His government also captured ships with enslaved
• 10:33
  Speaker 4: people on them and liberated them, and Imri was in
• 10:38
  Speaker 4: regular contact with British abolitionists. He had artists, scientists, and
• 10:44
  Speaker 4: English teachers brought to Haiti to teach students. So even
• 10:49
  Speaker 4: though I'm not exactly sure what his marriage to Marie
• 10:53
  Speaker 4: Luis looked like in great detail, they definitely lived a
• 10:58
  Speaker 4: lavish lifestyle. I've seen that he apparently had mistresses. I
• 11:03
  Speaker 4: don't want to read too much in that. I mean,
• 11:04
  Speaker 4: I'm here for the drama and stories a lot of
• 11:07
  Speaker 4: the times, but it's really not that integral to the
• 11:12
  Speaker 4: story we're telling about Marie Louise today, okay, because they
• 11:16
  Speaker 4: are not her. But by eighteen twenty, Henri's health wasn't
• 11:20
  Speaker 4: great and people were uprising against his rule. And on
• 11:27
  Speaker 4: October eighth, eighteen twenty, Henri died by suicide. And I
• 11:32
  Speaker 4: don't want to focus too much on Anrie Christoph's story.
• 11:35
  Speaker 4: He does you can you know, people can go research
• 11:39
  Speaker 4: more about his story. There is far more detail about
• 11:42
  Speaker 4: his story. People can look up some of why they
• 11:44
  Speaker 4: were uprising against his rule.
• 11:45
  Speaker 3: There are records of the.
• 11:47
  Speaker 4: Types of systems that he instituted, why people didn't like
• 11:51
  Speaker 4: what he was doing, why people did like his rule.
• 11:55
  Speaker 4: There's a lot more information on the political ins and
• 11:58
  Speaker 4: outs of his biography, So that is also fascinating, and
• 12:05
  Speaker 4: I think, in its own right, can show a little
• 12:09
  Speaker 4: bit give us a little bit more insight into Marie
• 12:12
  Speaker 4: Luis as well, and how her marriage might have been
• 12:15
  Speaker 4: to him, and also maybe some of the way she
• 12:18
  Speaker 4: thinks and some of her perspectives. So I think his
• 12:22
  Speaker 4: biography is worthwhile looking into in that regard on his own,
• 12:25
  Speaker 4: but also if you were more interested in Marie Luis.
• 12:28
  Speaker 4: But I just didn't want to belabor it too much
• 12:30
  Speaker 4: today because this is about Marie Louise. So right after
• 12:34
  Speaker 4: anried died by suicide, her youngest son was assassinated, and
• 12:40
  Speaker 4: after the death of her husband and her son, she
• 12:44
  Speaker 4: and her daughters went into exile. So now her two
• 12:47
  Speaker 4: sons are deceased and her two daughters are still alive,
• 12:51
  Speaker 4: so they all went into exile. And at first she
• 12:55
  Speaker 4: was sheltered in Porta Prince in Haiti, but she soon
• 12:59
  Speaker 4: got protected passage to be able to go to London
• 13:02
  Speaker 4: in exile, and she went to England in September of
• 13:06
  Speaker 4: eighteen twenty one. So another major contextual point here is
• 13:15
  Speaker 4: about the Industrial Revolution, So another revolution happening, a very
• 13:21
  Speaker 4: different kind. But I know that y'all have talked about
• 13:24
  Speaker 4: it this era on Sminty before, and it was very
• 13:29
  Speaker 4: polluted there in London. There was a lot of change
• 13:33
  Speaker 4: that was happening. But when they got there, they stayed
• 13:37
  Speaker 4: at Osborne's Hotel, and then abolitionist Thomas Clarkson invited them
• 13:43
  Speaker 4: to stay at his home, which was Playford Hall and Stuffolk,
• 13:47
  Speaker 4: and he expected them to stay about a month, but
• 13:51
  Speaker 4: they ended up staying for months, which is something he
• 13:53
  Speaker 4: commented on in a letter he wrote to someone.
• 13:56
  Speaker 3: He was like, yeah, I didn't know, you.
• 13:58
  Speaker 4: Know, I wasn't planning on them staying long, but they did,
• 14:02
  Speaker 4: which is honestly relatable because you know, sometimes you invite
• 14:06
  Speaker 4: people over out of the kindness of your heart to stay.
• 14:09
  Speaker 4: You're like, I'm so hospitable, and then you get sick
• 14:12
  Speaker 4: and tired of them being.
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: In your space, like going home now, like your.
• 14:19
  Speaker 4: Home is my home, you know, but also what this
• 14:23
  Speaker 4: is also my home? So yeah, but he does talk
• 14:29
  Speaker 4: about how they ended up growing on him. He wrote
• 14:33
  Speaker 4: in a letter to another abolitionist that there quote amiable
• 14:37
  Speaker 4: dispositions and gentle and correct manners occasion them daily to
• 14:41
  Speaker 4: grow in our love and esteem end quote. So I
• 14:46
  Speaker 4: feel like, you know, from my contemporary perspective, I acknowledge
• 14:51
  Speaker 4: that is coming from twenty twenty four, but I feel
• 14:55
  Speaker 4: like it was a compliment.
• 14:57
  Speaker 3: And also.
• 15:00
  Speaker 4: There is a twinge of respectability in this where he's like, well,
• 15:03
  Speaker 4: because you know, they are not hooting and hollering, and
• 15:06
  Speaker 4: they're not all over the place and they're very well contained.
• 15:10
  Speaker 4: Is kind of what it was saying to me in
• 15:13
  Speaker 4: a way that you know, we can handle it, you know,
• 15:17
  Speaker 4: which I think I might just be particularly sensitive to
• 15:21
  Speaker 4: it knowing that they were black, because the idea of
• 15:26
  Speaker 4: like a white person placing that level of like I
• 15:30
  Speaker 4: accept you because you're a respectable it just like rubs
• 15:33
  Speaker 4: me a certain way. But I also think that like
• 15:36
  Speaker 4: they moved to England and they were royalty from Haiti,
• 15:39
  Speaker 4: and they were black, and this this was she and
• 15:42
  Speaker 4: her family. They were not everyday people. So yeah, there's
• 15:46
  Speaker 4: a lot of that wrapped up in there. But anyway,
• 15:49
  Speaker 4: Clarkson also said about the Christophs quote, if they themselves
• 15:52
  Speaker 4: feel something of shyness respecting abolitionists, it arises from their
• 15:57
  Speaker 4: fear of being confounded with Africans. I can pity their weakness.
• 16:02
  Speaker 4: I have observed that very few persons can bear to
• 16:05
  Speaker 4: be reminded of any circumstances in their history which may
• 16:09
  Speaker 4: be thought degrading. So it is clear that they are
• 16:14
  Speaker 4: coming to this new place. People recognize where they came
• 16:19
  Speaker 4: from and their history. And there's also a distinction of
• 16:24
  Speaker 4: them from other Africans or black people, which is like
• 16:30
  Speaker 4: they're of a different class there, of nobility, and they're
• 16:34
  Speaker 4: from this far away place. But it was during this
• 16:38
  Speaker 4: time that Marie Luis and her family were at Clarkson's
• 16:43
  Speaker 4: home and in England that she kind of got her
• 16:46
  Speaker 4: ducks in a row. She sold some jewelry, she got
• 16:51
  Speaker 4: money that her husband left behind, and she had a
• 16:55
  Speaker 4: good amount of cash to live comfortably on. So I
• 16:59
  Speaker 4: don't think it's known exactly how much money she had,
• 17:02
  Speaker 4: but there was no record of her having struggled monetarily
• 17:06
  Speaker 4: economically throughout the rest of her life. So it seems
• 17:09
  Speaker 4: that with the money that she did have and the
• 17:12
  Speaker 4: resources that she did have and the connections that she had,
• 17:14
  Speaker 4: she was able to live pretty comfortably for her entire
• 17:17
  Speaker 4: life after her husband died. And it is also notable
• 17:22
  Speaker 4: that the anti slavery movement and abolitionism was very heavy,
• 17:27
  Speaker 4: like it was a big thing in Britain at the time,
• 17:31
  Speaker 4: but Marie Luis doesn't seem to have been too involved
• 17:35
  Speaker 4: in that movement, or at least there's no record of
• 17:37
  Speaker 4: her going to anti slavery meetings while she was there,
• 17:41
  Speaker 4: even though her history is so wrapped up in the
• 17:45
  Speaker 4: Haitian Revolution. And I think there's speculation around why that
• 17:50
  Speaker 4: was the case. You know, what it looked like for
• 17:52
  Speaker 4: her to be involved in her safety and her already
• 17:54
  Speaker 4: being a strange person in a strange land. I know,
• 17:57
  Speaker 4: there are so many considerations that a black person would
• 18:02
  Speaker 4: have had to have in thriving and surviving the way
• 18:07
  Speaker 4: in her situation and exile in Europe at the time,
• 18:12
  Speaker 4: So I could only imagine the permutations in her mind
• 18:15
  Speaker 4: around the issue. But there's only speculation about why that
• 18:19
  Speaker 4: was the case. But in April of eighteen twenty two,
• 18:22
  Speaker 4: the family left played for a hall and they went
• 18:25
  Speaker 4: to black Heath, which is an area in southeast London,
• 18:28
  Speaker 4: and they weren't there long. Soon they moved to West
• 18:31
  Speaker 4: Hill in Hastings. One of Marie Luis's daughters wrote that
• 18:34
  Speaker 4: the climate was milder in Hastings and that it was
• 18:37
  Speaker 4: helping Marie Luis's rheumatism.
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: So I.
• 18:45
  Speaker 4: Them being in different places in England seemed to have
• 18:49
  Speaker 4: been something that might have been ordered from them for
• 18:52
  Speaker 4: a doctor because of different conditions that they had. But also,
• 19:00
  Speaker 4: you know, the Industrial Revolution was happening at a time,
• 19:02
  Speaker 4: so certain places when they were closer to the coast
• 19:04
  Speaker 4: or when they were in cities, could have different effects
• 19:07
  Speaker 4: on their health, and that seemed to be a consideration
• 19:11
  Speaker 4: when they were moving and their presence was highlighted in
• 19:15
  Speaker 4: various newspapers. You know, these Haitians that had come to England.
• 19:19
  Speaker 4: It is Haitian royalty. But she did end up leaving
• 19:24
  Speaker 4: England in September of eighteen twenty four, which is about
• 19:27
  Speaker 4: three years after she got there, and after that she
• 19:30
  Speaker 4: never came back, but she did stay in Europe. So
• 19:33
  Speaker 4: she went to Salzburg Austria, she went to Rome, and
• 19:37
  Speaker 4: she went to Pisa. One of her daughters atun Naier
• 19:40
  Speaker 4: died from respiratory illness in eighteen thirty one, and her
• 19:45
  Speaker 4: other daughter, I teased, died from an injury that she
• 19:48
  Speaker 4: got after falling in eighteen thirty nine. So she lost
• 19:53
  Speaker 4: a lot of her family members, her husband, and all
• 19:57
  Speaker 4: of her children before she died. So I can only
• 20:01
  Speaker 4: imagine the level of grief that she had for losing
• 20:05
  Speaker 4: everybody around her and in unexpected and tragic ways. I because,
• 20:16
  Speaker 4: like I said, there are no personal reflections from her
• 20:18
  Speaker 4: on this, I don't really know too much about how
• 20:22
  Speaker 4: she responded on an emotional level, what her day to
• 20:27
  Speaker 4: day was like after her family members passed away. So
• 20:34
  Speaker 4: I would like to know more about that too, because
• 20:38
  Speaker 4: there are all these groundbreaking moments in her story, with
• 20:41
  Speaker 4: her husband and her becoming the first claim. She's seeing
• 20:44
  Speaker 4: independent Haiti, seeing that change that's so huge, and then
• 20:48
  Speaker 4: she moves to England that's a big deal, and there
• 20:50
  Speaker 4: aren't many people like her around, and there's this new language.
• 20:54
  Speaker 4: You know, all of these these major changes, and at
• 20:57
  Speaker 4: the same time she's having these personal tragedies have in
• 21:00
  Speaker 4: her life I would really love to know her thoughts
• 21:03
  Speaker 4: on that and how she handled it, but alas we
• 21:06
  Speaker 4: don't have those things. But she did write a letter
• 21:10
  Speaker 4: to the President of Haiti, Jean Pierre Boyer, asking if
• 21:14
  Speaker 4: she could return to her country. So I think I
• 21:19
  Speaker 4: can pull from that that there was a bit of
• 21:23
  Speaker 4: homesickness that she had. I mean, she wanted to go
• 21:25
  Speaker 4: back home. She did say that she really liked England
• 21:30
  Speaker 4: and she would have stayed there. I think if it
• 21:33
  Speaker 4: were not for I believe she said, if it weren't
• 21:36
  Speaker 4: for the climate conditions and like the pollution conditions, that
• 21:41
  Speaker 4: the effects that it had on health. But she wanted
• 21:45
  Speaker 4: to go back to her her home country, Haiti, although
• 21:50
  Speaker 4: she never ended up doing so. Her sister Luisa coy
• 21:55
  Speaker 4: Da Ville Pierrot. She was the wife of General and
• 21:59
  Speaker 4: later President Jean Louis Pirout of the Republic of Haiti,
• 22:03
  Speaker 4: who also if people would like to he has his
• 22:06
  Speaker 4: own history as well. That's interesting that people could research.
• 22:11
  Speaker 4: But Louisa was going to go back to Haiti with
• 22:15
  Speaker 4: Marie Louise, but that never happened. So Marie Luise died
• 22:21
  Speaker 4: in March of eighteen fifty one in Pisa, that's where
• 22:25
  Speaker 4: she's buried. And in twenty nineteen, doctor Nicole Wilson recovered
• 22:29
  Speaker 4: a transcription of Marie Lewis's will at the UK National Archives.
• 22:35
  Speaker 4: So doctor Nicole Wilson has done quite a bit of
• 22:39
  Speaker 4: research on Marie Louis's history. Doctor Nicole Wilson was a
• 22:45
  Speaker 4: research fellow at the Institute for Black Atlantic Research at
• 22:48
  Speaker 4: the University of Lancashire. She was also principal investigator at
• 22:53
  Speaker 4: fam Rebel, which is a research project about women in
• 22:57
  Speaker 4: the Haitian Revolution and their narratives of resistance. And Marie
• 23:01
  Speaker 4: Luis's will is a five page document. If you go
• 23:04
  Speaker 4: to doctor Wilson's website, if you search fam Rebel, then
• 23:07
  Speaker 4: you can find the will and read it. And in
• 23:10
  Speaker 4: twenty twenty two, doctor Wilson was also involved in having
• 23:14
  Speaker 4: a plaque put up that honored Marie Luise. It was
• 23:17
  Speaker 4: put up at her former home at forty nine Weymouth
• 23:20
  Speaker 4: Street in London, which is the last place that she
• 23:22
  Speaker 4: lived in England, and that same year. Later on there
• 23:26
  Speaker 4: was another plaque that was put up honoring her in Hastings,
• 23:29
  Speaker 4: another place she lived while she was in England, and
• 23:32
  Speaker 4: in an article that doctor Wilson wrote for History Today.
• 23:36
  Speaker 4: She says about Marie Luise that quote, her story is
• 23:40
  Speaker 4: one of relative privilege, rendering her revolutionary trajectory more complicated
• 23:47
  Speaker 4: and to some less radical. And I just wanted to
• 23:52
  Speaker 4: talk about that quote because yes, like, there are were
• 23:57
  Speaker 4: a lot of people with far from resources and privileges
• 24:02
  Speaker 4: them Marie Luis had in Haiti that were not able
• 24:07
  Speaker 4: to move overseas, who were working on the plantations, who
• 24:12
  Speaker 4: died in difficult ways, who had a lot more trouble
• 24:17
  Speaker 4: taking care of their families, who lived in a lot
• 24:21
  Speaker 4: less comfortable positions. So I think there is context around
• 24:26
  Speaker 4: that too that is worthy of talking about. But Marie
• 24:31
  Speaker 4: Lewis's story is still so wrapped up in the Haitian
• 24:35
  Speaker 4: revolution and Haiti's independence, So a lot of things to
• 24:39
  Speaker 4: think about, I think with Marie Luis's story, Yeah, and
• 24:46
  Speaker 4: that's her life.
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: I love these female first that you always do such
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: a good job of presenting like the complexities of a person,
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: even if we don't have all the information.
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: But it is a story of tragedy.
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: And upheaval and revolution and having these privileges and all
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: of that in one person. And it's really fascinating, and
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: I do wish there's so many rabbit holes that I
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: do wish we knew more. There's so much I want
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: to research about after this. But it's also an example
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: I found in this a great example of people still
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: doing that work and still researching because a lot of
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: the stuff around her, like the plaques that was pretty recent,
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: that was like a lot of them were saying this
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: is like a pandemic project for that ad or something
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: like that. So I find that that always inspires me,
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: and I'm glad people are doing that work so we
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: can hear these stories and remember these stories, as complicated
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: as they may be.
• 26:01
  Speaker 4: Yeah, And I think one thing that it was difficult
• 26:07
  Speaker 4: for me in reading her story and not having a
• 26:10
  Speaker 4: lot of her personal thoughts about it, having so many
• 26:14
  Speaker 4: other people's words in it that was difficult for me
• 26:17
  Speaker 4: is that when you look at it from the outside,
• 26:20
  Speaker 4: and because we don't have a lot of her responses,
• 26:23
  Speaker 4: it kind of looks like a pat existence, like in
• 26:26
  Speaker 4: a way like, yes, we understand the deaths, but I
• 26:28
  Speaker 4: think it's a little bit it's kind of hard to
• 26:32
  Speaker 4: connect to those deaths and really understand the weight of them.
• 26:36
  Speaker 4: It's like Okay, people died around her, but like it
• 26:38
  Speaker 4: was a Haitian revolution, it was eighteen hundreds, like we
• 26:41
  Speaker 4: like we know people die without some of those specific
• 26:45
  Speaker 4: details on how she felt about it, and only seeing
• 26:48
  Speaker 4: like she was a royal, they built a palace, Okay,
• 26:51
  Speaker 4: she lived in Like she went to England, she got
• 26:54
  Speaker 4: safe passage there. She didn't die of tubercula, Like I mean,
• 26:59
  Speaker 4: what's she doing?
• 26:59
  Speaker 3: Okay, you know, so it kind of looks like that.
• 27:02
  Speaker 4: It can kind of look like that without me knowing
• 27:05
  Speaker 4: the specific details. I'm like, I really want to know
• 27:08
  Speaker 4: more because that it's so easy. I think when we
• 27:12
  Speaker 4: look at stories from the past that we don't know
• 27:15
  Speaker 4: a lot about to fall into that, And I just
• 27:19
  Speaker 4: that's why I want to know so much more about
• 27:22
  Speaker 4: how she felt, because I don't want to just have
• 27:26
  Speaker 4: to read between the lines to know how she felt,
• 27:28
  Speaker 4: because like her story is a black story, which no
• 27:31
  Speaker 4: matter what, no matter where at this time.
• 27:34
  Speaker 3: Would have been a difficult one.
• 27:36
  Speaker 4: But we don't even know when she was in England,
• 27:38
  Speaker 4: what kind of stare she got, what kind of what
• 27:41
  Speaker 4: did people say to her? What did people do to
• 27:44
  Speaker 4: her when she was in England. Despite the fact that
• 27:47
  Speaker 4: she was royalty in this far off land than a
• 27:50
  Speaker 4: lot of people there in England had never been to,
• 27:52
  Speaker 4: had never seen someone of her of her stature and
• 27:55
  Speaker 4: her color, all of those kinds of things that I
• 28:01
  Speaker 4: really would like to know about some more about those
• 28:05
  Speaker 4: gaps in her story. So yeah, shout out to all
• 28:08
  Speaker 4: of the researchers like doctor Wilson and all the other
• 28:11
  Speaker 4: people who are looking more to her story, because her
• 28:14
  Speaker 4: story is her own. But it's also like we mentioned
• 28:17
  Speaker 4: some of these men that we talked about in today's
• 28:20
  Speaker 4: episode who were involved in the Haitian Revolution, but also
• 28:23
  Speaker 4: a lot of the other women in the Haitian Revolution
• 28:27
  Speaker 4: and women in anti colonial resistance around the world, in
• 28:34
  Speaker 4: British holdings and like just in general, like that we
• 28:38
  Speaker 4: can connect her story to and I think that is
• 28:42
  Speaker 4: a powerful part of her story as well, despite the
• 28:44
  Speaker 4: fact that we don't know a lot about it.
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: Yes, and we always appreciate you Eves for doing this
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: research and giving us this context and bringing these important
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: stories to us. So thank you. We're glad to have
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: you back. Hope you to be here as always.
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: Yes, where can the good listeners find you?
• 29:05
  Speaker 4: Y'all can find me at you can just go to
• 29:08
  Speaker 4: Evesjeffcoat dot com and you can get to all of
• 29:09
  Speaker 4: the places. But if you want to go straight to Instagram,
• 29:12
  Speaker 4: you can go to not Apologizing. That is pretty much
• 29:16
  Speaker 4: the only social media platform that I really engage with
• 29:19
  Speaker 4: in any way. You can also find me on many
• 29:23
  Speaker 4: other episodes of Female First right here on Sminty talking
• 29:27
  Speaker 4: about women in history. And you can find me on
• 29:31
  Speaker 4: One Theme, which is a podcast about black storytelling and
• 29:35
  Speaker 4: all of its forms.
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: Yes, and go check it out listeners, if you haven't already,
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: Thanks again Eves for being here listeners. If you would
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: like to contact us, you can our email Stuff Media
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: Mom Stuff at iHeartMedia dot com. You can find us
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: on Twitter at mostaf podcast, or on Instagram and TikTok
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: at stuff I've Never told you.
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: We're on YouTube.
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: We have a tea public store, and we have a
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: book you can get wherever you get your books. Thanks
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: as always to our super producer Christina, executive producer Maya,
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: and our contributor Joey. Thank you and thanks to you
• 30:05
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• 30:08
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• 30:10
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• 30:11
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