The above is a striking example of the use of women in general and a Black woman in particular as propaganda for the goals of the 'far left' of Revolutionary France. Not only challenging some of the sexism and the institution of slavery in the colonies, this image blends the to with the use of an Afro-Caribbean woman of what is now Haiti, according to this. Her headwrap, very Caribbean, evokes the Phyrgian caps that were equated with concepts associated with democratic governance, republican forms of government, and the ideals of the French Republic, including its abolition of slavery in the 1790s (partly because slaves already took their liberty in their own hands in colonies such as Saint-Domingue since 1791) as well as Masonic connotations. Although women were sometimes used to represent the benevolent, progressive character of republican government in France during the Revolution, of course women remained silenced and excluded from formal political power and office. The example below shows another Black woman, emancipated slave, from Saint-Domingue/Haiti, which is explained in French in this blog:
As one can clearly see, this woman bears the triangle necklace, another Masonic reference, but, so unlike British abolitionist imagery, shows no helplessness, holding her head high and demanding respect. Both of these images depict empowered, independent formerly enslaved Black women who demand freedom and surpass the usual depiction of enslaved Blacks in British and American abolitionist iconography. Compare these two with Benoist's Portrait of a Negress from the same era (circa 1800) and the strong, autonomous and rational Black woman looks into the eyes of the gazer, showing no deference or respect for patriarchal white authority. Indeed, her partly exposed breasts further the painting's ties to Classical references and freedom, from gender and racial oppression.Moreover, like the other two women, this former slave from the French Caribbean wears a headwrap in the similar Caribbean style while her part exposure is reminiscent of the later famous Liberty Leading the People by Delacroix in 1830. Thus, women both Black and white were used during the Age of Revolution to represent the entirety of the population, liberty, or advances for the female gender. Of course, paintings and engravings and political propaganda and rhetoric exaggerated and most certainly remained under the dominance for and by males, and, in the case of France and the rest of it's colonies excepting Haiti, white males. As for Haiti, nationhood and patriotism would eventually be defined largely as male, as Mimi Sheller has indicated regarding the attachment of an ideal Haitian in the early constitutions of the Black Republic with militarism, sword-bearing, and an entirely male-centered definition of citizenship rooted in patriarchy.
What these images provide, however, is a different look at how Blacks of the Caribbean perhaps responded to their enslavement, freedom, and reenslavement during the turbulent periods of the French and Haitian Revolutions. The former slave above, for instance, appears confident, strong-minded, and aware of herself and her rights, beyond simply being a prop by the white French painter, who, in this case, was a woman. Furthermore, unlike the common depictions of Blacks in European art of the colonial period, these images stray far from the racist depictions of savage, ugly Blacks with exaggerated physical features or, as in some cases, associations with apes and lesser beings. For an example of the extremely racist, sexist depictions of Black women in European art, Three Young White Men and a Black Woman, or Rape of a Negress, which shows three white males enjoying themselves with an unwilling Black woman, by van Couwenbergh. In addition, such images as the above three illustrate an undeniable link between Freemasonry in France and the Caribbean colonies, and, as Garrigus and others have suggested, may perhaps also allude to the presence of Black and mixed-race Masons in colonial Saint-Domingue, since Toussaint L'Ouverture and others were likely Masons. Moreover, Haitian paintings and history also describe Masonic leaders in the postcolonial period, proof of an undying link from colonial Freemason societies to their 19th and 20th century Haitian mulatto and Black counterparts.
Clearly, the use of the image of Black people in this short period of French republican radical anti-slavery, pushed to do so by slave resistance and demand in the colonies, illustrates more than simply French proponents and supports of the Revolution just using images of Blacks from the Caribbean as simple props with no agency. Although, as this essay indicates, Blacks are still exploited by philosophers, articulators of Enlightenment and early Romanticist thought on the role of Blacks and their humanity, the image is not unambiguously wholly negative or racist, despite racist and sexist reception from many audiences of Benoist, a known proponent of abolition and feminist causes. Nevertheless, such images, as James Small demonstrates, were received differently and the intertextual layers in the portrait could easily appeal to racist, sexist, colonial attitudes regarding Black women, eroticism, and inferiority, despite the Neoclassical allusions, firm gaze of the woman, and the painter's abolitionist and feminist sympathies. Unfortunately, the remainder of the 19th century would reveal an overwhelmingly negative depiction of Black women as scientific racism, European imperialism in Africa, and re-enslavement and colonial exploitation continued, despite the brief relapse in revolutionary France. For an undoubtedly negative, oversexed and racist caricature of Black women, the infamous depictions and treatment of Sarah Baartman provide ample evidence. A woman of Khoikhoi extraction from what is now South Africa, she was forced into parading her body in freakshows in England, despite the abolition of the international slave trade by the British. To make matters worse, after her horrid life of freak shows and burgeoning alcoholism to cope with the daily life of being gawked and jeered at, her corpse was dissected by Georges Cuvier and her remains put on display at the Louvre until finally returned to South Africa in 2002. What happened? After a brief, positive visualization of Black women, they soon become equated with the worst racial stereotypes, aided by nascent scientific racism that used the body of women such as Baartman to exoticize, mock, insult, jeer, and dehumanize ALL Black women.
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