Historical women I wish I'd learned about in school

[Hot Pepsi]

Yeah. And it was also a crisis because CofA was Catholic and from Spain and all that. And my understanding is that Anne Boleyn was very devout and wasn’t just some groupy.

[Patrick Thistle]

I listened to a very interesting talk about the early days of parachuting, when it was done from balloons and was basically a carnival act. Crowds paid more to watch women jump and Dolly Shepherd became famous for doing it. She later became an army driver on the Western Front in WW1 and a senior ARP officer in the East End during the blitz.

The first pack parachute was invented by a German woman parachutist during World War 1.

[Balderdasha]

Aloha Wanderwell, first woman to circumnavigate the globe in a Ford 1918 Model T, starting in 1922 when she was just 16 years old:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aloha_Wanderwell

[Patrick Thistle]

Ęthelflęd, Lady of the Mercians sounds like an impressive woman. TBH I only heard about her because someone was tweeting about how the English fought the Danes historically and blah blah blah something about football.

[Sits]

Eliza Forlonge. We only found out about her when we stopped off for lunch on the road from Launceston to Hobart and saw her statue:

[Balderdasha]

I've just been reading about the agojie / Dahomey Amazons, an elite all-female army unit from the 17th-19th century who fought the French in what is now modern day Benin: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dahomey_Amazons

[Satchmo Distel]

The roles played by networks of black women in freedom struggles, not just the awesome Harriet Tubman, Ida B. Wells and Fannie Lou Hamer but the entire female membership of their organizations. TG makes an important point that they had to whitewash themselves as devout religious folk, so no pregnant 15 year olds in the foreground, and it's true that Rosa Parks was a plant (she had been in the NAACP a long time), but the movement as a whole could not have succeeded purely as a masculine operation.

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

Great thread, which I missed first time round. Glad to see that the extraordinary life and achievements of Josephine Baker are reflected as early as post number 5 on page 1 (Chris J's post). I was just prompted to look her up on Wiki by a passing mention in a biography of Mitterand that I'm currently reading, and I was absolutely awed.

[Sits]

Seconded, also Balders’ piece on the Dahomey Amazons was fascinating.

[Sam]

Cracking Twitter thread from a year ago on Saturday, which reveals the vital role played by (with a little help from her friends) an African American wonderfully named Abbie Sweetwine in inspiring the modern British ambulance paramedic service after a huge train crash in London on 8 October 1952.

[Balderdasha]

Cracking Twitter thread from a year ago on Saturday, which reveals the vital role played by (with a little help from her friends) an African American wonderfully named Abbie Sweetwine in inspiring the modern British ambulance paramedic service after a huge train crash in London on 8 October 1952.

Fascinating thread thanks! Just sent it to my midwife friend. Will be interested to hear whether she's ever heard of her before.

[Gangster Octopus]

Yup, it was the seventieth anniversary of the crash this weekend. There were a number of ceremonies round here to commerate it.

[Tactical Genius]

The roles played by networks of black women in freedom struggles, not just the awesome Harriet Tubman, Ida B. Wells and Fannie Lou Hamer but the entire female membership of their organizations. TG makes an important point that they had to whitewash themselves as devout religious folk, so no pregnant 15 year olds in the foreground, and it's true that Rosa Parks was a plant (she had been in the NAACP a long time), but the movement as a whole could not have succeeded purely as a masculine operation.

Indeed, and a little known fact is the women were a majority of the Black Panther membership.

People need to be careful with the veneration of the female soldiers of the Dahomey. a large proportion of their activities were raiding the villages of neighbouring tribes and kidnapping people to be sold as slaves.
Hence why the woman king film is pretty controversial in terms of content and timing.

Much less politically contentious would be:

Nanny of the Maroons of Jamaica
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanny_of_the_Maroons

Queen Nzinga of Angola
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nzinga...go_and_Matamba

Cécile Fatiman of the Haiti revolution
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C%C3%A9cile_Fatiman

Catherine Flon
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catherine_Flon

[Balderdasha]

People need to be careful with the veneration of the female soldiers of the Dahomey. a large proportion of their activities were raiding the villages of neighbouring tribes and kidnapping people to be sold as slaves.
Hence why the woman king film is pretty controversial in terms of content and timing.

Absolutely. Though I did read that the female soldiers of the Dahomey tried to persuade the king to switch to palm oil trading instead of slave trading. I don't know how accurate that is.

Thanks for the other links. They'll be some good lunchtime reading.

[Sits]

Yes, thanks for those TG.

[Satchmo Distel]

I'll try to fit them into my next syllabus. I'm too US-centric currently.

[Tactical Genius]

Absolutely. Though I did read that the female soldiers of the Dahomey tried to persuade the king to switch to palm oil trading instead of slave trading. I don't know how accurate that is.

Thanks for the other links. They'll be some good lunchtime reading.

I think that source is probably from the film currently out, hence the controversy (unless you can provide an historical record that predates 2019).
Palm oil trading really took off in the mid 19th century as a result of the industrial revolution and Europeans finally deciding to use Soap in significant quantities. Also the land of Dahomey was not physically large nor had the population numbers for excess agricultural production (hence the female soldiers).

[Balderdasha]

I think that source is probably from the film currently out, hence the controversy (unless you can provide an historical record that predates 2019).
Palm oil trading really took off in the mid 19th century as a result of the industrial revolution and Europeans finally deciding to use Soap in significant quantities. Also the land of Dahomey was not physically large nor had the population numbers for excess agricultural production (hence the female soldiers).

It came from the Wikipedia page, which links to this article: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journ...3545BA3D6BC6F1

That article was published in 2009. I can only access the summary (without paying £20) which talks about the Fly party which sought peace with the Abeokuta, and wanted to switch from slave trading to palm oil, from about 1840. There's a link to further reading about the role of women in politics in Dahomey but it didn't seem to link to anything with much more information.

I'm clearly not an expert on this though.

[Tactical Genius]

It came from the Wikipedia page, which links to this article: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journ...3545BA3D6BC6F1

That article was published in 2009. I can only access the summary (without paying £20) which talks about the Fly party which sought piece with the Abeokuta, and wanted to switch from slave trading to palm oil, from about 1840. There's a link to further reading about the role of women in politics in Dahomey but it didn't seem to link to anything with much more information.

I'm clearly not an expert on this though.

Ok, a few things here I need to unpack.
1. By 1840, trading slaves to the new world had become increasingly difficult. The British outlawed it and patrolled the West African coast confiscating slave boats. The Haitian revolution of 1804 had left the western Hemisphere shook and there was little appetite to import mass numbers of free born africans who will do nothing apart from shit stir and forment revolts. At this time a very large number were politicians and military trained men from the crumbling Oyo empire. The only country that has a massive demand for slaves was Brazil and the Portuguese traders were shut out of most ports.

2. The Fly party and Elephant party were not political parties vying for votes or canvassing the population for favour. They were rival factions of powerful business people canvassing the King to shape government practices.

3. Yes women had a prominent role in Dahomey politics, Not just as soldiers but as local governors and administrators. Unsurprisingly in a militaristic society that was shaped for permanent war, men were generally not trusted with too much power.

4. Abeokuta as a city did not really exist until around 1830. It was setup as a refuge city for those fleeing the collapse of the Oyo Empire and the sacking of Old Oyo by the Fulani inspired by Uthman Dan Fodio (thats a guy worth googling).

5. The Dahomey had attacked Abeokuta a few times and were repelled. Then Abeokuta started attacking Dahomey and as they had much greater resources, it would have been prudent for Dahomey to sue for peace. By 1840, the money was in Oil Palm exports and it didn't make sense sending potential human labour abroad.

[Tactical Genius]

Oh, and as an initiation into the female army, the women would undergo FGM.

I can imagine the look on your face reading this and it has made my day.

[Satchmo Distel]

The Dahomey leader refused to end the slave trade because the British would not compensate them in the way that it did the white slave traders, according to this:

King Ghezo appealed to the British government and proposed to end the slave trade immediately if the British were willing to pay reparations to Dahomey for their loss of income from slave trading, as Britain had done to slave owners in its Caribbean colonies for freeing their slaves.^[11] After they rejected his offer, King Ghezo continued to trade slaves, since palm oil was no longer a lucrative option

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghezo

The slaves went mainly to Cuba because Brazil stopped importing them in 1850; Cuba kept importing them until 1867:

https://www.scielo.br/j/alm/a/8jhBTt...=en&format=pdf

Apparently, the port that was used up to the 1860s was Whydah (Ouidah)

[Balderdasha]

Ok, a few things here I need to unpack.
1. By 1840, trading slaves to the new world had become increasingly difficult. The British outlawed it and patrolled the West African coast confiscating slave boats. The Haitian revolution of 1804 had left the western Hemisphere shook and there was little appetite to import mass numbers of free born africans who will do nothing apart from shit stir and forment revolts. At this time a very large number were politicians and military trained men from the crumbling Oyo empire. The only country that has a massive demand for slaves was Brazil and the Portuguese traders were shut out of most ports.

2. The Fly party and Elephant party were not political parties vying for votes or canvassing the population for favour. They were rival factions of powerful business people canvassing the King to shape government practices.

3. Yes women had a prominent role in Dahomey politics, Not just as soldiers but as local governors and administrators. Unsurprisingly in a militaristic society that was shaped for permanent war, men were generally not trusted with too much power.

4. Abeokuta as a city did not really exist until around 1830. It was setup as a refuge city for those fleeing the collapse of the Oyo Empire and the sacking of Old Oyo by the Fulani inspired by Uthman Dan Fodio (thats a guy worth googling).

5. The Dahomey had attacked Abeokuta a few times and were repelled. Then Abeokuta started attacking Dahomey and as they had much greater resources, it would have been prudent for Dahomey to sue for peace. By 1840, the money was in Oil Palm exports and it didn't make sense sending potential human labour abroad.

Really interesting thanks. See this is a topic that I know shamefully little about. I was taught absolutely nothing at school about slavery or African history. We read a handful of books written by African-Americans or with African-American characters in English literature (To Kill a Mockingbird, The Colour Purple, Beloved, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings) and that was only because the English teacher was more enlightened than most and smuggled them in wherever she could.

I've picked up bits and pieces since. There was some information in my social anthropology degree (would have been a lot more if my director of studies who specialised in this hadn't got a brain tumour). I've tried to read around the subject a bit, but I've never actively studied it and as a white person, you don't get exposed to any of this stuff unless you really actively try and look. And while I do try wherever possible, I also have a busy life and it's not the primary focus of my energies.

So, all I'm trying to say is thank you and more of this information please. I find it really interesting and valuable. Thanks also Satchmo Distel. I didn't know that but it does not surprise me at all to learn that the British refused to compensate black slave traders in the same way that they compensated white slave traders and owners.

I read about the FGM initiation of the Dahomey. I'm not sure what you imagined the look on my face to be but it wasn't news to me. We actually did an entire module about FGM in my social anthropology degree so I know more about that than about the history of slavery. We read loads of different perspectives about it, including from African and Muslim academics, and the eventual conclusion I came to was that ok, maybe I don't like it, but white Western people going in and preaching about it (or banning people from doing it) is not the way forward. If it's going to change, the change has to come from the societies that practice it themselves. The best that outsiders could potentially do is provide information and access to much better sanitation and medical facilities to reduce the risks, and provide more funding for female education and any locally led organisations that want to change it. Otherwise the practice just goes underground and becomes more dangerous for everyone involved, much in the same way as banning abortion doesn't stop it, it just leads to dangerous back street abortions.

There has been some success with gently steering societies towards adopting the less extreme versions of FGM but not getting rid of it entirely. FGM encompasses an extremely wide range of practices, from hygienically and surgically just removing the clitoral hood which is the most similar to male circumcision, all the way through to brutally removing all visible external female genitalia (cutting off the clitoris and labia), stuffing the vagina with unhygienic materials such as straw and sewing the entire thing up, which is much more likely to lead to infection and death.

Banning FGM can also have the counterproductive end result of reducing the age at which FGM is carried out. In many societies, FGM was an initiation rite for girls who had gone through puberty, similar to the scarification rituals that post-pubescent boys would go through. In some societies, it was an act that would only be carried out with the individual's consent (though with a huge amount of social pressure to conform). Banning FGM means that practitioners instead carry out FGM on much younger girls who are less able to object and report the practitioners. Jailing FGM practitioners can be counterproductive for the overall well-being of a community as they are often also a community's health practitioner (e.g. midwife, herbalist, surgeon) and the communities that still have them often don't have easy access to other alternative medics.

Instead, any education should focus on obtaining consent and reducing harm of the practice. And if we're not going to ban Jewish male circumcision it would be extremely hypocritical to outright ban all female circumcision. Personally I would like to see an end to any non-essential medical procedure on a child that is too young to consent to it, including both male and female circumcision, and ear piercing, but I recognise that it is not my right to decide that for all societies.

If an adult woman consents to undergo FGM, it would be very hard to argue that they shouldn't be allowed to. If we allow women to consent to breast implants and buttock lifts and pubic hair waxing and a whole host of other non-essential, painful and potentially dangerous procedures done in the name of vanity and/or attracting a mate, we can't really ban consensual FGM. I've even read a first person account from a woman who has had a clitoral hood removal circumcision who claims that the entire point of it is to increase female sexual pleasure and that it is extremely effective in this aim.

Now I'd be curious to see what your face is like.

[Sam]

Well, my face currently has my eyebrows somewhere up near my hairline, because I'd previously read very little about FGM, so thanks for that post, Balders.

I always have to remind myself how much the vast majority of (white) Brits don't know about the slave trade. Having grown up right outside Bristol, and having gone to a good comprehensive that, once I got to university, I discovered clearly really was a very good one (my parents moved to the village they did when my dad's job was moved to Bristol specifically so my brother and I would go to said school once we were old enough), I learnt about it in varying degrees of depth throughout secondary school, and when I arrived at university and started meeting people from all over the country I was amazed at how few of them – including loads who were studying history, which I wasn't doing myself – had absolutely no idea what phrases like 'the Triangular Trade' and 'the Middle Passage' meant.

[Satchmo Distel]

Excellent site on Rosa Parks: https://rosaparksbiography.org/

[Hot Pepsi]

This reminds me. While I was away, the Queen of England died. Did you guys know that?