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COOLIE BELLES
Thousands of miles away from their homeland, these Indo-Caribbean women were some of the 2 million
indentured laborers the British transported to their colonies between 1834 and 1917. In the Caribbean, they
signed contracts for five years or longer and worked on sugarcane fields on islands like Guyana, Trinidad,
Surinam and Jamaica after slavery had officially ended.
In the post card
She floats amongst the two worlds
That cage her inside
like an unprotected womb
Her mama kicked her out at just 16
When she saw the brown baby bump
Protesting from her stomach
Especially when she found out
That a divine feminine was trying to blossom
Inside, outside - a man’s world
“The scenes were entirely controlled by White European photographers -- one of whom was Felix Morin, a
French commercial photographer who owned a studio in Trinidad's capital, Port of Spain, from 1869 through
to late 1890”
The lens renders her in the margins
Clawing amongst the gray
the in-between
Of entrapment and freedom
Like the unrelenting vines
That stand behind her
The same sugar cubes
That once presented themselves
As nothing but pleasant and sweet
“Having grown up in a village that was once a sugar cane field, the desire for home was ‘a complicated
longing because it still represents the plantation.’”
Serpents rising
Her indian roots
Taunting her
She is forced to pull the
Weeds of her culture out herself
The photographer whispers to her
What he wants to see
or rather what he sees
What the world sees
Exotic
“The images showed the women as "other," an idea further enforced by their arms and legs being on display”
Hot on the tongue, all she ever heard
About her existence was
A marveling at how
She even existed at all
Her un-traced, foreign beauty
Up against victorian white
“The exposure of hands and feet would have been shocking. (Their) white women counterparts would have
been completely covered”
You know what they say
About the violence that ensues
When folks don’t understand something
Different
You can see it in the way her lips part the smile
Of the deepest tales of betrayal
The satin red opening curtain
to her monologue
The story they don’t want her to tell is still
Stalking the fields with every step
She took towards the falling horizon
Her child slung on her hip like a
Fashionable hand-bag
Coolie belles
Is what they were called
The woman who wore wealth
Amongst photos
But were told
Everyday in shouts and whispers
That they would never be worthy
Of the riches
That adorned them and
Rendered their male-colonists
Sovereignty and dominion
Over their own brown bodies
That they gawked at with both
Aching desire and disgust
Coolie belles carry a silenced
Worn-out carol deep
In their spirit
Like the soul of an owl
Who haunts the night
Please don’t look away
From the darkness
- Maddy Ipema
IG: https://www.instagram.com/p/CXwwPhhpsEd/
Sharma, Hena.
“Why Indian Women Became the Faces of These Victorian-Era Postcards.” CNN, Cable News, Sharma, Hena. “Why Indian Women Became the Faces of These Victorian-Era Postcards.” CNN, Cable News
Network, 21 Dec. 2020, https://www.cnn.com/style/article/indo-caribbean-women-colonial-postcards/index.html.
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