Lumina Sophie ‘Surprise’ Roptus

The Creole Joan of Arc from Martinique

On Martinique, an island mapped out by Christopher Columbus but later settled by the French, a baby girl was born on November 9 in 1848, the year slavery on the tiny island was abolished. Born on the Riviere-Pilote to a recently freed slave, Marie-Sophie, this baby girl was born during a very lucky time. Most of the slaves on this island were registered by one name and a number. Not surprisingly, after slavery was abolished, nicknames were still very popular. It was a racist tradition carried on even after slavery ended. Her mother having been known as ‘Zulma’ registered her daughter under the name Marie-Philomene Sophie. Later both mother and daughter were given the surname of Roptus by the island’s authorities. Everyone called her Lumina Sophie (a deviation of Philomene) and her nickname was ‘Surprise’.

Few details on her early life are known. While Lumina Sophie was only 6 years old, her mother became head of their household. Women being in charge was the norm during the time period. Men worked hard in the sugar cane fields and women tended the home. Most former slaves had no access to a formal education. Lumina Sophie learned how to read and write, following politics, spending time reading the local newspaper, and keeping up-to-date on daily events. Raised in rural poverty, educated Lumina Sophie protested against the inequality former slaves still faced during the years after Martinique abolished slavery. Most of the people she fought for were illiterate and poor fieldworkers. Working as a seamstress and merchant, she was known for her independence. By the time she turned 18 years old she had started living with a revolt leader, who was a former slave, named Emile Sidney.

When Lumina Sophie was 2 months pregnant, Emile Sidney and a group of men who had been protesting the imprisonment of a Black sailor who gotten into a physical altercation with a European man, mysteriously vanished on September 22 1870. Lumina Sophie then organized a group of women who called themselves ‘Oilers’. These were insurrectional women who shared the name of famous fighters who had revolted a few months before. ‘Oilers’ fought against the unfair labor contracts that held Black men and women in economic slavery to the Plantations that their enslaved ancestors had worked.

Lumina Sophie’s revolution only lasted 5 days before she was captured and imprisoned. The governor called her ‘The Flame of Revolt’ and her trial was held the following spring, taking place in French even though Lumina Sophie only spoke Creole. She was accused of blasphemy, revolt, and of burning three homes. Even though many other charges were dropped, she was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison.

Her baby, Theodore Lumina was born while she was on trial and immediately taken from her. He died when he was just over a year old. While serving her life sentence in a prison in French Guyana, she was forced to marry a former prisoner. Lumina Sophie died when she was just 31 years old. After about a century of her being known only through folk legend, her self-sacrificing and symbolic protest against the unfair and unequal treatment that Black men and women suffered during the years after slavery abolishment, is remembered as a part of Martinique’s national pride.

There are now songs for her, two schools, and a high rise building named for Lumina Sophie ‘Surprise’