via Wikimedia
Adbaraya Toya was a woman with titles abound: healer, midwife, and, perhaps most notably, warrior. Born in the Dahomey Kingdom, Adbaraya ranked high amongst the Dahomey council of women, filled with the fiercest warriors in present-day Benin.
Her abduction, however, would ship her to a new life of enslavement in Haiti. But that wouldn’t hold this warrior back.
Renamed Victoria Montou in colonial Haiti, Adbaraya was forced to work on a sugar plantation. There she met a young boy, Jean Jacques Dessalines, who would grow up to become a hero in the Haitian Revolution.
But first, to become the legend we know today, he would need her guidance.
Already a fierce warrior, Adbaraya trained Jean Jacques, teaching him hand-to-hand combat, how to shoot, and even how to work a knife.
That training led Jean Jacques to become the great leader he was during Haiti’s revolution. And Adbaraya was right there, fighting by his side as head of the military, leading her own indigenous army!
No matter where she was, or what hardship she encountered, Adbaraya Toya’s fierce warrior spirit couldn’t be bound. Because of this, she was and will forever be deemed the Mother of the Haitian Revolution.