Art Frees An Enslaved Girl Kidnapped 14yrs Ago
Black History Research Thoughts…
I listen to horror podcasts to wind down and get ready for bed every night. Call me weird, if you want, but it’s actually not that strange if you consider the true horror stories I uncover, with the utmost regularity, through research that requires the consumption of significant quantities of 19th century primary source material. Take for example, the following historic newspaper clipping I found yesterday afternoon in the Harrisburg Daily Independent. Seemingly art frees an enslaved girl, who was kidnapped, abused, and tortured for 14 years in Cuba. In 1880, she is finally home, searching for her parents in Toledo.
A now, 16-year-old “Colored Girl,” Maggie Brooks, tells her horrifying story. After the end of the Civil War and slavery in the United States, she was just a toddler living with her parents, when she was kidnapped by a french woman in Toledo, Ohio, at the age of 2. Maggie Brooks was taken to Cuba by the french woman, and horribly abused and tortured for 14 years…I would not call this a “Romantic Story.” In fact, I think it comes just in time for Halloween, so I am sharing this newspaper clipping, published in the Harrisburg Daily Independent, September 6, 1880…
The Year is 1880 (Toledo, Ohio): Art Frees An Enslaved Girl Kidnapped 14 Years Ago
A Young Girl’s Romantic Story.
TOLEDO, O., Sept., 6.—A young colored girl just arrived in this city, relates surprising story of her past life, which is generally believed. She gives her name as Maggie Brooks, and says that she is sixteen. Fourteen years ago, while living in this city with her parents, she was kidnapped by a French woman traveling, and taken to Cuba. She was there kept as a slave, fed on loathsome food, and treated in the most inhuman manner, being often shot at, and is now carrying a bullet in her neck. She was taught, however, to paint and made wax flowers, and from the results of her labors her mistress derived large profit in the Philadelphia, San Francisco and Paris expositions. When General Grant visited Cuba she managed to make known to him her real status, and the general at once quietly set about to effect her release, which he accomplished in a short time, and had her taken to Galveston, Texas. From there she made her way to this city in search of her parents, of whom she has as yet found no trace.
More 19th Century Life Research Resources…
Read more about Maggie Brooks:
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Art Frees An Enslaved Girl Kidnapped 14yrs Ago
Seemingly art frees an enslaved girl, who was kidnapped, abused, and tortured for 14 years in Cuba. In 1880, she is finally home, searching for her parents in Toledo.
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Fabricated By White Press?
Maggie Brooks or Maggie Pue? Kidnapped from Nashville or Toledo? Enslaved in Cuba or Enslaved in Haiti? Black Woman or Black Girl? Artist or Con-artist? Was Maggie fabricated by White press?
Harrisburg Daily Independent. “Toledo–16yr-Old Colored Girl Maggie Brooks Kidnapped, Enslaved in Cuba Comes Home After 14yrs.” September 6, 1880. https://www.newspapers.com/clip/111410246/toledo-16yr-old-colored-girl-maggie/.
Expositions:
“Exposition Universelle (1878).” In Wikipedia, October 8, 2022. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Exposition_Universelle_(1878)&oldid=1114858057.
Learn more about Victorian Wax Flowers:
Blakemore, Erin. “‘The Culture of the Copy’: Victorians’ Obsession With Wax Flowers.” JSTOR Daily, June 23, 2016. https://daily.jstor.org/inside-the-victorian-obsession-with-wax-flowers/.
Shteir, Ann B. “‘Fac-Similes of Nature’: Victorian Wax Flower Modelling.” Victorian Literature and Culture 35, no. 2 (2007): 649–61. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40347180.
