Was Maggie Brooks Fabricated By White Press, Or A Figment of Her Own Imagination?

Maggie Brooks or Maggie Pue? Kidnapped from Nashville, Tennessee or Kidnapped in Toledo, Ohio? Enslaved in Cuba or Enslaved in Haiti? Black Woman or Black Girl? Black Artist or Con-artist? Are Any of these stories true? Was she a figment of her own imagination? To what degree did she have any autonomy in defining her own identity? Was Maggie’s story fabricated by White press? Can you help me find her story in the Black Newspapers? Can you find the real Maggie Brooks aka Maggie Pue?

According to the stories picked up by many mainstream (White) newspapers published between August and October of 1880, Maggie Brooks/Pue claimed to have been born in Toledo, Ohio; Nashville, Tennessee; and Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Although the stories and reporting clearly conflicts, across the board, Maggie seems to have been her name, and during the late months of summer and early fall 1880 her story pasted headlines across the nation from coast to coast:

A Terrible Story

A Colored Girl Taken to Hayti and Held As a Slave

She Escapes and Wanders Around New York City

Horribly Disfigured and Almost Dead, She Finds Shelter.

The South Kentuckian. “An Escaped Cuban Slave-The South Kentuckian 10 Aug 1880.” August 10, 1880. https://www.newspapers.com/clip/111540049/an-escaped-cuban-slave-the-south/.

Nine Years In Bondage: The Remarkable Story A Negro Adventuress Is Telling in New York

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The Boston Globe. “Headline From The Boston Daily Globe Sunday Morning October 17 1880.” October 17, 1880. https://www.newspapers.com/clip/111543239/headline-from-the-boston-daily-globe/.

What were Wax Flowers and how could they make anyone famous…?

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.

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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/.

Blakemore-2016-The-Culture-of-the-Copy-Victorians-Obsession-WDownload

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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.

Shteir-2007-Fac-Similes-of-Nature-Victorian-Wax-Flower-ModeDownload

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Rachael Keri Williams

I began trying to restore Lincoln Cemetery July 2021, when I traveled to PA to find the graves of my formerly-enslaved ancestors who fled from Fauquier County, Virginia to Harrisburg during the Civil War and after. When we arrived it was only a few weeks after memorial day, but Lincoln Cemetery most closely resembled an overgrown pile of felled trees and discarded brush. The only grave markers we could see were sinking and broken. We could not locate our formerly enslaved ancestors, but we found many mounds of fresh dirt and human remains throughout the cemetery. We left Lincoln Cemetery that day with an overwhelming sense of defeat and despair. When I arrived home, in Buffalo, NY, I tried to make a police report about the remains that we found. Unfortunately, there are no Pennsylvania Laws that effectively protect cemeteries. I could not turn my back on the ancestors who live there.

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