In this thesis, inspired by Anyentyuwe (1855-1904), a Mpongwe woman, who in 19th century Libreville symbolized an \"idealized Black femininity\" and later became a prime example of the Gabonese woman's liminal agency and autonomy, I examine Gabonese female interiorities in the colonial and missionary archives, specifically the visual and textual archives. Because women like Anyentyuwe's stories are only found in the textual and visual archives, I work within and against European and American missionary archives to examine colonial representations that produced such harmful depictions of the Gabonese woman. When Anyentyuwe was subjected to a horrific sexual assault, she was shunned, thus branding her as a Black Venus, in the eyes of missionaries. In Colonial Gabon, missionaries from Europe and America characterized the Gabonese woman within the tradition of the Black Venus. It is a stereotype which originated with the figure of Saartje Bartman, a South African woman forced to auction off her body in the 19th century and the Black Venus image depicts her as hypersexual, faithless, and unsalvageable. I ground my work in Black feminist theory, feminist standpoint theory, and Black visual theory. Initially, I focus on colonial photographs from the International Missionary Photography Archive and view them as potent sources of knowledge and confirmation that the Black Venuses of Gabon were more than objects of sexual perversion, as evidenced through theories of the gaze and embodiment. I then study the textual archive and the epistemic violence inflicted upon Gabonese women by missionaries who fought to prove that the Black soul and Black female sexuality were inferior. In particular, I focus on the proliferation of what is called \"colonial grammar\" within the textual archive while contextualizing it within the life of Anyentyuwe. Finally, I bring Anyentyuwe's story back to life through Saidiya Hartman's theory of critical fabulation and insist that the souls of Gabonese women are sacred and always have been. My goal is to establish a framework in which a Black female divinity can come to fruition. I use the example of the Njembe—a female only secret society in Gabon—to prove that even amid colonial violence, Gabonese women embodied sacred selfhood and possessed subjectivity.
"},{"label":"Degree","value":["Bachelor of Arts with Departmental Honors"]},{"label":"Administrative Note","value":"Drupal Node ID: 33914