Afro-Swiss Spotlight: Pauline Buisson

Meet Pauline Buisson —an enslaved woman and midwife brought to Switzerland from Saint-Domingue in 1776 by the Swiss businessman David-Philippe de Treytorrens. Pauline not only worked in the household of Treytorrens but also served as a prolific midwife to the women of the Neuchatel community. Her story, though not widely known, highlights the often-overlooked history of Black individuals in Switzerland.

In 1790, Pauline gave birth to her son, Samuel Hippolyte, in Neuchatel, amidst a society fraught with racial prejudice and discrimination. In 1791, the sister and wife of the deceased de Treytorrens applied for Swiss citizenship for Samuel. However, the local authorities rejected the application, citing Samuel's skin color and employing derogatory sexual imagery to demean Pauline as a Black woman. The court case was prolonged and arduous, only concluding after Samuel’s  death.

Historian and academic, Jovita dos Santos Pinto, founder of the historical archive histnoire.ch, analyzed court documents from the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, revealing how Pauline  and her son faced discrimination based on their race, class, and gender. They at that point became symbols of threat to the White European reproductive order, with Pauline accused of damaging local society by giving birth to an illegitimate son.

Pauline and her son's story serve as poignant reminders of the complexities and injustices of Black or Multiracial lived experiences here in Switzerland. While theirs was an extreme case, it echoes and touches on the everyday lived experiences of those of Afro-descent here in Europe—from the commission of historical injustices to the denial of pervasive, subtle, and overt discrimination due to the concept of “race”.