Phoolan Devi: Outlaw Law Maker

10/20/21 • 29 min

Always outspoken against the patriarchy, in 1974 at age 11 Phoolan Devi is considered a trouble-maker. She is married off and sent several hundred miles away from her home in Ghura Ka Purwa, India. By age 17 she escapes her abusive husband and joins a gang of dacoits. She eventually forms her own gang and carries out Robinhood-type crimes.

In 1981, she survives an attack by rivals who beat, rape, and leave her for dead. She seeks revenge by executing her attackers in what comes to be known as the Behmai Massacre, and she is forced to go on the lam. But now she’s become a heroic outlaw figure of sorts—the underdog, the Bandit Queen— and she is protected by the lower castes. To many poor and brutalized women, Phoolan is a hero.

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Stephanie St. Clair: Harlem Gangster

Some call it the numbers racket but true believers call it policy banking because the numbers games provide much needed cash flow for economic life in 1920s Harlem. Numbers kings abound, but there is only one Queen, Madame Stephanie St. Clair, a French Caribbean-born self-made black woman.

In the fall of in 1929, New York City police who’ve long taken a cut from the numbers queen, raid her house, rob, and arrest her to send a message. With the police pummeling her on one side and mobster Dutch Schultz, who has been eyeing St. Clair’s rising power and wealth pouncing on the other, most people assume Stephanie St. Clair will wave the white flag and bow out. But Madame St. Clair always fights back.

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Boudicca: Avenging Queen of Britannia

Boudicca (also known as Boadicea and Boudica) was Queen of the Iceni people on the island of Britannia. The Romans had conquered and occupied much of the island and around 60-61 AD, after her husband’s death, the occupying forces redoubled their savagery against her people. They confiscated Iceni wealth and killed indiscriminately. They flogged Boudicca and raped her daughters in the market square.

Boudicca bided her time and galvanized her forces. She also managed to bring together other tribes of Britannia to mount a rebellion against the Roman occupiers. Spurred by revenge she was successful for a while, regaining much of the land the Iceni had lost. Although ultimately defeated, she remains a symbol for British unity to this day because of her bravery.

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