Chapter 3 looks at embodiment and disembodiment in the articulation of black women’s layered visibility. This chapter looks at the positioning of physical prowess in representations of American abolitionist Harriet Tubman and Brazilian slave deity Blessed Anastácia. I argue that certain historical figures of the black Atlantic are symbolic body armor, and are portrayed as such; their corporeal entities are created to serve as visual protection to black masses—a visual absorption. For Tubman, this is done through rhetoric and rifle, as literary and visual images reinforce a hyper-masculine performance of collective protection. This chapter engages the reconstructions of the figure...