La route de l’esclave G The Slave Route G La Ruta del Esclavo NEWSLETTER No. 1 - September 2000 EDITORIAL S history’s first system of globalization, the transatlantic Aslave trade and the slavery born of that trade constitute the invisible substance of relations between Europe, Africa, the Americas and the West Indies. In view of its human cost (tens of millions of victims), the ideology that subtended it (the intellectual construction of cultural contempt for Africans, and hence the racism that served to justify the buying and selling of human beings as, according to the definition of the French Code Noir, “chattel”), and the sheer scale of the economic, social and cultural destructuring of the African continent, that dramatic episode in the history of humanity demands that we re-examine the reasons for the historical silence in which it has for so long been swathed. In this matter it is vital to respond to the claim voiced by Nobel Prize winner Elie Wiesel Revolt and rebellion: that “the executioner always kills twice, the second time through the other side of the slave trade and slavery. silence”. Collection UNESCO: The Slave Route Hence, the issues at stake in the Slave Route project are essentially: Historical truth, peace, development, human rights, Contents: memory, intercultural dialogue. Background and objectives The challenge that this project, whose approach is resolutely of the project 2 scientific, has set the international community is to link the Structure 2 historical truth concerning a tragedy that has been wilfully masked Institutional meetings 3 to the concern to illuminate the intercultural dialogue born of the Activities and special events 3 enforced encounter between millions of Africans, Amerindians and Europeans in the Americas and West Indies, as well as in those Financing 6 overlooked areas of slavery, the Mediterranean and the Indian Cooperation with the media 6 Ocean. Map of the slave routes 8 The education project 10 In the final analysis, the Slave Route project is a return to the Publications 12 future. The scientific investigation and ethical inquiry into the The International Scientific history of the slave trade and slavery aim to clarify the evolution Committee 13 of the societies that are concerned, here and now, to build a true What they said 15 pluralism, one that is not only an acknowledgment of diversity but also the recognition, promotion and respecting of that diversity, The newsletter provides a brief account and that hence takes into account the interactions generated by of the activities carried out under The Slave Route project along with further history, geography and culture. information about the project’s various partnerships. Doudou Diène Director, Department of Intercultural Dialogue and Pluralism for a Culture of Peace 2 Slave House on Gorée Island (Senegal), ©Éditions Gacou. BACKGROUND other, objectively to highlight its himself a former Director- AND OBJECTIVES consequences, and in particular General of the Organization. The OF THE PROJECT the interactions between all the Committee, which is not an inter- peoples of Europe, Africa, the governmental body, works in Americas and the Caribbean con- close collaboration with the pro- It was on the proposal of Haiti cerned thereby. ject’s Secretariat at UNESCO. It and the African countries, the is responsible for ensuring that an initiators of this project, that the objective, consensual approach is General Conference of UNESCO taken to the Slave Route issue, approved, at its 27th session in STRUCTURE and for advising UNESCO on 1993, the implementation of The the project’s main lines of empha- Slave Route project (27 C/Reso- sis. The Committee is multi- lution 3.13). The project was offi- disciplinary, and its members cially launched in 1994 in 1. The Secretariat include experts from Africa, the Ouidah, Benin. Americas, Europe and the The supervision, coordination Caribbean. While the concept of a route and follow-up of the project’s reflects the dynamics of the activities are undertaken by the movement of peoples, civiliza- Department of Intercultural 3. The national committees tions and cultures, that of slave Dialogue and Pluralism for a focuses not on the universal phe- Culture of Peace, under the In order to mobilize the popula- nomenon of slavery but, specifi- direction of Mr Doudou Diène, tions concerned, including intel- cally and explicitly, on the who is directly in charge of The lectuals, researchers, artists and transatlantic, Indian Ocean and Slave Route project, and of his scientific institutions, and to Mediterranean slave trades. team. ensure their involvement in the project, a number of national The Slave Route project has a committees, networks of re- twofold objective: on the one 2. The International searchers and scientific institu- hand, to put an end to the silence Scientific Committee tions, have been set up. Their by bringing to universal attention mission is to ensure that the Slave the issue of the transatlantic, Composed of some 40 members Route project reflects the histor- Indian Ocean and Mediterranean appointed in a personal capacity ical, real-life experience and the slave trade and slavery, elucidat- by the Director-General of specific problems of the countries ing through scientific research UNESCO, the International concerned by the slave trade, their underlying causes and Scientific Committee is chaired slavery and its consequences. modus operandi, and, on the by Mr Amadou-Mahtar M’Bow, 3 INSTITUTIONAL 4. Lisbon, Portugal, December Many other events generated by MEETINGS 1998 the project have taken place (Review of the implementation of throughout the world: the project and, in particular, the Since the launching of the pro- nature of the networks, and the 1. Erection of a monument to ject in 1994, the International question of the ideological and “The Cimarrón” in El Cobre, Scientific Committee has held legal foundations of slavery and Santiago de Cuba (Cuba) in 1997. four sessions: the slave trade). 2. Ceremonies in April and May 1. Ouidah, Benin, 6-8 September 1998 (lectures, symposia, sem- 1994 inars …) to commemorate the (Launching of the project by ACTIVITIES hundred-and-fiftieth anniversary Mr Federico Mayor, Director- AND SPECIAL of the abolition of slavery by General of UNESCO, President EVENTS France and in the French West Nicéphore Soglo of Benin and Indies. the members of the International Scientific Committee). The project’s main priorities 3. The International Day for the were proposed in Matanzas, Remembrance of the Slave Trade 2. Matanzas, Cuba, 4-6 December Cuba, in 1995, and reviewed by and its Abolition was marked in 1995 the International Scientific several countries on the first two (Definition of priority activities). Committee at the 1998 meeting occasions, in particular in Haiti in Lisbon. The overall structure on 23 August 1998 and in Gorée 3. Cabinda, Angola, 6-8 November for the project’s implementation (Senegal) on 23 August 1999. 1996 through its different pro- Cultural events and debates were (Setting up of institutional and grammes is presented in a dia- held. research networks to be respon- grammatic form overleaf. sible for carrying out the project). By his circular letter CL/3494 of 29 July 1998 addressed to Ministers of Culture, the Director- General of UNESCO invited all Member States to organize events on 23 August of each year. Monument to The Cimarrón El Cobre, Santiago de Cuba (Cuba) (Photo: Alberto Lescay Merencio, sculptor) 4 THE SLAVE ROUTE: PLURAL AND COMPLEMENTARY SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH PROGRAMME The backbone of The Slave Route project is the scientific programme on the slave trade (transatlantic, in the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean), and slavery. This programme is carried out through thematic research networks, as for example: The development of an African diaspora: the slave trade in the Nigerian Hinterland (1650- 1900); The ideological and legal basis of slavery and the slave trade; The diaspora: languages and forms of artistic expression; Religions; Slavery, economy and labour; Maroonage and forms of resistance; Impact of the slave trade on Senegambia; Women and slavery; Slavery in the Mediterranean; Bantu culture in the Americas and the Caribbean: languages, religions and society; Documentary sources: archives, oral traditions, iconography; Slavery in the Indian Ocean; Slavery, race and society; Archaeological research (on land and underwater); Slavery, museums and exhibitions; Slavery, tangible and intangible heritage and cultural tourism focused on remembrance of the past; Slavery and interculturality. The research carried out under this programme serves to fuel the other parts of the project. EDUCATION PROGRAMME PROGRAMME AND TEACHING PROGRAMME ON THE PROMOTION ON THE MEMORY OF LIVING CULTURES OF SLAVERY The silence surrounding the slave trade AND ARTISTIC AND SPIRITUAL AND THE DIASPORA related initially to history and education. FORMS OF EXPRESSION The ignorance that surrounds the slave This programme, which is structured The slave trade, which lasted for over trade makes it one of the most radical around an international Task Force, is four centuries (from the sixteenth to the forms of historical negationism. For the fuelled through the preparation of nineteenth), was the most massive purpose of keeping alive the memory of national programmes and by the results deportation in history. “It generated that trade, the Slave Route project is of scientific research. interactions between Africans, launching two sub-projects: the cultural