A very positive first step toward embracing the history that continues to shape current international relations.
Now France needs to confront its response to the first great slave rebellion that led to the independence of Haiti. And how in the aftermath, France and her European allies forced reparations from Haiti to be paid to France for the loss of "their property."
The idea that a people would be charged for their freedom as if their status as slave was somehow legal and moral should be repugnant to all fair minded people. Yet this is what happened and this tribute paid by Haiti to France has been one of many contributions to its poverty and underdevelopment
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Your article states, ‘...France’s only memorial to slaves taken by French ships to the New World.’ There are others in Guadeloupe-ACTe and in Martinique-at Anse Cafard. Guadeloupe and Martinique are departments of France, so these memorials are France’s too. Perhaps it would be more correct to refer to the Nantes memorial as the only one in Metropolitan France.
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Wonderful article; we’ll definitely visit the Nantes museum (and La Rochelle—thanks for that tip) sometime soon.
@Penseur—How right you are. Why feel guilty about the slave trade when the French king, aligned with the Roman Catholic Church, killed upwards of a million fellow French Cathars during the 12th-13th c. French Crusades? Evidence is all over the Languedoc region. While I want to read more about the (world-wide) history of the slave trade, first I need to finish the book I just started, “Massacre at Mont Segur,” one of the few English-language books around about the French Crusades.
You don’t have to look very far to find plenty of evidence of racism and bigotry throughout human history. The best disinfectant, now as always, is sunlight.
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The museum in Nantes is well worth a visit, with many other exhibits relating to the slave trade. Last year, we visited La Rochelle, which grew rich from the Caribbean sugar plantations farmed by slave labor; the Musée du Nouveau Monde there has some interesting rooms detailing the history of local involvement in this .
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When visiting Bordeaux a few years ago, the major museum there had an exhibit which focused on the French plantations in the Carribean where slaves did the work. It did not sugar coat the facts of who became rich in France with these plantations and how horrible the conditions were for the slaves. The owners were absentee landlords who cared nothing about the human atrocities that were making them rich. It was quite an amazing exhibit.
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If we go back to the days of the Roman Empire, every major city within Europe and The Middle East was a slave-trading city. The serfs, who were bound to the land in later centuries, were really no different -- and even The Church was in that business. No need for Nantes to feel special guilt!
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How about doing an article on how Africans were participants in the slave trade and the atrocities African people inflicted on each other. African chiefs deliberately set out to capture Africans from neighboring tribes and provoked wars of conquest to capture people for the slave trade.
Let's hear about Dahomey (before the French annexed it) and the port of Whydah. The Africans have some culpability here too.
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@Louise Vivona-Miller: How about you talking about when France would give up its African colonies.
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I am struck by the horror of being chained, naked and cold without a notion of the humanity of these human beings. Can you imagine women who are menstruating on the floor, down their legs, men defecating and urinating on one another? The inhumanity, the shame, the rage they must've suffered...And that was before they even endured the diabolical horror of slavery. We owe these people dignity, respect, apologies and remuneration for the suffering of their ancestors and the lack of opportunity many still endure.
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This city is on my list to visit when I go to France next. A must see as far as I'm concerned. As a Black man of Italian heritage, I want to know what role all of Europe played in the slave trade. I knew a little; I want to know more.
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It never ceases to amaze how intent Whites are both here and abroad, to ignore, gloss over, erase altogether, or look the other way when talking about the history of this country. You absolutely cannot hide or erase history. It is how this and other countries garnered their wealth. In Charleston, SC, slave trade capital guru, they have two tour groups, one for Whites, operated by Whites who only talk about how beautiful, lush, and regal Charleston is (not a word about how it got that way. they you have the African American run tour that talks about everything beautiful about Charleston...and everything despicable and shameful. The beauty, the richness, the architecture, the abundance all came at a price, not lost on the slaves who made it that way.
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@nyc2char
Nonsense. Slavery in the United States and its aftermath is still constantly discussed and debated in the United States.
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@nyc2char Your speech is powerful. It may have been wasted on the people who sought out this excellent article, the people who wrote it, and the people who built and visit the museum. We are already in tears, and very very angry. Let's take the fight to the ones who aren't listening: as always, the excellent Southern Public Law Center has a great opening option. They have a community response guide called "Ten Ways to Fight Hate" and of course they include battling willful ignorance as part of the process. I hope to see you among the contributors and speakers; your voice is valuable.
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@William Case
Have you toured Charleston? The writer is correct. In Virginia the historic homes here such as Mt. Vernon and Monticello are now telling the story of what it was like to be a slave there. There does need to be research to tell accurately the history of slavery. It's not just people rewriting history to make white people look bad which a previous poster suggests.
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This is long overdue.
Growing up in the eastern part of France in the 1970's, I remember learning about the slave trade and the involvement of France. I may have been too young to truly comprehend how deeply France was involved in this horror: somehow for me slavery was always an American problem, it was the cotton fields, not the sugar industry of the French Caribbean Islands. Yes, in Voltaire's Candide there is a quick reference to slavery and the cruelty of that system, but still, it always felt to me that it was not France's problem, and certainly not mine. Nantes was just another city on the Atlantic coast.
Later, when I was a student in Paris, I got into the habit of chitchatting with the cleaning lady who was in charge of my floor in my dorm. She was from Martinique, and she was always a bit angry and bitter, for reasons that escaped me for a while. It is through these conversations and allusions that she made that I came to realize, at the age of 24, that the reason she was dark skinned was not because she was a native of Martinique, but because her ancestors came from Africa and had been brought to the island as slaves. I will never forget that moment when the light bulb got switched on and my feeling of shame at what my country had done and at my own ignorance.
Long overdue indeed - I'm glad to read that these kids are responding so well to this museum. We need more of these in France, and certainly a big one in Paris, not far from Versailles maybe...
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