Memories on Atlantic Slavery. France and Spain, the French Caribbean and Cuba Compared, in the Context of Global Debates on the Commemoration of Slave Trade and Slavery
Final Report Abstract
In the context of the global Cultural Heritage Boom, where local, national, and global politics of history and identity constructions are involved and intertwined with interests in cultural tourism, sites of memory of colonialism and slavery related with historical guilt and subsequent responsibility are a field of social conflicts. In the crisis year 2020 the tensions became visible in the global Black Lives Matter Movement and found their expression in the toppling of statues of enslavers and colonial conquerors. In the International Decade for People of African Descent (2015-2024) there is a debate in Europe and the former colonies in Africa and America, if, where and how slavery should be remembered, who should apologize to whom and who should indemnify whom. Societies discuss how to handle remnants of slavery, which monuments should be demolished or commented, which museums and memorials have to be established or reformed. If the coming to terms with recent dictatorships does not interfere with the remembrance of colonial times (Spain, Portugal), the controversies on the colonial past play a more important role in countries with a longer colonial history and many immigrants from their former colonies (England, France, Netherlands) than in Germany. Here, the disputes had concentrated for a long time on the handling of the Nazi past. In the last years the legacy of colonialism in Germany and the German involvement in Atlantic slavery attracted more attention. On the basis of the knowledge on slavery and post-emancipation, particularly on the French Caribbean island Martinique and former Spanish Cuba, the research was dedicated to the handling of historical remnants (plantations, manor houses, housing of the enslaved) and the establishment of sites of commemoration (memorials and museums) in France and Spain, the French Caribbean with focus on Martinique and Cuba. The dominant historiographical focus on the Anglophone space was overcome. Beside a survey and analysis of the sites of memory the project investigated their socio-cultural context. The central questions were which protagonists promoted the establishment of sites of memory, which protagonists tried to impede them, who uses the sites how and to which purpose, or ignore them and why. This research made visible current power relations, (social and racist) inclusions and exclusions in the society which remembers or forgets. On selected places in Martinique and Cuba the counter-memories of descendants of the enslaved and their relation to the sites of memory were studied through Oral History methods. Interviews with experts and activists in the capitals and port towns of the former colonial powers France and Spain and in the Caribbean as well as documents from local archives and libraries provided further sources.
Publications
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Falling Statues Around the Atlantic, Comparativ, 31/ 3-4
Schmieder, U. & Zeuske, M.
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Lugares de memoria, lugares de silencio: la esclavitud atlántica en museos españoles y cubanos desde una perspectiva comparada internacional. Jangwa Pana, 20(1), 52-80.
Schmieder, Ulrike
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Memories of Slavery in France and its French Afro-Antillean Diaspora: Overview of Sites of Memory and their Entanglements with British and US-American Images of Slavery and Debates on Reparations, in: Kaltmeier, O./ Petersen, M./ Raussert, W./ Roth, J. (Hg.), Cherishing the Past, Envisioning the Future: Entangled Practices of Heritage and Utopia in the Americas, Trier 2021, S. 31-57.
Schmieder, U.
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Rezension: Exhibition: L’Abîme. Nantes dans la traite atlantique et l’esclavage colonial 1707–1830/The Abyss. Nantes’s role in the slave trade and colonial slavery 1707–1830. Château des Ducs de Bretagne […], in: Comparativ, Zeitschrift für Globalgeschichte und vergleichende Gesellschaftsforschung, 31/2, S. 118-123
Schmieder, U.
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¿Museos marítimos europeos y esclavitud: memoria u olvido deliberado? Barcelona, Londres (Greenwich), Lisboa (Belém) y Flensburgo, in: Rodrigo, M. (Hg.), Del Olvido a la memoria. La esclavitud en la España contemporánea, Icaria, S. 283-316
Schmieder, U.
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Controversial Monuments for Enslavers, Enslaved Rebels, and Abolitionists in Martinique and Cuba. Comparativ, 31(3-4), 374-393.
Schmieder, Ulrike
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Dealing with Dissonant Cultural Heritage: Traces of Enslavers in European Cityscapes. Cultural Heritage and Slavery, 1-84. De Gruyter.
Schmieder, Ulrike
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Differing Narratives of the Case of the Jaham Brothers and its Aftermath: Enslavement, Emancipation and their Legacies in Martinique. Naming, Defining, Phrasing Strong Asymmetrical Dependencies, 239–284.
Schmieder, Ulrike
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Monuments and Street Names: Conflicts about the Traces of Enslavers and Defenders of Slavery in French Cities. Comparativ, 31(3-4), 335-355.
Schmieder, Ulrike
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The Remembrance of Enslavement in the Atlantic Ocean Space in Post-colonial Port Towns: Barcelona and Cadiz, Havana and Matanzas, in: Chatterjee, S./ Chojnicka, J./ Hornidge, A.-K./ Knopf, K. (Hg.), Postcolonial Oceans: Contradictions, Heterogeneities, Knowledges, Materialities, Heidelberg University Publishing
Schmieder, U.
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Education about Enslavement and its Legacies in Museums: A Case Study, the Museo al Esclavo Rebelde in Triunvirato, Cuba, in: A. Brüske, J. Bohle, S. Jansen, M. Lay-Brandner & N. Rempel (Hg.), Between Mobilities and Demarcations of Boundaries: Education and the Politics of Education in the Caribbean, Heidelberg University Press
Schmieder, U.
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Género y monumentos a resistencia de personas esclavizadas y sus descendientes en Martinica y Cuba dentro del contexto de las culturas memoriales de la esclavitud en el Caribe, in: Hatzky, C./ Bandau, A./ Becker, L. (Hg.). Género e interseccionalidad en la historia y la cultura de Centroamérica y el Caribe (siglos XIX y XX), Gender and Intersectionality in the History and Culture of Central America and the Caribbean (19th and 20th centuries), UCR: CIHAC, S. 35-94
Schmieder, U.
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Imágenes de esclavizador@s, imágenes de esclavizad@s, memorias y silencios en espacios urbanos: Barcelona en el contexto español, europeo y caribeño in: Pich Mitjana, J./ Rodrigo y Alharilla, M./ Arnabat Mata, R. (Hg.), Història, memòria i patrimoni. Entre Clio i Mnemòsine, Barcelona, S. 261-306
Schmieder, U.
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Lieux de mémoire et lieux d´oubli de la traite des Africains et l´esclavage: une comparaison entre les villes portuaires espagnoles et françaises, i. D. für: Augeron, M. (Hg.), Des patrimoines transatlantiques en miroir. Mémoires du premier empire colonial français, Geste éditions
Schmieder, U.
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Políticas de memoria sobre la esclavitud en España: Barcelona en perspectiva comparada.. Historia Social(105), 87-105.
Rodrigo, Alharilla Martín & Schmieder, Ulrike
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Versklavung im Atlantischen Raum. De Gruyter.
Schmieder, Ulrike
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Spain and the Year of Toppled Statues of Enslavers and Colonizers:. Cultural Legacies of Slavery in Modern Spain, 153-190. State University of New York Press.
Schmieder, Ulrike
