1. I will send the question once we make a deal.
2. The Plantation Economy
Read video transcript below and discuss it like you are to another student or instructor.
I shall see other skies and other eyes.
I shall drink at the spring of other mouths, cooler than lemons.
I shall sleep under the roof of other heads of hair in shelter from storms.
But every year when the rum of springtime sets my memory ablaze–
I shall be full of regret for my homeland, and the rain from your eyes on the thirsty savannas.
Those words from Senegal’s first president, Leopold Senghor, ring loudly here on Goree Island, which lies four miles off the mainland of Dakar, Senegal. There are no cars or taxis here. And the only source of transportation is the ferry, or chaloupe, as it is commonly called, which makes trips back and forth from Dakar carrying commodities that can be bought and sold.
[BOAT HORN]
Trading is a tradition here in West Africa. For it was more than 500 years ago when four continents and several million people were involved in a trade that would change the world, as Africans unwillingly left their homeland by way of Dark Passages.
The quiet, almost idyllic, island of Goree has all the charm of an old Mediterranean sea village from the 15th century. The importance of this island doesn’t stem from its quaint sun-drenched buildings, but it’s history as a major port for the Atlantic slave trade.
For the past two or three centuries, scholars and participants of the trade have documented this dark period in history. But the most poignant writings are the actual accounts of Africans who experienced the horrors of slavery and lived to tell about it.
They came to us about 11 o’clock one day and directly set a house on fire.
Louis Gosset Jr. recounts the narrative of a captured African named Louis Asa-Asa.
Stopped there two days. We returned home and found everything burnt. We found several of our neighbors lying about wounded. They had been shot. I saw the bodies of four or five children whom they had killed with blows to the head. They had carried away their fathers and mothers, but the children were too small for slaves. So they killed them. They had killed several others but these were all that I saw. I saw them lying in the street, like dead dogs.
[SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE]
The Europeans first settled on the islands like Saint-Louis, [? Juare, ?] Sao Tome, or in forts that were built along the coast. So it was their defensive possibilities of the island that made Goree a slave center. And it’s position all along the way to the new world, from Africa.
West African historian, Boubacar Barry, says several events in history could’ve changed the course of the slave trade. Inevitably, the situation was the discovery of the New World, which had vast land and no labor force to develop its massive countryside.
When domestic hands could no longer be found in Europe, and the Indian populations in the Americas and West Indies died out, the new world looked to Africa as their last hope. The trade of African captives became important as early as 1510, 18 years after Columbus made his crossing.
The Spanish government gave royal orders for the transport of 200 slaves to the West Indies for the production of sugar cane. Dr. David Blight, Amherst College.
Without slavery the plantation economy– based on sugar, the production of sugar– the great sugar economy of the West Indies could never have been built. It was a product that was absolutely labor intensive and caused an insatiable demand for labor over 2 1/2 to 3 centuries.
The great colonies, the great jewels of the French and the British empires, Santa Domingo for the French, Cuba for the Spanish, Barbados and Jamaica for the British, were all built upon the production of sugar.
What developed, over time, was a crude but intricate transportation of human cargo on the ships of Portugal, Spain, England, France, Holland, Russia, Denmark, Sweden, Brazil, the West Indies, and the United States.
Today, the women of West Africa work the land in the same fashion as their ancestors. It has never been an easy life as described by Margaret Avery from the publication Six Women’s Slave Narratives.
One of the cows had dragged the rope away from the stake to which Hetty had fastened it, and got loose. My master flew into a terrible passion, and ordered the poor creature to be stripped quite naked, notwithstanding her pregnancy, and to be tied up to a tree in the yard.
Well he flogged her as hard as he could hit, both with the whip and the cow-skin, ’til she was all over streaming with blood. He rested, then he beat her again and again. Her screams were terrible. The consequence was that poor Hetty was brought to bed before her time, and delivered, after severe labor of a dead child.
Well she appeared to recover after her confinement. So far that she was repeatedly flogged by both master and mistress afterwards. But Her former strength never did return to her. And after a while her body and limbs swelled to a great size. She on a mat in the kitchen, till the water just burst out of her body and she died.
Well all the slaves, said that, they said death was a good thing for poor Hetty. But I cried very much for her death. The manner of it just filled me with horror. I, couldn’t bear to, to think about it. Yet, it was always present in my mind for many a day.
My ancestors, they were here. They were fishermen. You know, they were coming all along of this coast. Coming here for fish. Smoking the fish. Drying the fish. And going into the villages and selling the fish. So when the Portuguese came the first time on this island of Goree they found some African people, some fishermen. You know, the Portuguese start trade of slavery. And they also start collaboration with the fishermen.
Anna Faye and her husband owned the St. Germain Restaurant on Goree Island. Her family settled here centuries ago. The account of her ancestor’s collaboration with the slavers is not unusual, because Africans were accustomed to an internal slave trade. One in which slaves were often a part of the family.
However, during the era of the Atlantic slave trade human bondage took on a new connotation.
[SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE]
The domestic slavery that existed in Africa was an internal African slavery. Just as there was domestic slavery in Rome, classical Greece, and Slavic countries. The slave trade across the Sahara was on a small scale due to the difficulties in transportation. And this form of slavery does not have the same meaning as the Atlantic slave trade that lasted for about four to five centuries, and whose economic benefits were totally different.
When speaking of slavery one must consider that the institution lasted 500 years. The Atlantic slave trade went through three phases. Slaving by piracy, by warlike alliance, and finally, by peaceful partnership.
So what would Europeans would see when they arrived in West Africa is, what they thought, what they would come to call, in fact, a reservoir of slavery. And over the years they would create this mythology that all they did was tap in to an already existing pool of slavery in West Africa.
But what they really were encountering was the intricate West African kinship network structures where, for protection very often, West Africa, and indeed a whole family, would seek dependence on a particular chieftain, or king, or ruler.
The Portuguese, they come and they start collaboration by giving them alcohol, some wine, some spices, some guns, some salsa, something like that. And these people also, didn’t believe into anything. They started the collaboration with them. They asked them to go into the village and to bring them people. But when they asked them to bring them people, they didn’t tell them then they are going to make a kind of slavery.
Some [INAUDIBLE]. But some they still were making collaboration with them. Because it was a way to get rich.
Not only did the fishermen collaborate, it was in the interest of the captured young slave girls to have sex with the slavers. Because if they were found pregnant, they would be set free to bear the mulatto child of the master.
As time went by, the mulatto daughters of the European soldiers and traders became very wealthy. They were able to own property. Unfortunately, the mulatto men did not fare as well as their female counterparts. But both received educational benefits from exposure to European culture. The women were called signares.
Today, the history of the signares is kept alive by the women of Goree, who dress in traditional long gowns of rich brocades made from colorful imported fabric of different textures. Known for their reputation of being tall, stately, and beautiful, the signares also wore bright cotton headdresses tied in a triangular sugar loaf style. Quantities of gold jewelry adorn their bodies, completing an impressive picture.
[AFRICAN MUSIC]
Over the centuries, the island of Goree was controlled by the Portuguese, Dutch, British, and French. The eclectic population made up of a variety of African ethnic groups, whites, and mulattoes, made Goree perhaps, one of the most interesting places in this region. Now most of the houses around the waterfront were controlled by slave traders. But La Maison des Esclaves is perhaps one of the most interesting. Because it is here that Africans encountered the door of no return.
[SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE]
After a riot the slave was hanged by his abdomen, instead of his neck, in order that the agony last longer. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the slave trade was one of the biggest genocides humanity has ever experienced.
Joseph Ndiaye has been the curator of this museum for more than 20 years. Six days a week he explains the intricacies of the slave trade to tourists from around the world.
[SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE]
The number of slaves in this small house used to vary from 150 to 200, including men, women, and children. The slaves used to wait here for almost 3 to 3 1/2 months, because they were convoyed on sailboats. Within a family, the father, the mother, and the child were in different cells. And since the destination also depended on the buyer, the father being sent to Louisiana, the mother to Brazil or Cuba, and the child to Haiti or the West Indies, the separation was then complete.
Mr. Ndiaye says, Africans left Goree under registration numbers instead of their African names. Even today, a haunting feeling embraces all those who walk through the dark dungeons of the slave house.
[SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE]
There you can see a reconstruction of the chains these poor souls had around their ankles when they had to relieve themselves. To the left and to the right there was a pin riveted to the chain. And in the middle, a very heavy ball the slaves had to carry with his hands, between his legs, when he went to relieve himself outside.
It is reported that over a 300 year period more than 15 to 20 million captured Africans passed through the slave houses here on Goree. The question must be asked, where did these people come from? And how to their fate lead them into bondage? Most of the slaves were from West and Central Africa.
They were taken from a score of principal market zones that ran on a 3,000 mile coastline from Senegal in the north to Angola in the south. The Mandinka of the Guinea coast. The Nupe from central Nigeria. The Yorba of Western Nigeria. The Tukulor of Senegal. And the numerous [? Boolani ?] that lived along the waterways of the Gambia River. They were all a part of the hideous trade.
The Gambia, one of Africa’s smallest nations, is sandwiched in the middle of Senegal. It has been documented that the Gambia provided a direct source of slaves to the southern region of the United States. Dr. Sulayman Nyang.
First time I went there I saw many young ladies and young men who really looked like people I left back home in the Gambia. And of course, as I did more research it became apparent to me that many “Gambians,” in quotation marks, “Gambians”– people who originally came from that part of the world we now call to Gambia– were brought to South Carolina. And of course, the family resemblance of some of those people betray their Senegambian ancestry.
The Gambia is truly a majestic river. It’s 1,000 miles long. And today is travel by for pirogues like this, carrying tourists and goods to the villages along the banks of the river. The Gambia empties into the Atlantic Ocean.
And during the height of the slave trade the annual exports from the river were estimated at 1,000 slaves, 15 tons of wax and ivory, 10,000 hides, and a good supply of Redwood for the English clothiers and dyers.
The effects of the slave trade are still being felt here in the village of Juffure. Author Alex Haley’s search for his roots led him to this village several years ago. The story exposed some of the festering wounds of the trade, but it also brought world attention to this traditional African village.
The story of Kunta Kinte will undoubtedly be passed on to the newest member of the Kinte clan, also name Kunta. Little Kunta’s father, Mr. Kinte, recounts the legacy of his family.
When I was considerably young I remember working with my father on the farm. He told me about Kunta Kinte. I cannot guarantee if Kunta Kinte is actually related to Alex Haley. But as far as I know, Kunta Kinte was a family member. And he was taken to America because of the Atlantic slave trade.
During that time a lot of people were taken. Kunta Kinte was one of the most popular because he was seen as one of the successors.
Many young people were apprehended, or adopted, like the case of Kunta Kinte. You go to the woods to get wood for you family, or you were sent to do some chores. And then of course, some of these marauding agents of slavers would apprehend you. And of course, there were cases where you have direct African involvement.
The 124-year-old griot of the village of Juffure says he remembers the oral history passed down to him, of the time when whites first came to their village.
[SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE]
That was before colonialism. Big kings and big villages waged wars against small kings and smaller villages. Bombard them or whatever, to stop them from taking the strong men and women of the villages, in exchange for rum and tobacco. We are still feeling the pain because of, well most of our strong men were taken. We’re still lamenting over it.
What do we reminded them of? What do they think about when they see us?
We are filled with joy when we meet you. When you see James Island you know that slaves were a part of that.
Fort James, named after James I of England, I was established in the 17th century by the British. And they were able to use that to control access to the Gambia River. Because at that particular time in the history of the world, there was much belief that the river Gambia would lead to the gold mines of Africa, which was the attraction for many of these European countries to Africa, in the first place.
The slavers took advantage of, and promoted, warfare among the different ethnic groups, thus making it easier to obtain captives. At that time, smuggling slaves was very common.
So no one can be certain about the numbers of Africans that were exported, or the numbers that survived, because the slavers withheld information from their logs. But it has long been speculated that as many as 100 million left Africa with 10 million surviving landing in the Americas, the Atlantic Islands, and Europe.
The Middle Passage was notorious for the number of deaths that occurred. Packed like sardines on the slave ships, the death tolls averaged 15 to 20%. The slaves were packed so tightly on ship they could neither lie full length or sit upright.
By the middle of the 18th century a serious business argument ensued over the so-called loose packing and tight packing techniques. Simply put, the argument was if you put 200 slaves on a ship and you gave them some space, as human beings, to move, would the mortality rate be such that you’d get more successfully landed in the new world?
Or if you put 400 on the ship and indeed stacked them, tight pack them as it was called, would you get a greater return? Over time and experimentation with this hideous system they found that tight packing got a greater return.
Despite deplorable conditions aboard the ships, the slaves were still not docile. Revolts were incessant. And fear of the cargo bred savage cruelty from the crew. It was not uncommon for a captain to kill a slave, cut up the heart, liver, and intestines into minute pieces. And forced each slave to eat his fellow man, threatening those who refused with the same torture.
We were taken in the boat from place to place and sold every place we stop at. In about six months, we got a ship in which we first saw white people. They were French. They bought us. We found here a great many other slaves. There were about 80 included women and children.
The Frenchmen sent away all but about five of us into another very large ship. We five stayed on board till we got to England, which was about five or six months. The slaves we saw on board the ship were chained together by their legs below deck, so close they could not moved.
They were flogged very cruelly. I saw one of them flogged till he died. We could not tell what for. They gave him enough to eat. The place they were confined in below deck was so hot and nasty I could not bear to be in it. A great many of the slaves were ill. But they were not attended to.
They used to flog me very bad on board the ship. The captain cut my head very bad one time.
Slave buyers preferred their victims between the ages of 14 to 35. And the most prized were in their early 20’s. The sex ratio was two men to every woman. Europeans accepted younger children, but very rarely older persons. They shipped the most healthy wherever possible.
Well the conditions were horrible. Vincent Harding, in his book There is a River, uses the phrase, he calls the slave ships the cramped and fetid waiting rooms of history. The eyewitness accounts abound of how you could smell a slave ship five miles downwind, if the wind was right.
[COLONIAL MUSIC]
Well, it is good to see you again, sir.
I’m glad to see you in town again.
Here in Colonial Williamsburg the 20th century meets the 18th century. On this 173 acre living museum, character interpreters portray the man who participated in the slave trade.
A hundred choice Angola slaves. Although they’ve only just performed quarantine. I would be rather skeptical as to purchasing any Angola slaves presently.
Uh, what disease, sir, what disease?
Smallpox, I believe.
Smallpox. That’s a dangerous one, sir. That’s one of the hazards of the slave trade, you know.
Well does that–
Disease, sir. Loss of cargo.
The very first slave ships that came to English America, to the English colonies, landed approximately seven miles from where we are standing, in Jamestown, Virginia. And that would be somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 slaves. Or 20 individuals who were not legally classified as slaves, because there was no statutory recognition of slavery in Virginia at that time. But they were people of African descent.
Robert Watson is assistant director of the Colonial Williamsburg African American Educational Outreach Program. This replica of the original slave quarters on Carter’s Grove Plantation in Williamsburg, Virginia, is the only one of its kind in the world.
There are records that were kept by the Carter Burwell family on the people who lived here. We know who they were by name. We were able to name at least some of the people who lived here. We know that there were families. We know that there were extended families. And we know that there were people who lived here who were not necessarily blood related, but were part of the extended family concept.
My baby girl was born just before Christmas. Somethin’ at last that was mine. I named her Mary, after my momma. Dark like my momma. I sorta thought she looked like my momma, too. Oh, she grinned real nice. I took her to the field on my back. She was the only thing in all this world that was really mine.
Well after a while she was too big to carry to the field. So I had to leave her with my old Aunt Daisy, a long with other little ‘uns. Oh, I carried her to sleep to our cabin after sundown. And curled up around her at night. Lovin’ her so hard. And fearin’ so terrible.
And then one day they come an’ took her. Sold her to the slave trader. I can’t even talk about it. Not even now. My Mary. They took her. They took her. They took her.
Well slavery was definitely an economic institution, but it was also a social institution. But from an economic perspective, Virginia was at the forefront of the institution of slavery. You will find that when you go throughout the state of Virginia, that slaves on the plantations were the basis of the labor system.
Williamsburg, and this particular area, the Chesapeake Bay Area, typified the economic value of the slavery.
The only thing we could draw the comparison to today, I suppose, are the greatest corporations. The multi-billion dollar, multinational corporations of today would be, in some ways, equivalent to the largest of the slave ship companies of the 17th and 18th centuries.
Slavery was indeed valuable during the height of the trade. Profits were estimated in the millions, affording plantation owners the luxury of high living. Like the Carter Family who built this country home in 1755.
The trade also began to take on new dimensions. A new crop, cotton, became king. Especially since the slaves had agricultural skills and were extremely gifted in harvesting this crop. This skill, of course emanated from centuries of working with cotton in Africa. Thus, years of free labor catapulted America and Europe into the industrial age with high profits and low overhead.
After suffering a severe whipping I was shut up under orders and the threat of a severe punishment for anyone who might even give me even a drop of water. What I suffered there, afflicted with hunger, and well I know it, tormented with fear in such a deep and isolated place.
Separated from the house in the backyard next to a stable. And a pestilent foul smelling trash heap. Alongside a wet infested obnoxious outhouse, which was only separated by a wall full of holes. A den for huge rats that walked over me without even stopping.
So afraid was everyone in the house that absolutely no one dared, even if they had the opportunity, to give me even a bite. My head was full of stories about evil things from long ago. Of apparitions from beyond the grave. And of spells cast by the dead so that when a troop of rats rushed out, making a lot of noise, I imagined the cave was full of ghosts and cried out asking for pity.
They then took me out and tormented me with so many lashes that I couldn’t take any more. Then they shut me up again keeping the key in my mistresses own room.
The pain, the anguish, the rebellion, and miscegenations. They all describe a business that over time, changed the face of the world. And provided an economic head start for Europe, the Americas, and the West Indies. But what did depopulation mean for Africa?
How could one possibly measure the cultural or social impact on family structure? On institutional development? On the continuity of education? On the continuity of language? How can we ever measure the kinds of cultural, and social, and human impact that the slave trade had?
Part of the impact can be seen in the separation of Senegal and the Gambia. At one time there was little distinction between these two countries. But with Europe’s voracious appetite to gobble up these prime African territories, ensuing wars left Senegal in the hands of the French. And the Gambia with the British.
Most of the people here are from the same ethnic groups. And even today they are trilingual. US Ambassador to Senegal, George E Moose.
The fact that they are now separate entities with their own governments and institutions, is indeed a legacy of colonialism. It creates certain obstacles to reach a more economic development And there’s no question about that.
And I think that if one looks to what must be done in order to try to create the conditions for economic growth one has to deal with the issue of how does one bring, in this case a Senegal and a Gambia, more closely and cooperatively together.
George E. Moose is the fourth African American US Ambassador to Senegal. Diplomatic relations with Senegal began in 1960. So the idea of African Americans going back to Senegambia to discover their heritage is not new.
Aboubacar Africa Weaver, formally Clifford Weaver of Roxbury, Massachusetts, came to Senegal 12 years ago on an NAACP tour. And has remained ever since.
Soon as I arrived here, like everybody else, you fall in love with the color, the beauty, the terrain of the land, the music, the language, and the warmness of the people. And something said to me, oh man, this is where I should be.
Along with adopting Senegal as his home, Abou has also embraced the Islamic religion which has been intricately woven into the fabric of much of West African culture for centuries.
[AFRICAN MUSIC]
The annual Maulud ceremony celebrates the birth of the prophet Muhammad, founder of Islam, which has been the dominant religion in a large portion of West Africa since the 11th century. It too played a role in the Atlantic slave trade. Dr. Barry claims that Islam represents everything that is good and bad about West Africa.
[SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE]
The idea was that things were not made to make their subjects slaves, but to keep them away from slavery. Islam was never against slavery, as such. The first reaction of Islam against slavery was not against slavery itself, but against the Atlantic slave trade. There is a difference.
Perhaps that is why the Moor’s of Mauritania, many of whom are descendants of Arabs, did not legally abolish slavery until 1980. Something that is still causing a problem today.
[SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE]
The conflicts between the blacks and the Mauritanians is extremely complex with many dimensions. One such problem of long duration is the conflict imposed by the nomads upon the indigenous population of the Senegal River Valley. The nomads being the Moors, or the white race, and the indigenous black population of the Senegal River Valley.
[SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE]
The conflict had to be exacerbated by the fact that the Moors could not be taken as slaves. On the contrary, they came into the valley of Senegal, on the one hand, to obtain slaves for their own production within Mauritania, and at the same time to sell slaves in the Atlantic slave trade.
Despite the political difficulties between the Mauritanians and Senegalese religion is the one factor that remains a common thread. Here in the town of Kaolack one of the major leaders in the region, Imam Hussain Cisse, gathers his flock for prayer five times a day as is the Muslim tradition. His followers include a group of Americans who come here, not only to study, but to get in touch with their heritage.
I wanted my daughter to learn Quran. And I wanted her to love the religion without having any problems, without feeling different. I don’t see what she has missed. She’s missed the drug culture, which I didn’t want her to get involved in any way.
Just as Karemma Adul Kareem is trying to save her children from the evils of modern time, female slaves would go to great lengths to save their children from the auction block.
One early mornin’ at harvest time, my Frederick was born. Big baby. Fat. Pretty as could be. Friendly and happy almost from the beginnin’. And I know that there wasn’t nothin’ I wouldn’t do to keep my child. And I knowed that when he got big enough Master would just as soon sell him as not.
The answer came to me in the dead of the night. Just like a voice of Jesus. If the child was crippled wouldn’t nobody buy him. I looked down on my little baby, perfect and strong, and I knowed what I had to do. It was a dreadful thing to think on.
But the memory of them sellin’ my Mary, and my [? Benjie, ?] and my Jane give me strength. So that the next Sunday I carried my baby into the woods I took along an old meat cleaver. I was tremblin so bad I almost couldn’t do it.
But I kept hearin’ the cries of my other babies when they was tore from me to be sold. Kept seeing their faces all twisted up. And their eyes. Oh, I raised that cleaver and prayed to the Lord it would give me strength not to miss, and I swung that blade down. Through the foot down into the ground.
That sound echos in my head always. And the awful sound of my little baby’s cries. And child, the sight of that poor little foot cut clean off, all but the heal and ankle. I’ll carry that memory with me to my grave. But it worked. Master couldn’t sell Frederick.
Senegambian descendants like Anna Faye, curator Mr. Ndiaye, and the Kinte’s of the Gambia all share the deep feeling of what it means to be a symbol of a painful history that involves deportation, exile, slavery, oppression, but above all, survival, as revealed by slaves who finally won their freedom.
I am happy to inform you that you are not mistaken in the man whom you sold as property, and received pay for as much, such. But I thank God that I’m not property now. You may perhaps think hard of us running away from slavery. But as to myself, I have but one apology to make for it, which is this, I have only to regret that I did not start at an earlier period.
I might have been free long before I was, but you had it in your power to have kept me there much longer than you did. I think it is very probable that I should have been a toiling slave on your plantation today if you had treated me differently.
Although it was by no means, exclusively a moral crusade, people like Wilberforce in England, and certain of the great libertarians of the French Revolution, were quite serious in their belief that slavery and slave trade were immoral and had to be destroyed.
For six months I tried to make my escape. I used to rise at 4 o’clock in the morning to find somebody to assist me. And at last, I succeeded. On Sunday evening I begged leave to attend church. Which was reluctantly granted if I completed all my work, which was no easy task.
It appeared as if my mistress used every possible exertion to delay my from church. Extensive hoops were then worn. And as I had attached my whole wardrobe under mine by a cord around my waste, it required considerable dexterity, and no small amount of maneuvering, to hide the fact from my mistress. I endeavored to conceal my own excitement by backin’ and edgin’ very gently out the door.
Now there was a company of soldiers about to take passage across the ferry and I followed. I showed my pass and proceeded up the stairs. I seated myself in a remote corner of the boat. And in a few moments I landed on free soil. For the first time in my life I was under my own control.
By 1888 the formal abolition of slavery had taken place in most parts of the world. Colonialism, segregation, and institutionalized racism would persist for the next 100 years, with the remnant still being felt today.
But the millions of slaves that were lost in journeyed through the dark passages should never be forgotten. To make certain, a monument is being planned to memorialize the tortured souls that were stolen from their motherland. Doctor Adama Diallo, Special Adviser to the president of Senegal.
[SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE]
The idea of creating a memorial to bring back together all the people from the diaspora was put forward after coming up with the idea for the Black Arts Festival. That is where the idea of a memorial came from. Since then, the African Heads of State met within the OAU in 1986 to try to support the memorial.
A resolution drawn up by the OAU you Heads of State was approved to by a vote in 1986, with the help of the president of Senegal, who endorsed it.
[INAUDIBLE] was chosen as the actual site where the monument will be placed because it marks the closest point between the old world and the Americas.
[SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE]
In practice the first location would be over here. The second one, over there behind me. And the third one by the lighthouse, over there. By the lighthouse is the highest elevation, 170 meters. Whereas the maximum elevation on land is 41 meters.
[APPLAUSE]
Back in the United States, West African countries have come together with African Americans to launch a worldwide competition for the designing of the Goree-Almadies Memorial. Minister of culture Senegal, Mustafa Ka.
[SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE]
The initiative came from a group of African intellectuals, and intellectuals of African descent who belong to the International Association of [? Fesburg, ?] as well as the president of Senegal himself, president Abdou Diouf.
As we should never forget the Nazi Holocaust, we should never forget the slave trade. As we should never forget Auschwitz, we should never forget Goree Island. As we should never forget the trenches along the Somme in 1916, we should never forget those scenes on the docks in Barbados, or in Jamestown, or in Boston. Or in any other place in the new world, where racks of human beings riddled with scurvy, were taken off ships and commodified and sold.
We thought it would be appropriate to conclude this program here in Jamestown, Virginia. Along the shores where the first captured Africans set foot on American soil in 1619. We could always ponder the question, what if slavery had never happen? How different would the world be today?
When we consider the contributions Africans have made in music, sports, arts, medicine, politics, and human rights, we begin to understand why the descendants of Africans throughout the diaspora have earned the right to be honored in history.
The proposed Goree-Almadies Memorial is one way of paying homage to the millions of Africans who were taken from their homeland in the largest forced migration in world history.
Another is to make sure that generations to come always remember the tremendous sacrifices of those who traveled the dark passages. I’m Tanya Heart. Thank you for watching.
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A luxury hotel situated on its own Peninsula on the Atlantic coast of Africa. A secluded resort located only minutes away from the heart of the capital. For reservations and information call 1-800-223-9862. Or write, Pullman Hotels, 200 West 57th Street, Suite 706, New York, New York, 10019
Dark passages [Video file]. (1990). Retrieved December 12, 2017, from https://fod.infobase.com/PortalPlaylists.aspx?wID=18566&xtid=44114
