Slave Route

The Slave Route is an ambitious project that was launched by UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization) based on a proposal made to the organization by Haiti. The project was adopted in 1993 (Resolution 27C/3.13) and officially started in September of 1994 in Ouidah, Republic of Benin. The choice of Ouidah, one of the most active West African ports during the European slave trade, is consistent with the purpose of the Slave Route. Indeed, the objective of the UNESCO project is twofold: on the one hand, it aims at breaking the silence that surrounds the transatlantic European slave trade and slavery in the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea; on the other hand, it seeks to objectively assess, through scientific studies, the interactions among all the people involved, as well as the consequences of the slave trade and slavery for each party, whether in Europe, Africa, or the Americas. UNESCO envisions that this should be done in three main ways: (1) through a survey and preservation of all national and religious archival resources on the issue of the European slave trade and the African diaspora, as well as a reliance on the African oral tradition; (2) through the constitution of a data bank; and (3) through a broad range of scientific research projects with the purpose of a better understanding from the perspectives of archaeology, history, linguistics, and other disciplines of the slave trade and slavery.

The findings of such research should lead to the development and implementation of educational programs on the European slave trade and the African diaspora. Thus the proceedings of the Ouidah conference were published in 1998 by UNESCO under the title La chaine et le lien: Une vision de la traite Négrière. The Ouidah conference was followed by a conference in Guadeloupe, Eastern Caribbean, in 1998, and by another in Lisbon, Portugal, in 1999. The proceedings from these conferences were also published by UNESCO. Furthermore, in 1998, August 23 was designated as the International Day for Commemoration of the Slave Trade. It was first observed in Haiti in 1998, and then in Gorée, Senegal, in 1999. The purpose of such a commemoration is to ensure that the tragedy experienced by African people, as a result of the slave trade and subsequent African enslavement, will not be forgotten. August 23 was selected because it was on that day in 1791 that the war Africans in Haiti waged and won against their French enslavers began.

The ultimate goal of the Slave Route project is through a scientific investigation and ethical questioning [Page 435]of the past to shed light on all societies and facilitate the advent of genuine cultural pluralism, based on true respect for historical, geographical, and cultural diversity.