We are inviting you to sign the online petition in Portuguese, English and French.

THE CONTEST 'THE SEVEN PORTUGUESE WONDERS' IGNORES THE HISTORY OF SLAVERY AND THE SLAVE TRADE

About twenty years ago several European, American and African countries started affirming and promoting the painful memory and heritage of slavery and the Atlantic slave trade. The promotion of the slave past was translated not only by the publication of a large number of historical works but also by the development of projects as the Slave Route Project launched by UNESCO in 1994.

Over the last ten years, despite the difficulties and the fights involving the emergence of the memory of the slave past of European, American and African nations, the memory and the history of the Atlantic slave trade was integrated into the public memory of several countries in the three continents at both sides of the Atlantic. In 2001, through the Law Taubira, France was the first country to recognize slavery and the slave trade as crimes against humanity. Also in France, the May 10th is now the National Day of Commemoration of the Memories of the Slave Trade, Slavery and its Abolitions. In 2001, in Durban, South Africa, the Third Conference of the United Nations Against Racism declared slavery as 'crime against humanity'. In 1992, at the House of Slaves in Gorée Island (Senegal), the Pope John Paul II expressed his apologies for the role played by the Catholic Church in the period of the Atlantic slave trade. Visiting Africa, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and the Brazilian President, Luis Inácio Lula da Silva also condemned the wrongs of the slave past. In 2006, Michaelle Jean, Governor General of Canada, during a visit to Elmina Castle (a site participating in the contest) in Ghana, denounced the Atlantic slavery past. In 2007, during the commemorations of the 200th anniversary of the British abolition of the slave trade, the PM Tony Blair also expressed his deep sorrow for the role played by England in the Atlantic trade of enslaved Africans.

In 2009, the government of Portugal, and several Portuguese institutions as the University of Coimbra, chose the opposite path. During the first semester of this same year, these institutions supported the organization of a contest to choose the Seven Portuguese Wonders in the World. In the list of the sites to be voted by the public on Internet (http://www.7maravilhas.sapo.pt), one can found not only Elmina Castle (or Castle São Jorge da Mina), a slave trading outpost and warehouse, founded by the Portuguese in 1482, but also the old city of Ribeira Grande of Santiago Island in Cape Verde, as well as Luanda and Mozambique Island. When describing these sites, the organization of the contest omitted the history of these places and the use they had during the period of the Atlantic slave trade. In the text describing the Elmina Castle, they affirm that this site served as slaves warehouse only after the Dutch occupation in1637.

In the name of historical accuracy and in order to be morally responsible, we consider that the inclusion of these 'monuments' in such a contest should be followed by the full information about their role during the Atlantic slave trade, and also by an explanation about the present use of these sites. Presently, the Elmina or São Jorge da Mina Castle, is a museum that tries to represent the history of the Atlantic slave trade. Each year, thousands of visitors from the whole world, among them many members of the African Diaspora, visit the castle to honor their ancestors. The Portuguese government, the institutions supporting the contest and its organizers ignored the pain of all those whose ancestors were deported from these sites or those who were raped or died there while waiting to be embarked. Is it possible to separate the architecture of these sites from the role they had in the past and still have in the present, as places of memory of the great tragedy that was slavery and the slave trade to the European colonies? According to recent studies (www.slavevoyages.org), Portugal and later Brazil, its former colony, were responsible for almost the half of the 12 million captives transported through the Atlantic.

In respect to the history and the memory of millions of victims of the Atlantic slave trade, we write this letter to denounce the omission of the role these sites had in the Atlantic slave trade. We invite all those who are concerned by the research on slavery and the Atlantic slave trade to disagree with the attempt to diminish and erase the history of this commerce, in order to exalt a glorious Portuguese past expressed in the architectural 'beauty' of these sites of death and tragedy.

Ana Lucia Araujo, Howard University, Washington, United States
Arlindo Manuel Caldeira, CHAM, Lisboa, Portugal
Mariana Pinho Candido, Princeton University, Princeton, United States
Michel Cahen, Centre d’Études de l’Afrique Noire, CNRS, Bordeaux, France
Christine Chivallon, Centre d’Études de l’Afrique Noire, CNRS, Bordeaux, France
Myriam Cottias, CNRS, Directrice do Centre International de recherches sur les esclavages, Paris, France
Maurice Jackson, Georgetown University, Washington, United States
Hendrik Kraay, University of Calgary, Canada
Jane Landers, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, United States
Jean-Marc Masseaut, Cahiers Anneaux de la Mémoire, Nantes, France
Hebe Mattos, Universidade Federal Fluminense, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Claudia Mosquera Rosero-Labbé, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Bogotá, Colombia
João José Reis, Universidade Federal da Bahia, Salvador, Brazil
Anna Seiderer, Royal Museum for Central Africa, Tervuren, Belgium
Simão Souindola, Historien, Luanda, Angola
Jean-Michel Mabeko-Tali, Howard University, Washington, United States

* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/.