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Given the racist, anti-history bent of our current government and its concerted efforts to whitewash and erase history—especially Black history—I have zero expectation that there will be an official acknowledgement of the fact that Aug. 23 is the International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and Its Abolition.

So I’m gathering materials here for community members to read, watch and share. We all, no matter our artificially constructed “race” or our ancestral nationalities, have benefited from and suffered due to an insidious plot known as the transatlantic slave trade, which killed millions of Black people and left millions of others in bondage. 

On August 23, 1791, enslaved people in what is today Haiti and the Dominican Republic rose up against French colonial rule, gaining their independence in 1804. UNESCO’s International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and Its Abolition is a reminder of the bravery, courage, resilience, and determination of enslaved African people who have continuously fought for their freedom and dignity.

A. Missouri Sherman-Peter, who passed away recently, was the ambassador and permanent observer of the Caribbean Community to the United Nations. She wrote “The Legacy of Slavery in the Caribbean and the Journey Towards Justice”:

The demographics that the juggernaut economic enterprise of the slave trade and slavery represented are today well known, in large measure thanks to nearly three decades of dedicated scientific and historical research, driven significantly by the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and by recent initiatives, including the United Nations Outreach Programme on the Transatlantic Slave Trade and Slavery. Some 12 to 20 million Africans were enslaved in the western hemisphere after an Atlantic voyage of 6 to 10 weeks. This voyage, now known as the “Middle Passage”, consumed some 20 per cent of its “human cargo”. Disease and death were common outcomes in this human tragedy.

The Caribbean was at the core of the crime against humanity induced by the transatlantic slave trade and slavery. Some 40 per cent of enslaved Africans were shipped to the Caribbean Islands, which, in the seventeenth century, surpassed Portuguese Brazil as the principal market for enslaved labour. The sugar plantations of the region, owned and operated primarily by English, French, Dutch, Spanish and Danish colonists, consumed black life as quickly as it was imported.

Capitalism and black slavery were intertwined. The Atlantic economy, in every aspect, was effectively sustained by African enslavement.

Critically, the Caribbean was where chattel slavery took its most extreme judicial form in the instrument known as the Slave Code, which was first instituted by the English in Barbados. Passed in 1661, this comprehensive law defined Africans as “heathens” and “brutes” not fit to be governed by the same laws as Christians. The legislators proceeded to define Africans as non-human—a form of property to be owned by purchasers and their heirs forever. The Slave Code went viral across the Caribbean, and ultimately became the model applied to slavery in the North American English colonies that would become the United States.

A lesser-known part of the trade of enslaved people took place on the island of Saint Helena, which you may have learned about in school as the place where Napoleon was sent to live and die in exile after his defeat at Waterloo. That’s all I remember being taught about Saint Helena; no mention of enslavement and the Atlantic trade. Thanks to the work of archeologist Annina van Neel and cultural projects consultant Peggy King Jorde, I now have a different perspective. 

Jorde wrote about this for The Guardian in “Sites of resistance: threatened African burial grounds around the world”:

For archeologists, what defines people as human is how we bury our dead. Imagine, then, a society that relegates a whole community as legally inhuman, enslaved with no rights. In spite of slavery, African burial grounds are tangible reminders of the enslaved and free – defying oppressive circumstances by reclaiming people’s humanity through acts of remembrance.

When I first visited the British overseas territory of St Helena in 2018 and saw the burial ground in Rupert’s Valley, I was astounded by its size and significance. It unambiguously placed the island at the centre of the Middle Passage – tying the British empire to the institution of slavery in the US, the Caribbean, and globally.

During my time on the island, I spoke to many community and government stakeholders, who sometimes seemed hard-pressed to reconcile their sense of “Britishness” with acknowledging their history linked to the transatlantic slave trade.

The Guardian produced a video titled “Buried: how we choose to remember the transatlantic slave trade”:

From The Guardian’s video notes:

The remote island of St Helena, a British overseas territory, is best known for Napoleon’s tomb – the island’s biggest tourist attraction. While overseeing the construction of a long-awaited airport on the island, Annina van Neel learns that the remains of thousands of formerly enslaved Africans have been uncovered, unearthing one of the most significant traces of the transatlantic slave trade in the world. Annina decides to advocate for this legacy, initiating a debate among the islanders – many of whom have shared ancestry with the enslaved – about how to create an appropriate memorial. Along the way, she enlists the help of African American preservationist and veteran activist Peggy King Jorde, who makes important connections in their shared history. 

This background video is part of a documentary titled “A Story of Bones,” which has been aired on PBS’ POV. Here’s the trailer:

Saint Helena’s informational website has a page dedicated to the island’s enslavement history.

This story of African burial grounds contains an engrossing connection to the African Burial Ground in New York City. While I was a graduate student in anthropology, I played a small part in the establishment of the New York City site. I wrote about it here.

While writing this article, I didn’t see many Bluesky posts referencing this annual day of remembrance. Here are two:

Andrew Kahn and Jamelle Bouie wrote an informative piece on the slave trade for Slate in 2021 titled “The Atlantic Slave Trade in Two Minutes”:

315 years. 20,528 voyages. Millions of lives.

Usually, when we say “American slavery” or the “American slave trade,” we mean the American colonies or, later, the United States. But as we discussed in Episode 2 of Slate’s History of American Slavery Academy, relative to the entire slave trade, North America was a bit player. From the trade’s beginning in the 16^th century to its conclusion in the 19^th, slave merchants brought the vast majority of enslaved Africans to two places: the Caribbean and Brazil. Of the more than 10 million enslaved Africans to eventually reach the Western Hemisphere, just 388,747—less than 4 percent of the total—came to North America. This was dwarfed by the 1.3 million brought to Spanish Central America, the 4 million brought to British, French, Dutch, and Danish holdings in the Caribbean, and the 4.8 million brought to Brazil.

Beckles calls out universities for their practice of “research and run,” which applies to U.S. institutions that are buckling under pressure from the anti-DEI depredations of the Trump administration. We have to not only remember, but fight back and resist erasure. 

Please post any commemorative events you are aware of in the comments section below, and join me for the weekly Caribbean news roundup.