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The night of 22 to 23 August 1791, in Santo Domingo
(today Haiti and the Dominican Republic)
saw the beginning of the uprising that would play a crucial
role in the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade
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The General Conference of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) proclaimed the 23rd August of every year, International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition.
The International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition is intended to inscribe the tragedy of the transatlantic slave trade in the memory of all peoples.
This date was chosen as a reminder of the fact that slaves were the principal agents of their own liberation.
International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition was first celebrated in a number of countries, in particular in Haiti (23 August 1998) and Goree in Senegal (23 August 1999). Cultural events and debates too were organized. The year 2001 saw the participation of the Mulhouse Textile Museum in France in the form of a workshop for fabrics called "Indiennes de Traite" (a type of calico) which served as currency for the exchange of slaves in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition is intended to inscribe the tragedy of the transatlantic slave trade in the memory of all peoples. In accordance with the goals of the intercultural project "The Slave Route", it should offer an opportunity for collective consideration of the historic causes, the methods and the consequences of this tragedy, and for an analysis of the interactions to which it has given rise between Africa, Europe, the Americas and the Caribbean.
The aims of the project are:
- To study the causes and consequences of slavery
- To preserve the memory of the slave trade in terms of economic, historic and social development. These objectives would be achieved by:
- Setting up museums of slavery throughout the areas which have experienced slavery
- Making an inventory of sites, monuments and records of slavery
- Setting-up of cultural tourism itineraries for the Slave Route in Africa, Americas and the Caribbeans
- Instituting a world day to commemorate the slave trade
Whereas the transatlantic slave trade is the most commonly known, other forms of slavery and practices occurred in other parts of the world, including South Africa at the same time. Cape Town served as an important port for the slave trade as practised by the Dutch East India Company.
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