• While Bordeaux has often been singled out for the denial of its slave trade past, the city supports a house project against slavery alongside the association Mémoires et Partages.

  • A prefiguration mission for this center against slavery and for equality, made up of around thirty members, must work on a report for a year.

  • This house, presented as a place of popular education and artistic exhibition, still has to find a location and financial backers.

"It took 24 years for us to be here", launched with emotion Karfa Diallo, founder and director of the association Mémoires et Partages which is associated with the city of Bordeaux to prepare the establishment of a house against slavery and for equality, in the Gironde capital.

Olivier Escots, deputy mayor in charge of disability and the fight against all discrimination, represented the mayor of Bordeaux, this Monday, at the first meeting of the thirty members gathered for this mission, assuring the full support of the city on this project.

This Tuesday, day of commemoration of the memories of the slave trade, slavery and its abolitions, are launched in Bordeaux the days of memory. 

While large sites are devoted to colonial history, from Nantes to Bristol, there is not yet a place dedicated to Bordeaux, which was the first French colonial port and the second slave port.

One of the members of this mission, Daniel Flaharty, a doctor, highlights the lack of visibility of this past in the public space, even if for ten years efforts have been made, in particular on the plaques indicating the street names.

And he believes that it is important to give him "not to make people feel guilty but to reconcile memories".

About thirty personalities from civil society were invited to this mission: lawyer, architect, doctor, poet, writer, business manager, association activists, etc.

A place of resources and popular education

Its members have one year to submit their report on this future place of memory which must focus on "the slavery of our modernity, from the 15th century to today, whether intra-African, Arab-Muslim, and Western". explains Memories and Shares, present in five French cities and supported by the Foundation for the memory of slavery.

Karfa Diallo and Patrick Serres, president of the association, describe it as a place of popular education, of resources but also a place of exhibition of artistic and documentary works, in addition to what already exists.

Other communities and sponsors will be approached beyond the city of Bordeaux to provide funding for this project.

"The commemorative exercise is somewhat neglected by the architects and I think that there is everything to do and that it should not necessarily be a fixed project", launched Julie Druillet, architect.

It will already be necessary to start by identifying a possible place, “perhaps within the municipal heritage”, suggests Naïma Charai, former president of ACSE, the national agency for social cohesion and equal opportunities.

The mission will also be keen to involve the people of Bordeaux in the construction of this project.

Like Nantes or La Rochelle, the Gironde capital prospered on the slave trade, with 508 slave expeditions, but also on the lucrative trade in colonial foodstuffs produced by slaves.

From 1672 to 1837, 120,000 to 150,000 African slaves were deported to the Americas by Bordeaux shipowners.

In Bordeaux, the statue of a slave covered in white paint

Company

Bordeaux: The association Mémoires et Partages revisits the industrial and colonial past of the Bacalan district

Plates rue Colbert

The city of Bordeaux will continue to put up explanatory plaques in the streets bearing the names of people “involved in the slave trade and slavery”.

Two plaques will thus be unveiled this Friday on rue Colbert, former minister of Louis XIV and initiator of the Black Code.

  • Slavery

  • Colonization

  • Memory

  • Commemoration

  • Aquitaine