Cover not available

In:A Comparative Literary History of Modern Slavery: The Atlantic world and beyond
Edited by Karen-Margrethe Simonsen, Madeleine Dobie and Mads Anders Baggesgaard
[Comparative History of Literatures in European Languages XXXVII] 2025
► pp. 88–110

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload Book PDF
EPUB logo with download linkDownload Book EPUB
authorization required

Chapter 6
The Memorial ACTe in Guadeloupe

Whitening the dark memory of slavery?

Published online: 29 April 2025
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/chlel.37.06mul
Abstract
The Memorial ACTe in Guadeloupe is a centre of expression about the slave trade and slavery devoted to the memory and traces of transatlantic slavery in modern countries. It introduces the roots and consequences of the slave trade and focuses on the enslaved’s agency and revolts, to present a view of what creolization is. The need for reconciliation between descendants of the enslaved and descendants of the slaveholders influences the whole monument and permanent exhibition, thereby highlighting the agency of enslaved people. This chapter seeks to analyze the implications of reconciliation for representations of slavery, the way memory is subsequently whitened and the paradox stemming from a monument that ends up obscuring the experience and subjectivity of the enslaved.
Article outline
  • The memorial ACTe: Between reparations and reconciliation
    • From silence to mobilizations
  • From mobilizations to reparations
  • Reconciliation rather than reparations
  • A monumental and spectacular centre
    • A majestic monument
  • Five rooms to remember …
  • … Or euphemize the crime?
  • And a scenography to bypass the past
  • Pride and omission in the spotlight
  • From slavery to resistance and creolization: Whitening dark memory, and tourism
    • “I must have missed a room”
  • A centre to empower the descendants of slavery
  • Producing Édouard Glissant’s creolization
  • Conclusion: A memory paradox
  • References
References (36)
References
Araujo, Ana Lucia. 2017. Reparations for Slavery and the Slave Trade. A Transnational and Comparative History. London: Bloomsbury Academic.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Barthélemy, Gérard. 2004. “Réflexions sur deux mémoires inconciliables: celle du maître et celle de l’esclave”. Cahiers d’études africaines (173–174): 127–139. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bunch, Lonnie G. 2010. “People Need to Remember: American Museums Still Struggle with the Legacy of Race.” Museum 89 (6): 42–49.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Célius, Carlo Avierl. 2013. “Consolider et développer l’exposition de l’esclavage.” Africultures 91 (1): 31–37. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Chivallon, Christine. 2006. “Rendre visible l’esclavage. Muséographie et hiatus de la mémoire aux Antilles françaises.” L’Homme 180 (October-December): 7–42. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2010. “Mémoires de l’esclavage à la Martinique. L’explosion mémorielle et la révélation de mémoires anonymes.” Cahiers d’études africaines 197: 235–261. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2012. L’esclavage, du souvenir à la mémoire. Paris: Karthala.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2013. “Les questions posées par le discours muséographique confronté à l’expérience esclavagiste.” Africultures 91 (1): 60–69. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2015. “Representing the slave past: the limits of museographical and heritage discourses.” In At the Limits of Memory: Legacies of Slavery in the French-speaking World, edited by Nicola Frith and Kate Hodgson, 25–48. Liverpool: University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ciarcia, Gaetano. 2020. “Instituer le souvenir de l’esclavage en Guadeloupe et à Nantes: les contentieux du don commémoratif.” Ethnologie française 177 (1): 125–141. [URL].
Cottias, Myriam. 2007. La question noire. Histoire d’une construction coloniale. Paris: Bayard.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2017. “L’abolition de l’esclavage aux Antilles.” Conférence Après la colonisation. Repenser les relations triangulaires. Baie-Mahault: Guadeloupe.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Enjoylife, Safia. 2018. “La supercherie du Mémorial ACTE”, Accessed November 11, 2018. [URL]
Fanon, Frantz. 1952. Peau noire, masques blancs, Paris, Seuil.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Frith, Nicola. 2015. “The Art of Reconciliation: The Memorial to the Abolition of Slavery in Nantes.” In At the Limits of Memory: Legacies of Slavery in the French-speaking World, edited by Nicola Frith and Kate Hodgson, 68–89. Liverpool: University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Glissant, Édouard. 2007. Mémoires des esclavages. Paris: Gallimard, La documentation française.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Herskovits, Melville J. 1990. The Myth of the Negro Past. Boston: Beacon Press, (1941).Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hourcade, Renaud. 2012. “Muséographie et écriture politique du passé: représenter l’esclavage à Liverpool, Nantes et Bordeaux, trois anciens ports négriers.” In Les présents des passés douloureux — Musées d’histoire et configurations mémorielles, essais de muséohistoire, Edited by Frédéric Rousseau and Julien Mary, 197–230, Michel Houdiard Editeur.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Iye, Ali Moussa. 2016. “Opening discourse.” International conference, L’esclavage : quel impact sur la psychologie des populations? [URL]
. 2018. “Du devoir de mémoire au droit à la mémoire. Une revendication citoyenne.” Conférence finale in Mois de l’histoire des Noirs du Québec. Quebec: Université Laval.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lennon, John.J., Malcom, Foley. 2000. Dark tourism: The attraction of death and disaster. London: Continuum.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lurel, Victorin. 2015. Discours d’inauguration du Mémorial ACTe du 10 mai 2015. [URL]
Mbembe, Achille. 2013. “L’esclave, figure de l’anti-musée?” Africultures 91 (1): 38–42. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Michel, Johann. 2015. Devenir descendant d’esclaves. Enquête sur les régimes mémoriels. Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Moomou, Jean. 2015. “Le Mémorial Acte : « Quai Branly de Guadeloupe, Louvre des Antilles-Guyane, Gorée des Amériques » ! ” Outre-Mers. Revue d’histoire, T103, 388–389 (décembre): 239–68. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mulot, Stéphanie. 2021. “Peut-on être guadeloupéenne, potomitan et féministe?” Recherches féministes 34 (2): 123–148. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mulot, Stephanie. 2018. “Accomodating conflicting narratives.” In International Conference of New Approaches in Interpreting and Representing Slavery in Museums and Sites. Charlottesville (VA). [URL]
. 2015. “Représenter ou effacer l’esclavage et ses descendants dans l’espace public guadeloupéen: panorama photographique.“ In L’Ordinaire des Amériques (en ligne), Accessed May 16, 2016. [URL].
. 2003. “La trace des masques. Identité guadeloupéenne entre discours et pratique.” Ethnologie française XXXIII, no. 1: 111–122. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mulot, Stéphanie. 2010. Descendants d'esclaves, héritiers de la liberté : les dilemmes identitaires des Antillais aujourd'hui. in Ferréol Gilles, Peralva Angelina (Dir), Altérité, dynamiques sociales et démocratie, Paris, LGDJ-Lextenso, 109–126.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Price, Sally. 2011. Museum of illusions: the Quai Branly missed. Paris: Denoël.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Racines, 2016. no. 39 (July 2016). [URL]
Reinhardt, Catherine. 2015. “Telling Stories of Slavery: Cultural Re-appropriations of Slave Memory in the French Caribbean Today.” In At the Limits of Memory: Legacies of Slavery in the French-speaking World, edited by Nicola Frith and Kate Hodgson, 49–67. Liverpool: University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rognon, Frédéric. 2016. “Expiation, repentance, pardon et réconciliation: concepts religieux et valeurs des sociétés européennes contemporaines.” Les Cahiers Sirice 15 (1): 15–23. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rondeau, Dany. 2007. “Mémoire, identité, altérité : contribution de la narration à une éthique de la réconciliation.” Éthique publique 9 (2). Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Valton, Jocelyn. 2016. Mémorial ACTe, la Mémoire sous contrôle. Accessed May 10, 2016. [URL]
Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue