Slavery
Sites connected to Slavery. Maroonage and Forced Labour do have their own connections, and are excluded here.
Connected Sites
| Site | Rationale | Link |
| Antigua Naval Dockyard | "The construction of the Dockyard by the British navy would not have been possible without the labour of generations of enslaved Africans since the end of the 18th century" | |
| Bordeaux | 18th century slave trade | |
| Bridgetown | the fortified port town was able to establish its importance in the British Atlantic trade and became an entrepôt for goods, especially sugar, and enslaved persons destined for Barbados and the rest of the Americas (unesco website) | |
| Brimstone Hill Fortress | Built by slave labour | |
| Cartagena | "The Cartagena slave market, the largest in the New World, was held in the Plaza de los Coches" (orignally Plaza del Esclavo") | |
| Cidade Velha | Important port in the transcontinental slavery | |
| Coro and its Port | "Coro, French Republic of- Coro, a town in eastern Venezuela, was the center of a massive slave revolt in 1795. The revolt's leader, José Leonardo Chirinos, declared Coro a "French Republic" and announced that the new nation would govern itself by the ideals of the French Revolution. The Spanish government crushed the insurgents, and Chirinos along with his lieutenants was executed in December of 1796. The memory of Chirinos has been appropriated by the Bolivaran Revolution of Hugo Chavez and the airport of Coro has been named after him. | |
| Delos | "Roman traders came to purchase tens of thousands of slaves captured by the Cilician pirates or captured in the wars following the disintegration of the Seleucid Empire. It became the center of the slave trade, with the largest slave market in the larger region being maintained here." (wiki) | |
| Diamantina | Its mines were worked by slaves. It was also the home of one of Brazil's most "famous" slaves who has become a soap opera figure "Chica da Silva" | |
| El Tajin | "Slaves for service and sacrifice were ... sold" at the market at the Arroyo Plaza (wiki) | |
| Evora | Évora also held a large part of the slave population of Portugal. Nicolas Clenard, a Flemish tutor at the Portuguese court, exclaimed in 1535 that "In Evora, it was as if i had been carried off to a city in hell:everywhere I only meet blacks." A testament from 1562 shows that D. Maria de Vilhena, a Portuguese woman in Évora, owned many slaves, including Indian (Native American), mourisco, black, white, mulato, Chinese and other slaves. Maria's husband before she was widowed was Simao da Silveira who was involved in trading slaves. Her Chinese slave was used to take care of her mules. (wiki) | |
| First Coffee Plantations | The coffee plantations were owned by French, who had fled from Haiti accompanied by many of their African slaves | |
| Forts and Castles Gold Coast | The forts were used as depots in the slave trade | |
| Goias | the church of Rosario, which was traditionally reserved for slaves (AB ev) | |
| Gyeongju | "Records from the Kingdom of Silla, show some cases of large slaveholding and even the custom of burying slaves alive for the king's funeral." - The Historical encyclopedia of world slavery, Volume 1; Volume 7 By Junius P. Rodriguez | |
| Island of Gorée | ||
| Island of Mozambique | ||
| Island of Saint-Louis | "Gradually the settlement of Saint-Louis developed its commercial activities, trading rubber, leather, gold, ivory, and cereals as well as dealing in slaves" (AB ev) | |
| Itchan Kala | Had a very flourishing slave market | |
| Jodensavanne | "Archival information indicates that the use of the cemetery by free and enslaved persons who lived and worked at Jodensavanne began before 1794" (AB ev) | |
| Kasbah of Algiers | Slavery was practiced, especially for domestic work. There was also a significant presence of European captives. These captives (...) experienced a miserable life when they were employed in the galleys. (French wiki) After Charles V's defeat at the Algiers expedition (1541), so many of Charles' troops were taken captive that there was a glut of slaves on the market in Algiers, so that 1541 was said to be the year when Christians were sold for the price of an onion per head. (Wiki) | |
| Kunta Kinteh Island | "directly and tangibly associated with the beginning and the conclusion of the slave trade, retaining its memory related to the African Diaspora." (crit vi OUV), "Furthermore, the Six-Gun Battery and Fort Bullen were constructed with the express intent of thwarting the slave trade once it had become illegal." (AB ev) | |
| Lake Malawi | "Cape Maclear area was one focal point in the ivory and slave trade era" | |
| Lamu Old Town | ||
| Mammoth Cave | "Public tours by Negro slaves started in 1816." Nomination File | |
| Mbanza Kongo | However, relations between the Kingdom and the Portuguese went sour as a result of the slave trade. Several texts were enacted by sovereigns from the early 16th century onwards to prevent the rise of the slave trade, which was robbing the territory of its vital forces, and condemning it to decline. It has been estimated that between 1600 and 1852, 3 million slaves were transported to Brazil alone from the coasts of Kongo-Angola that is an average of 12,000 slaves per year. it is not even known whether slaves were brought to Mbanza Kongo or whether they were collected elsewhere in the Kingdom. (AB ev) | |
| Medina of Essaouira | "it was called "the port of Timbuktu," since it was the destination of caravans bringing a variety of products (including slaves) from black Africa." (AB ev) | |
| Medina of Tunis | The "Souk el Berka" was the site of the Tunis Slave Market which sold the (white) Christian victims of Barbary Coast Piracy. This didn't cease until the mid 19th Century. It is estimated that from the 16th Century over 1 million Europeans, mainly from the Mediterranean, but also from as far north as Ireland and Iceland were captured by the Barbary Pirates and sold into slavery in N Africa/Ottoman empire | |
| Meknes | Moulay Ismail's Habs Kara | |
| Monticello | Jefferson kept slaves at Monicello -both in the fields and in the house "Thomas Jefferson made a habit of inspecting his plantation in the afternoon to monitor the work of the 150 slaves who worked at Monticello and his outlying farms. Always interested in measurements and record-keeping, Jefferson made extensive notations about his slaves and their duties in his Farm Book and Memorandum Books. For instance, he noted the rations his overseer distributed, the number of yards he purchased for clothing, the daily task required by particular slaves, and the cost of items purchased for use in the kitchen." | |
| Old Town of Galle | Within the walls of Galle Fort are buildings titled "Old Slave Quarters". The VOC captured Galle from Portugal in 1640 and extended/improved the Portuguese fortifications. Some reports link the "Slave quarters" to this (mainly late 17th C) construction activity but Slavery was an integral aspect of Dutch rule in Ceylon, even pre-dated their (and Portuguese) arrival and continued through the early years of British control. As such it involved native peoples as well as those from India, Java and Africa. A "Kaffir" ethnic group exists to the present day in Sri Lanka (though not in Galle) and the exact use(s) of the Galle Fort "Slave Quarters" within the complex history of slavery in Sri Lanka isn't clear. | |
| Olinda | The city is built on wealth from sugar grown and harvested by slaves in the plantations of Pernambuco. In the Praça da Abolição (Abolition Square) is a statue of Princess Isabel, who, in 1888, signed the Lei Aurea (Golden Law) abolising slavery in Brazil. She did this as regent whilst her father Pedro II travelled abroad. The law (signed in Petropolis) was promulgated in this square. | |
| Ouro Preto | The main tourist mine is named after an African slave. | |
| Paraty and Ilha Grande | Igreja do nossa senhora do rosario e Sao Benedito - The church was built and used by Paraty’s African slaves. | |
| Portobelo-San Lorenzo | Slaves were traded here and were used in the construction of Portobelo. There used to be a Slave Pen where now the cemetery is | |
| Potosi | "To compensate for the diminishing indigenous labor force, the colonists made a request in 1608 to the Crown in Madrid to begin allowing for the importation of 1500 to 2000 African slaves per year. An estimated total of 30,000 African slaves were taken to Potos? throughout the colonial era. African slaves were also forced to work in the Casa de la Moneda as ac?milas humanas (human mules). Since mules would die after couple of months pushing the mills, the colonists replaced the four mules with twenty African slaves." | |
| Robben Island | The colonists began a vigorous policy of enslavement of the indigenous peoples and brought them there from other parts of Africa (AB ev) | |
| Royal Palaces of Abomey | The Dahomey kings captured people both to sell on as to the Trans-Atlantic slave trade and to keep as their own slaves | |
| Ruins of Kilwa Kisiwani and Songo Mnara | ||
| Salvador de Bahia | Malé Revolt - "most significant slave rebellion in Brazil" 1835. | |
| Socotra Archipelago | ||
| Stone Town of Zanzibar | ||
| Sub-Antarctic Islands | The Auckland islands were briefly settled by Maoris from Chatham Island. They brought with them Moriori slaves. The Moriori had been the indigenous people of the Chathams who were enslaved by Maoris. "Sheep farming became popular and profitable and some Maori diversified into that. In 1842 one chief took nearly 30 slaves with him and his people and went to the Auckland Islands to live. The conditions were too harsh and the settlement was abandoned in 1854." | |
| São Luis | 17C town economy based on the introduction of the "trade in black slaves" (AB ev) | |
| The Slate Landscape of Northwest Wales | Penryn Castle was built originally by the 1st Baron Penryn using profits both from the slate mines and from his Jamaican sugar plantations. | |
| Timbuktu | ||
| Trinidad and the Valley de los Ingenios | The ICOMOS document states "In 1827 there were (total population) 28706 of which 11697 were slaves working in the 56 mills" | |
| Valongo Wharf | strong symbolic reminder of the arrival of African enslaved labour on the South American continent. Following historical records, more than 900,000 enslaved persons arrived at this destination in the final decades of the transatlantic slave trade. (AB ev) | |
| Willemstad | Willemstad Curacao was one of the largest slave depots in the Caribbean, though, as it lacked a large scale plantation economy, the majority of slaves were transhipped via camps outside Willemstad. A private anthropological museum with significant emphasis on the Slave origins of Curacaoan culture has been set up in the Ijzerstraat area at "Kura Hulanda" which is said to be "situated on the site of a former slave yard and merchant's home". | |
| Zabid |
Suggestions?
Do you know of another WHS we could connect to Slavery?
A connection should:
- Not be "self evident"
- Link at least 3 different sites
- Not duplicate or merely subdivide the "Category" assignment already identified on this site.
- Add some knowledge or insight (whether significant or trivial!) about WHS for the users of this site
- Be explained, with reference to a source