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Part of
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

Chapter 6
The Memorial ACTe in Guadeloupe

Whitening the dark memory of slavery?

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.
Keywords: memorial ACTe, Guadeloupe, memory, slavery, reconciliation, creolization, paradox, representations, whitening
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
  • Author queries
  • References
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References (35)
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