On April 27, 1848, the French Republic abolishes slavery in her overseas colonies thus ending three centuries of African slave trade and forced plantation labor. 150 years later the government of the fifth Republic for the first time organized extensive official celebrations to commemorate this historic event. The past was resurrected, invading the present with countless memories - though undoubtedly not the same for the French nation and for the formerly enslaved populations in France’s overseas regions. Through boycotts, Martinicans and Guadeloupeans denounced the prevailing legacy of freedom and equality and the marginalization of their agency in the liberation process. Manifesting the problematic memory of slavery, the 150th anniversary of the abolitionary decree stimulated an unprecedented inquiry into the past.

In this paper I use the anniversary of the abolition of slavery as point of articulation between present and past: between the French and French West Indians’ memory of slavery in the commemorative context of 1998 and their relationship to aspects of the slave past. Within a theoretical framework provided by French and West Indian thinkers Michel Foucault, Maurice Halbwachs, Pierre Nora and Edouard Glissant I analyze the polemic surrounding the abolitionary decree through newspaper articles published in 1998 as well as numerous sites of memory erected during the past decade in Guadeloupe and Martinique. These sites include a large number of memorials recalling the horrors of the slave trade or honoring the legendary figure of the maroon, murals, ruins of plantations, prisons and cemeteries as well as museum exhibits. These sites – illustrated with original black and white photographs – along with the journalistic polemic reveal the most controversial aspects of the past that continue to haunt the West Indians’ memory in the present. In order to become fully assimilated to the French nation after the abolition of slavery, the new citizens had to systematically erase their collective experience of slavery and emancipation. During the past decade and in particular since 1998, the commemorative context of 1848 has stimulated an unprecedented inquiry into this silenced past and the re-appropriation of Caribbean “realms of memory” by the people.