Introduction
Commemorating place memory plays a
significant role since it brings back the feelings of individual and shared
identity attached to the places in question. Most built places, such as slave
houses, museums, libraries, status, street naming, and buildings are geared
towards bringing back memories to people who have shared history.
Reflecting on this week reading reminded me of Transatlantic Slave Trade
and the slave houses I visited in the Gambia and Senegal. Specifically, in the
Gambia’s these aspect of history is part of the education system, in order
words it is part of the heritage of the country so as kids learn about slavery
and slave trade of their ancestor as early as in primary school. I remembered
visiting slaves’ houses in the Gambia during my primary six. This visit taught
me lasting memories on how slave trade was carryout throughout Africa. In
addition, I learnt how our ancestor where treated and shipped to the new world
as they called like a pieces of goods or commodities. These past memories will never fade away in our
society based on my personal experience visiting and studying about them. As
argued by Cresswell (2004), the “ability of place to make the past come to life
in the present and thus contribute to the production and reproduction of social
memory” ( p.87).
The pictures above shows the slave houses that
served as shipping point for many slaves that were exported to the Americas. These
buildings were built in mouth of the Atlantic Ocean in The Gambia and Senegal.
These houses served as a place for storing slaves before they are ship to their
final destination. Therefore, these places functioned as memories for African
as is part of our ancestry and is part of our culture and history. In line with
geographic discourse, Slave houses represent part of cultural geography of
Africa because it give us the identity of our ancestor.
Most importantly, these places will aid
our generation to know the dark past of their ancestral history. I believe most
government of African countries invested in these slave houses to keep them
alive to serve as commemorating slave trade. As Cresswell (2004) stated “some
memories are allowed to fade – are not given any kind of support” (p.85). I
quite agree with the author proposition since some memories disappear if they
are not supported. Without doubt, I am certain that many African governments maintain
these slave houses and include in their school curriculum in the teaching of
slavery and slave trade to prevent fade memories. In a related manner, this has
help many people especially African American to traced back the root of their
ancestry. For example, people like Alex Haley believe to be connected to Kunta
Kinte original from Juffure known as Juffure Island in the Gambia. Juffure Island,
houses one of the slave houses and served as shipping point from the Gambia
during the slave trade.
Consequently, place names are an important
part of our geographical and cultural environment. They identify geographical
entities of different kinds and represent irreplaceable cultural values that
are of vital significance to people's sense of well-being and feeling.
Therefore commemorating places and names are of major social importance to our
society.
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| Slaves with their Masters and Guards |
The above pictures are
unit houses within the slave houses where slave are held before they are
transported through the sea to Europe then to America. These houses are very
tiny and hundreds of slaves have been kept in one place. Before shiping most of
them, many died and some who are very
strong slave and worried become weak to resist been taken away. According to a historian
narrator in during my visit to Goree Island in Senegal, some of the slave
houses in Gambia are meant for resisting slave so that they are kept in dungeon
as a form of punishment and to weaken them. Cresswell (2004) suggested that “these places
have the power to force hidden and painful memories to the forefront throught
their material existence” (Cresswell 2004, p. 89). In a similar manner, these slave
houses serves as a historical landscapes in many African countries are part of
African geographical landscape that produce and reproduction of knowledge of
the past history and these memories will ever stay with the continent. Remarkably, these houses does not only
produce knowledge but it also serve a tourism development for countries and
heritage culture which is part of our socity. It serve as a knoweldege center
for thousands of visitors world wide every year. Visitors learn the heritage
culture, and the history of slavery that was done from the global scale and its
effects.
Thus, this week reading also reminded me
of the historical geography seminar I did during my first semester. The reading
on Place, Memory, and Conflict, the important of place naming associated with
the civil right movement that brought massive memorial infrastructures in the
US South. After the death of Martin Luther King, Jr., memory works was untaken
across the many US towns and cities. These monumental works has change the
landscape of the US south. The construction of museums, monuments, parks,
streets naming, and libraries associated with the civil rights movement and the
king. This landscape produce memories of the past in the US history. According
to Dwyer (2000), public history deepens engagement of social history since it
represents a shift in “landscapes for the legacy of American public history”
from the “commemoration elite individuals and their homes and toward the
remembrance of more mundane, socially representative lives and landscapes”
(Dwyer, 2000, p.661). The result of all this ongoing “memory work” is a rich,
complicated landscape comprising of traditional expressions of public memory
(e.g., monuments and museums, murals and historic plaques) as well as more
routine elements such as street signs and community centers (Dwyer 2000, P. 661).
Dwyer (2000) also argues that the purpose of producing this memorial landscape,
the public portrayal of American history has been change. I believed the
question is how these memories are been produces, what it represent, how do we
use them to create knowledge of past in order to commemorate the past history.
In addition, Cresswell (2004) argues that “place have many memories and the
question of which memories are promoted and which conclude to be memories at
all is a political question” ( p. 89).
Therefore, the argument Dwyer is putting
that, there are significant contradictions and exclusions in the memorial
landscape’s treatment of the civil rights era. Because of “these exclusion and
inclusion some question have to put in the creation of memorial landscapes”
(Dwyer 2000, p.662). Dwyer further
argues that memories landscapes associated with civil right movement are major
heritage attractions, and the tourism industry is responsible in part for their
development and promotion. In addition the “growing consensus as to what the
movement stood for and who the heroes were certain elements that are important
to look into” (Dwyer 2000, p.662). Dwyer further posited that the manner in
which
“the
role women play in the civil rights movement was overwhelming most of whom are
working class activist, however, attention given over to the “Great Man”
paradigm of history that focuses more on leaders than on organizers or
participants and valorizes the national at the expense of the local” (Dwyer
2000, p. 663).
Therefore the above assertions are in
contrast with Cresswell (2004) argument that “people with different interests
have to make their case for preservation and what to be included or excluded,
thus a new kind of place is born out of a contested process of interpretation”
(p..90). In conclusion, “the connection between place and memory and the contested
nature have to be the object of component of geographical research” (Cresswell
2004, p.91)
References
For
more information on slave trade in Gambia and Senegal read Barry, B. (1998)
book
Barry, B. (1998). Senegambia and the
Atlantic slave trade. Cambridge University Press.
Cresswell,
Tim. 2004. Place: A Short Introduction. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. Pp.
85-93.
Owen
Dwyer, “Interpreting the Civil Rights Movement: Place, Memory, and
Conflict.” The Professional Geographer
52 (4) (2000): 660-671.
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