This Wednesday, May 10, the exhibition "Slavery, Norman memories" opens in three cities in the region: Le Havre (Seine-Maritime), Rouen (Seine-Maritime) and Honfleur (Calvados). A date that obviously owes nothing to chance since since 2006, it commemorates everywhere in France "the memories of the slave trade, slavery and their abolition".
But this year, a new step has been taken in the region. This is indeed the first time that a work of such magnitude, recognized as being of national interest by the Ministry of Culture, is presented to the public in these three cities, each of which played a role in this Atlantic trade. More than 500 ships left the Normandy coast, deporting nearly 150,000 people to the West Indies, to take part in this triangular trade that reached its peak in the mid-eighteenth century. An official figure probably even below reality.
An exhibition that will leave traces
"We can say that Rouen was the financial stronghold, Le Havre, the port where the majority of ships were armed and from where they departed, and Honfleur, the "rescue" port with an important activity related to shipyards," explains Emmanuelle Riand, co-curator of the exhibition and director of the art and history museums of Le Havre where it hosts until November 10, within the Hôtel Dubocage-de-Bléville, "Fortunes et servitudes", Le Havre's part of this ambitious triptych.
Some engravings give some terrible snapshots of life aboard ships where captives are considered mere DR merchandise.
The intimate atmosphere of the place, completely redesigned for the occasion, lends itself to the discovery of this aspect of the history of France so sensitive. Municipal teams from museums, libraries and archives have collected hundreds of documents and objects to evoke this painful past. In eight chapters imagined at the height of men, it is a story too long unknown that scrolls backwards: from its origins in Africa and these captives exchanged for cargoes of "junk" to the port of Le Havre and its merchants who get rich, through the West Indies and its plantations... Not to mention this terrible crossing of the ocean in appalling conditions. "Everything is recorded in the logbook of each ship by the captain who is responsible for the fate of these men, women and even children that he must transport safely to port by guaranteeing their market value," says Emmanuelle Riand.
It is undoubtedly these pages that mark the spirits the most. Every death, every event, every damage is detailed. Even the movements of revolt that sometimes hit some boats. There are also those sales accounts, carefully handwritten, on which, line after line, the fate of each captive appears, reduced to a simple sum of money. Some engravings provide some snapshots of these journeys that abolitionists chose to document. In their magazines, the fate of these tens of thousands of Africans shackled at the bottom of the hold is highlighted, drawings in support, to shock the consciences of those who prefer to close their eyes.
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Because even at the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century, they are few to oppose this system, definitively abolished in 1848, which benefits a large part of the local population. "In Le Havre, Father Dicquemare is one of the few. He has very harsh words about slavery, living conditions on plantations," says Emmanuelle Riand. "Bernardin de Saint-Pierre also. His travels, especially in Mauritius, his writings attest to this. Just like his best-known work, Paul et Virginie, on which we have chosen to close this exhibition." An exhibition that will leave traces because even when it is completed, two rooms of the Hotel Dubocage-de-Bléville will now be dedicated to the memory of slavery, so that this past does not fall into oblivion.
Opening hours and information about esclavage-mémoires-normandes.fr