Key West will join a global remembrance event to commemorate the International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and Its Abolition.
The Key West ceremony takes place Sunday, Aug. 27 from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Key West African Cemetery at Higgs Beach.
Key West’s geographic location made it the nation’s closest point to the human trafficking routes known as the Middle Passage (or so-called transatlantic “slave trade”) to the Americas and the Caribbean. Its position along the critical shipping lanes of the Florida Straits also accounted for the city having multiple direct connections to this horrific chapter of history.
For example, after further importation of African captives into the U.S. was outlawed in 1808, Key West would serve as a vital stopover for ships engaged in the “domestic slave trade” routes from the Upper to the Lower South.
Remarkably, in spite of being amid this highly profitable but perverted commerce, Key West’s role would prove most often to be that of a haven and refuge for Africans rescued from slave trafficking, rather than a port of entry for captives to be sold on auction blocks into life sentences of hard labor in the service of human greed.
Such was the case of the survivors of the 1827 wreck of the illegal Spanish slaver Guerrero off Key Largo, who were rescued by salvors and brought to Key West. Even more notably in 1860, on the eve of the Civil War, 1,432 Africans aboard three American-owned slave ships bound for Cuba were captured by the U.S. Navy and brought to Key West, where their detention for 12 weeks garnered national headlines and heightened the increasingly acrimonious debate in Congress about slavery.
During that detention, Key West’s citizens and government officials distinguished themselves by their generosity, providing food, clothing, blankets, and hastily built housing for the refugees.
In spite of the community’s best efforts, 295 of the Africans, mostly children, succumbed to the illnesses and horrors they had endured during the ocean crossing, and were buried at the site of the African Cemetery, where the International Day observance will be held.
Key West’s connections also include the discovery of the 1700 wreck of the English slave ship Henrietta Marie, the dramatic “domestic slave trade” saga of Mr. Sandy Cornish, and nationally known exhibits and digital archives at the Mel Fisher Maritime Museum, among others.
The International Day of Remembrance commemorates the start of the 1791 Haitian Revolution, which was fought and won primarily by captured and enslaved African laborers and their allies.
The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural organization (UNESCO) declared the International Day in 1998. It was first celebrated in Haiti before spreading to global recognition.
“This International Day is intended to inscribe the tragedy of the slave trade in the memory of all peoples. It should offer an opportunity for collective consideration of the historic causes, the methods and the consequences of this tragedy, and for an analysis of the interactions to which it has given rise among Africa, Europe, the Americas and the Caribbean,” states the UNESCO website.
The Key West Remembrance will include prayers, history, performances and an open-mic “Village Talk.” Admission is free and open to the public. For information, call 305-766-4922.
