Session Abstract

As part of the workshop "Representing the Irrepresentable: Narratives and Visual Images of Slavery, Forced Labor, and Genocide," this panel explores narratives on slavery and colonization. By examining official discourses by colonial authorities and testimonies of former enslaved individual, the three papers explore how similar patterns of slavery and forced labor persisted in Sub-Saharan African during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In the first paper, Schwarz explores the life stories and experiences of liberated Africans in Sierra Leone. She examines narratives and testimonies describing the traumatic experiences lived by these recaptives who although “liberated” continued working in a system in which working conditions were similar to slavery. In the second paper, Alexander Keese looks at the various discourses developed by colonial authorities who attempted to redefine forced labor in West Central and South Central Africa after its official abolition in 1945. Then Alice Bellagamba examines how the stigma of slave ancestry survived in contemporary communities of The Gambia and Senegal, even though slavery was abolished in these regions more than one century ago. Focusing on different regions of Africa from the nineteenth century to the present day the panel shows that the study of testimonies, narratives, colonial discourses, and oral accounts is a powerful means to bring to life the experiences of men and women who lived under slavery or performed forced labor during the colonial period. Despite the end of slavery and the Atlantic slave trade, official discourses and testimonies are one more indicator on how European colonial rule in Sub-Saharan Africa promoted continuity regarding the ways labor was organized. As a result, descendants of former slaves and descendants of colonized individuals continue carrying the marks of slavery and the colonial past.