Every year on August 23, people around the world commemorate the slave trade and call for its abolition.
In the present-day nations of Haiti and the Dominican Republic, a rebellion that would eventually result in the abolishment of the transatlantic slave trade started on this day in 1791.
One of the last slave marketplaces in the world wasn’t shut down until over a century later, in Zanzibar, in 1873.
A statue depicting five slaves chained together inside of a pit now stands where the market’s previous whipping post once stood.
As a “memory for the slaves,” Clara Sornas, a Scandinavian artist, erected the sculpture in 1998. It serves as a reminder of the horrors endured by those who were caught up in the East African slave trade.
Near the East African Slave Trade Exhibit, where visitors can walk through authentic underground slave quarters, sits the memorial. Before being sold at auction, dozens of men, women, and children were crowded into cellars. The holding areas lacked ventilation, had no restrooms, and had low ceilings. Many of the slaves starved and were chained for days on end, suffocating inside them.
