The association The Shackles of Memory  offers an exhibition comprised of 13 panels richly illustrated about the slave trade and slavery themes.  The exhibition is suitable for students from lower school to high school, as well as the general public.

On December 12, 2004 the Haitian National Pantheon Museum inaugurated an exhibition:  From Ayiti de Haiti, Liberty Won, commemorating 200 years of Haitian independence so as to highlight the achievements which permitted a nation to be born.

Haiti and it’s history, so often told in terms of conquests!  These conquests which, in general, were accomplished in the name of occidental rationalism and Catholicism.  At the end of the 15th century, Ayiti was conquered by the Spaniards who submitted the Tainos (the first inhabitants of the island) to servitude.  1697 legalized the departure of the Spaniards and the installation of the French.

From the 16th century, captured Africans were transported as slaves towards this part of the Americas.  During the 17th century this forced capture increased.  By the 18th century, the slave and triangle trades were at their peak.

Resistance to this exploitation of man by man did not take much time to organize.  Santo Domingo was it’s bastion.  Leaders emerge, opening the way to emancipation and paving the road to the anti-slavery revolution.  On January 1, 1804 the general liberty of the slaves is proclaimed and slavery is annuled.

Mrs. Marie-Lucie Vendryes, former General Director of the Haitian National Pantheon Museum,  took over the exhibition, at the request of the Shackles of Memory, so that it could be presented in France (in Nantes and the surrounding area), Guadeloupe and, we hope, throughout schools in Haiti.  This exhibition received the financial support of the French and Haitian Embassies and the Regional General Counsel of Pays-de-la-Loire for its presentation in this area.  It is composed of 31 panels printed on soft tarpaulin.  Also written in both French and Creole, its contents offer a short trip through the heart of the events that led Ayiti to become Santo-Domingo, the colonial jewel of France, towards a free and independent nation:  Haiti.

For more information please see the attached technical data sheet (English and French versions).