Bahamas: Bicentenary of Abolition of Slave Trade  · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

Why should the 2007 bicentenary of the abolition of the slave trade by Great Britain be commemorated?  According to Nicolette Bethel, “the short answer is that it marks the beginning of a process of emancipation that involved all parties — the slaveowners as well as the slaves. The long answer is that Abolition created a culture that provided the foundations of the one in which we live today. If we begin with the question about who enslaved whom and when that ended and who ended it, we begin in the wrong place.”