History must be re-written: Revisionist ambitions among West African slave descendants

The chapter addresses the silence that characterizes African domestic slavery in West Africa. Whereas the trans-Atlantic slave trade is remembered and commemorated, domestic slavery has long remained a taboo topic. The authors examine the ways in which African domestic slavery is disregarded and the possible reasons for the silence surrounding this issue. It is argued that both historical continuities and ideological reasons explain this silence. The authors invite to pay attention to rumours, gossip and everyday situations in which the centrality of the slave past comes to the fore. Finally, they point out how the silence has been broken little by little over the past decade by African anti-slavery activists who aim to revise history in order to assert their rights as citizens in the present.