The (Re)construction of the Memory of Slavery and the Slave Trade: Bimbia in Cameroon Between Silence,Rehabilitation,and Cultural Dialogue

Abstract

This study highlights the process of rehabilitation of the memory of enslavement and the slave trade in Bimbia in the English-speaking southwest of Cameroon. Caught in complex colonial and postcolonial dynamics, Bimbia is part of a historical process governed by both through silence and forgetting. By anchoring the analysis in the perspective of the anthropology of memory, the study shows popular dynamics of rehabilitation and valorization of the memory of enslavement and the slave trade in Bimbia. The research poses the question of the transmission of traumatic memory, silence and forgetting and shows that in addition to the rites of social reintegration and traditional dances, cultural dialogue is symbolized in Bimbia by the attribution of local surnames as well as honorary titles (in the Cameroonian and Bantu tradition) to African Americans who increasingly come on pilgrimage in the footsteps of their ancestors.

Plain language summary

The (re)construction of the memory of slavery and the slave trade: Bimbia in Cameroon between silence, rehabilitation, and cultural dialogue

This study highlights the process of rehabilitation of the memory of enslavement and the slave trade in Bimbia in the English-speaking southwest of Cameroon. Caught in complex colonial and postcolonial dynamics, Bimbia is part of a historical process governed by both through silence and forgetting. By anchoring the analysis in the perspective of the anthropology of memory, the study shows popular dynamics of rehabilitation and valorization of the memory of enslavement and the slave trade in Bimbia. The research poses the question of the transmission of traumatic memory, silence and forgetting and shows that in addition to the rites of social reintegration and traditional dances, cultural dialogue is symbolized in Bimbia by the attribution of local surnames as well as honorary titles (in the Cameroonian and Bantou tradition) to African Americans who increasingly come on pilgrimage in the footsteps of their ancestors.

Keywords

memory of enslavement former slave port of Bimbia Cameroon silence and forgetting rehabilitation and popular mediation cultural dialogue

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