Victims or Victors? Exploring America?s Slavery Roots

A large part of the tourism literature has focused on the phenomenon of slavery tourism, or the visitation of sites related to the Transatlantic Slave Trade. In the U.S. South, former plantation homes are popular sites of visitation, albeit very few studies have looked at African Americans' experiences there. The purpose of this qualitative dissertation is to understand both the politics of representation of slavery at slavery related sites (production side) and the different ways African American visitors make sense of these sites (consumption side).

The present study uses the case of the African Burial Ground National Monument, a former cemetery for enslaved and free Africans living in colonial New Amsterdam (today New York City) and now a National Park in Lower Manhattan, which exhibits a complex combination of "darkness" and "sacredness." The site exposes the public to its contentious process of development and reveals that African American visitors have mixed perceptions of slavery and the way it should be remembered and represented on site (Africans as victims or as victors), as well as a range of motivations to visit, experiences and emotions attached to the site.

This research illustrates how slavery tourism sites choose to represent slavery, whether from the perspective of the White slaveholders, as it has traditionally been done, or from the perspective of enslaved Africans, as it is done at the African Burial Ground. Whatever the strategy they choose, this study demonstrates that there is a process through which these sites go in order to create the final product to be presented in the brochures, tour narratives, and exhibits. This study illustrates how visitors' relationship to the site influences their experience there, including the physical, spiritual, and psychological acts they exercise (volunteering, praying, pouring libations, communicating with the ancestors, etc.), and the meanings they attach to the site visited, whether it is pride, sadness, anger, or peace.

The significant insights from this study contribute to the current literature on slavery tourism, particularly the one on African American visitors' experiences, and suggest managerial propositions for the National Park Service and other institutions offering interpretive programs on slavery.