Mémorial de l'abolition de l'esclavage (Nantes, France)

Mémorial de l'abolition de l'esclavage (Nantes, France)

Subject (Topic)
Abolition of slavery
France--Nantes
Slave ships
Slavery--France
Transatlantic slave trade

Subject (Object Type)
Memorial

Erected as a space to remember the atrocities of slavery and to commemorate all past and present efforts to resist it, the memorial was constructed in Nantes—the former center of the French slave trade. Designed by an artist and an architect, it features an open-air staircase that leads to an underground space marked by strong geometric lines and a raw aesthetic. A long passageway, lined with subtle lighting showcases a series of wall panels that highlight key historical moments leading to the abolition of the slave trade. The memorial's clean, minimalist design invites quiet reflection.

For an in-depth discussion of the memorial, see the website of the Mémorial de l'abolition de l'esclavage Nantes: https://memorial.nantes.fr/en/discovery/.

Wodiczko, Krzysztof (artist), 1943-
Bonder, Julian (architect), 1962-

Photograph: Wikimedia Commons

March 25, 2012

Consultants Thomas Long, Design Collaboration & Visualization, Graphic Design; Snehal Intwala, Nicholas Capone, James Shen, Ryan McClain, Bill Panasuik, Emmanuelle Chérel (Research); Patrick Charles (Design; Technical Consultant); Maximo Rohm, Ron Henderson, Michael Blier, (Landscape Consultants – USA). Glass Consultants: James Carpenter, James Carpenter Design Associates (preliminary phase); RFR Engineurs, Paris – Philippe Bompas & Nicolo Baldassini (development & construction). Historic Advisors: David Blight, Gilder Lehrman Center on Slavery, Resistance & Abolition, Yale University; Sven Beckert, Harvard University; Kirk Savage, Pittsburgh University; Vince Brown, Duke University. Ville Nantes– Nantes Métropole: Jean-Marc Ayrault, Former Député-Maire de Nantes / Current French Prime Minister; Yannick Guin, conseiller municipal; Octave Cestor, conseiller municipal; Marie-Hélène Jouzeau, directrice Patrimoine et tourisme; Hervé Guégan, chef de projets, Atelier urbain, Nantes Métropole; Jean-Pierre Brindel, directeur Atelier urbain, Nantes Métropole; Aurélie Roger, directeur projets Atelier urbain, Nantes Métropole. Maitre D’Oeuvre: Arcadis Engineurs, Gildas Legall, Bruno Vasseur, Francois Bailly; Roulleau Architectes, Nantes – Michel Roulleau, Jean Marie Beslou. Construction: General Construction: DLE Ouest, Nicholas Boterf; Glass Wall: Polar, Torino, Paolo Cherasco; Inserts: Atelier Barrois, Brioude, Emmanuel Barrois; Lighting: Citelum, Nantes; Landscape: ISIS Espaces Vertes, Nantes; Steel/Metals: CMR, St. Nazaire, Nantes

Château des Ducs de Bretagne, Musée d’Histoire de Nantes 4, place Marc Elder, 44000 Nantes, France

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Building and Structures

Quai de la Fosse, Passerelle Victor-Schoelcher, 44000 Nantes, France

Glass plaque with Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 4:
No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.

Glass plaques with the word "freedom" translated into 47 languages:
Freedom (English)
Freiheit (German)
Libertad (Spanish)
Vrijheid (Dutch)
Liberdade (Portuguese)
Frihed (Danish)
Frihet (Norwegian)
Свобода (Russian)
Vryheid (Swedish)
Huriya (Arabic)
Yεrεma honron ya (Bambara)
Fכundi (Baoulé)
Libèté (Haitian creole)
Libèté (Cuban creole)
Libèté (Jamaican creole)
Libèté (Barbadian creole)
Libèté (Louisiana creole)
Liberdade (Brazilian creole)
Liberte (Reunionnais creole)
Liberte (Mauritian creole)
Libèté (Guadeloupean creole)
Libèté (Guyanese creole)
Hכrכnya / Hôrônya (Diola)
ablɔɖe (Ewé (Togo)
Fahodzi (Fang Cameroon)
mɛɖesusi jijɛ (Fongbe)
Vryheid (Khoïsan)
Kimpwanza (Kikongo)
Ufolo (Kimbundu)
Fahafahana (Malagasy)
Hכrכnya / Hôrônya (Malinké)
Foroyaa (Mandinka)
Hכrכnya / Hôrônya (Senufo)
jeg a xoox of (Serer)
Xornimo (Somali)
Hכrכnya / Hôrônya (Susu)
Uhuru (Swahili)
Ahofadi (Twi)
Lipanda (Vili)
Mom sa bop (Wolof)
Inkululeko (Xhosa)
òmìniraàyèìjælá ìlúayélujára (Yoruba)
Inkululeko (Zulu)
Yancìì (Hausa)
fridɔm (Krio)
lɛgbɔɔɓa (Kpelewo)

90-meter glass plate wall with quotations (Grand Passage):
Derek Walcott, "Memory," in The Sea is History, 1979
"Where are your monuments, your battles, martyrs?
Where is your tribal memory? Sirs,
in that gray vault. The sea. The sea
has locked them up. The sea is History."

Où sont vos monuments, vos batailles, martyrs?
Oú est votre mémoire tribale? Messieurs,
dans ce gris coffre-fort. La mer.
La mer les a enfermés. La mer est l’Histoire.

Mary Prince, The History of Mary Prince, a West Indian slave, related by herself, 1831 (Bermudes)
"I then saw my sisters led forth, and sold to different owners; so that we had not the sad satisfaction of being partners in bondage. When the sale was over, my mother hugged and kissed us, and mourned over us, begging of us to keep up a good heart, and do our duty to our new masters. It was a sad parting; one went one way, one another, and our poor mother went home with nothing."

Puis j’ai vu mes soeurs être emmenées et vendues à différents propriétaires pour que nous n’ayons pas la maigre consolation d’être partenaires dans l’esclavage. À a fin de la vente, ma mère nous a prises dans ses bras, embrassées, pleurées et suppliées de garder un cœur blanc et d’obéir à nos nouveaux maîtres. Ce furent des adieux déchirants; nous sommes parties chacune de notre côté, et notre pauvre maman est rentrée seule á la maison."

Victor Schrelcher, Des colonies françaises, 1842 (France)
“Si, comme le disent les colons, on ne peut cultiver les Antilles qu’avec des esclaves, il faut renoncer aux Antilles. La raison d’utilité de la servitude pour la conservation des colonies est de la politique de brigands. Une chose criminelle ne doit pas être necessaire. Périssent les colonies, plutôt qu’un principe.”

Quotations include the words of Paul Laraque (1994), Adam Smith (1776), Frederick Douglass (1845), Toussaint Louverture (1793), Olaudah Equiano (1789), Abraham Lincoln (1863), Olympe de Gouges (1788), Léger-Félicité Sonthonax (1793), Bob Marley (1980), Frantz Fanon (1952), Axel Gauvin (1983), Abbé Grégoire (1822), Martin Luther King (1963), Aimé Césaire (1939), Toni Morrison (1987), Nelson Mandala (1994), Louis Timagène (1844), Maryse Romanos (1998), Louis Delgrès (1802), and Léopold Sedar Senghor (1977). For a booklet with all of the quotations etched into the glass wall at the Mémorial, see https://memorial.nantes.fr/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/citations_francais.pdf.

Chronology of Abolition (west end of Grand Passage):
1777: Abolition of slavery in Vermont.
1780: Progressive emancipation of slaves in Pennsylvania.
1783: Progressive emancipation of slaves in Massachusetts and New Hampshire. Progressive emancipation of slaves in Rhode Island and Connecticut.
August, 26 1789: Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, France.
1793: The commissioner of the Republic, Monsieur Sonthonax, abolished slavery in the French possession of Saint-Domingue.
1794: The Convention voted the decree of the abolition of slavery, extending Sonthonax’s abolition to the other French colonies.
1802: Reinstatement of the slave trade by Napoleon Bonaparte in compliance with the laws existing before 1789.
1803: Abolition of the slave trade in Denmark.
1804: Abolition of slavery in Haiti.
1806: Britain banned the slave trade for British subjects.
1807: The United States banned the importation of captives and slaves. Britain banned the slave trade on African coasts. Abolition of slavery in Prussia.
1808: The United States banned the slave trade.
1814: Holland banned the slave trade.
1815: During the Vienna Congress, the principal European powers (Austrian Empire, Great Britain, France, Portugal, Russia, and Sweden) made a commitment to end the slave trade. But the practice persisted undercover. During the Hundred Days, Napoleon 1st signed a decree banning the slave trade.
1817: French Law abolished the slave trade. It was reinstated on April 25, 1827 and on February 2, 1831.
1821: Peru: all descendants of slaves born after this date were free, progressive emancipation of those born earlier and prohibition of the slave trade.
1822: Abolition of slavery in Santo Domingo. The state of Liberia was founded in West Africa by an American Colonization Company for the resettlement of former slaves.
1823: Abolition of slavery in Chile.
1824: Abolition of slavery in Costa Rica, Honduras, Panama, Belize, Salvador, Guatemala.
1826: Abolition of slavery in Bolivia.
1827: Second French law banning the slave trade.
1829: Abolition of slavery in Mexico.
1830: Abolition of slavery in Uruguay.
1833-1838: Enactment of the Abolition bill that provides for a progressive abolition of slavery in the British colonies (West Indies, British Guiana, Mauritius and India).
1836: Complete abolition of slavery in the British colonies. Abolition of slavery in Nicaragua.
1840 and 1843: Global anti-slavery convention in London.
1842: Abolition of slavery in Uruguay and Paraguay.
1846: Abolition of slavery in Tunisia.
1846-1848: Abolition of slavery in the Danish Virgin Island colonies. Saint-Thomas, Saint-Jean, Sainte-Croix.
1847: Abolition of slavery in the Swedish colony of Saint-Barthélemy.
1848: The abolition of slavery was decreed on April 27, 1848 in the French colonies (Martinique, Guadeloupe, Guiana, The Reunion Island).
1850: Official abolition of the slave trade in Brazil. However it continued illegally.
1851: Abolition of slavery in Columbia and Ecuador.
1853: Abolition of slavery in Argentina.
1854: Abolition of slavery in Venezuela, Jamaica, and Peru.
1861: Ban of serfdom in Russia.
1863: Abolition of slavery in the Dutch colonies in the Caribbean and Indonesia.
1865: Enactment of the 13th Amendment banning slavery in the United States.
1866: Spanish decree banning the slave trade.
1869: Abolition of slavery in Portuguese colonies.
1873: Abolition of slavery in Puerto Rico, a Spanish colony at the time.
1876: Abolition of slavery in Turkey.
1885: Adoption of measures against slavery in Africa at the Berlin Conference.
1886: Abolition of slavery in Cuba.
1888: Effective abolition of slavery in Brazil.

For the full chronology, see the website of the Mémorial de l'abolition de l'esclavage Nantes: https://memorial.nantes.fr/en/key-dates-in-the-chronology-of-abolitions/#contenu.

Concrete; Corten steel; Glass; Wood

"Discover the Memorial." Mémorial de l'abolition de l'esclavage Nantes. Accessed December 19, 2025. https://memorial.nantes.fr/en/.

Furuto, Alison. "Memorial to the Abolition of Slavery / Wodiczko + Bonder." July 26, 2012. ArchDaily. Accessed December 19, 2025. https://www.archdaily.com/256516/memorial-to-the-abolition-of-slavery-wodiczko-bonder.

Frith, Nicola. "The Art of Reconciliation: The Memorial to Abolition of Slavery in Nantes." In At the Limits of Memory: Legacies of Slavery in the Francophone World, eds. Nicola Frith and Kate Hodson, 68-89. Liverpool University Press, 2015.

CIPDH-UNESCO. "Memorial to the Abolition of Slavery." Memorias Situadas: Sites of Memory Related to Serious Human Rights Violations. Accessed February 10, 2026. https://www.cipdh.gob.ar/memorias-situadas/en/lugar-de-memoria/memorial-de-la-abolicion-de-la-esclavitud/.

Renée Ater

Building and Structure