Influences
Slavery Trails has a lot of influences but one that is important conceptually to note is the Stolpersteine in Berlin. When I visited Germany with my wife in 2017 I saw the Stolpersteine in Berlin. The sculptor and conceptual artist Gunter Demnig had created physical marks documenting the horrors of the Holocast. Right away I thought could America do something like this surrounding the subject of slavery? I realized that the Stolpersteine was both a document of historical record and public artwork focusing on memorializing Holocast victims in Germany.
Stolpersteine (stumbling stones) is a project of the artist Gunter Demnig. The project commemorates people who were persecuted by the Nazis between 1933 and 1945. Stolpersteine are concrete blocks measuring 10x10cm which are laid into the pavement in front of the last voluntarily chosen places of residence of the victims of the Nazis. Their names and fate are engraved into a brass plate on the top of each Stolperstein.- https://www.stolpersteine-berlin.de/en/node/1
The Stolpersteine was brought to my attention by my German friend and he assisted us in finding my wife’s relatives Stolpersteine in downtown Berlin. - Marcus Brown
Below are some additional resources that directly connect to the Slavery Trails project.
The MeasuringWorth Foundation
New Orleans and the Domestic Slave Trade THE HISTORICAL MARKER DATABASE
Location: Esplanade Ave & Chartres St New Orleans, LA 70116
(front side) In 1808, the US Congress abolished the international slave trade, contributing to a significant increase in the domestic slave trade, or the trafficking of human beings within the boundaries of the United States. During the fifty-seven years that followed, an estimated 2 million men, women, and children were separated from families and forcibly moved by slave traders and owners. The largest numbers were brought from the Upper South to the Lower South via overland and water routes. New Orleans was the center of this trade, resulting in more than fifty documented sites. More enslaved people were sold here from slave pens, public squares, government buildings, church properties, city taverns, private residences, auction houses, and even ballrooms of luxury hotels than anywhere else in the US.
(back side)
Within a one-block radius of this marker were the New Orleans offices, showrooms, and slave pens of over a dozen slave trading firms, including Franklin, Armfield, and Ballard, Hope New Orleans and the Domestic Slave Trade Marker (<i>back side</i>) image. Click for full size. Photographed By Cosmos Mariner, May 11, 2018 2. New Orleans and the Domestic Slave Trade Marker (back side) Hull Slatter, John Hagan, Joseph Bruin, and others. Their networks, which undergirded the antebellum economy, stretched from Norfolk, Baltimore, Louisville, and Memphis to New Orleans, Natchez, Galveston, Pensacola, and beyond. Learn more
Want to get to know more slave trade sites in New Orleans?
NEW ORLEANS SLAVE TRADE MARKER TOUR
More Information
Before the Civil War, New Orleans Was the Center of the U.S. Slave Trade Untroubled by their actions
