ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates how museums marking the bicentenary sought to represent the scenes of horror and atrocity that punctuated the history of the transatlantic slave trade. Through the analysis of a series of exhibitions from both local and national museums, the modes of depicting the trauma of enslavement, transportation, loss and brutality will be detailed. This will enable the identification of ways in which the use of concentrated spaces of atrocity impact upon the visitor. In 2007 museums were mindful of the need to avoid accusations of sensationalism or voyeurism, nevertheless, many institutions utilized the representation of atrocity as a means to directly engage visitors and to create an empathetic or imaginative link with individuals in the past.
