ABSTRACT
After the 1960s, the old representations of Great Emancipators and enslaved men and women as passive victims who submissively accepted their status were gradually replaced by a new image of slaves as freedom fighters. This new trend, I argue, follows a transformation that is much like the various manifestations visible in the public memory of the Holocaust, which, since the end of the Second World War, started featuring a growing number of monuments paying homage to men and women who organized resistance movements in the ghettos and Nazi camps. Moreover, the emergence of slave rebels in public memory is associated with three changes that occurred during the second half of the twentieth century: first, the transnational movements for civil rights led by populations of African descent in Europe, Africa, and the Americas; second, the independence and creation of new nations, especially in the Caribbean, whose new national identities were closely connected to the image of freedom fighters; third, the growing number of scholarly studies focusing on slave resistance and agency. To underscore the elements that led to the growing visibility of slave rebels, this chapter explores public representations of loyal and submissive slaves, both in Brazil and the United States, by paying particular attention to the representations of Nanny, Uncle Tom, Pai João, and Slave Isaura, who despite their subservient attitudes were not totally submissive to the slave system. Further, I show how the images of these enslaved men and women were gradually replaced by the images of slave and freed black fighters. Especially starting in the 1960s, several monuments and activities commemorating slave rebels or maroons were developed in different countries of Latin America and the Caribbean, including Haiti, Mexico, Jamaica, Guyana, Colombia, Cuba, and Venezuela. I argue that these initiatives associated resistance against slavery with the fight against European colonialism and US imperialism. Finally, I examine the memorialization of Zumbi, by showing how today he is represented as a national hero in Brazil.
