ABSTRACT
In December 2005 the government of Jamaica established the Jamaica National Bicentenary Committee, ‘to plan and implement meaningful activities’ for 2007, to mark the bicentenary of the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade, especially mindful of ‘the impact of transatlantic slavery on the history and experience of our ancestors and on the majority of the population’. The events implemented by the committee were to coincide with international initiatives to mark the bicentenary. A robust series of activities were to be staged, including several public forums across the island, the installation and planned installation of several monuments in honour of the ‘ancestors’, major exhibitions on slavery by two of the museums of the Institute of Jamaica and a Funeral Rites ceremony at the Kingston Harbour. Yet, the planning of these events was not without problems. In this chapter, I use the staging of these bicentenary events to explore the ways in which race and history shape the Jamaican political present, even as the memory works themselves are employed for political purposes.
