ABSTRACT
The study of the history of the French colonies in the Caribbean since the suppression of slavery would be ill designed if it did not adequately take into account the mythmaking that occurred after the second abolition of slavery in 1848. These historical myths had a profound influence on the way history was written, transmitted, and subsequently commemorated. In the twentieth century several commemorations supported the past mythmaking, the distortions of history. The celebration of the tercentenary of French colonies in the Caribbean in 1935 and the commemoration of the centenary of the abolition of slavery in 1948 were high moments of this mythmaking enterprise. In 1998, on the 150th anniversary of the 1848 abolition, began a sense of awareness of the wide gaps in the knowledge of the history of the slave trade, slavery, and the abolitions on the part of a nonspecialist public and the teaching profession. Historians, who since the 1960s have been exploiting new sources and raising new questions, have not yet bridged the gap that separates the results of their research from the various means of disseminating knowledge. This has heralded a long period of transition and debate, often ambiguous and contradictory.
