WaPo Features African Diaspora Heritage Trail
The Washington Post has featured Bermuda’s African Diaspora Heritage Trail in an article titled “Bermuda trail brings island’s Black heritage to the fore.”
The Washington Post website said, “It was a blistering hot day in June 1730 when the enslaved woman Sally Bassett was burned at the stake at the foot of Crow Lane in Hamilton, Bermuda. Her alleged crime: conspiring to poison her granddaughter’s enslavers. On the way to her execution, Bassett reportedly called to the gathering crowd, “No use you hurrying folks, there’ll be no fun till I get there.”
“Bassett then became a folk hero, embraced by free Black people and enslaved people throughout the Caribbean as a symbol of willful defiance to White oppression. A 10-foot bronze statue unveiled in 2008 in downtown Hamilton commemorates her life, Bermuda’s first official memorial to someone who was enslaved.
“Today, the statue is one of more than 50 “Sites of Memory” on Bermuda’s African Diaspora Heritage Trail. Created in 2001 as part of the UNESCO Slave Route Project, the trail is part of an international effort to document the bitter history of slavery by telling the stories of enslaved people across the globe.
“For six days, my wife, Roxanne, and I, along with her sister and brother-in-law, followed the trail along the approximately 24-mile length of this fishhook-shaped island. We planned our itinerary from lists of the most notable sites, as identified and described by the Bermuda Tourism Authority and the African Diaspora Heritage Trail Bermuda Foundation. The 14 stops included museums, statues, parks, churches, graveyards, nature preserves and private homes.”
You can read the full story here on The Washington Post.
