1 Introduction

Under French colonial rule, Saint-Domingue—now Haiti—was the largest sugar producer and richest colony in the New World thanks to the labor of enslaved Africans. The dynamics of the social condition of the enslaved Africans in the colony spurred a revolution that culminated in 1804. Archaeological ruins and historical remains, symbols of the imperial failure—mainly the remains of plantations, military fortresses, and industrial buildings—are distributed throughout the physical environment. According to Rachelle Charlier-Doucet, in recent years, remains from the Indigenous and colonial periods seem to have suffered what she calls “the great indifference to places of memory in Haiti” (Charlier-Doucet, 2001, p. 58). The latter have been subject to looting, reusing, and appropriation for various purposes by individuals and members of contemporary communities (Jean et al., 2021). This is despite a strong interest in Haiti’s historical heritage over the last three decades. This interest takes different forms, such as the establishment of new study programs, documentation, inventories, and scientific publications. However, it does not analyze in-depth the relationships that ordinary people develop with remains of the past. Therefore, there is a need to understand the role heritage as a link to (public) memory to understand certain aspects of the history and culture of Haitian society, as well as to approach heritage through narratives of social experience. In the foreword of the book L’habitation Sucrière Dominguoise (Lerebours, 2006, p. 8), Laënnec Hurbon poses the question of prevented transmission: “How could we [Haitians] transmit this heritage to future generations, if we continue in the strict sense to trample on these traces and places of memory without even suspecting it, and to trivialize them to the point of allowing them to be carried away stone by stone by vandalism for which we, as researchers, would be the first to be responsible, if we were to shut ourselves up in silence about this heritage?”.

This paper proposes to study how certain remains of colonial plantations are reused in Haiti (Jean, 2019; Jean et al., 2021; Michel, 2021). Ancient colonial plantations places are subject to a process of “patrimonialization” (Michel, 2021) that takes on diverse and variable forms in time as well as in space; the process first concerns vestiges, monuments, and objects, then extends to intangible elements such as cultural and cultic practices. Moving away from a colonial point of view, instead, we use the term “patrimonialization” here as a process that can center the different actors, places, local knowledge, and support that come into play in the process of transmission and in claims of heritage and memories. This process is multifaceted both from a diachronic and a synchronic point of view (Skounti, 2010, p. 20). At the heart of its reflections, this study explores the understanding of the contexts, stakes, and uses through which historical sites become heritage along with implications for archaeology.

Through this work, we wish to contribute to understanding these places that are rarely included in the recollections of the historical pathways of Haiti. This work is a continuation of Jacques De Cauna’s (2003; 2013) and Michel-Philippe Lerebours’s (2006) historical and anthropological work on the historicity of colonial habitations in Haiti. It is thus a matter of continuing the initiatives already begun so that the archaeology and sociology of memory and heritage, in connection with historical sites (not only in their materiality but also in their representations in various linguistic and artistic forms), might take shape and engender new questions and research.

2 Historical Background of the Colonial Settlements

The colonial invasion of the Caribbean, initiated by Christopher Columbus in 1492, allows us to understand the colonial power’s roots in the political and economic thought of the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries. Without questioning the legitimacy of seizing “unknown lands,” Christopher Columbus implicitly surmises from the outset that all “discovered lands” immediately become the domain of both the Spanish Crown and himself, since for the occasion he has been promoted to the status of a viceroy, a high political figure in the Kingdom of Spain. In this vein, first the Spaniards, then the French, the English, and the Dutch, exhibited an attitude of entitlement that, without hesitation, construes the other or unknown as an object of appropriation and expropriation. On December 5, 1492, Christopher Columbus landed in the present-day Republic of Haiti, then populated by the Indigenous people who called it “Ayiti.” The first inhabitants of contemporary Haiti were the first victims of the slavery perpetrated by the European colonial system. They were also the first to resist the plantation system and the exploitation of the territory (Jean & Hofman, 2018, p. 131).

According to the early sixteenth-century testimony of theologians, jurists, and canonists, through the colonists who accompanied Christopher Columbus to the West Indies, Spain enslaved the Amerindians (Hurbon, 2001, p. 25). Laënnec Hurbon shows how, within the encomienda—a system of forced labor for the exploitation of gold mines—the Spaniards carried out the genocide of the newly conquered Amerindian population (Hurbon, 2001). From this primary violence stems the exploitation, domination, and abuse of the Amerindians. During the enslavement of the first inhabitants (Saint-Merry, 1797, pp. 78–79), the colonizers developed a plantation economy centered on export crops (coffee, sugar cane, indigo, cotton, and precious woods), whereas previously, the Amerindians of Haiti had cultivated mainly foodstuffs such manioc and mais. roucou, and tobacco. The colonists orchestrated the disappearance of the first inhabitants towards the end of the fifteenth century.

Indigenous enslavement contributed to the emergence of the transatlantic slave trade (Valcárcel et al. 2020). Faced with the mass genocide of the Indigenous people in the region, considered unfit for slavery, the colonists (most notably the Dominican Bartholomew de Las Casas, who suggested replacing the “Indians” with Africans) instituted the “transatlantic slave trade”. When Europeans started the colonization in the Caribbean, after having nearly exterminated the Amerindians, they were determined to bring in the Africans they had enslaved and exploit the land. This led to the singular phenomenon of the “slave trade” in the Caribbean, that is, the introduction of African “captives” (Casimir, 2000) who came as human commodities to replace the Amerindian laborers in their enforced agricultural structures. By the end of the eighteenth century, the French colony of Saint-Domingue was the most populous (at least 600,000 inhabitants), as well as the richest and most prosperous of the French colonies (seven times richer than Martinique and Guadeloupe) (De Cauna, 2013, p. 3). Producing three-fourths of the world’s sugar and two-thirds of its coffee, it was nicknamed Saint-Domingue or the “Pearl of the Antilles” at the time due to its flourishing wealth (Figure 7.1). Slavery based on forced labor and “racialized” black captives made the island the “jewel of the sugar islands” (De Cauna, 2013) thanks to the exploitation of sugar as well as coffee, indigo, cocoa, and precious woods. These material traces of the colonial legacy remain as evidence of the collapse of the imperial system, provoked by the agency of the enslaved people.

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La partie Francoise de l’isle de Saint Domingue Map by Bellin, Jacques Nicolas. 1764. Norman B. Leventhal Map & Education Center

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3 A Closer Look at the Approach and Method

With reference to Édouard Glissant, we understand how the pursuit of the past and of collective memory are sources of hope for many peoples. Indeed, Glissant believes that collective memory can foster the reclaiming of an authentic cultural foundation that allows for the reconstitution of the various social and racial layers of a society into a nation (Glissant, 1981, 1993). In this work, the link between collective memory and heritage is conceived in an attempt to go beyond the usual disciplinary, methodological, and thematic boundaries, in particular those between archaeology, history, and sociology as well as those between human and social sciences. Based on the work of Micoud (2004), we define heritage as a “set of goods and values from the past that a collective, at a given moment in its history, collects and highlights as a guarantee of the perpetuation of its identity over time” (Micoud, 2004). We can thus understand that collective memory is a memory of the past that the individual or the social group constructs through the effort of reasoning with the social frameworks (Halbwachs, 1925, p. 79). In this paper, collective memory is approached not only as a social fact, but also as the political relationship of Haitian society with time, space, language, and creation. This process of social construction is not without tension, and requires identifying the types of heritage discourses and practices involved and the complex and dynamic interplay through which the legitimacy of the statements is determined (Tardy & Dodebei, 2015, p. 10). The conception of former colonial plantations as microcosms of the colonial system is often viewed broadly and is frequently discussed.

This paper focuses how the archaeological colonial remains can be used, by looking at the relation with memory and tourism. We conducted archaeological and ethnographic research at several colonial sites in Haiti. Observation of these places allowed us to nurture our reflections on the reconfigurations of historical vestiges that, had they not be reconfigured to other uses, would offer the possibility of problematizing the political and cultural choices of consecutive Haitian governments. To discuss this, through direct observation and interviews with local individuals institutional actors, and professionals in heritage, our empirical approach aimed to analyze the ways in which the sites are used in society.

From the point of view of archaeological analysis (e.g. Deagan, 1995; Jean, 2019), this approach makes it possible to regard Haiti’s colonial history from another angle, one that takes into account the material traces left at the sites as key elements in challenging the biased narratives of Haitian history. Its aim is to identify the archaeological features and their history in order to illuminate the historical contexts of their implantation, as well as to grasp their place in the current context in order to draw up a true cartography of Haiti’s “places of memory.” This involves an in-depth examination of how heritage sites or objects are viewed in the process of “ patrimonialization” and the co-safeguarding (Jean, 2019; Jean et al., 2020). Our approach focuses on the discourses and practices of “heritage institutions,” individuals, and communities that develop everyday connections with traces of the past. By recalling the historicity and current situation of colonial spaces, our aim is to present a first sketch of colonial places and to provide a description of the potential places of memory that have served as templates during our investigations. The uses of colonial ruins vary according to the different social actors who use them, their representations of themselves in relation to society, and the conditions defining the type of appropriation and representation of the historical remains.

4 Colonial Ruins as Places for Reappropriation

The term “colonial habitations” encompasses plantation structures large properties, small properties, food plots, etc. In Saint-Domingue, for example, on the eve of the French Revolution in 1789, tobacco and precious woods were first cultivated and exported, followed by indigo, sugarcane, cotton, coffee, and cocoa. Each of the plantations had its own characteristics and a long history with multiple variations from one region to another. It was in the former colonies, occupied and ruthlessly exploited by European colonizers, that the idea of developing colonial plantations as a key to economic success through enslavement of people first took shape (De Cauna, 2003; Mintz, 1959). Gradually, another idea arose: the exploitation of thousands of captives taken from Africa by the transatlantic trade and colonial slavery. Thus, colonial plantations were born to populate what the colonists consider wrongly the empty spaces in the slave colonies, particularly in the Caribbean, and to transform them into domains of exclusivity (Jean, 2019). In the first part of his book L’Habitation Sucrière Dominguoise, Michel-Philippe Lerebours (2006) shows how the Caribbean islands fell prey to the great European powers, as they represented an economic asset to them. This colonial enterprise was the cooperative work of European royalty, the financial aristocracy, slave traders, and large commercial companies from the metropolises of Europe (Debien, 1970, pp. 1–39; Pétré-Grénouillau, 2004, p. 58). This also implies the displacement of numerous European men from the metropolises who saw a possibility for their enrichment in this enterprise. They came from the ranks of craftsmen, peasants, and the petty bourgeoisie. After 1713, the families of the provincial aristocracy were joined in this migration with a view to ensuring their enrichment, knowing that the great positions of the army and the administration were reserved for the members of the nobility (Casimir, 2001, p. 30). In general, colonial plantations were developed primarily in regions with little topography. In terms of the topography, there is a crucial opposition between colonial plantations (e.g., sugar mills, cotton mills, and cocoa farms) located on the plains, and those located in the mountainous and hilly areas (e. g. coffee farms, forest reserves, and indigo farms). The constituent elements (e.g. land, huts, churches, settlers, enslaved people gardens, and materials) reflect the variation of the colonial settlements. The plantation economy was based on the concentration and division of labor as well as on the gathering of land and the accumulation of capital. The colonial plantations were initially intended as testing grounds for the monoculture of tropical products and as vast open-air industries for the study of a commodity in state, i.e., more or less modified for export to the metropoles. These spaces even found a functional use: the plantation structures allowed for the massive production of tropical commodities that the industrial revolution had not yet achieved in Europe.

The material remains are now several centuries old and cover a variety of contexts in the Caribbean, particularly in Haiti (Figure 7.2). Not all countries have the same interpretation of the “value” of such ruins, nor do they have the same will to enforce the necessary regulations and respect the constraints related to the protection of potential places of memory. Nor do they have the same opportunities to do so. Haitian society is not immune to this these challenges. The conditions of old colonial places in Haiti are sometimes very different from one region or city to another, and they can even be the complete opposite of one another. Besides the existing literature about the terms, we got insight into the different names from different localities in the South and North of Haiti. The immovable colonial remains demand a whole series of terms that reflect precise and varied concerns and objectives, including vye mazi (old hovel), bitasyon (dwelling), kay zansèt yo (house of the ancestors), vye ansyen kay (old houses), vye bagay ansyen (old thing), lakou (courtyard), pijiri (sugarcane purge), eritaj (heritage), vestiges, and ruins (De Cauna, 2013; Jean et al., 2021; Michel, 2021).

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Ruins of an old colonial plantation at Camp-Perrin

PHOTOGRAPH BY JOSEPH SONY JEAN

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Some of the terms can take on a pejorative sense when these structures are intentionally destroyed by people to take rock for rebuilding houses or cleaning more spaces for cultivation. For the Institut du Sauvegarde du Patrimoine National (ISPAN), “colonial plantations are considered monuments and sites of Haiti with high cultural, historical or architectural value” (ISPAN, 2012). Today, however, they are a type of wasteland as much as they are the forms invested in by the “social frames of memory” (Halbwachs, 1925). Historical research shows that Saint-Domingue once had approximately 8,000 colonial plantations (De Cauna, 2013). However, archaeological research is sparse in the country, and there would otherwise be a comprehensive assessment of what remains as material evidence. Recent archaeological work in the Fort-Liberté area of Haiti has begun to demonstrate that colonial settlements were developed in strategic locations to feed the plantation system (Jean, 2019). At the same time, archaeological surveys associated with ethnographic studies have demonstrated the complex relationships that the individuals have developed with the colonial remains. These relationships can take forms from recovering some of a site’s components to build new houses, to maintaining its state for transmission to future generations—considering that it is heritage—to performing spiritual ceremonies at the sites. Considering how such sites are perceived in the community, archaeological studies of colonial plantations are able to bring out other narratives related to the past in the present day, namely those narratives related to historical memory and contemporary social practices related to eritaj (Haitian Creole) (Jean et al., 2021). Traces of ceremonial activities can also be observed at both colonial and postcolonial structures. For example, figure 7.3 demonstrates that within a single site, social practices can emerge through religious contestation¹. In essence, the study of these complex relationships can offer new foundations for the study of historical archaeology by taking into account social interactions at the heritage site. In some places such as Fort-Liberté, Camp-Perrin, Abricots, narratives collected from individuals about the role that colonial remains play in the social landscape link them with the legacy of slavery. In some cases found in Fort-Liberté, colonial ruins can be related to places spiritual practitioners use to negotiate the continuous remembering of their ancestors (Jean et al., 2021).

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Top: a written “message” meaning “God, the only Power” at the site of Camp des Anglais in Matheux, West Haiti. Bottom: Traces of vodou-ceremony activities at Camp des Anglais in Matheux, West Haiti

PHOTOGRAPH BY JOSEPH SONY JEAN

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The modes of use, representation, and appropriation in Haiti demonstrate the different ways in which the divergent interests of the users produce conflicting relationships. The reconciliation of the uses and social relevance of these places in Haiti occasionally gives rise to collective actions that are results of various public interventions (Michel, 2021). The government still seems to be the main institution to foregrounded public initiatives, although it seems less interested in the long-term enhancement of heritage. Because the national heritage institutions do not receive enough funding for implementing strong public policies for heritage. However, it is possible to occasionally glimpse the interaction between the private sector, local nongovernmental institutions, international agencies, users, heritage practitioners, tourists, and local visitors in the formulation of key heritage paradigms, and even in making heritage. Individuals, families, foundations, international organizations, and other actors working in the field of culture and heritage today form a real investors in heritage alongside the state. Somehow, they can interact with the state in an attempt to define policies for the safeguarding and enhancement of heritage.

Despite many laws and decree-laws (see Jean et al., 2021), safeguarding heritage against human activities and environmental contingencies is not an imperative in Haiti. The state has not defined a general heritage interest, nor has it developed a comprehensive and overarching state policy despite the various laws and decrees placing heritage in the public domain (Jean et al., 2020). The Haitian scholar, Jean Ronald Augustin did well to show that in Haiti, “heritage is reduced to the identification of places, sites and monuments that support moments of glory and some elements of beliefs of the Haitian people” (Augustin, 2016, p. 128). The Haitian state, the guarantor for safeguarding the national heritage, does not have the adequate means—institutional, administrative, or financial—to realize this constitutional principle. Furthermore, there is a lack of coordination between official cultural institutions in Haiti. Additionally, it refers to the problematic relationship between the legislative and executive branches and the failure to implement appropriate legislation for heritage.

The lack of a legal framework for the Haitian Ministry of Culture impedes the development of cultural programs that would address the needs of the cultural and heritage sector. Therefore, cultural support does not increase, nor are there many changes in terms of reflecting on the implementation of cultural policy. Throughout its existence, the Ministry of Culture in Haiti has neglected a variety of functions, even those that would not have created any difficulties or led to any power struggles.

Consequently, it is development that is prioritized above all, which is understandable for a country classified as one of the most impoverished. However, for the developing culture and tourism projects to be effective, the enhancement of heritage must be fully integrated into culture and heritage policy. Moreover, the objective of the development is not focused exclusively on the safegarding of colonial heritage. Most of the policies in the field of culture in Haiti are not aimed at development projects that integrate a significant dimension of the diverse archaeological heritage. Many archaeological objects and sites have already been lost during social crises and long process of landscape changes over the course in addition to the consequences of natural hazards and land management. Some sites, are being kept after a fierce struggle, requiring the intervention of the private sector and the participation of inhabitants of the surrounding localities (Michel, 2015, 2021). The social pressures of urban development are also negatively impacting historical heritage including, places of colonial plantations, colonial and postcolonial fortresses. Historic sites in particular are targeted by increasing, uncontrolled reoccupation. It is amid this hostile climate that Haitian legislation for heritage must fight for monuments and other archaeological sites. Yet no long-term co-protective action can be resolved on without community participation.

We have already pointed out that in many cases, the appropriation of colonial ruins is not generally related to the re-users’ or landowners’ personal attachment to the property, leading to its co-stewardship as eritaj (Haitian Kreyol means heritage), but rather entails the reuse of elements such as bricks and rocks for personal purposes, leading to the properties’ loss. Further, it has been observed that the way individuals renegotiate the places contributes to the likelihood of their safeguarding when it is reused for religious purposes. For those who recognize the colonial ruins as historical elements related the enslavement of their ancestors, revisiting these ruins as religious rites honors the memory of their ancestors (Jean et al., 2021). In some cases, the relationship of a site with its landowner is also an important factor in heritage co-safeguarding, and appropriation. Typically, families have lived in the former colonial spaces that claim as their property. This implies that these people, as “co-guardians of the heritage,” will pay particular attention to what is there, to what exists, to the colonial features and their uses, and even to the environment. In some cases, places of colonial plantation can become living museum spaces where they highlight the role of sugarcane exploitation not only in colonial wealth, but also in national agricultural production (see Michel, 2015; 2021). The impact of having these museum spaces in the country is linked to the type of visitors and their behavior as well as the quality of the services offered (Michel, 2021). This ultimately depends on the type of customer each visitor is. During our surveys, the museum visitors acknowledged that they could retain the names of some of the nation’s fathers and important dates in Haitian history, which allowed them to appreciate the museum and have a better idea of the society’s history.

These places, which are becoming accessible to a larger public, offer a very wide variety of uses; those with hotel infrastructure have the advantage of hosting restaurants, play areas, and meetings with family or friends (Michel, 2022). Some of the spaces offer playgrounds, swimming pools, and bars and restaurants in which to buy drinks and food. In a recent discussion, Michel (2022) pointed out that these potential places of memory are increasingly being integrated as components of the tourism sector. In this sense, colonial ruins have become potential places of memory like any other form of tourist infrastructure, and they are therefore associated with social markers. They are listed in the tourist guides distributed by the Ministry of Tourism and Creative Industries and the Tourist Association of Haiti (ATH). This particular form of remaking heritage is recently discuss further by Michel (2021).

5 Discussion and Conclusion: Looking Closer at Tourism and Memory

The co-safeguarding and development of heritage are not incompatible with responsible tourism when it comes to co-creating heritage narratives and illuminating the past. In some places dedicated to tourism, guides are in charge for introducing new visitors to the contents; thus they play an essential role in popularizing the historical knowledge of these places. The guides valorize the places and propose a circuit to allow the visitor to better view them in a limited amount of time. The narrative of the guides leads to transformation of the place into a memorial mise-en-scène for visitors who seek to develop an affinity with the historical reality of the places that they visit. This corresponds to the process of consecrating a space, which is one of the hallmarks of tourism (Amirou, 1995, pp. 108–109). There are also stories of the great events that have marked their history, and many historical monuments whose history reflects anecdotes and feats of arms that form an essential part of collective memory (Figure 7.4).

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Freshly restored colonial Fort Saint-Joseph in Cap-Haitien, open to the general public and for tourist attraction

PHOTOGRAPH BY JOSEPH SONY JEAN

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In accordance with the mise-en-scène of the museums in Haiti (Joseph, 2017), the guides favor viewpoints that exhibit a greater variety to the visitor. Beyond the description of a place, the guides’ discourse summarizes and focuses the entire visit on the historical interest in Haiti. The memory of the colonial past still remains a sensitive subject in early twenty-first-century in the world including Haiti despite Haiti’s role in ending slavery. In his recent study, Michel (2021) argued that is because the history of Haiti is largely confused with that of colonial history and of colonization, from the struggle for independence and the beginnings of the nation to recent attempts to build a democratic society. This memory, which is sensitive, is not “erased”. As in many countries around the world, it is difficult to address them without stoking tension (Michel, 2022) even during the recent worldwide Black Lives Matters movement.

Society has various but repetitive responses to the memory of slavery. Individuals have adopted them without even realizing it and live them implicitly. These postures are specific to Haitian society and to different periods of its history, and they are at the very basis of shaping the collective memory, as they determine the attitudes, behaviors, and how the character of the citizen is shaped by the entire cultural milieu. Several scholars have already raised questions about the imperative strategy of making slavery visible in public spaces and museums (see Araujo, 2013; Augustin, 2016; Celius, 1998; Cummins and Farmer, 2013; Haloran, 2009). Carlo Celius (2013, pp. 36–37) pointed out that: “A museographic tour always results from a choice. Not everything can be said. Therefore, an active policy of temporary exhibitions must be envisaged, in which new forms of display can be experimented with to meet the challenge of showing slavery through its many aspects and implications”. Public spaces can remind us of the atrocities committed during the era of slavery and how people resisted it. Museums should play a vital role in informing the public about slavery’s historical, social, and cultural aspects. They should serve as a platform to examine the complex dynamics of slavery and its afterlives.

There is only one national museum, the Musée du Panthéon National Haïtien (MUPANAH), in which the memory of the past through its objects and arts is somewhat visible. There are also annual demonstrations to celebrate the memory of the Haitian revolution and its legacies on specific national days: for instance, the commemoration of the last battle for independence, on November 18; Independence Day, January 1; and National Flag Day, May 18, when the heroes of independence are at the heart of debates over freedom and revolution. In contemporary Haitian society, the discourses and memorial narratives of the colonial-slavery period are put into the service of current political issues: for example, the difficulty of obtaining a consensus about historical memory, which is a timely issue. The construction of memories is not preceded by the search for historical truth, but is accompanied by silence and a form of oblivion aimed at not reopening old wounds. As Trouilot hilghlihted it is not only the silence itself, but also the mechanism that makes it silent (Trouillot, 1995). When looking governmental strategy, memory of slavery in museum can be interpreted as story of repression (Celius, 1998). For instance, the process of creating a museum of slavery in Haiti began in 1997. Of course, the appellation can be problematic, since the resistance of enslaved people, counter-colonial landscape, and freedom remain fundamental in narrating Haitian history, however a public space that aims to recollect these layers should occupy a critical place in the society. The political and material foundations of the project are still being laid after more than two decades. In this vein, Laennec Hurbon (2020) in Pourquoi un musée de l’esclavage en Haïti? published in Le Club Mediapart reminds us that “with the museum project, the memory that is thought to have been lost or forgotten remains hidden in monuments, fortresses, the rituals of daily life and religious systems, in oral culture (language, legends, stories, etc.). This reawakened memory can, in turn, revive history, renew it and support new interpretations, helping to strengthen social bonds and regain a sense of nationhood” (authors translation).

In addition, it is critical to underline the role of individuals who live around remains of colonial places can play in narrating the histories of the past and in archaeological and heritage projects. In our study, many individuals mentioned how old colonial buildings could be used as tourist attractions. This calls for grassroots tourist initiatives. This is how their discourses and practices can contribute to archaeological site and cultural heritage co-safeguarding. In this context, discourses, visibility, and practices related to the heritage and memory of slavery can be negotiated and envisioned in different layers of society, from public institutions to private sectors and grassroots initiatives.

The Haitian context provides also other ways to explore the relationship to the memory of slavery in terms that differ from those used in the Western approach to written history. The collective memory of slavery can be understood, through the art of storytelling, and it is analyzed in the light of orality and interpreted as orality. Collective memory pertains to the long term as part of a historiographic procedure. The medium of this collective memory is therefore generally literary, and the model of analysis is clearly that of oral history. In the sense of reviving history, as Hurbon (2020) argues, oral history can provide through the museum about slavery, valuable insights into the lived experiences of people and communities, particularly those whose voices have not traditionally been represented in written records. Accordingly, a museum about slavery in Haiti can incorporate oral history into its exhibitions and programming in a number of ways. They can also use oral history as a means of interpreting and contextualizing the colonial objects and artefacts in their collections. Beyond the collection and display of oral history, a museum about slavery can provide opportunities for visitor engagement with oral history through interactive exhibits and public programs featuring live storytelling, talks, and performances (e.g., Farmer, this volume). Cultural policies are struggling to create these spaces that are capable of spotlighting narratives about Haiti’s long colonial period. One wonders whether the historical duty to remember the past is carried by orality or not. Several historical studies have shown the importance of oral narratives in the production of historical knowledge (Fouchard 1988; Madiou 1988). What is now sought are the symbolic structures and logic of the transmitted narrative, and how social groups such as the vodouisants organize the oral treatment of their past, including how they tell their story as storytellers. The relationship of Haitians to the collective memory, that of slavery, in particular, is no longer organized according to a social logic. Fundamentally, it now involves an oral logic. This logic does not push down the importance of archaeology. Instead, archaeological and heritage practices can provide valuable insights into the construction of collective memory by revealing the material culture and practices of people of African descent in colonial times that may have been lost or forgotten in Haitian society.

The relationship that individuals have developed with these archaeological sites can have diverse meanings based on the social and micro geographical context. The appropriation process of various places can be discerned from the historical trajectory and the agency of their ancestors. In terms of ownership, having colonial ruins can mean a lot for landowners, considering their “prestigious,” spiritual, social, and economic value. Through public or co-conservation spaces, archaeological narratives about the past can provide ways through which memories, remembering and forgetting, and the neglecting process as relates to the colonial period can be understood in the present. It opens up the possibility to better undertake archaeological practices within communities by considering the ways in which citizens, the public, and professionals can reconcile the methods and approaches used for the long-term benefit of heritage studies and community awareness (Atalay, 2012). Other layers of memory such as the Indigenous people who were the first to resist the European invasion and slavery are important components to consider in Haitian society (Jean & Hofman (2018). In this sense, archaeological objects and sites related to past Indigenous people can help to redress the narratives about the deep Haitian past.

However, the first inhabitants’ memory of slavery cannot emerge when objects related to their history are used by individuals for their prestigious personal vitrine (Jean & Hofman, 2018). More archaeological and heritage research can bring out new narratives for the process of memory, remembering and forgetting, especially when considering the social practices that are embedded in colonial archaeological sites. By studying the material remains of past societies, archaeological practices can help reconstruct and reinterpret ‘History’, providing tangible evidence of people’s social experiences. By contributing to our understanding of the past, archaeology can also help to shape and inform the collective memory of the present day, thereby enriching our understanding of cultural heritage and identity. The uses of archaeological sites and objects by the different people and institutions can help to deepen the different meanings of their components in the landscape. The social practices of farmers, religious practitioners, landowners, and citizens who live on heritage sites are crucial in the study of archaeology when it comes to understanding what narratives emerge from their interactions with the colonial sites.