Existing comment:
Reconciliation Statue
Dedicated 2007 CE
Identical statues in Liverpool, England; Benin, West Africa; and Richmond, Virginia, memorialize the British, African, and American triangular trade route, now identified as the Reconciliation Triangle. Traders profited from delivering over 114,000 Africans to Virginia between the 1600's and the American Revolution - and at least 337,800 to other North American places before 1808. The "triangle" extended between Liverpool and other large British cities, Benin and other West African kingdoms, and Virginia and other North American colonies and states. Profits from the sale of enslaved Africans, profits from the commodities they produced and the benefits of these products in Anglo-American lifestyles financed major British and North American economic development.
Richmond's journey towards racial healing began with its first "walk through history" in 1993, and the marking of the historic Slave Trail. In 1999, President Mathieu Kerekou of the Republic of Benin, convened an international gathering at which he apologized for Benin's part in selling fellow Africans to slave traders. Also in 1999, Liverpool City Council apologized for that city's prominent role in the trade. Last month, Virginia's General Assembly expressed profound regret for the involuntary servitude of Africans and the exploitation of Native Americans, and called for reconciliation among all Virginians.
"Forgiveness does no change the past but it does enlarge the future."
-- Paul Boese |