Marking What Must Not Disappear: The Long Afterlife of the Transatlantic Slave Trade and the memory of Anton Wilhelm Amo

There are moments when history suddenly feels very close to the present. Not as something distant, sealed in archives, but as something still actively negotiated in our time.

Recently I followed a discussion led by the African Union (AU) and the Caribbean Community (Caricom) that took place in the context of debates around the transatlantic slave trade and its recognition as one of the greatest crimes against humanity . On 25 March 2026, at the United Nations, a large majority of countries supported the position that the transatlantic slave trade must be acknowledged within that framework. Yet the voting pattern also revealed something deeper:

While more than a hundred countries supported the recognition, some abstained — and a small number voted against it.

They raise a question that is larger than any single vote:

How will this history be remembered in the centuries to come?

The transatlantic slave trade unfolded over centuries and reshaped economies, landscapes, and social hierarchies across the Atlantic world. Its consequences continue to shape the present. When we talk about colonialism, capitalism, and the making of the modern Atlantic world, we are also talking about systems that profoundly altered both human societies and the environment itself.

And yet history is never simply “there.” It is constantly narrated, reframed, questioned, sometimes minimized — and sometimes erased.

That realization makes me think of the work of the writer Alan Weisman, whose book The World Without Us imagines what the planet might look like if humanity suddenly disappeared. The book explores how cities would crumble, how vegetation would reclaim roads and buildings, how ecosystems would slowly recover.

It is a fascinating thought experiment.

But it also invites another question — one that is perhaps even more unsettling.

What would the world look like without colonialism?

What trajectories of knowledge, economy, and ecological relations might have emerged if the transatlantic slave trade had never reshaped continents and oceans? How might societies have evolved without the massive extraction of labor and resources that fueled the rise of modern global capitalism?

These are not questions that can be answered definitively. But they remind us that history is never neutral. It is shaped by power, by choices, and by the narratives we decide to preserve.

This is precisely why memory work matters.

At this moment, I feel deeply grateful to be involved in a project that attempts — however modestly — to contribute to that work of remembering. These reflections on memory and historical recognition form the background for a project I am currently involved in. Together with colleagues such from Decolonize Berlin, Amo Braunschweig Postkolonial, Amo Alliance Halle, Göttingen Postkolonial, and many more partners, we are currently developing one of the first translocal digital audio archives dedicated to Anton Wilhelm Amo. The project connects multiple sites — places, institutions, and communities — through recorded voices that reflect on Amo’s life, legacy, and the broader histories that surround him.

What makes this project special is not only its digital form, but the way it links places and voices. It creates a network in which memory is not confined to a single monument or archive but emerges through conversations across locations. Personally I am grateful to work with the Anton Wilhelm Amo Heritage Network and with 3plusx, Hamburg and tuffix on the visual and technical communication systems.

Announcement of our upcoming project this year which will be launched in August 2026

We are incredibly grateful that this work is supported by Wikimedia Deutschland, whose commitment to open knowledge enables projects like this to reach broader audiences. At the same time, the project is supported by the Berlin Senate Department for Culture and Social Cohesion through funding dedicated to remembrance culture and contemporary cultural initiatives in Berlin. With many partners in Germany and the Netherlands-stay tunned for this.

These forms of support matter. They make it possible to create something that goes beyond documentation. They allow us to mark a trace — to leave a record of voices, reflections, and places that might otherwise fade.

Because memory is fragile.

Not only the stories themselves, but also the ways in which they are told. Which voices are heard. Which memories are made known. Which histories are considered central — and which are pushed to the margins.

The story of Amo reminds us of this complexity. His life connects Africa and Europe, philosophy and colonial history, archives and contemporary debates about memory and recognition. Working on this project has made me realize how important it is not only to say that these histories exist, but also to ask how they are narrated.

How do we structure collective memory? How do we structure life writing? How do we ensure that future generations encounter these histories not as distant abstractions, but as living questions?

In five hundred years, the period we are discussing today will feel unimaginably distant. The children and grandchildren of future centuries will inherit a world shaped by our choices — by the stories we preserve and the silences we allow.

For that reason, I sometimes feel a quiet sense of gratitude.

To live in a moment where we are still able to engage with these histories directly. To question them. To document them. And perhaps, in small ways, to shape how they will be remembered.

But every archive, every conversation, every recorded voice leaves a trace.

And sometimes that trace is enough to ensure that a story cannot simply be erased.

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