Paper short abstract:

This paper examines urban sites of memory associated with slavery in Cape Town, South Africa. It explores how South Africans and tourists grapple with a long slave past at several prominent heritage sites that reflect the heavy memories of slavery within the city.

Paper long abstract:

This paper examines urban sites of memory associated with slavery in Cape Town, South Africa. It explores how South Africans and tourists grapple with a long slave past at several prominent heritage sites that reflect the heavy memories of slavery within the city. I investigate the narratives, texts, and spaces of tours, museums, and memorials as they situate slavery in an urban context. Both tourist and resident encounters with the history of slavery are analyzed to inform our understanding of the construction of heritage for local and global consumption. The city of Cape Town is a site of memory steeped in the history of slavery, notably in the spaces of the former Slave Lodge, now a museum, and the old fort known as the Castle of Good Hope. Both structures are powerful spaces drawing visitors from around the world. The Dutch East India Company used slave labor to construct them in the seventeenth century, and the city has recently acknowledged the contribution of slaves to the building of Cape Town and the shaping of the wider community. For example, those interested today in Cape Town's past can follow a city trail map of slave heritage walks that trace the history of urban slavery at over 60 sites. Featured locations include spaces where slaves lived, worked, prayed, endured suffering, and buried their dead. This paper considers how locals and tourists are involved in acts of remembering this heritage of slavery and how that spatial positioning in turn influences local, national, and transnational histories and memories.