Children, women, men, all crammed in the holds of a ship; the wooden figurines do not breathe, but their positions in the handcrafted work recently added to the Museum of the Slavery Route, in the city of Matanzas, help to better understand the excesses of the slave trade in the colonial period.
Already reopened to the public, the museum exhibits a scale model of a slave ship, according to Isabel Hernandez Campos, director of the former San Severino Castle, a National Monument.
The historian added that the piece reveals important facts of the painful journey of those men and women forcibly removed from their villages and deprived of their freedom to work in foreign lands.
A team led by Miguel Angel Albuerne Arcay worked for about a year to make this model that makes it possible for museumgoers to visualize the conditions in which these Africans were brought to Cuba.
“We used woods like mahogany and cedar; no specific ship model was used. It is a three-decked trade ship similar to a galleon of the late 16th century or the early 17th century,” Arbuerne Arcay explained. “It includes around 300 miniature human figures that symbolize the horrors of the slave trade; the purpose is for people to approach, look and see human beings as merchandise in the slave trade as an economic philosophy.”
Recently, an interactive screen was also added to play videos or write anything that contributes to the explanations.
“I came on a slave ship / They brought me / Sugar cane, whip, mill / Iron sun / Sweat like caramel / A foot in the stocks”
The verses of the great Nicolás Guillén are included in the new model, whose base shows Marti’s phrase: “The slavery of men is the world’s terrible shame,” an irrevocable truth that in the Castle of San Severino is also denounced on wood.
