Sites of Slavery

For this thematic grouping, sites of slavery are designated as historic places (including plantations, wharves, archaeological sites) where "slavery happened" and that commemorate enslaved Africans, their lives, and their labor. We include sites that act as memorials and often have sculpture, public art, or monuments located on their grounds. 

Founded in 2014 as a museum, the Whitney Plantation educates the public about the history of slavery in Louisiana and the brutal production of sugar along the Mississippi River, between New Orleans and Baton Rouge. The historic plantation complex comprises twelve historic structures including slave cabins, a kitchen, a jail, and the main house. This site of slavery includes four memorials: The Wall of Honor, Allées Gwendolyn Midlo Hall, The Field of Angels, and the 1811 German Coast Uprising Memorials. Other sites of slavery include the ACTe Mémorial in Pointe-à-Pitre, Guadaloupe, a memorial building and museum on the site of a former sugar plantation; the Valongo Wharf, an archaeology site in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, that was the debarkation point of an estimated 900,000 enslaved Africans; and the Mémorial de l'abolition de l'esclavage in Nantes, France, on the Quai de la Fosse along the Loire River, the symbolic departure point of slave ships that sailed from France to Africa.

Additional sites to be added include the Freedom Monument Sculpture Park along the Alabama River in Montgomery, Alabama, and the African Ancestors Memorial Garden at the International African American Museum located on Gadsden’s Wharf in Charleston, South Carolina.

Note: All sites of slavery in West Africa can be found under the theme of the Transatlantic Slave Trade/Middle Passage.

Updated January 26, 2026