Exhibition: The infamy. The Catalan participation in colonial slavery

For several years now, major European countries have been reviewing their colonial past and their role in the slave trade.

In recent years, some historians from all over the country have begun to take an interest in this subject and have begun to draw a picture of a hidden past that is more important than we thought. At the same time, public interest, which has included many people from the former Spanish colonies, has grown enormously.

The Barcelona Maritime Museum is taking part in this process with the aim of challenging contemporary Catalan society, which is much more plural and complex than at that time, to commit itself to reviewing the past. And so that, in this way, it can face, without further ado, the trace that that infamy left in today's society in the form of racism or overexploitation of the migrant population.

The exhibition "The Infamy" examines the Catalan participation in the Atlantic slave trade and the extent to which Catalan merchants' businesses, especially in Cuba and Puerto Rico, acquired slave labour. How much of that capital was repatriated to Catalonia and how did the profits from slavery help the country's development in the 19th century?

This exhibition exposes a little-known and very uncomfortable aspect of the history of Catalonia. Let us also spread the word about the darkest aspects of history and make it possible for them to never be repeated.

Initial script by Antoni Tortajada, scientific advice by Martín Rodrigo and museographic project by Ignasi Cristià.

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