THE MIDDLE PASSAGE EXPERIENCE

To many Americans, the Middle Passage is too painful to think about in any detail. Our public schools make the "Africa" part of the equation look like a monolithic place, for the teachers themselves are often not taught about the continent's ethnic and cultural variety, or even the basics of the trade itself.

When Indea Vaher decided to host an exhibit in conjunction with REMEMBRANCE, a worldwide simultaneous libation pouring to honor those lost on the Middle Passage, I got excited. She has a site based on Nachitoches, Louisiana's Metoyer Plantation, now a kind of artist's colony, in SL and RL. Metoyer was built for Marie Coin-Coin (Kwan-Kwan) in the 18th century by her French lover, and the Akan woman and her offspring owned it till well into the 1800s.

In the early 20th century, one of the staff, an elderly African American woman named Clementine Hunter painted scenes of the plantation, and sewed applique quilts depicting it--they are now prized museum works. Indea has a permanent display on indigo cultivation, Creole life and more, and erected Ibo Landing there--a South Carolina debarkation point where Igbo slaves from Nigeria walked into the ocean rather than become enslaved on U.S. soil.

Indea graciously allowed me to create a link to my idea for the African end of the trade, and our own Oliha Yiwama intoned the invocation at Saminaka and the libation at Safe Haven Landing on June 13, just as others did it in Atlanta, San Francisco, Cape Coast in Ghana and elsewhere. Exhibits on both our sims run through June 30.

So what's on Saminaka? I wanted people to come away with a better sense of the specifics--not only of the trade, but the PEOPLE. So I delved into my notes and created stories for ten characters, five male, five female, from different affected areas and eras. Their stories may be fictional, but they're based on fact--as are some of their names. Participants assume their identity through a bio and clothes, then, once they've seen the display, look for a second box with their name on it. Forced to shed their African lives, they are given a new name, Western clothes, and a destination in the U.S. (and can tp to Safe Haven Landing). A reminiscences card follows up on the details of their lives--all the plantations and most of the people mentioned were real. Above, see PHaTTSam Fizz as Boubakar, a Malinke soldier, member of a blacksmith family, and ritual specialist before his capture in Senegal.

I loved doing this. It may be overwhelming, so we're hoping Acuminious Watanabe will be able to conduct a discussion session at Chan Dejavu's Baobab Academy in the next week or two (she wants to! not yet scheduled). People that have stopped by the sim say the experience has moved them; some wondered if it was roleplay (not really, but they have given me some ideas for later). I am very interested in hearing what you have to say about it--send an IM or letter to the editor, please!