**** - 2004: Slavery Abolition Year Many small-island countries are taking an active role in the observance of 2004 as International Year for the Commemoration of the Struggle Against Slavery and its Abolition, and over the longer term the annual observance of 23 August as International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition. The day (23 August) and year (2004) mark the uprising of the slaves of Saint Domingue during the night of 22-23 August 1791 and the bicentenary of the outcome of that revolt -- the creation of the free State of Haiti in 1804.

Activities to commemorate the abolition of slavery include the setting up in Haiti and other countries of museums on the slave trade and slavery and the display of a travelling exhibition Lest We Forget: The Triumph over Slavery, in cooperation with the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in New York. These activities draw on work undertaken since 1994 within the framework of UNESCO’s Slave Route project. Among the information and teaching materials generated by the project are draft trade maps illustrating the main slave routes and the changes in deportation flows from the 15–16th centuries to the 19th century. Other educational materials and approaches have been developed as part of the Associated Schools Project Network, through the flagship project ‘Breaking the Silence’, as described in a 16-page illustrated booklet produced in 2004 by the ASPnet. Another initiative – the Slave Trade Archives project – enables participating countries to better preserve original documentation relating to the transatlantic slave trade, to improve public access to these materials and to build up databases. In the Indian Ocean, activities include a research programme to identify and catalogue the oral memories of the island of the southwestern Indian Ocean. In another project in the region – that on ‘Forgotten Slaves’ – the focus is a slave ship (L’Utile) that sank off Tromelin Island on 31 July 1761. The crew took to the sea onboard a makeshift vessel, leaving 60 slaves on the island. The crew never kept their promise to come back for the abandoned slaves. Fifteen years later, on 29 November 1776, the Chevalier de Tromelin, Captain of the corvette La Dauphine, found eight survivors on the island. How did they survive all those years on a desert island, little more than one square kilometre in area, cut off from the rest of the world? Historical and geneological investigations – associated with excavations, both under water and on land – are underway, with a view to shedding light on this enigma. The Forgotten Slaves project is organized and piloted by the French naval archaeology research group, GRAN, with the support of UNESCO and other bodies. Website (URL) http://portal.unesco.org/culture/en/ev.php-URL_ID=13974&URL;_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL;_SECTION=201.html Publication Year 2004