Le musée de Villèle à La Réunion entre histoire et mémoire de l’esclavage. Un haut lieu de l’histoire sociale réunionnaise

• Main Author: Jean Barbier
• Format: Article
• Language: fra
• Published: Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication 2013-02-01
• Series: In Situ : Revue de Patrimoines
• Subjects: Indian Ocean; Bourbon; Reunion Island; Saint-Gilles-les-Hauts; Saint-Paul; La Grande Chaloupe
• Online Access: http://journals.openedition.org/insitu/10027

Inaugurated in 1976, the Villèle History Museum was the first museum to be created after Reunion Island became a French department in 1946. Today it is a place of reference for the understanding of Reunion social history. This heritage site evokes not only the diversity of those populations hailing from Europe, Africa and Asia but also bears witness to the development of an economic system based on the exploitation of servile labour, mainly slaves during the XVIIIth and XIXth centuries and then indentured workers from 1848 until the beginning of the XXth century. This paper provides a brief introduction to the site, explores the museum’s commitment and the limits of its current message, and also examines the courses of action taken to consider, develop, evoke and explain the history of slavery.