La Rochelle - Just for Fun

Dogs are everywhere!

Bench where I had my coffee and pastry

Afternoon snack options 1

Afternoon snack options 2

Crepe with honey for lunch!

Learn More about Nantes

Want to know more about Nantes, one of Jacksonville's Sister Cities?

The link below takes you to the blog of an intern from Seattle, Washington working with Nantes Sister Cities.

http://jeuneambassadeurseanantes.blogspot.com/

You can also visit the Ville de Nantes (City of Nantes) website:

http://www.nantes.fr/

Exhibit Display from the Shackles of Memory Association

The Shackles of Memory Association created posters to highlight the connections to slavery or the slave trade between France, Africa, and the New World. View seven of the fourteen posters produced for special display in February 2008. The posters and the association slave trade talk were a part of the Kingsley Heritage Celebration, and also included a musical presentation by the University of North Florida Brass Ensemble.

Click here to see the exhibits, read a transcript of the talk, and view a slide show of the event.

National Parks and the Legacy of Slavery

There are many sites in the National Park system that preserve and tell the stories of slavery, freedom, civil rights, and American culture.

I have chosen a park to represent each of those stories. These parks will create the framework for the educational curriculum being developed to tell the story of slavery in what is today the United States. This framework will be inserted into a transatlantic context so that teachers and students can follow the trade from its early development to the final form of chattel slavery instituted in the American South.

Fort Sumter National Monument - Where The American Civil War Began

Decades of growing strife between North and South erupted in civil war on April 12, 1861, when Confederate artillery opened fire on this Federal fort in Charleston Harbor.




Natchez National Historical Park - The City on the Bluff

From the antebellum estate of John McMurran, to the downtown home of African-American barber and diarist William Johnson, to the French Fort Rosalie, this diverse Mississippi River town has been a place of opportunity for hundreds of years.


Cane River Creole National Historical Park - "Living" History

The vibrant African American communities in the Natchitoches region today trace two hundred years of cultural history to this fertile land surrounding the Cane River.




Jazz National Historical Park - New Orleans Jazz!

A story rich with innovation, experimentation, controversy and emotion, the park provides an ideal setting to share the cultural history of the people and places that helped shape the development and progression of jazz in New Orleans.


Timucuan Ecological and Historic Preserve - Kingsley Plantation

During the 18th and 19th centuries, many people came to Florida. Some, like Zephaniah Kingsley, sought to make their fortunes by obtaining land and establishing plantations. Others were forced to work on those plantations, their labor providing wealth to the people who owned them.

The Beginning

I am a Park Ranger at the Timucuan Ecological & Historic Preserve in Jacksonville, Florida.

Nantes is one of Jacksonville's Sister Cities, but it also shares aspects of our history. In February 2008, representatives from Nantes, France came to Jacksonville to meet park staff, local teachers and students, university professors. Jean-Marc Masseaut, Educational Director of the Shackles of Memory Association, came to Kingsley Plantation, one of our park sites, to speak about this history - the transatlantic slave trade.

Click here (.pdf) to read a transcript of Jean-Marc Masseaut's speech.

This blog will track my work with the Shackles of Memory Association (L’association Les Anneaux de la Mémoire) and my visit to Nantes in September 2009. My goal is to develop a curriculum for local schools that ties the history of slavery on both sides of the Atlantic - France, West Africa, and the American South.

The historical slave trade port of Nantes will be used to explain the European history associated with the slave trade, its origins and process. From there, ships can be tracked to coastal trading ports in West Africa. The story of the Middle Passage will be explained through a variety of experiences recorded in primary resources throughout the history of the slave trade.

Several National Parks will be used to tell the stories of the enslaved men, women, and children who lived daily with the institution of slavery. The parks will also highlight the legacy of slavery, and the perseverance and contributions of people of African descent to modern American society.

This project was made possible by the National Park Foundation through its partnership with the National Park Service.