THE AMISTAD REPLICA had a welcome from the ancestors yesterday morning when a cultural presentation was done to welcome them to Barbados, their only Caribbean stop on this journey.

The Sankofa drummers and dancers provided the appropriate accompaniment to poet Adrian Green, who asked the ancestors to liberate the ship.

The audience, comprised of Minister of Tourism Richard Sealy, Minister of Culture Steve Blackett, along with president of the Barbados Tourism Authority, Stuart Layne, and other ministry officials, along with officials from the United States Embassy and the Amistad were also introduced to the HMS Landship, which is celebrating its 145th birthday.

Sealy said the ship's stop was a signal honour for Barbados and it was a nice fit with the heritage tourism efforts which Barbados was trying to develop.

"We celebrated the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade and we know that there have been many efforts by formal organisations – and otherwise – to increase the level of Afrocentricity in Barbadians and what that can mean for improving our self-worth . . . .

"We have a real opportunity now for our young people, while they are still impressionable, to come see and touch and feel a real vessel that would replicate what the experience would have been like for persons who were participating in the slave trade and also to touch on a piece of history for a very unique story of the battle for freedom," said Sealy.

Acting Deputy Chief of Missions at the United States Embassy, Robert Smolik, said the Amistad reminded us
of one of the harshest periods of our past and showed the triumph of the human spirit, since it was the slaves on the Amistad who revolted.

He said 'it taught us how to ensure that we learn from our mistakes' and how to make a better, kinder, and more just world.

Smolik pointed out that slavery was not yet over as human trafficking was a world issue.

"The International Labour Organisation estimates that there are over 12 million people in forced or bonded labour and sexual servitude around the world at any given moment . . . . As recently as 2006, about 800 000 people are trafficked across borders. This does not include people trafficked within their own countries," he said.

Smolik added that people must work together to stop slavery in the dark shadows of the world economy.

Dr Wayne Adams of the Amistad Freedom Society of Nova Scotia, Canada, said many wondered why they had
a society in Canada, but a great number of slaves settled there.

"We are proud to tell you that in Nova Scotia in the early 1700s a great number of escaped slaves settled in that part of the world and they left in 1792 for migration to the west coast of Africa to settle in a place named Sierre Leone and history would show that Sierre Leone was the place where the slaves were taken on board the Amistad," he said.

Amistad will remain docked in Barbados until April 20, after which time it sails to South Carolina in the United States to be part of a function there.