History, when treated as the act of collective remembrance leads to various considerations towards the nature of the history being called upon. Museums in essence, act as a symbol of the collective remembrance for a certain society. Therefore, one may look tatmuseums to provide insight into the position of a certain history in popular or even official discourse. It is through observing such representations that one may examine the ideological remnants of the era. Although this might imply the legacies that have been carried out through time, it also implies the position that history holds for the epoch. This could be a sense of guilt, reverence, anger, sympathy and so on.
Slavery holds such a position in society. It has several faces that one turns to when assessing its impact and significance. The view of slavery now is that it was the past. However, one must acknowledge that the past is only relative to the present – one needs to be here to say that something is there. It is therefore up to the amateur historian or civilian to give slavery a legacy. Some treat slavery as something that’s a part of a continuum that led to the construction of modern day Britain, while others treat it as an untold
…show more content…
Firstly, a certain narrative could be told as being relative to another narrative - this in essence would mean that the legacies of slavery are shown through a study of slave owners and their enterprise as it could be seen in the Docklands museum. This exhibit showed the enterprise of slavery, however, very narrowly reflected on the evils of slavery itself. This makes one question what the legacies of slavery would be if one did not look through the eyes of the slave owners or the enterprising owners of a joint stock