Cais do Valongo (RJ) gains World Heritage title

The suffering of those who were forcibly taken from their lands of origin to a life of forced labor and degradation is something that cannot be forgotten. More than four million enslaved Africans in Brazil will now have their pain represented and remembered in UNESCO’s decision, which has just recognized the Archaeological Site Cais do Valongo (RJ) as a World Heritage site.Representing Brazil, the president of Iphan, Kátia Bogéa (photo), emphasized the importance of the title. “In times of heightened intolerance that surrounds the current world, the recognition of sensitive sites highlights the need for us to share our experience in favor of a more humanistic view of global society, based on observing what Cais do Valongo meant and its social reappropriation in current days, especially by Afro-Brazilian descendants, who in an act of overcoming reaffirm their blackness and their history for Brazil, the Americas, and the entire World,” she said in her speech.
Main entry port for enslaved Africans in Brazil and the Americas, Cais do Valongo, located in the port area of Rio de Janeiro (RJ), is a symbol of this unfortunate episode that represents one of the greatest injustices in world history. Very important for the Afro-Brazilian community and for the Afro-American community in general, Cais do Valongo is now on the same level as the city of Hiroshima in Japan and the Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland, classified as sites of memory and suffering.Cais do Valongo was the main landing dock for enslaved Africans in all the Americas and also the only one materially preserved. Due to the magnitude of what it represents, it stands as the most prominent vestige of the slave trade on the American continent.
The World Heritage title represents the recognition of a unique example in human history that, despite the slave process produced, provided an invaluable contribution from Africans and their descendants to the cultural, economic, and social formation and development of Brazil, directly, and the region, indirectly. The title also recognizes the exceptional universal value of the site, as a memory of the violence against humanity represented by slavery, and of resistance, freedom, and affirmation, strengthening the historical responsibilities, not only of the Brazilian state but also of all UNESCO member countries.