Later this year, a major exhibition about pirates will open in the US at a location still to be revealed. Created by Ohio-based Arts and Exhibitions International, which is responsible for blockbusters such as Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs, and Diana: A Celebration, it has already been the subject of protests and controversy.
In December 2006, plans to hold Pirates at Tampa's Museum of Science and Industry (MOSI) were cancelled in response to complaints by African-American activists. They argued that it would have trivialised the fact that some pirate ships had also carried slaves.
The objections and the response, as reported extensively in the US media, raise important questions about which histories deserve recognition in public space, as well as about the role of museums in relation to contemporary communities, political sensitivities and historical and scientific research.
The centrepiece of the exhibition is the wreck and treasure of the pirate ship Whydah, which was sunk off Cape Cod in 1717. Discovered in 1984, the ship has been thoroughly excavated and, according to Barry Clifford, the archaeologist who led the work, provides an unprecedented insight into the history of piracy.
In addition to showcasing this scientific research, the exhibition would have tied in with Tampa's history of pirate links, and it promised to bring in new audiences attracted to the theme by the Pirates of the Caribbean films.
But James Ransom, a member of the Coalition of African American Organizations and a spokesman for the activists who objected to the exhibition, said it risked opening up a 'cavernous wound' by trivialising the history of slavery and insulting many of Tampa's African-American residents whose ancestors came to America as enslaved people.
The contentious issue was that before it became a pirate ship the Whydah had been a slave ship responsible for transporting hundreds of people from Africa to a life of slavery. To display it simply as a pirate ship, Ransom argues, is not just to ignore the history of slavery, but to trivialise it.
The Whydah set sail from London for west Africa in 1715, carrying liquor and tools to trade for slaves. Up to 700 enslaved Africans were taken on the perilous four-week journey to the Caribbean, where they were exchanged for precious metals, indigo and sugar bound for England.
But on the ship's second voyage in 1717, it was captured by pirates. A few months later, the ship was wrecked in a storm.
Clifford emphasises that any of the enslaved captured by a pirate ship would have been freed and would have held equal status with other crew members. In other words, it was a world in which colour no longer mattered.
In response to the opposition, the Tampa museum, together with Arts and Exhibitions International, cancelled the exhibition and issued an apology.
In a city in which racial tensions are close to the surface, it is perhaps not surprising that a public institution would tread carefully, rather than risk alienating its audience. It is also understandable that, while some regarded the cancellation as the only responsible course of action, others have made accusations of caving in to political correctness.
John Norman, the head of Arts and Exhibitions International, is confident that the exhibition will find a new home. He says it has rigorous scholarly content and that its detractors didn't know what was going to be in it. 'I don't know who would object to true history,' he says.
This is not the first time that an exhibition about piracy has run aground in Tampa. In 1993, a planned private museum of piracy, costing $70m (£35m), met the same fate and for the same basic reason.
The museum was to have included the Whydah, as well as telling the story of José Gaspar, a legendary pirate around whom the city has long held an annual pirate festival that involves the African-American community.
One of the lessons from the 1993 museum experience was to get the local communities involved early on. But even though MOSI tried to do so, there remained dissent over whether the exhibition should go ahead.
These cases show how sensitive the representation of history relating to race and slavery is in the US. Fear of opening up contested and divisive ground is no doubt one reason why there is still no national museum of slavery in the US, even though the country has led the way in addressing another atrocity, the Holocaust.
A privately funded National Museum of Slavery is planned to open in 2008 in Fredericksburg, Virginia. But it has had difficulty recruiting sponsors, and its location, as part of a large commercial and tourism project, has been controversial. It is not a minor undertaking: the museum will house a substantial library and archive.
Meanwhile, detailed plans have yet to be revealed as to how the National Museum of African American History and Culture, which will open in ten to 15 years' time in Washington, DC, as part of the Smithsonian Museum, will tackle the subject.
Museums and exhibitions of slavery are public performances of recognition and contrition. They also serve to mark what counts as history.
To some, dealing with a topic in a museum is the equivalent of drawing a line to indicate that it is now past rather than present. But increasingly, museums are working hard to proclaim their continuing contemporary relevance.
It will be interesting to see how this will work exhibitions of slavery that will open this year on both sides of the Atlantic. Will they raise awareness of the past in a way that itself acts as symbolic repentance, or will they contribute to calls for other kinds of reparation?
Sharon Macdonald is a professor of social anthropology at the University of Manchester. She is currently completing an Arts and Humanities Research Council-funded project entitled Difficult Heritage
In December 2006, plans to hold Pirates at Tampa's Museum of Science and Industry (MOSI) were cancelled in response to complaints by African-American activists. They argued that it would have trivialised the fact that some pirate ships had also carried slaves.
The objections and the response, as reported extensively in the US media, raise important questions about which histories deserve recognition in public space, as well as about the role of museums in relation to contemporary communities, political sensitivities and historical and scientific research.
The centrepiece of the exhibition is the wreck and treasure of the pirate ship Whydah, which was sunk off Cape Cod in 1717. Discovered in 1984, the ship has been thoroughly excavated and, according to Barry Clifford, the archaeologist who led the work, provides an unprecedented insight into the history of piracy.
In addition to showcasing this scientific research, the exhibition would have tied in with Tampa's history of pirate links, and it promised to bring in new audiences attracted to the theme by the Pirates of the Caribbean films.
But James Ransom, a member of the Coalition of African American Organizations and a spokesman for the activists who objected to the exhibition, said it risked opening up a 'cavernous wound' by trivialising the history of slavery and insulting many of Tampa's African-American residents whose ancestors came to America as enslaved people.
The contentious issue was that before it became a pirate ship the Whydah had been a slave ship responsible for transporting hundreds of people from Africa to a life of slavery. To display it simply as a pirate ship, Ransom argues, is not just to ignore the history of slavery, but to trivialise it.
The Whydah set sail from London for west Africa in 1715, carrying liquor and tools to trade for slaves. Up to 700 enslaved Africans were taken on the perilous four-week journey to the Caribbean, where they were exchanged for precious metals, indigo and sugar bound for England.
But on the ship's second voyage in 1717, it was captured by pirates. A few months later, the ship was wrecked in a storm.
Clifford emphasises that any of the enslaved captured by a pirate ship would have been freed and would have held equal status with other crew members. In other words, it was a world in which colour no longer mattered.
In response to the opposition, the Tampa museum, together with Arts and Exhibitions International, cancelled the exhibition and issued an apology.
In a city in which racial tensions are close to the surface, it is perhaps not surprising that a public institution would tread carefully, rather than risk alienating its audience. It is also understandable that, while some regarded the cancellation as the only responsible course of action, others have made accusations of caving in to political correctness.
John Norman, the head of Arts and Exhibitions International, is confident that the exhibition will find a new home. He says it has rigorous scholarly content and that its detractors didn't know what was going to be in it. 'I don't know who would object to true history,' he says.
This is not the first time that an exhibition about piracy has run aground in Tampa. In 1993, a planned private museum of piracy, costing $70m (£35m), met the same fate and for the same basic reason.
The museum was to have included the Whydah, as well as telling the story of José Gaspar, a legendary pirate around whom the city has long held an annual pirate festival that involves the African-American community.
One of the lessons from the 1993 museum experience was to get the local communities involved early on. But even though MOSI tried to do so, there remained dissent over whether the exhibition should go ahead.
These cases show how sensitive the representation of history relating to race and slavery is in the US. Fear of opening up contested and divisive ground is no doubt one reason why there is still no national museum of slavery in the US, even though the country has led the way in addressing another atrocity, the Holocaust.
A privately funded National Museum of Slavery is planned to open in 2008 in Fredericksburg, Virginia. But it has had difficulty recruiting sponsors, and its location, as part of a large commercial and tourism project, has been controversial. It is not a minor undertaking: the museum will house a substantial library and archive.
Meanwhile, detailed plans have yet to be revealed as to how the National Museum of African American History and Culture, which will open in ten to 15 years' time in Washington, DC, as part of the Smithsonian Museum, will tackle the subject.
Museums and exhibitions of slavery are public performances of recognition and contrition. They also serve to mark what counts as history.
To some, dealing with a topic in a museum is the equivalent of drawing a line to indicate that it is now past rather than present. But increasingly, museums are working hard to proclaim their continuing contemporary relevance.
It will be interesting to see how this will work exhibitions of slavery that will open this year on both sides of the Atlantic. Will they raise awareness of the past in a way that itself acts as symbolic repentance, or will they contribute to calls for other kinds of reparation?
Sharon Macdonald is a professor of social anthropology at the University of Manchester. She is currently completing an Arts and Humanities Research Council-funded project entitled Difficult Heritage
