14 – 15 Equestrian Statue of Elector Frederick William Throughout the 17th century, between 17,000 and 30,000 Africans were abducted and enslaved by the BAC. After the death of King Frederick I in 1713, control over the fort was eventually transferred to Dutch colonists. However, Brandenburg had already accumulated prestige and financial gains through its colonial endeavours at the particular expense of thousands of Africans. The elector is commemorated in the equestrian statue, whose motifs euphemise Prussia’s power and suzerainty over state enemies. However, only part of this narrative comes to the front, as there is no mention of the BAC or its role in the slave trade. Thus, how does this statue function as a memorial? What narratives are preserved, and which are left out of history? In his book Deutsch sein und Schwarz dazu, Theodor Michael opens with the quotation: ‘One: “Yes, it happened exactly as it happened.” The Other: “But that is not exactly how it happened”.’8 What Michael points to here is how history is presented to us ‘exactly as it happened’. He suggests that the narrative of this past is not complete, and there is more to tell. With regard to the equestrian statue, the historical narrative contained in the memorial can be stretched to tell a more complete narrative of the history of colonialism. Since 2020, and earlier elsewhere, conversations about memorials to colonial histories and racist figures have come into question. In Germany, this conversation has already discussed street names in Berlin’s African Quarter and the M_Street in Berlin-Mitte. Unlike streets, however, renaming the memorial would not serve the same function of correcting historical narratives. A memorial, after all, does not represent history itself. Rather, memorials contain a narrative of the past that individuals assign.9 Accordingly, the equestrian statue only speaks of the portion of Prussian history that has been vested in the memorial. The historical narrative hitherto is incomplete. It is thus the task of historians, artists, and restorers to correct this narrative. Interventions in memorials, such as additions, modifications, or removals, could be a way forward. In this light, the narrative of the past contained in the equestrian statue can be rewritten to contain a past that is not told solely from the perspective of the powerful. | HATEM HEGAB | 1 Cf. Frank 2001. – Ziegler 2010. | 2 Frank 2001, p. 351, n. 31. | 3 Cf. Frank 2001, p. 342. – McGrath 2012. | 4 Cf. Ziegler 2010, p. 132. | 5 Cf. Frank 2001. | 6 Epigraph quoted in Frank 2001, p. 344, according to Ladendorf 1961. | 7 Schmidt 1893, p. 450. | 8 Michael 2013, p. 8. | 9 See Catterall 2020.
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