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In the wake of the Charleston (June 17, 2015) and Charlottesville (August 12, 2017) tragedies, part of the American public started demanding that monuments erected in praise of Confederate leaders, mostly at the turn of the twentieth century, be removed. This article replaces the issue of Confederate statues and monuments in the context of their erection (the years of segregation and white domination in the South), while exploring the questions of public memory and the political stakes at issue in this history and present-day discussions.

This paper offers reflections on the Benjamin Franklin Tercentenary, which took place from 2006 to 2008. This anniversary was celebrated by many publications, conferences and exhibitions in the United States, producing a renewed and critical understanding of Franklin, “not your usual founding father”. The main exhibition travelled to France (2007-2008), clearly as part of an attempt to patch up relationships between the two countries in the wake of the Iraq war controversy. The main focus in this Franco-American commemoration was on transatlantic diplomacy and collaboration, not really on Franklin in his multiple capacities, in his time and country of birth. The conference organized at Université Paris-Diderot in January 2008 was by contrast a scholarly affair, highlighting work on Franklin conducted by French and foreign specialists. Most of the papers are presented here.

Although slavery was condemned in France, Britain, and the United States from the 1770s to the 1790s, leaders in all three countries considered that as a first step the international slave trade should be abolished. Britain was particularly active in promoting an international campaign against the trade after 1807, mainly by diplomatic means. This led to a spate of declarations and treaties in the 1810s and 1820s, and to a general agreement in Western countries on how unacceptable and criminal the importation of enslaved Africans was. However the now illegal trade picked up after 1820 due to a growing demand for labour in plantation societies in the Americas. Nationalist concerns clashed with humanitarian goals on the Atlantic, hindering real international police efforts. Most ambiguous in its commitment to ending the transatlantic slave trade was the United States : not only did it not repress the trade but American entrepreneurs were often involved in the transatlantic operations. The point of the paper is to examine this gradualist period in the history of antislavery, insisting on its international and comparative dimension, while underlying the peculiar position of the United States in the antebellum period.