Heritage with Related Tags
Le Morne Cultural Landscape
Le Morne Cultural Landscape is a rugged mountain range jutting into the Indian Ocean in southwestern Mauritius, which was used as a refuge by escaped slaves, the Maroons, in the 18th and early 19th centuries. Protected by the mountain’s isolated, wooded and almost inaccessible cliffs, escaped slaves established small settlements in caves and on the summit of Le Morne. Oral traditions associated with the Maroons have made Le Morne a symbol of the slaves’ struggle for freedom, suffering and sacrifice, all of which are linked to the countries from which they came - mainland Africa, Madagascar, India and Southeast Asia. In fact, Mauritius was an important stopover in the eastern slave trade and is known as the “Republic of the Maroons” because of the large number of escaped slaves who lived in Le Morne.
Colonies of Benevolence
This transnational collection of sites includes the cultural landscapes of four settlements, one in Belgium and three in the Netherlands. Together they bear witness to an experiment in 19th-century social reform, an effort to alleviate urban poverty by establishing agricultural colonies in remote areas. Founded in 1818, Frederikshavn (Netherlands) was the oldest of these colonies and the original headquarters of a charitable association that aimed to reduce poverty at the national level. Other components of the site include the colonies of Wilhelminaoord and Veenhuizen in the Netherlands and the colony of Wortel in Belgium. As the income from the small farms in the colonies was insufficient, the charitable associations sought other sources of income and contracted with the state to house orphans and, soon after, beggars and vagrants, leading to the establishment of “unfree” colonies such as Veenhuizen, which had large dormitory-style buildings and larger centralized farms for them to work under the supervision of guards. The colonies were designed as panoramic settlements along orthogonal lines. They featured residential buildings, farmhouses, churches and other communal facilities. At their peak in the mid-19th century, such colonies in the Netherlands were home to more than 11,000 people. In Belgium, their numbers peaked in 1910 at 6,000.
Naval Mechanical School Museum and Memorial - Former Site of Secret Detention, Torture and Execution
The site is located in the former officers' quarters of the former Naval Mechanics School complex in Buenos Aires. It was the main clandestine detention center of the Argentine Navy during the period of the military-civilian dictatorship from 1976 to 1983. As part of the national strategy to destroy opponents of the military regime (both armed and non-violent), the officers' quarters of the Naval Mechanics School were used to detain, interrogate, torture and eventually kill opponents who were kidnapped in Buenos Aires.