Commemorations

March

PUERTO RICO:

22 March

Emancipation Day.
INTERNATIONAL:

25 March

UNITED NATION's International Day of Remembrance of slavery victims and the Transatlantic Slave Trade in honour of those who experienced the horrors of the transatlantic slave trade and died in slavery.

MAURITIUS:

1 February

Commemoration of the end of slavery.

February

SOUTHERN STATES (U.S.A.):

1 January

Emancipation Day is celebrated on this date in the Sea Islands of the Beaufort and Hilton Head areas in memory of the reading of the Emancipation Proclamation that freed the slaves in the Southern states.

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC, HAITI:

Emancipation Day is also Independence Day

January

ABOLITION OF SLAVERY CELEBRATIONS

FRENCH GUIANA (France):

10 June

Commemoration of the end of slavery.

TEXAS (U.S.A.):

June 19

Celebration of the liberation of black American slaves in Texas on June 19, 1865. This commemoration is known as ‘Juneteenth’ and in recent years has spread across all America.

June

FRANCE:

10 May

Commemorative day for the Remembrance of Slavery and its Abolition (Journée commémorative du souvenir de l'esclavage et de son abolition). First commemoration in 2006 after President J. Chirac voted in the Taubira Law in 2001.
COLOMBIA:

21 May

Afro-Colombian Day (Día de la Afrocolombianidad) is the annual commemoration of the date slavery was abolished 150 years ago (21 may 1851).

MARTINIQUE AND GUADELOUPE (France):

22 May and 27 May respectively

End of slavery memorial.
ST BARTHÉLEMY:

27 May

Abolition of Slavery Day
PANAMA:

30 May

Black Ethnicity Day celebration (Día de la Etnia Negra de Panamá) in remembrance of the abolition of slavery in 1851.

May

BARBADOS:

14 April to 23 August

A period including various celebrations in relation with the end of slavery.
MAYOTTE (France):

27 April

Commemoration of the end of slavery.

April

SURINAME AND CURAÇAO (Dutch colonies):

1 July

Memorial of the abolition of slavery followed in Amsterdam by the Keti Koti festival which means ‘broken chains’ in the Srana Tongo, the creole language of Suriname.
VIRGIN ISLANDS (U.S.A.):

3 July

Emancipation Day celebrates the abolition of slavery. Formerly a Danish colony.

August

ANGUILLA, BARBADOS, BELIZE, GUYANA, JAMAICA, SAINT LUCIA, SAINT VINCENT AND THE GRENADINES, TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO:

1 August

Emancipation Day. On August 1, 1985, Trinidad and Tobago became the first country in the world to declare a national holiday to commemorate the abolition of slavery.
BERMUDA:

1 August publicly

Emancipation Day unofficially

2 August.
DOMINICA:

August Monday

Emancipation Day.

THE BAHAMAS: Emancipation Day also called August Monday

as commemoration of the end of slavery takes place the first Monday in August.
BRITISH VIRGIN ISLANDS (British territory):

August Monday Festival

Starts the first Monday of August for a 3-day celebration.
CANADA:

On the Saturday nearest to 1 August

Emancipation Day

SAINT KITTS AND NEVIS: First Monday and Tuesday Emancipation Day memorial.
TURKS AND CAICAS ISLANDS:

7 August

Emancipation Day.
INTERNATIONAL:

23 August

United Nations’ International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition, to remind people the tragedy of the transatlantic slave trade and in memory of the uprising of enslaved Africans on the French possession of Saint Domingue (present-day Haiti), on 22-23 August 1791.

September

OHIO—U.S.A.:

22 September

Emancipation Day.

ST BARHÉLEMY:

9 October

Commemoration of the abolition of slavery.

October

No known celebrations

November

INTERNATIONAL:

2 December

United Nations’ International Day for the Abolition of Slavery since 1995 previously known as World Day for the Abolition of Slavery when established in 1985.

PERU:

3 December

Commemoration of the end of slavery
THE REUNION (France):

20 December

End of slavery celebration