“Look, those two buildings were owned by slave traders,” the historian Martín Rodrigo Alharilla, 57, says offhand while walking through Barcelona’s port area. He continues the route along La Rambla and points out a bas-relief showing chains, ropes, sugar canes and a chimney. The building that displays it on its frontispiece houses the Generalitat’s Department of Culture. “It was built at the end of the 18th century and later bought by Tomás Ribalta i Serra, an indiano (a Spaniard who emigrated to the Americas) with business in Cuba who likely ran a slave-trading factory in what is now Nigeria. An extremely wealthy man who spent his time here living off his income,” the professor explains; he curated the exhibition La infamia, la participación catalana en la esclavitud colonial (The Infamy: Catalonia’s Role in Colonial Slavery), which was shown at the city’s Maritime Museum and is now available online for consultation.
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