By Lais Morais and Catarina Demony
SANTOS, Brazil (Reuters) - Helena Monteiro da Costa's father was brought from Angola to Brazil as an enslaved person in the 19th century. Next (LON:NXT) year the 99-year-old hopes she can take part on a first-of-its-kind cruise that would do the reverse journey back to her father's homeland.
"My father was enslaved and he obeyed ... everything they (enslavers) told him to do he did," Costa said at her home in Santos, the coastal Brazilian city where her father ended up after the brutal voyage across the Atlantic.
From the 16th to the 19th century, Brazil received around 5 million enslaved Africans, more than any other country. Most were forcibly transported in inhumane conditions from Angola, in west Africa, aboard Portuguese vessels.
The organizers of "A Grande Travessia," or the Great Passage, are seeking to charter a cruise ship to depart from Santos and stop in Rio de Janeiro and Salvador before making its way to Luanda, Angola's capital.
Dagoberto Jose Fonseca, 63, a professor at Sao Paulo's State University UNESP, is the mastermind behind the cruise, which is planned for Dec. 1 to Dec. 21, 2025.
"We want to resume the maritime routes of the past to build another future," Fonseca said.
Fonseca has been in talks with Angolan and Brazilian authorities, who support the initiative, and with cruise companies. Financial support will be required to charter the cruise ship.
Anielle Franco, Brazil's minister of racial equality, said the project was aligned with the government's "Rotas Negras" or Black Routes programme, which promotes tourism that values Afro-Brazilian history and culture.
'REBUILD PAST'
The project envisages inviting around 2,000 passengers, including students, academics, business people, descendants of those enslaved and leaders of Afro-Brazilian religions.
Planned activities onboard include workshops, roundtables, networking opportunities and tributes to the over 2.5 million who lost their lives in the gruelling "Middle Passage".
"My expectation is to learn about my past," said Mary Francisca do Careno, one of the Black academics set to go on the cruise, who said she hopes the trip would provide answers to questions she has about her heritage.
Afonso Vita, an Angolan expert on slavery heritage tourism, said the cruise would help his country confront its past and accused former coloniser Portugal of trying to avoid the topic.
"The country that colonised us, Portugal, never had any interest in seeing this history, which tarnishes its image, discussed publicly," Vita said.
Earlier this year, Portugal's President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa said his country was responsible for crimes committed during transatlantic slavery and the colonial era, and suggested there was a need for reparations. But the Portuguese government has rejected initiating any reparation process.
Both Vita and Fonseca urged the Portuguese government to get involved in the cruise project.
Portugal's economy ministry, which oversees tourism, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Organizers see the cruise as part of a wider movement fighting for reparations over transatlantic slavery and European colonialism.
The debate over whether there should be reparations to address historical wrongs and their legacies is long-standing and remains highly divisive, but support for reparations has been gaining momentum worldwide.
"A project such as this ... invites us to reflect on reparations, as well as on the recognition and strengthening of the identity of Black people," Brazil's Franco said.