The news in yesterday’s newspaper that a freed Bermudian slave had fought in the American Civil War with the 54th Massachusetts Regiment is an important and fascinating discovery.

Any additions to the tapestry of Bermuda’s history are important and this discovery shows that black Bermudians were committed enough to freedom after Emancipation in the 1830s to lay down their lives to free other slaves.

That this Bermudian who was wounded and captured in the assault on Fort Wagner captured so dramatically in the film ‘Glory’ and gave that very word as the reason for fighting is more than a Hollywood footnote. It gives texture and meaning to a struggle that was a major step in establishing the rights of all human beings.

This generous gift to Bermuda by Mark Mitchell makes the Diaspora Conference from a historical perspective.

The conference was also valuable for other reasons as well. Several of the speakers issued timely reminders that the Diaspora and the slavery experience should not be “Disneyfied”. That is quite right. There are serious risks that using the tragedy of slavery as a marketing tool would only demean the experience. To be sure, people will visit memorials to the history of the Diaspora just as they visit Holocaust Memorials, Pearl Harbor and, indeed, the World Trade Center.

But the Diaspora is first and foremost a memorial and secondly a visitor attraction, not the other way round. And, as the selection of sites in Bermuda has shown, anyone visiting the sites should see not only the horrors inflicted on black Bermudians but also the extraordinary achievements of black Bermudians both before and after Emancipation.