"The House of Slaves" in Senegal: A Living Memory of the Atlantic Slave Trade

Echo News - The "House of Slaves" on Goree Island in Senegal stands as a living testament to one of the darkest chapters in human history, having served as a center for the gathering and forced transportation of Africans across the Atlantic into slavery in the New World.

The island, located off the capital Dakar, played a pivotal role in the Atlantic slave trade from the 15th to the 19th centuries, with millions of Africans being taken from it to the Americas. Today, the island is considered a global symbol of this human tragedy.

Goree... that dark hand extended by nature between the shores of green waves, before being watered by waves of tears, rising above the dark backs of its passersby—elders, boys, and women—under the whips of white slave traders who established the foundations of Western economies, and the wealth of peoples and institutions built on lists of hunger and tears of African slaves, many of whom crossed the waves adjacent to Goree, as ships set sail into the unknown, only to cast them into the final resting place of pain, the farthest point from their birthplace, as documented by Al Jazeera correspondent Amin Habla.

UNESCO classified this island as a World Heritage site in 1978, and for decades it has become an essential part of Senegal's tourism resources, attracting hundreds of tourists daily, stimulating a continuous economic activity that benefits the country's economy and the village's (island's) residents, who number no more than 1,200, living off the wealth generated by memories of tears and the remnants of the slave trade, as well as the painful stories and information about the millions who crossed the waves at the mercy of the white man's whips.

A European Battleground

The Portuguese first set foot on Goree's shores in 1444, thereby planting the first claws of European slavery in this tranquil island. Within six years of their arrival in this maritime corner, they established a trading post and a church that held its first mass in 1450. The era of the Portuguese came to an end when the Dutch seized the island in 1617, followed by the French and British administrations in succession for four centuries, culminating in complete French control from 1817.

Due to Goree's role in the slave trade and its status as the direct port only 8,000 nautical miles from the United States, it became a battleground of competition among colonial powers that exchanged control over it 17 times.

The French were the most fortunate, as their control lasted for more than two centuries. The period of Western dominance over the island was marked by painful journeys that transported kings, commoners, scholars, children, and warriors in chains, treated like cattle.

The painful irony lies in the fact that the bloody centuries of Goree's history coincided with the European Enlightenment and the relentless march of Western thought towards democracy and human rights, which diminish in meaning and freedom unless they pertain to Europeans, settlers, invaders, or slave traders roaming the horizons.

Senegalese human rights activist Alioune Tione, in a conversation with Al Jazeera, believes that Goree represents the most horrific civilizational reversal in history, where European ships carried terror to transport individuals to Western farms, fields, mines, and factories, establishing their industrial revolution on the backs of Africans.

Tione views this period as one where we reached the nadir in our treatment of African individuals and their dignity, when there were those who did not regard them as human beings. This is the nature of colonialism, as colonialism, according to him, is always about dominance, changing identities, names, languages, and cultures; thus, like slavery, it is considered a crime against humanity.

Source: Al Jazeera + Anadolu