Island of Gorée
Spent late morning and afternoon at Gorée Island in Dakar harbour. It was a very pleasant day. We caught a ferry from Dakar harbour to the island and visited the house of slaves, a harrowing sight but due to commercisation and endless hawkers, it seemed to lack the dignitas of other sites I’ve visited such as the genecide memorial sites in Rwanda and Armenia as well as museums of slavery in Zanzibar and Cape Town. Nevertheless, the sight of the door leading from the landing jetty and called the door of no return, sent a shiver down my spine. As did the holding cells.
(Please click on any thumbnail above to enlarge the whole gallery for full sliding photos)
There was also a section on modern slavery
The island of Gorée lies off the coast of Senegal, opposite Dakar. From the 15th to the 19th century, it was the largest slave-trading centre on the African coast. Ruled in succession by the Portuguese, Dutch, English and French, its architecture is characterized by the contrast between the grim slave-quarters and the elegant houses of the slave traders. Today it continues to serve as a reminder of human exploitation and as a sanctuary for reconciliation.
Gorée is a small island 900 metres (3,000 ft) in length and 350 metres (1,150 ft) in width sheltered by the Cap-Vert Peninsula. Now part of the city of Dakar, it was a minor port and site of European settlement along the coast. Being almost devoid of drinking water, the island was not settled before the arrival of Europeans. The Portuguese were the first to establish a presence on Gorée c. 1450, where they built a small stone chapel and used land as a cemetery.
Gorée is known as the location of the House of Slaves (French: Maison des esclaves), built by an Afro-French Métis family about 1780–1784. The House of Slaves is one of the oldest houses on the island. It is now used as a tourist destination to show the horrors of the slave trade throughout the Atlantic world.
After the decline of the slave trade from Senegal in the 1770s and 1780s, the town became an important port for the shipment of peanuts, peanut oil, gum arabic, ivory, and other products of the “legitimate” trade. It was probably in relation to this trade that the so-called Maison des Esclaves was built. As discussed by historian Ana Lucia Araujo, the building started gaining reputation as a slave depot mainly because of the work of its curator Boubacar Joseph Ndiaye, who was able to move the audiences who visited the house with his performance. Many public personalities visit the House of Slaves, which plays the role of a site of memory of slavery. In June 2013, President of the United States Barack Obama visited the House of Slaves.
The island of Gorée was one of the first places in Africa to be settled by Europeans, as the Portuguese settled on the island in 1444. It was captured by the United Netherlands in 1588, then the Portuguese again, and again the Dutch. They named it after the Dutch island of Goeree. The British took it over under Robert Holmes in 1663, but it was soon recaptured by Michiel de Ruyter.
Historical affiliations
Portugal 1444–1588
Dutch Republic 1588–1629
Portugal 1629
Dutch Republic 1629–1664
England 1664–1677
France 1677–1758
Great Britain 1758–1763
France 1763–1779
Great Britain 1779–1783
France 1783–1960
Senegal 1960–present
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