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African Slavery in Senegal, Myth vs Truth |
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Slavery: A thriving tourist trade has been built around the dubious historic role of a Senegal island.
By John Murphy
Sun Foreign Staff
June 30, 2004
GOREE
ISLAND, Senegal - Standing in a narrow doorway opening onto the
Atlantic Ocean, tour guide Aladji Ndiaye asked a visitor to this
Senegalese island's Slave House to imagine the millions of shackled
Africans who stepped through it, forced onto overcrowded ships that
would carry them to lives of slavery in the Americas.
"After
walking through the door, it was bye-bye, Africa," said Ndiaye, pausing
before solemnly pointing to the choppy waters below. "Many would try to
escape. Those who did died. It was better we give ourselves to the
sharks than be slaves."
This portal - called the "door of no
return" - is one of the most powerful symbols of the Atlantic slave
trade, serving as a backdrop for high-profile visits to Africa by Pope
John Paul II, President Bill Clinton and President George W. Bush and a
destination for thousands of African-Americans in search of their roots.
More
than 200,000 people travel to this rocky island off the coast of Dakar
each year to step inside the dark, dungeon-like holding rooms in the
pink stucco Slave House and hear details of how 20 million slaves were
chained and fattened for export here. Many visitors are moved to tears.
But
whatever its emotional or spiritual power, Goree Island's real role in
the slave trade remains a matter of dispute, a contest between history
and the power of myth.
Despite the claims by Senegal's tour
guides and tourism industry, Goree Island was never a major shipping
point for slaves, say historians. No slaves were ever sold at what is
known as the "House of Slaves." No Africans ever stepped through the
famous "door of no return" to waiting ships, either.
"The whole
story is phony," says Philip D. Curtin, a retired professor of history
at the Johns Hopkins University who has written more than two dozen
books on Atlantic slave trade and African history.
First used as
stopover by Portuguese sailors in the 15th century, Goree Island was
bought for a few iron nails by the Dutch before being seized by the
French and the British.
Although it functioned as a commercial
center, it was never a key departure point for slaves, Curtin says.
Most Africans sold into slavery in the Senegal region would have
departed from thriving slave depots at the mouths of the Senegal River
to the north and the Gambia River to the south, he says.
During
about 400 years of the Atlantic slave trade when an estimated 10
million Africans were taken from Africa, maybe 50,000 slaves - not 20
million as claimed by the Slave House curator - might have spent time
on the island, Curtin says.
Even then, they would not have been
locked in chains in the House of Slaves, Curtin says. Built in
1775-1778 by a wealthy merchant, it was one of the most beautiful homes
on the island; it would not have been used as a warehouse for slaves
other than those who might have been owned by the merchant.
Likewise,
Curtin adds, the widely accepted story that the "door of no return" was
the final departure point for millions of slaves is not true. There are
too many rocks to allow boats to dock safely and a beach nearby that
would have been the easiest place for loading ships, he says.
Curtin's
assessment is widely shared by historians, including Abdoulaye Camara,
curator of the Goree Island Historical Museum, which is a 10-minute
walk from the Slave House.
The Slave House, says Camara, offers a distorted account of the island's history - created with tourists in mind.
No
one is quite sure where the Slave House got its name, but both Camara
and Curtin credit Boubacar Joseph Ndiaye, the Slave House's curator
since the early 1960s, with promoting it as a tourist attraction.
Ndiaye
is famous in Senegal for offering thousands of visitors chilling
details of the squalid conditions of the slaves' holding cells, the
chains used to shackle them and their final walk through the door of no
return.
"Joseph Ndiaye offers a strong, powerful, sentimental
history. I am a historian. I am not allowed to be sentimental," says
Camara.
That said, Camara believes Ndiaye has played an
important role in offering the descendents of slaves an emotional
shrine to commemorate the sacrifices of their ancestors.
"The
slaves did not pour through that door. The door is a symbol. The
history and memory needs to have a strong symbol," Camara says. "You
either accept it or you don't accept it. It's difficult to interpret a
symbol."
Still, when historians have questioned the significance
of the island and the Slave House, they have been met with accusations
of revisionism.
The respected French newspaper Le Monde
published an article in 1996 refuting the island's role in the slave
trade; Senegalese authorities were furious. Several years ago at an
academic conference in Senegal, some Senegalese accused Curtin of
"stealing their history," Curtin said.
Despite widespread doubts
of Goree Island's role in the slave trade, the United Nations
Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization, which in 1978
designated the island a World Heritage site, actively promotes the
Slave House as an important historical location.
"We are certain
that the House of Slaves had something to do with the slave trade,"
says Edmond Moukala, a spokesman for UNESCO in Paris.
Some tour
books, however, have begun warning visitors about the questions
surrounding the island, including Lonely Planet's West Africa guide
book, which concludes: "Goree's fabricated history boils down to an
emotional manipulation by government officials and tour companies of
people who come here as part of a genuine search for cultural roots."
None
of the controversy appears to have diminished the island's attraction
as a tourist destination. The ferry that carries visitors from Dakar to
the island is regularly packed with tourists and school groups.
The
island is a remarkable peaceful community with narrow streets, colonial
homes, baobab trees and not one car in sight. Many of the island's
1,200 residents have come to depend on tourism, hawking African
paintings, sculptures and necklaces, giving tours to visitors and
running small seaside restaurants and hotels.
At the House of
Slaves, the visitors' book is crowded with entries by tourists
expressing a powerful mix of anger, sadness and hope at what they've
experienced - no matter if it is fact or fiction.
"The black Africans will never forget this shameful act until kingdom come," penned a visitor from Ghana.
"My
heart is sad," wrote a Canadian tourist, "This is the place I feel my
ancestor's pain. But we are a beautiful, resilient people and we will
stand."
Copyright (c) 2005, The Baltimore Sun
Link to the article:
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nationworld/bal-slavery0630,1,5943272.story
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