The most memorable historic sites of the slave trade in Africa

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Anyone with a passion for history and culture should consider including visits to historic sites of the slave trade in Africa on any itinerary.

It’s a history which hangs over much of Africa, and has everything to do with many contemporary issues the continent faces.

As a visitor from the UK, one of the most veracious of slave trading nations, it can be difficult to stomach.

Although I have no knowledge that my family benefited, lots of British wealth was built on the trade in humans.

It seems likely that I have benefitted from this trade, at least indirectly. And that’s something that should be acknowledged.

Despite hundreds of years of oppression, Africa’s modern populations hold no ill will towards Europeans and those of European descent.

Most won’t even give the slave trade a second thought, even while living alongside important historical sites of the slave trade in Africa.

Like it or not, the slave trade is part of our past. Learning more about it, by experiencing elements of it first-hand, can only help us move forward as nations, cultures and societies.

Where and how were slaves captured in Africa?

Slavery probably existed in Africa for millennia, as warring peoples would enslave their vanquished opponents. It’s a practice everyone from ancient Romans to medieval Europeans also participated in.

In other words, slavery was known throughout the world. Slavery in Africa only began to have a cultural impact with the arrival of outsiders to the continent.

States captured and enslaved Africans in three main regions. Arab traders began capturing black African slaves from east Africa and the horn of Africa from as early as 650 AD.

Places involved in the slave trade in Africa were therefore not limited to the west coast of Africa and the transatlantic slave trade.

Over the next thousand years or so, it’s estimated by historians that approximately 7.25 million people were forced into slavery in the Middle East. Here, it was women who were favoured.

The transatlantic slave trade

By comparison, the transatlantic slave developed much later, following the colonisation of north and south America.

It was realised that labour in the New World was in short supply, and Africa offered the answer.

In exchange for metals, cloth, and beads, leaders from Senegal to Angola captured peoples on behalf of Europe’s trading nations. That’s anyone with a navy.

Starting in around 1500, the UK quickly became the leading slave trading nation. Nowhere in the commonwealth seems immune from the horrors – the remains of black African slaves were even recently discovered on St Helena.

In what became known as the triangular trade, enslaved people would be shipped from Africa to the Americas.

Here they would be put to work in cotton fields. The resulting fibres were sent to factories in the north of England, and turned into cloth. The cloth was then traded in west Africa for more enslaved people.

Between 1640 and 1807, when Britain abolished the slave trade, its ships transported 3.4 million Africans in terrible conditions to perennial servitude. A significant number didn’t even survive the journey.

Taking all Europe’s slaving nations into account, some 12 million Africans are thought to have undergone the ‘middle passage’.

That’s roughly equivalent to the entire population of the UK in 1800. It’s also thought to account for a tenth of Africa’s total population at the time.

Slavery in north Africa

The tables were turned on north Africa’s Barbary Coast – modern day Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya.

Pirates would sail as far north as Cornwall and Iceland to capture white Christians. They were then either held for ransom, or sold into slavery in the Maghreb.

As a demonstration of the continued effect of slavery on the continent, it was only outlawed in Mauritania in 1981.

It makes Mauritania the last country in the world to abolish slavery, although slaves are thought to still remain in the country.

Where to find historic sights linked to the slave trade in Africa

Africa’s slave heritage tourism shouldn’t be missed, despite the harrowing stories it uncovers. Sadly, there are no shortage of locations connected to the slave trade on Africa’s west and east coasts.

The forts and castles of Ghana

For me, the most memorable places to visit in west Africa are the chain of 40-plus forts which line Ghana’s Atlantic coast.

Together forming a single UNESCO World Heritage Site, they are probably the easiest sites linked to the slave trade in Africa to visit.

The jewels in their crown are the castles of Cape Coast and Elmina. Day trips to Cape Coast or Cape Coast and Elmina run regularly from Accra, site of Ghana’s main international airport.

Cape Coast Castle was established in 1555 as a Portuguese trading post, before slipping into the hands of the Swedish, Danish, and finally British.

It was they who were responsible for the courtyard and whitewashed stone structures Barack Obama toured in 2009.

Lined with cannon on its seaward side, its rooms are largely empty. Even so, it’s easy to feel the oppressive atmosphere of the dark, underground dungeons.

Thousands of slaves would have been imprisoned in them without any facilities whatsoever, potentially for weeks at a time.

They would then be led onto waiting ships through the door of no return, perhaps Cape Coast’s most enduring image.

The castle comes top of my picks of the best things to do in Ghana too.

Elmina Castle has a similar history, although it’s even earlier. Dating back to 1482, it’s the first European structure built south of the Sahara Desert.

Gorée and Kunta Kinteh Islands

Although their names aren’t known to many, Gorée and Kunta Kinteh Islands are another two important historic sites linked to the slave trade in west Africa.

Tiny Gorée lies a short ferry ride away from Dakar, capital of Senegal. It was one of the first locations in sub-Saharan Africa settled by European colonisers. It’s also a top small island in Africa to visit, with tours showing the very best of the island.

Among its relics of the slave trade is the House of Slaves, or Maison des esclaves, an otherwise beautiful structure with a pink hue.

Built during the height of the transatlantic slave trade, in the 1780s, it was used to imprison enslaved people before the journey to the New World.

The nearby IFAN historical museum in the mid-nineteenth century Fort d’Estrées is to my mind the country’s best museum. It’s collections span centuries of life in Senegal.

Meanwhile, Kunta Kinteh Island lies in the waters of the Gambia River. Known as James Island until 2011, it adopted the name of the lead character of Alex Haley’s Roots.

The book details how the character left the island for Annapolis, Maryland.

At severe risk of erosion due to the river’s currents, a visit to the island will reveal caves and ruined buildings where slaves departed the continent.

Most tours of the island also include the villages of Juffure, also mentioned in Roots, and Albreda. Here there’s a slavery museum with a multitude of authentic relics from the time.

Relics of the ‘Slave Coast’

Together with western portions of Nigeria, Benin used to be known to Europeans as the Slave Coast. It’s an indication of the main export from the region.

In Benin, focus your attention on Ouidah. The literary minded might be aware of the town because of Bruce Chatwin’s short yet absorbing The Viceroy of Ouidah. It’s a fictionalised account of a slave trader by the name of Francisco Felix de Sousa.

A town of around 75,000 people, it’s also speckled with historic sights. It makes Ouidah one of the best places to explore the history of the slave trade in this part of Africa.

In the centre of town, the centuries old Portuguese fort has been converted into the Museum of History. It’s also the starting point for a four-kilometre Route des Esclaves, or Slave Route.

Covered in deep orange-red sand, the route is the path by which enslaved people were taken from the fort to the beach and waiting ships.

Much of the path is lined with modern concrete sculptures highlighting Ouidah’s strong link with Voodoo. Should you need more convincing, check out the Python Temple, opposite the catholic basilica.

At the end of the route is another modern addition, the monumental archway called the Door of No Return. The Door of No Return Museum lies nearby.

Make it to Badagri (or Badagry) in Nigeria, and you’ll find several barracoons (slave cells) converted into small but fascinating museums.

Unlike many museums in the region, there are plenty of artifacts from the period, including chains, regalia from local kings, cannon, and other metalwork.

Nearby lies the Velekete Slave Market (and Nigeria’s first multi-storey structure). They’re all situated on and around Marina Road, lining the north side of Porto Novo Creek.

Slaving sites in east Africa

As I’ve already mentioned, east Africa wasn’t immune from the devastation effects of the slave trade. In fact, its people endured the threat from raiding parties for much longer.

It centred on the Tanzanian city of Bagamoyo and the islands of the Zanzibar archipelago – usually better associated with high end beach resorts.

Bagamoyo and its link to the slave trade in Africa

The word sleepy was invented to describe modern day Bagamoyo. Most activity comes from artisan fishermen bringing the latest Indian Ocean catch ashore.

It makes the town a relaxing place to wander, especially as a day trip from Dar es Salaam. In doing so, you’ll follow in the footsteps of famous names including Richard F Burton (Victorian explorer, not actor), Henry Morton Stanley and James Augustus Grant.

Along the way, you’ll pass aging buildings such as the Old German Boma. Bagamoyo became German East Africa’s capital in 1887.

If local legend is to be believed, these men landed at nearby Kaole, a motorbike taxi ride away.

A long-abandoned Swahili settlement dating to the thirteenth century, its ruins contain several mosques, alongside around 30 tombs of local dignitaries.

The legends associated with Kaole certainly don’t extend to David Livingstone. His only known association with Bagamoyo is after his death.

His body was placed in the tower of the Old Church before continuing to Zanzibar.

Zanzibar’s Stone Town and the slave trade

Follow Livingstone to Zanzibar’s ‘capital’ of Stone Town, and you’ll continue on the trail of Africa’s slave trade historic sights. Walking is also the best way to see the sights here, unless you’re up for a donkey ride.

It’s gigantic Anglican Christ Church Cathedral was built on the site of the island’s largest slave market. A disc of red marble in front of the altar is supposed to mark the location of a whipping post used to beat unruly slaves.

Visitors can also enter the slave cells, which still exist beneath the structure, before honouring the millions shipped against their will at the cathedral monument.

It depicts several chained figures reaching out of a deep pit.

Back inside the cathedral, look out for a small wooden crucifix carved from the wood of the mvula tree beneath which the heart of David Livingstone was buried, as per his will.

The rest of his body was embalmed and buried in London’s Westminster Abbey.

Why you should visit historic sites of the slave trade in Africa

Of all the historical sites in Africa, those linked to the slave trade are some of the most profound. Together, they form a sad but significant part of the continent’s history. So to better understand Africa today, these museums and structures – often World Heritage Sites – are the best places to start.