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| Goreé Island |
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Today Gorée is a quiet and quaint haunt for tourists with about 1,000 permanent residents. But this island played a very important role in the history of Africa, particularly in the development of the slave trade. It is three kilometres from Dakar at its nearest point and made up of a flat plain that ends in a steep basaltic hill (the Castle). It is only 900 by 300 meters.
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| Maison des Esclaves | |
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This is the Maison des Esclaves or The Slave House. It was built in 1776 by the Dutch, and is one of several sites on the island where Africans were brought to be loaded onto ships bound for the New World. The owner's residential quarters were on the upper floor. The lower floor was reserved for the enslaved Africans who were weighed, fed and held before they were taken on the Middle Passage across the Atlantic. The Maison des Esclaves, with its famous "Door of No Return" has been preserved in its original state.
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| Door of no return | |
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This is the famous
‘door of no return’ from the Maison des Esclaves.
Millions of enslaved Africans left through here on their way to
sea, and never came back. |
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