Terrible pages of history: the Island of Horus in Senegal - the center of the slave trade

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Name Islands of Gore in Senegal it is consonant with the Russian word "grief", only the stress falls on the first syllable. It so happened that the inhabitants of this remote piece of land over the centuries really learned a lot of hardships, hardships and troubles. From the 15th century. European settlers lived here and were engaged in slave trade: a tiny island surrounded on all sides by the ocean, was the ideal "natural prison" for black prisoners.

The number of slaves who passed through this peculiar outpost, according to some scientists, reaches several million. Today, only 1,300 indigenous people live on the Mountain, it is quiet and calm, there are no cars and modern buildings, and only tourists and pilgrims descend from ships to this land.

Portuguese sailors were the first to settle on the island in 1444, in 1588 it was captured by the Dutch, after another two centuries the Dutch, British and French were in power on the Mountain, recapturing it from each other. In 1817, France won the final victory, the island remained under her rule until Senegal declared its independence in 1960.

The slave trade was carried out in the period from 1536 to 1848, the Dutch built 28 so-called "slave houses" on the island. Skeptics claim that the number of several million slaves who have visited the island is very exaggerated, in reality, allegedly, about 26 thousand slaves were exported to North and South America through this transshipment point. The first "slave house", built in 1776 by the Dutch, was turned into a museum in 1962. Most foreign tourists come here precisely to visit it.

The prisoners were kept in the "house of slaves" until they could be sold. In a two-story building on the first floor there were cells with an area of 2.6 m by 2.6 m, each of which housed 15-20 men. Cells for women and children were located in another part of the house. Often the girls were kept separately for sale or for the pleasure of the slave owners. The slaves sat with their backs to the wall, chained by their necks and arms, once a day they were fed and released to the toilet. In such inhuman conditions, they had to live an average of three months, waiting for them to be bought. Due to unsanitary conditions, all kinds of diseases were widespread.

During the auction, the slaves were taken out into the courtyard so that buyers could view them from the balcony and name their price; in the back of the house, with access to the ocean, there was a so-called "door of no return." Through this door, the slaves were led out to the waiting ships.

In 1978, the Island of Gore was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is visited annually by about 200 thousand tourists, including many famous politicians and public figures, for example, John Paul II, George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Nelson Mandela.