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15881588–1848 · Gorée Island

Gorée Island and the Atlantic slave trade

View of Gorée Island off Dakar, Senegal
Photo: Warren McKenzie. CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Small Gorée Island off Dakar passed between Dutch, British and French hands as a trading post for gum, gold and enslaved people until France abolished slavery in 1848. Historians debate how many captives left from the island itself, but its House of Slaves and 'Door of No Return' became a world symbol of the slave trade, visited by Nelson Mandela, popes and US presidents.

Sites

  1. Site 1: Maison des Esclaves (House of Slaves)18th-century house with holding rooms and the Door of No Return.Map ↗
  2. Site 2: Castel and Gorée Island townColonial houses, a hilltop with Second World War guns and the history museum.Map ↗

Guides who take you there

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More from the Renaissance & Early Modern

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