Bunce island

When you live somewhere you often miss visiting the tourist attractions – this from the woman who worked opposite the Tower of London for 9 years and has still never visited.  I am trying to avoid that here so a few weekends ago I joined a group on a trip to Bunce Island.  Why go there you ask?  Well here’s the history…

Bunce Island lies in the Sierra Leone River about 20 miles upriver from Freetown.  This vast estuary formed by the Rokel River and Port Loko Creek is also called the “Freetown Harbour”.   Although a small island only about 1650 feet long and 350 feet wide, its strategic position at the limit of navigation in Africa's largest natural harbour made it an ideal base for European slave merchants.

The island was first settled by English slave traders about 1670 and operated until the abolition of the Slave Trade in 1807.  In that time an estimated 50,000 slaves were purchased, imprisoned and loaded on to boats to cross the Atlantic.  It is said that 15% of slaves died on the transatlantic crossing where they were kept in barbaric conditions.

Stolen from their villages, branded on the chest with hot irons these slaves were primarily sent to work in the rice industry of the British colonies of South Carolina and Georgia. Rice requires a great deal of technical knowledge for its successful cultivation, and South Carolina and Georgia planters were willing to pay premium prices for slave labour brought from what they called the "Rice Coast" of West Africa, the traditional rice-growing region stretching from what is now Senegal, Gambia, Sierra Leone and Liberia.

The island is in a derelict state these days but here are some pictures I took on our visit.

The Island comes into view

Remains of the Slave Castle 

The point where slaves started their journey West

More ruined buildings

Wall of the yard where slaves were held shackled together

I just finished a wonderful novel based around the life of a slave who was transported from Bunce Island - The Book of the Negroes by Lawerence Hill. It really is worth a read and adding to book group choices.