SENEGAL ~ Gorée Island - Dakar - UNESCO ~

... Nice view of an island with a dark past... it was one of the main hubs of the transatlantic slave trade... thousands of West Africans were gathered here, hoarded onto cramped ships and taken to the new world... many of them wouldn’t even make it to the destination... so, it is difficult today when you walk the narrow streets, colored by the walls of the old colonial houses and baobab trees to imagine that it was from this Senegalese island that thousands of Africans left, sold as slaves to rich American planters... Gorée is now a living museum that welcomes nearly 700,000 tourists a year... while the island has its horrid past to live with, today it’s remarkably peaceful... Thanks so much dear Andrene! (✿◠‿◠)

Gorée Island is a tiny isle a couple of miles from Dakar.

With its strategic location and safe haven, it was one of the first African places to be settled by Europeans. The first to come ashore were the Portuguese in the 15th century. They were later driven out by the Dutch who named the island Goede Reede (the current name is still a corruption of this). In the centuries that followed, the whole place changed occupiers several other times, but its purpose remained largely the same. From 1536 to 1848, Gorée island was one of the main hubs of the transatlantic slave trade. (1848 is the year the French made slavery illegal.)

Listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1978.

©Photos: AM BREGER

Stamps:

2X Senegalese Elegance - The Peulh Woman

(Issued 12-03-2002)

Horse Breeds

(10-12-2002)