Bunce Island

Bunce Island, a small island in the Sierra Leone River upstream of Freetown, holds one of the most historically significant and sobering sites in West Africa, the ruins of a British slave-trading castle. For much of the eighteenth century, this was one of the most important slave-trading posts on the West African coast, from which tens of thousands of enslaved Africans were shipped across the Atlantic, many to the rice plantations of South Carolina and Georgia, forging deep ancestral links with African-American communities today. The evocative, jungle-fringed ruins of the fort, its walls, cannon and buildings, now stand silent, a powerful and moving place of memory and pilgrimage.

History

English traders fortified the island around 1670, and the castle was run first by the Royal African Company and the Gambia Adventurers, from 1748 by Grant, Oswald & Company and from 1785 by John and Alexander Anderson. Tens of thousands of Africans were shipped from here to South Carolina and Georgia, and for the bicentenary of Britain's abolition of the slave trade in 2007-2008 a team at James Madison University made a three-dimensional animation of the castle (Wikipedia, Bunce Island).

What you'll find

• The castle ruins - the evocative remains of the slave fort.
• The slavery history - the story of the trade and its victims.
• The ancestral links - the connection to African-American communities.
• The river setting - the boat journey to the jungle-fringed island.

When to go

November to April, the dry season, for the most comfortable boat journey and visit; the island is reached by a boat trip from Freetown, best arranged with a guide who can tell its profound history. Allow time and a reflective frame of mind for a deeply affecting visit to this place of remembrance.

Good to know

The island is a ruin, reached by a boat trip and requiring a guide to bring its history to life, and it is a place of immense human suffering rather than conventional sightseeing, so it should be approached with the respect and emotional readiness such a site demands; it is particularly significant for visitors of African descent, especially African-Americans tracing ancestral links. As one of West Africa's most important and moving slave-trade sites, though, Bunce Island is a profound and worthwhile place of memory.

Nearby

The capital Freetown and the peninsula are reached by boat and road.