About Me
Gorée is a small island 900 m in length and 350 m in width sheltered by the Cape Vert Peninsula. Now part of the city of Dakar, it was a minor port and site of European settlement along the coast. Being almost devoid of drinking water, the island was not settled prior to the arrival of Europeans. The Portuguese were the first to establish a presence on Gorée (c. 1450), building a small stone chapel there and using it as a cemetery.Gorée is best known as the location of the House of Slaves (French: Maison des esclaves), built by an Afro-French Métis family c. 1780 - 1784. The House of Slaves is one of the oldest houses on the island. It is now a popular tourist destination which serves to illustrate the horrors of the slave trade throughout the Atlantic world. Well known in the west because of this museum, Gorée was actually relatively unimportant in the slave trade. Probably no more than a few hundred slaves a year were ever embarked here for transportation to the Americas, and those not on large slave ships but as incidental passengers on ships carrying other cargos. After the decline of the slave trade from Senegal, in the 1770's and 1780's, the town became an important port for the shipment of peanuts, peanut oil, gum arabic, ivory, and other products of the "legitimate" trade, and it is probably for this purpose that the "Maison des Esclaves" was built.The island of Gorée was one of the first places in Africa to be settled by Europeans, the Portuguese setting foot on the island in 1444. Later it was captured by the United Netherlands in 1588, then the Portuguese again, again the Dutch — who named it after the Dutch island of Goeree — the British under Robert Holmes in 1664 and then eventually the French in 1677. The island remained continuously French until 1960 when Senegal was granted independence, with only brief periods of English occupation during the various wars fought by France and England between 1677 and 1815.Gorée was principally a trading post, administratively attached to Saint Louis, capital of the Colony of Senegal. Apart from slaves, beeswax, hides and grain were also traded. The population of the island fluctuated according to circumstances, from a few hundred free Africans and Creoles to about 1,500. There would have been few European residents at any one time. In the 18th and 19th century Gorée was home to a Franco-African Creole, or Métis, community of merchants with links to similar communities in Saint Louis and south to the Gambia and even across the Atlantic to France's colonies in the Americas. Métis women, called "signares" from the Portuguese "senhora", were especially important to the city’s business life. The signares owned ships and property and commanded male clerks. They were also famous for cultivating fashion and entertainment. One such "signare", Anne Rossignol, was resident in Saint-Domingue, the modern Haiti, in the 1780's before the Haitian Revolution.
Schley, Jacobus van der, 1715-1779. Island of Gorée and its fortifications
Schley, Jacobus van der, 1715-1779. Island of Gorée and its fortificationsIn February 1794, during the French Revolution, France was the first country in the world to abolish slavery (with the exception of a few precedents set by some US states such as Massachusetts), and so the slave trade from Senegal stopped. However, in May 1802 Napoleon reestablished slavery after intense lobbying from the sugar plantations' owners of the Caribbean départements of France, who found precious support in the very wife of Napoleon, Joséphine de Beauharnais, daughter of a rich plantation owner from Martinique. In March 1815, during his political comeback known as the Hundred Days, Napoleon definitively abolished the slave trade in order to ingratiate himself with Britain (Scotland had never recognized slavery and England finally abolished the slave trade in 1807) and this time the abolition was not reversed.As the trade in slaves declined in the late eighteenth century, Gorée converted to legitimate commerce. The tiny city and port were however ill situated for the shipment of industrial quantities of peanuts which began arriving in bulk from the continent. Consequently, its merchants established a presence directly on the mainland, first in Rufisque (1840) and then in Dakar (1857) and many of the established families started to leave the island.Civic franchise for the citizens of Gorée was institutionalized in 1872, when it (along with its dependency of Dakar until the latter was detached in 1887) became a French “commune†with an elected mayor and a municipal council. Blaise Diagne, the first African deputy elected to the French National Assembly (served 1914 to 1934) was born on Gorée. From a peak of about 4,500 in 1845, the population fell to 1,500 in 1904. In 1940 Gorée was annexed to the municipality of Dakar.Gorée is connected to the mainland by regular 30-minute ferry service---pedestrians only; there are no cars on the island. It is Senegal’s premier tourist site and became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1978. It and now serves mostly as a memorial to the slave trade. The built-up urban core of the island is entirely geared to tourism and many of the historic commercial and residential buildings have been turned into restaurants and hotels.The colorful island of Gorée is located 1.8 miles (3 kilometers) from the west coast of Dakar, the bustling capital of Sénégal. It is approximately 45 acres (18.2 hectares) in size, home to roughly 1000 inhabitants, and can be reached every day by a 20 minute ferry ride.As one of Sénégal's most favored haunts, Gorée possesses all the amenities of Dakar (electricity, running water, restaurants, museums, art, sports, dance, music, and a cyber cafe), but exudes a charming and relaxed atmosphere typical of many small tropical islands (see images of the island at images/art).‘Diame ak salam’
in Senegal is like saying ‘peace be with you’. One of the most peaceful and celebratory nations of the world, Senegal boasts a magnificent music and dance tradition that transcends the imagination. With roughly 50 ethnic groups residing within its borders, all maintaining their own unique music and dance traditions, Senegal has endless opportunities for anyone interested in West African drum, dance and song.
