House of Slaves
Museum and memorial to Atlantic slave trade victims on Gorée Island.
The House of Slaves (Maison des Esclaves) and its Door of No Return is a museum and memorial to the victims of the Atlantic slave trade on Gorée Island, 3 km off the coast of Dakar, Senegal. Historians differ on how many African slaves were actually held in this building and on the relative importance of Gorée Island as a point on the Atlantic slave trade, but visitors from Africa, Europe, and the Americas continue to make it an important place to remember the human toll of African slavery.
- Original owner
- Nicolas Pépin
- Location
- Gorée Island, Dakar, Senegal
Lore & Background
It is more associated with Nicolas's daughter, Anna Colas Pépin, a signare who lived there in the early 19th century. Senegalese signares were wealthy, colonial women traders. The Pépin family owned several ships and participated in the slave trade, with the house used as a holding center to export enslaved Africans. Conditions were harrowing: captives were imprisoned in dark, airless cells, shackled to the floor for days, unable to move. Families were separated, with men, women, and children held in separate quarters. Young girls were paraded in the courtyard so traders could choose them for sex; if they became pregnant, they remained on the island until giving birth.
Reader's Guide
This belief made the house both a tourist attraction and a site for state visits by world leaders. Ndiaye and supporters countered that the building itself was originally built to hold large numbers, and that as many as 15 million people passed through this Door of No Return. Academic accounts, such as Philip D. Famous figures who have toured include Pope John Paul II, Nelson Mandela, Michael Jackson, and Barack Obama.
Did You Know?
- Boubacar Joseph Ndiaye claimed more than a million enslaved people passed through the doors of the house.
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