We all live in the shadow. The shadow of what was supposed to be—what was lost—but also in the shadow of our sins, our individual and collective sins.
We often turn around to look longingly at what was supposed to be. But looking back at sins is a whole other matter. I don’t mean to look at them in order to dwell on them, but to remember the painful realities of those sins so as to not do those things again.
Near to the end of my time in Benin, I went with a group to the coastal city of Ouida to see and experience the slave route. Ouida was a major port for the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Africans left here by force to be sold as slaves in the New World.
When they told us this was an option for an outing at the end of the conference I attended, I signed up kind of reluctantly. I wanted to see it, but I dreaded it as well. What would this be like? How would I feel?
In school in the US I learned a little about the trans-Atlantic slave trade. I read facts. I saw some pictures of how they would load the ships. Later, I saw movies about it.
When you hear all that, yeah, you think it’s terrible…but the fullness of the atrocities…I don’t think you can fully feel it from that side of the ocean. It feels more like something bad that happened a long time ago.
Ever since we moved to Africa, I wondered when I might be confronted with this here. Well, the time came.
The bus picked us up early from our hotel. After we drove for about an hour, we arrived at our first destination—an old Portuguese fort. Our tour guide brought us around. The fort was the first place Africans who were captured were taken.
She showed us the original door to the fort. It displayed people in chains. It depicted exactly what they did. It made me shudder. Would anyone want to walk by here?
She told us that the Portuguese and some other Europeans brought the idea of slaves to the King of Dahomey. They wanted people to work in the New World. The Dahomey kingdom was very powerful in West Africa at that time. The king agreed to participate and gained considerable wealth from it. Dahomey became one of the main sources for slaves.
She told us that at first the Dahomey Kingdom just sold and sent over their prisoners of war. Demand was high, and the trade was lucrative. The criteria for who would be captured and sent expanded and expanded some more…and more…
She brought us to an open area in the fort. She explained that it used to have no trees, and captured people were kept here for days exposed to the elements as a test of their survival.
We stood on that ground where they stood. It was hot. On a sunny day without shade, this place would have been hard to tolerate even for minutes, let alone days. If they survived this test, they were brought in chains to the next stops on the route. We boarded the bus to continue our tour. The captured people would have walked where we drove.
We drove by monuments to different Dahomey kings. The tour guide described each based on the design of the monument. This king is represented by a ______ because he…, this king… this king… he went on and on.
I tried to imagine what it would have been like to walk this road in chains. Did they know what was going to happen?
This king is represented by a hyena which is eating its own stomach because he sold his own people.
Then we passed by a tree. This was the tree of forgetfulness. Everyone who passed this tree was supposed to forget their family, their friends, and their life here.
The bus stopped. We walked down a path to another place. There were monuments showing how people were bound. This was the site where people were taken in the dark and put into small boxes with no way to see out to await the next stop. They stayed here for more days. Another survival test. If they lived…they would go to the next stop.
As an American of European ancestry, I think this was probably hitting me differently from my travel companions who were from countries in Africa. I felt…awful. Sick. Horrified.
We walked by another tree. This was the tree of return signifying that the spirits of captured Africans would return here after they died.
We boarded the bus. More descriptions of the monuments to the kings. This king… This king…
Another stop at another monument. It got worse. It was the site of the mass grave where the bodies of those who didn’t survive were thrown. Even those who looked sick or fell along the route were thrown in here. I can’t imagine the terror of being thrown into a pit of dead bodies. This place must have had a horrible stench. Did people walking the route smell that smell of death while they walked?
The bus took us to the end of the route—a monument called the door of no return. This was the last place where those who were captured would walk on African soil. They would walk in chained groups to small boats that would take them to the large boats that would bring them across the ocean. Our tour guide told us that some would choose to end their lives on those small boats, but if one decided to go overboard, everyone else who was chained with them went, too.
I walked from the door of no return towards the sea. The coarse, hot, redish sand collected in my shoes and began to rub painfully on my feet. I thought about the horror that was to come for them next after they stepped off of these shores. If they made it to the ship, they’d have a three month journey with very little to eat or drink and no sanitation.
It is estimated that:
- 820,000 Africans died in slave ports.
- 2.2 million Africans died in the voyage across the sea.
- 5 million Africans died in “seasoning camps” before making it to their final destination.
More died during their forced labor. They died away from their homes and their families. This was an African holocaust.
I continued my walk to the sea.
I looked and in front of me was a man who had already made it to the water.
I stopped and watched him.
He knelt down.
He touched the water.
He did the sign of the cross.
I thought, Dear God, how can your grace be sufficient for this. How can you forgive us for horrors like this?
And, then God brought to mind a song written by someone who was himself involved in the slave trade. Someone who may have been to this very location.
Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me.
…saves wretches like all of us.
* * *
The trans-Atlantic slave trade ended, and this kind of slavery was abolished. However, slavery continues even now. It is estimated that in this current day 12 to 27 million people in the world are slaves. Learn more.
View more of my photos from Ouida.
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