Slavery started in the world thousands of years back. It started in Africa at least hundreds of years back. But the topic in West Africa was mainly the Transatlantic slave trade. It was probably started here by the Portuguese in the 1480's. The Dutch, English, and French also became major participants after establishing colonies in the New World. The first slaves were not landed in English America until 1619, in Virginia. The transatlantic slave trade reached its peak in the 1780's and then started decreasing until outlawed.

Best guesses estimate that about 12.5 million slaves were sold and transported in the transatlantic slave trade. Of that number, over one million were sold and transported out of Ouidah. It was one of the most active slave trading ports in all of Africa. Most of this area was then controlled by the French but the Portuguese held the slave trading post. Because it was Portuguese, these slaves were shipped to Brazil. Slaves were shipped from here into the 19th century, including many years after it wad declared illegal.

Today, the people of Ouidah and Benin have determined that the history of slavery should not be forgotten. To that end, they have been developing tourism based, in part, around the historical transatlantic slave trade that happened here.

We made five stops of historical significance of the transatlantic slave trade out of Ouidah. Below was the first. I believe that this (or the original tree at this location) was called the "tree of forgetfullness." Slaves were branded here and walked around the tree to forget all their family, friends, lives, etc. It was thought that they would then make better slaves if they could forget their lives prior to slavery. Slavery started here in 1725 and lasted until 1848. Slavery in Togo started 100 years earlier.

We were told that the majority of slaves were captured from inland Africa. Some were captured locally but mostly from the interior of Africa. It was done by the dominant tribe. Our local guide told us that slavery began under this tree. I objected and suggested it began when they were captured. We had a dispute about this. His position was that when captured, they were "captives." He said that captives were a tradition in Africa when tribes held wars against each other. He said that they were treated much better. He said that these captives only became "slaves" when they were sold here. I told our local guide that I wouldn't argue his semantics but that I thought they became slaves when captured.

Our guide said that the tribes went inland and captured people at night. These people were shackled and marched through the jungle all night long, both for secrecy and for captives not knowing where they were going. After arriving in Ouidah, they were put into dark buildings, at the location below. The buildings had no windows and solid doors. They were locked in here for extended periods, like days, while the weak died. The ones that survived were considered to be quality slaves.

After slavery was outlawed, these buildings were torn down, no doubt to hide the horrible evidence of what they had done. Still, this is the location of the buildings.

I only include the next photo to give you an understanding of the extent of the locals making this a tourist attraction. This path led us from the former building site above to the site of the slavery auction.

This tree of return is in the background. The auction house is to the right side but not in the photo. The idea with the tree of return is that the slaves would walk around it three times, believing that if they did so, and later died outside of Africa, then their soul would return to their homeland.

If the captives died marching to Ouidah or in the darkened buildings, and many did, then they were buried in the Cemetery of Slaves. It was simply a large, deep pit in the ground which held many such bodies. The sign has three colors: brown representing the slaves, red to represent their blood, and black to represent their chains. I suspect their were many more such burial sites.

The final two photos are the end of our slave walk. This is "The Gate of No Return." From the beach here at Ouidah, slaves were put into small boats and rowed out to the slave ships. This is the new symbolic monument to mark the location where this happened. The slaves knew that they would never come back to Africa.

My first and main confusion about this slave information and the slave trade was this. Since the slaves were so valuable, why were they treated so poorly?

Huge numbers and percentages of the slaves died before they were even sold from horrible treatment and then huge numbers died on the ships to the Americas.

It seems like very poor stewardship of such valuable property.

Secondly, I could not see any remnants of the wealth that must have been accumulated by the chief of the local tribe that sold the slaves. Between slaves, gold, ivory, palm oil, etc., it seemed to me that I should have been able to see something leftover from their glory days. I couldn't find anything.