A Personal Visit to Slavery’s ‘Point of No Return’
By Adrienne Curry

President Bush’s visit to a former slave house on Senegal’s Goree Island and his condemnation of slavery during a July swing through Africa was powerful, but it lacked the personal connection I felt on a recent visit to Benin in West Africa.
Slavery isn’t part of the president’s history: it is a part of mine.

I was in Benin, a poor nation receiving help from Catholic Relief Services. My trip was to tour health, economic and education projects CRS is developing there. But for me, the personal highlight came at Benin’s version of the place Bush visited, the slave port of Ouidah.
In Ouidah, Europeans built five fortresses to centralize the slave trade, one each for France, England, Holland, Denmark and Portugal. The Portuguese fortress is the only one remaining. Today it houses the Museum of Ouidah.

Today, slavery is soundly condemned by most civilized nations; it wasn’t always. In 1454, even the Catholic Church had legalized it. But the Church (which later condemned slavery) wasn’t the only one. African kings saw how they could benefit from the slave trade and acquire weapons. The slave trade enabled them to conquer smaller kingdoms and gave them prisoners who could be sold to Europeans.

From the slave marker of Ouidah, prisoners were led down a path with several stops. The first was the “tree of forgetfulness.” Male slaves were instructed to go around the tree nine times, the women seven, to forget everything about their origin, their culture and their identity.
Slaves were then imprisoned, sometimes for months; many dies. Survivors would go on to the next stop, the “tree of return,” which they would circle three times, expressing a hope of coming back.

The final stop, which our guide told us, was the “door of no return,” where the boat was waiting for the journey across the sea.

This day was the hardest for me. Before visiting Ouidah, I spoke to Atchou, a local Catholic Relief Services worker. I told him of my apprehension of walking Benin’s slave route. He told me it was a powerful experience, but he said he thought Senegal-where President Bush visited-was even more emotional. Senegal is the last port in Africa; the last place slaves might see their motherland.

Visiting Benin was my first trip to the motherland and, since I don’t know if I will return, was very emotional. I still haven’t processed the experience fully. Unlike Alex Haley, I don’t know where in Africa my ancestors came from. Yet at each stop I could imagine the painful moans, the clanging of chains and the despair of people like me. At the sea, I sat alone. I envisioned the slaves crowded into a boat and chained together in the dark, not knowing where they were, where they were going, or if they’d survive.

As the ocean waves crashed onto the beach at Ouidah, I remembered what Atchou had said the night before. Not only do African-Americans not know where they came from, Africans didn’t necessarily come from where they are now. Atchou’s family was not native to Benin; he didn’t know where they came from.

Through slavery largely ended in the 19th century, Africa is till reeling from the effects of colonization and their part in the slave trade. And African-Americans like me are left wondering who we are and where we belong.

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