![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/358037.jpg\" "\\"A")
<\/p>\nSAINT-LOUIS (Senegal), Aug 20 \u2014 A dilapidated two-century-old building in Saint-Louis, Senegal bears testament to the island\u2019s little-known past as part of the transatlantic slave trade, the traces of which are quickly and quietly disappearing from view.<\/p>\n
Located in the country\u2019s north, between the Atlantic Ocean and the Senegal River, the island is rarely mentioned in the history of the slave trade, even though it was a hub through which tens of thousands of Africans passed, according to historians interviewed by AFP.<\/p>\n
Saint-Louis was France\u2019s first trading post in sub-Saharan Africa, established in 1659, and served as the former capital of the French colonial empire in west Africa.<\/p>\n
It was also a holding point for captives, before shipment onward.<\/p>\n
However, its role has been more muted compared to Senegal\u2019s famous Goree Island off Dakar, which has become a major symbol of the slave trade thanks to its House of Slaves historical site and museum.<\/p>\n
One of the only explicit reminders of Saint-Louis\u2019s historical ties with slavery is a plaque on a building that housed a depot for enslaved people, facing the river.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn the ground floor lie the remains of the only slave depot preserved in Saint-Louis,\u201d reads an inscription on the three-storey building.<\/p>\n
\u2018Dilapidated\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
A tourist guide walks inside an old depot from the Maurel and Prom building, constructed between 1822 and 1825 and used to detain enslaved people, in Saint-Louis, on July 28, 2026. \u2014AFP pic <\/p>\n
\u201cThis dilapidated building is a slave depot that has survived,\u201d historian and teacher Mamadou Diallo told AFP, explaining that it had belonged to a Bordeaux-based trading company, Maurel and Prom, and was built between 1822 and 1825.<\/p>\n
At least 10,000 enslaved people passed through Saint-Louis every year during the 18th century, he said.<\/p>\n
Peak trade in Saint-Louis occurred during \u201chigh-water season, from May to November\u201d, drawing victims from the pre-colonial kingdom of Galam located between Senegal and Mali, historian Ibrahima Seck, director of research at the Whitney Plantation Slavery Museum in the US state of Louisiana, told AFP.<\/p>\n
\u201cGold and captives were the primary commodities,\u201d alongside gum and ambergris, he said.<\/p>\n
Maurel and Prom\u2019s holding areas contain five cells, Diallo said.<\/p>\n
The building is overgrown with weeds and the interior is littered with debris, but it still has its original wooden ceiling. Today it is owned by a Senegalese family.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere were many slave-holding facilities in Saint-Louis, especially in the northern part of the island, but they are no longer to be found,\u201d Diallo said, indicating that many have been converted and changed beyond recognition.<\/p>\n
The governor\u2019s palace in the city also once housed slave depots, according to historians.<\/p>\n
Colonial mansions line the island\u2019s grid-pattern streets \u2014 buildings with balconies and cracked or crumbling walls, often with holes in the roofs.<\/p>\n
Ancient trading houses along the river quays also served as depots although \u201cthe local population, unknowing, did not preserve them\u201d, writer and local expert Louis Camara said.<\/p>\n
![\"Historian](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/358038.jpg\" "\\"Historian")
<\/p>\n
Historian Mamadou Diallo walks inside an old depot from the Maurel and Prom building, constructed between 1822 and 1825 and used to detain enslaved people, in Saint-Louis, on July 28, 2026. \u2014AFP pic <\/p>\n
Those driving the trade were trading companies and their local intermediaries, most notably wealthy African or biracial women known as signares, who formed alliances or temporary marriages with European merchants and officers.<\/p>\n
Saint-Louis was even the site of a 1779 slave revolt, in which captives who had been waiting 11 months to be transported to the Americas killed a French guard. Many of them were subsequently massacred, Diallo said.<\/p>\n
Seck, from the Whitney Plantation Slavery Museum, said that according to \u201cAtlas of the Transatlantic Slave Trade\u201d, a definitive reference on slavery deportations, some 145,000 captives were officially transported from Saint-Louis.<\/p>\n
It is a place where \u201cevery old house was potentially a slave-holding facility\u201d, Seck said.<\/p>\n
\u2018Taboo subject\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n
Joseph Ndiaye, the renowned curator of Goree Island\u2019s House of Slaves, championed the memory of the enslaved while playing a major role in preserving the island.<\/p>\n
Saint-Louis, however, has lacked such a promoter.<\/p>\n
Following the abolition of the slave trade in France\u2019s colonies and possessions in April 1848, \u201cformer captives, including those escaped from the interior, were resettled in \u201cfreedom villages\u201d around the island, Seck said.<\/p>\n
The history of the slave trade \u201cis completely unknown to the majority of Saint-Louis residents who prefer to sweep it under the rug\u201d, Camara said.<\/p>\n
Ghana, considered a hub of the transatlantic slave trade, hosted a first global conference in mid-June aimed at turning a recent UN resolution that recognised the transatlantic trade as \u201cthe gravest crime against humanity\u201d into concrete commitments.<\/p>\n
Yet, in Saint-Louis, the descendants of those involved in the trade and those who were enslaved mostly do not talk about it.<\/p>\n
The topic remains \u201ca taboo subject\u201d, Diallo said. \u2014 AFP\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAINT-LOUIS (Senegal), Aug 20 \u2014 A dilapidated two-century-old building in Saint-Louis, Senegal bears testament to the island\u2019s little-known…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":388783,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[48],"tags":[185774,185773,31042,159,185776,81710,185775],"class_list":["post-388782","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-senegal","tag-ibrahima-seck","tag-maurel-and-prom","tag-saint-louis-senegal","tag-senegal","tag-signares","tag-transatlantic-slave-trade","tag-whitney-plantation-museum"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@africa\/117133361482144040","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=388782"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388782\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/388783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=388782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=388782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=388782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}