Isle of Sorrow

Recently Andrew and I headed off on a big adventure two hours up river to Bunce Island. Here we are smiling because we don't yet know that we will be waiting for an hour in the blazing sun for our canoe who's owner was operating on "African time"-lol.

The fishing village right near where the Africa Mercy is docked and also where we caught our canoe.

Have a laugh now-this is us at the start of our two hour journey. There will be no photos made public of me trying to get in or out of the canoe. Our butts were numb to say the least. You can see the Africa Mercy in the background to the left. We had to wade into knee deep water and try to launch ourselves into the surprisingly high canoe. We had plenty of locals on hand to give us a boost. Unfortunately on the way back, when I was getting into the canoe I fell backwards into it and got mud all down my back. At least I gave the whole group plenty of laughs and humiliating photo opportunities. Andrew was too busy laughing to help me.......

These are our guides, helpers, canoe steerers, water bailers, hangers oners etc....

It was mildly comforting, I think, to have this little guy bail out the canoe every once in a while.

Our canoe pulled into Bunce Island-now can you see that it would be hard to get in and out of???

A sombre reminder of the men and women who endured lives of slavery. This sign sums it all up....to the triumph of the human spirit! Bunce Island was one of forty major European commercial ports built along the West African coast during the slave trade era. Bunce Island (originally Bence) was at the limit of navigation for ocean going vessels, a meeting place for European traders and African merchants coming from the interior. A series of British firms operated here from about 1670, including the Royal African Company and the London Firms of Grant, Oswald and Sergent and John and Alexander Anderson. The British traders purchased slaves, gold, ivory, camwood etc.


From about 1756, they shipped slaves in large numbers to South Carolina and Georgia, where American rice planters paid high prices for slaves from this region. During it's long history Bunce Island was attacked twice by pirates (1719, 1720) and four times by the French (1695, 1704, 1779, 1794). The present fort is the last of six on this site, rebuilt following the last French attack. After parliament prohibited the Atlantic slave trade in 1807, Bunce Island was used as a saw mill and trading post. It was abandoned in about 1835.


In 1948 Bunce Island was declared a national monument, under the authority of the monuments and relics commission.





Photos above and below are of the branding room. Each slave was branded on arrival with a metal brand heated in a furnace.

More ruins

The rusted cannons remain until this day embossed with British royal insignia.

The vegetation was thick and overgrown with big trees with nasty thorns. I questioned my decision to wear flip flops.

Wow. The most photographed tree on Bunce Island. Our guide took us there especially.

It was in this tiny, dark hole that slaves were held for three days without food right before they were shipped to England to simulate being in a ship's hold. It was very sobering to witness how base humans can become when money, predjuice and bigotry come into play.

Many slaves dies before ever leaving the island due to starvation and illness such as malaria. In the cemetery whites and blacks were seperated, however, black chiefs were given a special headstone. Above is a white man's grave and tombstone.

These feet (mine) say it all. It was stinking hot without a breath of wind, the humidity was stifling. It was dirty and overgrown. There were bugs everywhere. We were there for but a day with our air conditioned home, a shower and a hot meal waiting for us upon our return. The slaves that endured the horrors of this island had nothing to look forward to, no hope and low life expectancy.

The people of Sierra Leone now walk free but so many of them are still slaves. Slaves to the past and the horrors of the civil war, slaves to poverty, slaves to desperation and slaves to Mohammed.

" We do not want you to be uninformed.........about the hardships we suffered." 2 Cor 1:8