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Adventures with Kingsley Holgate - We Reach The Gate of No Return?

Adventures with Kingsley Holgate - We Reach The Gate of No Return?

Author: Kingsley Holgate
Date: 2017-04-07

Ouidah was once Benin's most important slave-trading port, where human flesh was sold for cloth, guns, beads and booze. In order to understand the slaves' final journey from Africa, we follow the Route des Esclaves, the sandy track walked by hundreds of thousands of slaves from the town's slave market at Place Chacha, down to the beach some 4Kms away.

The market was controlled by the Portuguese slave trader Francisco de Souza, or'Chacha' as the bastard was nicknamed, meaning 'quick-quick'. It was de Souza who had the monopoly on the slave trade and had an army of 1,000 soldiers and 6,000 female Amazon warriors, who were trained to use bows and arrows and were reputed to cut off one of their breasts if it impaired their ability to shoot.

Dotted along the slave route, past the old train station, are the royal emblems of the various chiefs of Abomey. We stop at the statue marking the Tree of Forgetfulness, which the slaves were made to circle, round and round with chained feet shuffling in the sand, women and children sobbing. They were forced to keep circling - men nine times and women seven - in a symbolic act of disorientation so as to forget their previous life, religion and culture.

The sad journey brings us to the beach and the Gate of No Return - a vast imposing arch decorated with bas relief images and metal sculptures of slaves in shackles. It was through this arch that, along with the slaves, Voodoo was exported far and wide.

We join the throng of Voodoo devotees, some with tribal scars on their cheeks; women dressed in brightly coloured wraps or all in white - one of the sacred colours of Voodoo - and men in West African-style colourfully patterned tunics and trousers, travelling on foot, overladened motorbikes that struggle in the soft sand, pick-up trucks, busses and cars - army and police directing the chaos - as thousands make their way to the Festival at the Gate of No Return.

We're not sure what to expect will keep you posted.