Goreé Island
Goreé Island took it name from the Dutch island of Goeree-Overflakkee after first being &# 39;discovered' by Portuguese explorer Dinis Dias in 1444. The Portuguese were later to build a small chapel and cemetery on the island for sailors lost at sea whilst en route to exploring the rest of the African coastline on their way to to India and they quickly set up the first settlements there, displacing the indigenous Wolof speaking Lebu people who had lived as fishermen and farmers on the island.
Goreé Island then changed hands numerous times over the next two centuries between the Portuguese, Dutch, English and French who all recognised its useful location for the transport of slaves between Africa and the New World (from 1536 peaking in the 18th century before being stopped by the French in 1848), as well as a safe harbour for anchorage.
 In December 1758 it again came under British rule after it was seized during the Seven Years War however was returned to the French in 1763 under the terms of the Treaty of Paris.
Shortly afterwards its "House of Slaves" was constructed c 1780 - 1786 with its infamous and preserved "Door of No Return" though which slaves passed on their way to the New World, however the Napoleonic Wars saw Britain again retake interest in the island before it was again returned to France under the short-lived Treaty of Amiens of 1802. The island then remained under French control until Senegal's independence in 1960.
The island was considered ideal for slave management as it is just over a mile from the Senegal coast, its small 45 acre size meant slaves were easily contained and the deep waters surrounding it made escape, whilst chained with a metal ball, impossible.
Goree's actual role in the slave trade has recently been revisited with some claiming it was not the major portal claimed by others with the size of the island as well as its modest House of Slaves indicative that it simply was not large enough to process the tens of millions of slaves history records.
Instead it has been suggested that 'just' 200-400 slaves passed through the island annually with many actually staying on the island to work for the wealthy European families who had settled there (above, left). Whatever the truth of the matter, today Goreé Island is a symbolic point of reflection of the horrors of those times.
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