Gorée is a small island of 28 hectares, about 3.5 km off the coast of Dakar, Senegal. From the 15th to the 19th century it was held in turn by the Portuguese, Dutch, English and French, and was used as a stopover and market in the Atlantic slave trade.
In 1978 it was among the very first sites inscribed on UNESCO’s World Heritage List, recognised as a symbol of the suffering of the slave trade and, today, as a place of remembrance and reconciliation visited by people from Africa and the diaspora.
Historians continue to debate how many captives actually passed through Gorée compared with other ports, and the history of some of its buildings, such as the House of Slaves. Its importance as a place of memory is not in doubt.