Welcome to Bunce Island

Our team arrived in Freetown yesterday so we could visit Bunce Island today. It was quite a day.

For those who may not know, Bunce Island was where captured Africans awaited slave ships to begin their passage across the Atlantic. 30,000 Africans passed through Bunce Island, most going to SC and GA due to the rice growing skills of Africans in Sierra Leone.

Our day trip began at the ferry terminal. It was a long wait as our boat had trouble locating fuel.

Plenty of time to visit the bathroom…except I was the last one, and then the door stuck and I couldn't get out my little stall!!! Screaming and beating on the door did not produce a rescue and no one seemed to notice I was missing. FINALLY, one more person visited the loo and heard me. Whew!

The boat ride was 20 miles (1 hour) long) and the weather slightly overcast with calm seas. Really lovely. We passed all of the city with mountains just beyond. Then, as we got further away, it seemed exactly like riding in the rivers and large creeks of the Lowcountry.

Bunce Island is tiny. An easy walk across it in any direction. And beautiful. The ruins of the old fort sit atop a hill. Brick pathways, covered with bright green (and slippery) moss lead from the boat ramp to the ruins. The island has enormous trees that our guide said are called cotton trees, but I think we call them something else in the US. It is all overgrown with grasses and  some little wildflower with an abundance of tiny bright yellow flowers. Calla lilies, stag ferns, appear randomly.

It's also a silent and solemn place. Once you step off the tiny dock on the beach, your eyes are drawn left to a mound of black rock with remnants of a stone foundation holding an old cannon that appears out of place. It leads right into the water. It is here where the Africans' feet last touched their homeland. They walked to small boats across those stones, which then moved them to the large slave vessels. Our guide told us that the new African American Museum in Charleston was given one of the stones to put on display in the museum.

Our guide was so knowledgeable about what happened on Bunce Island and also what happened in Charleston when the ships arrived, or in the islands when the ships went there.

We spent 2 hours on the island, following our guide and hearing the stories. Occasionally, I just tried to stand by myself to allow the enormity of what happened there sink in.

Man's inhumanity to man is hard to fathom when you stand on that beautiful spot. Yet you can feel it in the heat, the dampness, the green moss, the ruins of walls. Like being in a cemetery. And knowing that my own ancestors profited from what happened on Bunce… that made my feelings even more intense.

The ride back was choppier, with overcast skies. We sat quietly for the most part. Really tired, and yet, for me anyway, reflecting on what we had seen.

An experience I will always remember. With huge thanks to TD who held my hand and kept me from falling on the rocks and the moss.

I'm left with much to think about from Bunce Island.