La Maison des Esclaves (Gorée Island, Senegal)

Built in 1776, La Maison des Esclaves, was a detention center for captured Africans who were destined to be sold as slaves. In 1962 the home was established as a museum dedicated to telling the “personal stories of a private home and the role of its owners in both local business and the slave trade.”

Dublin Core

Title

La Maison des Esclaves (Gorée Island, Senegal)

Subject

Subject (Topic)
Enslaved persons
Senegal--Goree Isand
Slave ships
Slavery-Senegal
Transatlantic slave trade

Subject (Type)
Building and Structures

Description

The island of Gorée was the site of one of the earliest European settlements in Western Africa and from the fifteenth to the nineteenth century, served as the largest slave-trading site on the African coast. Built in 1776, La Maison des Esclaves, was a detention center for captured Africans who were destined to be sold as slaves. In 1962 the home was established as a museum dedicated to telling the “personal stories of a private home and the role of its owners in both local business and the slave trade.”

Between 2015-2022, La Maison des Esclaves underwent major renovations, funded through the Government of Senegal and the Ford Foundation.

Creator

Ndiaye, Boubacar Joseph, 1922-2009
(museum founder/curator)

Source

Photograph: Wikimedia Commons

Date

1776

Contributor

Léopold Sédar Senghor, Premier Président du Sénégal (1960-1980); La République du Sénégal; Ford Foundation; International Coalition of Sites of Conscience

Rights

Ministère de la Culture, de l’Artisanat et du Tourisme, Bâtiment C, 1er étage, Sphère Ministérielle Ousmane Tanor Dieng (SMOTD) à Diamniadio, BP: 4049 - Dakar, Sénégal

Format

JPEG

Language

English

Type

Historic Sites

Coverage

Rue St-Germain, Gorée Island, Senegal

Medium

Timber; Straw; Pulvarized seashells; Local volcano stone

Bibliographic Citation

International Coalition of Sites of Conscience. "Revitalizing Maison des Esclaves." Accessed April 29, 2019. https://www.sitesofconscience.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Maison-Des-Esclaves-Overview-2019.pdf

Araujo, Ana Lucia. "Sites of Deportation." in Shadows of the Slave Past: Memory, Heritage, and Slavery, 45-75. Routledge, 2010.

Tillet, Salamishah. "In the Shadow of the Castle: (Trans)Nationalism, African American Tourism, and Gorée Island." Research in African Literatures 40, no. 4 (Winter, 2009): 122-141.

Maison des escalaves de l'île de Gorée. Accessed February 27, 2026. https://www.maisondesesclaves.org.

Rights Holder

Renée Ater

Still Image Item Type Metadata

Original Format

Building and Structure

Citation

Ndiaye, Boubacar Joseph, 1922-2009(museum founder/curator), “La Maison des Esclaves (Gorée Island, Senegal),” Contemporary Monuments to the Slave Past, accessed October 1, 2026, https://slaverymonuments.org/items/show/1149.

Geolocation