Bunce Island - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Bunce Island is the site of an 18th century British slave castle in the Republic of Sierra Leone

Sierra Leone

Sierra Leone , officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Guinea to the north and east, Liberia to the southeast, and the Atlantic Ocean to the west and southwest. Sierra Leone covers a total area of and has an estimated population between 5.4 and 6.4...

in West Africa

West Africa

West Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of the African continent. Geopolitically, the UN definition of Western Africa includes the following 16 countries and an area of approximately 5 million square km:-Flags of West Africa:...

.

Located about 20 miles upriver from Sierra Leone's capital city of Freetown

Freetown

Freetown is the capital and largest city of Sierra Leone, a country in West Africa. It is a major port city on the Atlantic Ocean located in the Western Area of the country, and had a city proper population of 772,873 at the 2004 census. The city is the economic, financial, and cultural center of...

, Bunce Island lies in the Sierra Leone River

Sierra Leone River

The Sierra Leone River is a river estuary on the Atlantic Ocean in Western Sierra Leone. It is formed by the Port Loko Creek and Rokel River and is between 4 and 10 miles wide and 25 miles long. It holds the major ports of Queen Elizabeth II Quay and Pepel. The estuary is also important for...

(also called the "Freetown Harbour"), the vast estuary

Estuary

An estuary is a partly enclosed coastal body of water with one or more rivers or streams flowing into it, and with a free connection to the open sea....

formed by the Rokel River

Rokel River

The Rokel River is the largest river in the Republic of Sierra Leone in West Africa. It flows south-west from the Loma Mountains about 240 miles and, together with a smaller, parallel stream called Port at Pepel, feeds into the giant estuary known as the Sierra Leone River or "Freetown harbor", the...

and Port Loko Creek. Although a small island only about 1650 feet long and 350 feet wide, its strategic position at the limit of navigation in Africa's largest natural harbor made it an ideal base for European slave merchants.

History

Bunce Island was first settled by English slave traders about 1670. During its early history the castle was operated by two London-based firms, the Gambia Adventurers and the Royal African Company

Royal African Company

The Royal African Company was a slaving company set up by the Stuart family and London merchants once the former retook the English throne in the English Restoration of 1660...

of England, the latter a "crown-chartered company," or parastatal, subsidized by the British government. The castle was not commercially successful at this period, but it served as a symbol of British influence in the region. This early phase of the castle's history came to an end in 1728 when Bunce Island was raided by an Afro-Portuguese competitor in the slave trade, José Lopez da Moura. It was abandoned until the mid-1740s.

Bunce Island was operated later by two London-based companies: Grant, Oswald & Company and John & Alexander Anderson, and at that period it was a highly profitable enterprise. During the second half of the 18th century, Bunce Island sent thousands of captives to British- and French-controlled islands in the West Indies and to Britain's North American colonies. The London-based owners grew wealthy from the castle's operations.

The slave traders who did business at Bunce Island came from a variety of different backgrounds. During the castle's early history, Afro-Portuguese sold slaves and local products there. During its late history, Afro-English families, such as the Caulkers

Sherbro Caulkers

The Caulkers of Sherbro are an Afro-European Sherbro clan of the region of Southern Sierra Leone and they ruled as chiefs in Shenge and Bonthe. In the 18th century the Caulkers began to get involved in the slave trade and became more powerful than the white slave traders...

, Tuckers

Sherbro Tuckers

The Tuckers of Sherbro are an Afro-European clan in the Southern region of Sierra Leone and they ruled as chiefs in Gbap. The clans progenitors were an English trader and agent, John Tucker , and a Sherbro princess. Along with the Caulkers, the Tuckers became one of the two most powerful...

, and Clevelands, sold slaves at Bunce Island. The slave ships came from the British ports of London

History of London

London, the capital of the United Kingdom , has a recorded history that goes back over 2,000 years. During this time, it has grown to become one of the most significant financial and cultural capitals of the world. It has experienced plague, devastating fire, civil war, aerial bombardment and...

, Liverpool

History of Liverpool

The history of Liverpool can be traced back to 1190 when the place was known as 'Liuerpul', possibly meaning a pool or creek with muddy water. Other origins of the name have been suggested, including 'elverpool', a reference to the large number of eels in the Mersey, but the definitive origin is...

, and Bristol

History of Bristol

Bristol is a city with a population of nearly half a million people in south west England, situated between Somerset and Gloucestershire on the tidal River Avon. It has been amongst the country's largest and most economically and culturally important cities for eight centuries. The Bristol area...

; from Newport, Rhode Island

Newport, Rhode Island

Newport is a city on Aquidneck Island in Newport County, Rhode Island, United States, about south of Providence. Known as a New England summer resort and for the famous Newport Mansions, it is the home of Salve Regina University and Naval Station Newport which houses the United States Naval War...

in the North American colonies; and from France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

and Denmark

Denmark

Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...

. They transported slaves mostly to the Caribbean and the American South.

Due to its importance as a British commercial outpost, Bunce Island was an attractive target during times of war. French naval forces attacked the castle four times (1695, 1704, 1779, & 1794), damaging or destroying it each time. The attack of 1779 took place during the American Revolutionary War when America's French allies took advantage of the conflict to attack British assets outside North America. Pirates also attacked the castle twice (1719 & 1720), including Bartholomew Roberts

Bartholomew Roberts

Bartholomew Roberts , born John Roberts, was a Welsh pirate who raided ships off America and West Africa between 1719 and 1722. He was the most successful pirate of the Golden Age of Piracy. He is estimated to have captured over 470 vessels...

, or "Black Bart," the most notorious pirate of the 18th century. The British traders rebuilt the castle after each attack, gradually altering its architecture during the roughly 140 years it was used as a slave trade entrepôt

Entrepôt

An entrepôt is a trading post where merchandise can be imported and exported without paying import duties, often at a profit. This profit is possible because of trade conditions, for example, the reluctance of ships to travel the entire length of a long trading route, and selling to the entrepôt...

Links to North America

Bunce Island is best known as one of the chief suppliers of slaves to the rice

Rice

Rice is the seed of the monocot plants Oryza sativa or Oryza glaberrima . As a cereal grain, it is the most important staple food for a large part of the world's human population, especially in East Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, and the West Indies...

industry in the British colonies of South Carolina

Province of South Carolina

The South Carolina Colony, or Province of South Carolina, was originally part of the Province of Carolina, which was chartered in 1663. The colony later became the U.S. state of South Carolina....

and Georgia

Province of Georgia

The Province of Georgia was one of the Southern colonies in British America. It was the last of the thirteen original colonies established by Great Britain in what later became the United States...

. Rice requires a great deal of technical knowledge for its successful cultivation, and South Carolina and Georgia planters were willing to pay premium prices for slave labor brought from what they called the "Rice Coast" of West Africa, the traditional rice-growing region stretching from what is now Senegal

Senegal

Senegal , officially the Republic of Senegal , is a country in western Africa. It owes its name to the Sénégal River that borders it to the east and north...

and Gambia in the north down to Sierra Leone

Sierra Leone

and Liberia

Liberia

Liberia , officially the Republic of Liberia, is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Sierra Leone on the west, Guinea on the north and Côte d'Ivoire on the east. Liberia's coastline is composed of mostly mangrove forests while the more sparsely populated inland consists of forests that open...

in the south.

Bunce Island was the largest British slave castle on the Rice Coast. African farmers with rice-growing skills kidnapped from inland areas were sold at the castle or at one of its many "outfactories" (trading posts) along the coast before being transported to North America. Several thousand slaves from Bunce Island were taken to the ports of Charleston

Charleston, South Carolina

Charleston is the second largest city in the U.S. state of South Carolina. It was made the county seat of Charleston County in 1901 when Charleston County was founded. The city's original name was Charles Towne in 1670, and it moved to its present location from a location on the west bank of the...

(South Carolina) and Savannah

Savannah, Georgia

Savannah is the largest city and the county seat of Chatham County, in the U.S. state of Georgia. Established in 1733, the city of Savannah was the colonial capital of the Province of Georgia and later the first state capital of Georgia. Today Savannah is an industrial center and an important...

(Georgia) during the second half of the 18th century. Slave auction advertisements in those cities often announced slave cargoes arriving from "Bance" or "Bense" Island.

Henry Laurens

Henry Laurens

Henry Laurens was an American merchant and rice planter from South Carolina who became a political leader during the Revolutionary War. A delegate to the Second Continental Congress, Laurens succeeded John Hancock as President of the Congress...

, Bunce Island's business agent in Charleston, a wealthy rice planter and slave dealer, later became President of the Continental Congress

President of the Continental Congress

The President of the Continental Congress was the presiding officer of the Continental Congress, the convention of delegates that emerged as the first national government of the United States during the American Revolution...

during the Revolutionary War

American Revolutionary War

The American Revolutionary War , the American War of Independence, or simply the Revolutionary War, began as a war between the Kingdom of Great Britain and thirteen British colonies in North America, and ended in a global war between several European great powers.The war was the result of the...

and then US envoy to Holland. Captured by the British enroute to his post in Europe, he was imprisoned in the Tower of London

Tower of London

Her Majesty's Royal Palace and Fortress, more commonly known as the Tower of London, is a historic castle on the north bank of the River Thames in central London, England. It lies within the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, separated from the eastern edge of the City of London by the open space...

. After hostilities ended, he became one of the Peace Commissioners who negotiated US Independence under the Treaty of Paris

Treaty of Paris (1783)

The Treaty of Paris, signed on September 3, 1783, ended the American Revolutionary War between Great Britain on the one hand and the United States of America and its allies on the other. The other combatant nations, France, Spain and the Dutch Republic had separate agreements; for details of...

. Tellingly, the chief negotiator on the British side was Richard Oswald, the principal owner of Bunce Island, and Laurens' friend for 30 years. US Independence was, thus, negotiated, in part, between the British owner of Bunce Island and his American business agent in South Carolina. This reflects the wealth generated by the trade in rice and slaves.

But Bunce Island was not connected just to South Carolina and Georgia; it was also linked to the Northern Colonies. Slave ships based in northern ports frequently called at Bunce Island, taking on supplies like fresh water and provisions for the Atlantic crossing, and buying slaves for sale in the British islands of the West Indies and the Southern Colonies. The North American slave ships that called at Bunce Island were sailing out of Newport

Newport, Rhode Island

(Rhode Island), New London

New London, Connecticut

New London is a seaport city and a port of entry on the northeast coast of the United States.It is located at the mouth of the Thames River in New London County, southeastern Connecticut....

(Connecticut), Salem

Salem, Massachusetts

Salem is a city in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 40,407 at the 2000 census. It and Lawrence are the county seats of Essex County...

(Massachusetts), and New York

History of New York City

The history of New York, New York begins with the first European documentation of the area by Giovanni da Verrazzano, in command of the French ship, La Dauphine, when he visited the region in 1524. It is believed he sailed in Upper New York Bay where he encountered native Lenape, returned through...

Eclipse of Bunce Island

British philanthropists involved with the Committee for the Relief of the Black Poor

Committee for the Relief of the Black Poor

The Committee for the Relief of the Black Poor was a charitable organization founded in London in 1786 to provide sustenance for distressed people of African and Asian origin...

established Freetown

Freetown

in 1787, a settlement for freed slaves, on the Sierra Leone Peninsula, just 20 miles downriver from Bunce Island. The Atlantic slave trade

Atlantic slave trade

The Atlantic slave trade, also known as the trans-atlantic slave trade, refers to the trade in slaves that took place across the Atlantic ocean from the sixteenth through to the nineteenth centuries...

continued to be legal for the next two decades. During that period, Bunce Island slave traders harassed the fledgling colony by inciting local African chiefs against it, organizing trade boycotts to isolate it, and at one point kidnapping and selling as slaves some Freetown colonists whom they accused of stealing goods at the castle.

In 1807 the British Parliament outlawed the Atlantic slave trade. The following year Freetown became a Crown Colony

Crown colony

A Crown colony, also known in the 17th century as royal colony, was a type of colonial administration of the English and later British Empire....

, and the British Navy based its Africa Squadron there. They sent out regular patrols to search for slave vessels violating the ban. Bunce Island shut down for slave trading. British firms used the castle for other purposes: a cotton plantation, a trading post and a sawmill. These activities were economically unsuccessful, and the island was abandoned around 1840. The buildings and stone walls deteriorated.

Today, substantial ruins stand on the north end of the island. Bance Island House, the headquarters building where the Chief Agent lived with his senior officers, is at the center of the castle. Parts of the building still rise to second-story level. Immediately behind it is the open-air slave yard, divided between a large area for men and a smaller one for women and children. Remnants stand of two watchtowers, a fortification with places for eight cannon

Cannon

A cannon is any piece of artillery that uses gunpowder or other usually explosive-based propellents to launch a projectile. Cannon vary in caliber, range, mobility, rate of fire, angle of fire, and firepower; different forms of cannon combine and balance these attributes in varying degrees,...

s, and a gunpowder magazine. Some of the cannons bear the royal cipher of King George III). At the south end of the island, several inscribed tombstones mark the graves of slave traders, slave ship

Slave ship

Slave ships were large cargo ships specially converted for the purpose of transporting slaves, especially newly purchased African slaves to Americas....

captains, and the foreman of African workers.

Research on Bunce Island

Three American scholars have done extensive research on Bunce Island. Anthropologist Joseph Opala

Joseph Opala

Joseph A. Opala is an American historian who documented the "Gullah Connection," the historical link between the Gullah people in South Carolina and Georgia, and the West African nation of Sierra Leone...

did the research that linked Bunce Island to the Gullah people

Gullah

The Gullah are African Americans who live in the Lowcountry region of South Carolina and Georgia, which includes both the coastal plain and the Sea Islands....

and organized the well-publicized Gullah homecomings portrayed in the documentary films “Family Across the Sea" (1990), “The Language You Cry In" (1998), and “Priscilla’s Homecoming" (in production). Historian David Hancock documented Bunce Island in great detail during the period of Grant, Oswald & Company in his study Citizens of the World (1997). Archaeologist Christopher DeCorse and his team conducted a thorough survey of Bunce Island’s ruins for a report submitted to the Sierra Leone Government (2006).

African-American TV actor Isaiah Washington

Isaiah Washington

Isaiah Washington IV is an American actor. A veteran of several Spike Lee films, Washington is best known for his role as Dr. Preston Burke on the ABC medical drama Grey's Anatomy from 2005 to 2007.-Personal life:...

visited Bunce Island in 2006, after learning through a DNA test that some of his ancestors came from Sierra Leone. Washington later donated $25,000 to a project to create a computer reconstruction of Bunce Island as it appeared in the year 1805. Project directors Joseph Opala and Gary Chatelain at James Madison University

James Madison University

James Madison University is a public coeducational research university located in Harrisonburg, Virginia, U.S. Founded in 1908 as the State Normal and Industrial School for Women at Harrisonburg, the university has undergone four name changes before settling with James Madison University...

are producing a 3-D image of the castle using computer-aided design

Computer-aided design

Computer-aided design , also known as computer-aided design and drafting , is the use of computer technology for the process of design and design-documentation. Computer Aided Drafting describes the process of drafting with a computer...

that allows the viewer to enter all the structures and see them as they appeared 200 years ago. Their animation will be made available to museums and educational institutions. A traveling exhibit on the history of Bunce Island containing some of these images is available in the U.S. and U.K.

Current status

In 1948 Bunce Island became Sierra Leone's first officially protected historic site. M.C.F. Easmon, a Sierra Leonean medical doctor and amateur historian, led an expedition that year that cleared the vegetation, and mapped and photographed the ruins for the first time. In 1989 a group of Gullah

Gullah

The Gullah are African Americans who live in the Lowcountry region of South Carolina and Georgia, which includes both the coastal plain and the Sea Islands....

s (members of an African-American community in coastal South Carolina and Georgia) made an historic homecoming visit to Sierra Leone and toured the ruins of Bunce Island. Shortly after that, the U.S. National Park Service announced a preservation program for the castle. Plans were put off by the confusion of the Sierra Leone civil war

Sierra Leone Civil War

The Sierra Leone Civil War began on 23 March 1991 when the Revolutionary United Front , with support from the special forces of Charles Taylor’s National Patriotic Front of Liberia , intervened in Sierra Leone in an attempt to overthrow the Joseph Momoh government...

. “Gullah Homecomings” in 1997 and 2005 resulted in visits by African Americans to Bunce Island, which were documented as public history projects .

Bunce Island is under the protection of Sierra Leone's Monuments and Relics Commission, a branch of the country's Ministry of Tourism and Culture. The government is working to preserve the castle as a reminder of the past and to attract tourists, especially African Americans. Although other slave castles -- especially Gorée

Gorée

Île de Gorée Île de Gorée Île de Gorée (i.e. "Gorée Island"; is one of the 19 communes d'arrondissement (i.e. "commune of arrondissement") of the city of Dakar, Senegal. It is a island located at sea from the main harbor of Dakar ....

in Senegal

Senegal

Senegal , officially the Republic of Senegal , is a country in western Africa. It owes its name to the Sénégal River that borders it to the east and north...

and Elmina

Elmina

Elmina, is a town in the Central Region, situated on a south-facing bay on the Atlantic Ocean coast of Ghana, about 12 km west of Cape Coast...

in Ghana

Ghana

Ghana , officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country located in West Africa. It is bordered by Côte d'Ivoire to the west, Burkina Faso to the north, Togo to the east, and the Gulf of Guinea to the south...

-- are more popular attractions for black Americans, those castles are historically connected more to slave descendants of the West Indies than North America. Bunce Island has been called "the most important historic site in Africa for the United States."

General Colin Powell

Colin Powell

Colin Luther Powell is an American statesman and a retired four-star general in the United States Army. He was the 65th United States Secretary of State, serving under President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2005. He was the first African American to serve in that position. During his military...

, then Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff

Joint Chiefs of Staff

The Joint Chiefs of Staff is a body of senior uniformed leaders in the United States Department of Defense who advise the Secretary of Defense, the Homeland Security Council, the National Security Council and the President on military matters...

, visited Bunce Island in 1992 while on an official visit to Sierra Leone. Deeply moved by the experience, Powell spoke of his reaction to the slave castle in a farewell speech he made before leaving the country. "I am an American...," he said. "But today, I am something more...I am an African too...I feel my roots here in this continent."

Preservation Efforts

The U.S. National Park Service team that surveyed the castle in 1989 suggested stabilizing the ruins. In addition, they recommended the installation of all-weather displays showing what the buildings looked like and their activities. No historic preservation

Historic preservation

Historic preservation is an endeavor that seeks to preserve, conserve and protect buildings, objects, landscapes or other artifacts of historical significance...

work has been done. The castle’s ruins are deteriorating rapidly in Sierra Leone’s tropical climate.

The World Monuments Fund recently placed Bunce Island (and other historic sites in Sierra Leone) on its 2008 watch list of the world’s “100 Most Endangered Sites.” Several organizations in Sierra Leone, the United States, and Great Britain are now promoting popular awareness of Bunce Island and its history, and working toward the preservation of the castle.

In October, 2010, the Bunce Island Coalition (US) and its partner organization, the Bunce Island Coalition (SL), announced the start of the Bunce Island preservation project, a five-year, $5 million effort to preserve the ruins of the castle and to build a museum in Freeetown, Sierra Leone's capital city, devoted to the history of Bunce Island and the impact of the Atlantic slave trade in Sierra Leone.

External links

Joseph A. Opala, "Bunce Island in Sierra Leone", The Gullah: Rice, Slavery and the Sierra Leone-American Connection, Website, Gilda Lehrman Center, Yale University
Bunce Island Historical Summary, Visit Sierra Leone
African Americans Visit Bunce Island
Importance for African Americans, New York Times
Photos of Bunce Island
Photos of Bunce Island
Bunce Island Computer Reconstruction Project, CBS News, 14 Mar 2007
Bunce Island: A British Slave Castle in Sierra Leone, Official Website for Exhibit
Family Across the Sea
The Language You Cry In
Priscilla's Homecoming, Website, Gilder Lehrman Center, Yale University
Priscilla's Homecoming and the USF Africana Heritage Project
Bunce Island preservation project, press release, October, 2010
Bunce Island preservation project, Article in the Providence Journal
Bunce Island preservation project, Christian Science Monitor