Distant Horizons

We crossed the border into Togo with the goal of visiting the “Maison des Esclaves” sometimes simply referred to as the “wood house,”. The site has been inducted into the UNESCO-protected slave trade historical sites along the West African coast. Throughout the 17th and 18th Centuries, Togo was known as the “Slave Coast.” Instead of building any slave forts on the Togolese shoreline, European colonialists built wooded slave houses where captured men and women would be held until they could be shipped out to the Americas. I was led underneath the comfortable wooden house to feel and experience the conditions in which the slaves lived. There were no ladders or stairs to help me descend to the sandy basement below. I eased myself down and tried to imagine what it would have felt like to have lived in that tiny space for weeks.

Excited to be in Benin working on a new program to West Africa. Today I journeyed to the heart of Benin's ancient Kingdom of Dahomey and learned more about the multi-dimensional complexities of the slave trade in Benin. Today Benin and other West African nations are struggling to resolve their own legacies of complicity in the trade. Benin’s conflict over slavery is particularly intense and the government’s plans to build two museums devoted to the slave trade will likely provide a different perspective than previously