Retracing the steps of slaves in Benin

Ouidah, Benin

On a free afternoon in Benin, I decide to walk the slave route in Ouidah, the port from which perhaps a million Africans were transported on the Middle Passage to the Americas. Near the old slave market or Place Chacha, named in memory of the slaver Francisco Félix de Souza, about whom Bruce Chatwin wrote a book, I encounter a group of black Americans following the same path. Now in 1776 – even before the abolitionist Wilberforce – the MP for Hull, David Hartley, was the first to introduce to parliament a debate ‘that the slave trade is contrary to the laws of God and the rights of men’ – but I have no proof that he was my ancestor. The truth is that I was surprised when the black Americans on this emotional journey asked me to join them, because I did not think they’d be pleased to have a white African tagging along. ‘Aidan, you’re my brother,’ Martin Johnson from Louisiana exclaims after I introduce myself. ‘We’d be happy for you to join us.’

Departing slaves would circle a tree known as the Tree of Forgetting, in a ceremony that erased their African lives

Overlooking the Place Chacha is a villa, supposedly still owned by de Souza’s descendants, while nearby is the spot where the slaves purchased at auction were branded for their new owners. The Portuguese, Spanish, British, French, Dutch and Danes all set up shop in Ouidah. But our guide, Didier, stresses that it was the local African kingdoms which traditionally kept large numbers of slaves in their palaces and then gained immense wealth off the back of the Atlantic trade in humans.

Next on the route is the Zomai House, a barracoon, or slaves’ dungeon, where thousands of slaves were kept each year, waiting for their ships to arrive.