 Plan of Bunce Island, 1726 Bunce Island (also spelled "Bence," "Bense," or "Bance" at different periods) is the site of an 18th century British slave castle in the Republic of Sierra Leone. It is located deep within Freetown harbor. Image File history File links This is a lossless scalable vector image. ...
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Located about 20 miles upriver from Sierra Leone's capital city of Freetown, Bunce Island lies in the Sierra Leone River, the estuary formed by the Rokel River and Port Loko Creek . Although only a tiny island 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. Freetown, population 1,070,200 (2004), is the capital and largest city of Sierra Leone. ...
The Sierra Leone River is a river estuary on the Atlantic Ocean in Western Sierra Leone. ...
Rio de la Plata estuary Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Estuaries An estuary is a semi-enclosed coastal body of water with one or more rivers or streams flowing into it, and with a free connection to the open sea. ...
The Rokel River is the largest river in the Republic of Sierra Leone in West Africa. ...
History
 Bunce Island in 1726 during the period of the Royal African Company 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 of England, the later 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 named José Lopez da Moura. It was abandoned until the mid-1740s. Image File history File linksMetadata Download high resolution version (1000x405, 142 KB) Summary Licensing File links The following pages on the English Wikipedia link to this file (pages on other projects are not listed): Bunce Island Metadata This file contains additional information, probably added from the digital camera or scanner...
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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 1660. ...
Bunce Island was operated later by two more 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, and the London-based owners grew wealthy from the castle's operations. (17th century - 18th century - 19th century - more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 18th century refers to the century that lasted from 1701 through 1800. ...
The Caribbean or the West Indies is a group of islands in the Caribbean Sea. ...
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, 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. Born John Roberts (May 17, 1682 - February 10, 1722), also known as Bart Roberts (Welsh: Barti Ddu), was a Welsh pirate who raided shipping off the Americas and West Africa between 1719 and 1722. ...
Look up pirate and piracy in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...
An entrepôt is a trading centre, or simply a warehouse, where merchandise can be imported and exported without paying import duties, often at a profit. ...
Links to North America Bunce Island is best known as one of the chief suppliers of slaves to the rice industry in the North American Colonies of South Carolina and Georgia. 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 and Gambia in the north down to Sierra Leone and Liberia in the south. This article needs additional references or sources for verification. ...
A map of the Province of Carolina. ...
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 itself 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 (South Carolina) and Savannah (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. Nickname: Motto: Aedes Mores Juraque Curat (She cares for her temples, customs, and rights) Location of Charleston in South Carolina. ...
Coordinates: , County Chatham Government - Mayor Otis S. Johnson Area - City 202. ...
Henry Laurens, Bunce Island's business agent in Charleston, a wealthy rice planter and slave dealer, later became President of the Continental Congress during the Revolutionary War and then US envoy to Holland. Captured by the British enroute to his post in Europe, he was imprisoned in the Tower of London. After hostilities ended, he became one of the Peace Commissioners who negotiated US Independence under the Treaty of Paris. 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. Henry Laurens Henry Laurens (1724–1792) was an American merchant and rice planter from South Carolina who became a political leader during the Revolutionary War. ...
The President of the Continental Congress was the presiding officer of the Continental Congress. ...
Combatants United States (United Colonies prior to July 1776) France Spanish Empire Dutch Republic Polish volunteers Quebec volunteers Prussian volunteers Oneida Tuscarora Great Britain Loyalists Hessian mercenaries Iroquois Confederacy Duchy of Brunswick Commanders George Washington Nathanael Greene Gilbert de La Fayette Comte de Rochambeau Bernardo de Gálvez Tadeusz Ko...
Her Majestys Royal Palace and Fortress The Tower of London, more commonly known as the Tower of London (and historically simply as The Tower), is a historic monument in central London, England on the north bank of the River Thames. ...
Painting by Benjamin West depicting (from left to right) John Jay, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Henry Laurens, and William Temple Franklin. ...
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 (Rhode Island), New London (Connecticut), Salem (Massachusetts), and New York. Newport is a city in Newport County, Rhode Island, about 30 miles (48 km) south of Providence. ...
Nickname: Motto: MARE LIBERUM Coordinates: , NECTA Norwich-New London Region Southeastern Connecticut Settled 1646 (Pequot Plantation) Named 1658 (New London) Incorporated (city) 1784 Government - Type Council-manager - City council Margaret Mary Curtin, Mayor Kevin J. Cavanagh, Dep. ...
Nickname: Location in Massachusetts Coordinates: , Country United States State Massachusetts County Essex County Settled 1626 Incorporated 1626 Government - Type Mayor-council city - Mayor Kimberley Driscoll Area - City 18. ...
This article does not cite any references or sources. ...
Eclipse of Bunce Island British philanthropists established Freetown in 1787, a settlement for freed slaves, on the Sierra Leone Peninsula, just 20 miles downriver from Bunce Island. The Atlantic slave trade continued to be legal for the next two decades, though, and during that period the Bunce Island slave traders harassed the fledgling colony by inciting the local African chiefs against it, organizing trade boycotts to isolate it, and at one point even selling away as slaves some Freetown colonists they accused of stealing goods at the castle. Freetown, population 1,070,200 (2004), is the capital and largest city of Sierra Leone. ...
The Atlantic slave trade was the trade of African slaves by Europeans that occurred in and around the Atlantic Ocean. ...
Freetown finally gained the upper hand when the British Parliament outlawed the Atlantic slave trade in 1807. The following year Freetown became a Crown Colony, and the British Navy based its Africa Squadron there, sending out patrols to search for slave vessels violating the ban. Bunce Island immediately shut down for slave trading, and British firms now used the castle for other purposes -- a cotton plantation, a trading post and a sawmill. These activities were ultimately unsuccessful, though, and the island was abandoned around 1840. The wooden verandahs decayed, the slate roofs collapsed, some stone walls toppled, and tropical vegetation gradually covered the site. This English poster depicting the horrific conditions on slave ships was influential in mobilizing public opinion against slavery. ...
Today, there are substantial ruins 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; and 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. There are also remnants of two watchtowers, a fortification with places for eight cannons, and a gunpowder magazine. Some of the cannons bear the royal cipher of King George III). At the south end of the island there are several inscribed tombstones marking the graves of slave traders, slave ship captains, and the foreman of the African workers. Not to be confused with Canon. ...
George III (George William Frederick) (4 June 1738–29 January 1820) was King of Great Britain, and King of Ireland from 25 October 1760 until 1 January 1801, and thereafter King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland until his death. ...
Slave ships were cargo boats specially converted for the purpose of transporting slaves, especially newly captured African slaves. ...
Research on Bunce Island Three American scholars have done extensive research on Bunce Island. Anthropologist Joseph Opala did the research that linked Bunce Island to the Gullah people 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 authoritative historical study “Citizens of the World" (1997). And 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). This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ...
African American TV actor Isaiah Washington 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 will produce a 3-D image of the castle using computer-aided design that will allow 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. Isaiah Washington IV (born August 3, 1963) is an American film and television actor. ...
James Madison University (also known as JMU, Madison or James Madison) is a selective 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 until settling with James Madison...
“CAD†redirects here. ...
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. Little else happened, though, until 1989 when a group of Gullahs, (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, but it fell through during the confusion of the Sierra Leone civil war. Two more “Gullah Homecomings” in 1997 and 2005 also resulted in historic visits by African Americans to Bunce Island. This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ...
An African American (also Afro-American, Black American, or simply black) is a member of an ethnic group in the United States whose ancestors, usually in predominant part, were indigenous to Africa. ...
The National Park Service (NPS) is the United States government agency that deals with U.S. National Parks and U.S. National Monuments. ...
Combatants Government of Sierra Leone Sierra Leone Army Kamajors / South African mercenaries Nigerian-led ECOMOG forces United Kingdom Revolutionary United Front Armed Forces Revolutionary Council West Side Boys Liberia Commanders Ahmad Tejan Kabbah Samuel Hinga Norman Valentine Strasser Solomon Musa Tony Blair Foday Sankoh Johnny Paul Koroma Charles Taylor The...
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. Efforts are now underway to preserve the castle as a reminder of the past and to attract tourists, especially African Americans whose heritage is closely linked to Bunce Island. Although other slave castles -- especially Gorée in Senegal and Elmina in Ghana -- are more popular attractions for black Americans, those castles are, historically speaking, far more connected to the West Indies than North America. Bunce Island has been called "the most important historic site in Africa for the United States." ÃŽle de Gorée (i. ...
Elmina is a town on the Atlantic Ocean coast of Ghana, lying west of Cape Coast. ...
General Colin Powell, then Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, 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." General Colin Luther Powell, United States Army (Ret. ...
Joint Chiefs of Staff of the United States of America symbol The Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) is a grouping comprising the Chiefs of service of each major branch of the armed services in the United States armed forces. ...
Preservation Efforts The U.S. National Park Service team that surveyed the castle in 1989 suggested that the ruins be stabilized and that all-weather displays showing what the buildings looked like and what went on there be erected for each structure. But no historic preservation work has ever been done. The castle’s ruins are deteriorating rapidly in Sierra Leone’s tropical climate. Many walls have already collapsed. Trees are growing on the tops of some walls, their roots crushing the masonry. A valuable bronze ship's cannon was stolen several years ago. Historic preservation, heritage management, or heritage conservation is the theory and practice of creatively maintaining the historic built environment and controlling the landscape component of which it is an integral part. ...
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.
External links
Further reading - Ball, Edward (1998) "Slaves in the Family,” New York: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux.
- Brooks, George (2003) "Eurafricans in Western Africa: Commerce, Social Status, Gender, and Religious Observance from the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Century,” Athens: Ohio University Press.
- Farrow, Anne, Joel Lang & Jenifer Frank (2005) "Complicity: How the North Promoted, Prolonged, and Profited from Slavery," New York: Ballantine Books.
- Fyfe, Christopher (1962) "A History of Sierra Leone," London: Oxford University Press.
- Hancock, David (1995) “Citizens of the World: London Merchants and the Integration of the British Atlantic Community, 1735-1785,” Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Landsman, Ned C. (2001) "Nation and Province in the First British Empire: Scotland and the Americas, 1600-1800," Cranbury, NJ: Bucknell University Press.
- Kup, Alexander Peter (1961) "A History of Sierra Leone, 1400-1787," Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Powell, Colin [with Joseph Persico] (1995) "My American Journey," New York: Random House.
- Rodney, Walter (1970) "A History of the Upper Guinea Coast, 1545-1800," Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Coordinates: 8°34′N, 13°02′W Map of Earth showing lines of latitude (horizontally) and longitude (vertically), Eckert VI projection; large version (pdf, 1. ...
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