The man wakes up between a murmur of bodies that shudder and that insistent metallic replacement. Opens one eye, after another, and when trying to stretch a sharp jolt in the leg returns to that new reality, which will mark the same limit for weeks. For a moment he closed his eyes again and tries to remember his past life, not so distant, Before those men with turban on the back of their camels appear and captured it with the youngest in their village, before those without pause gallops, running under the wail of their whips, before those strange beings, White like the ice that inspected them in exchange for some pieces of metal, of that nagging cold that burns your leg as if fire. For a moment the man returns to his village in the country Mandingo; collection of yams is about to start and almost has the dowry for his second wife. A second shake between dreams and again the metallic sound returns to his new reality, that of a life between shackles.
Everyone around young people like him, haggard and emaciated, dying, many have fallen into the road
Quickly starts the ritual, Arabs and white men wake, voices, a sip of water and back on track, Sound like a procession, They drag their feet to the rhythm of the chains. Everyone around young people like him, haggard and emaciated, dying, many have fallen into the road. The man does not understand a word spoken by the other, captives also beside. His village companions have long been divided and taken with other white men or died. For days follow a forest path, away from the sandy failure of Bandiagara, The trip is monotonous and hard. Suddenly the man sees something different in the air, a new smell that precedes the roar of something unknown and frightening. Afraid, provides the splendid spectacle of crashing Atlantic waves furiously on the beach of the Gulf of Guinea.
The Spectacle of the Atlantic waves breaking on that beach of the Gulf of Guinea is splendid and Alex's cyclomotor, flowing through the road at full speed. Ouidah just leave and walk the path of the slaves. For several kilometers statues commemorative twisted and suffering figures adorn the margins of the road. Suddenly the path flows abruptly on the beach and shows an imposing image for both its architectural form and in its symbolic load. The non -return door is erected in silence by challenging the ocean.
One of the most embarrassing episodes of human history took place here in Benin, specifically en Ouidah
There was a time when this corner Benin and the Gulf of Guinea in particular, They became one of the biggest points of slave traffic throughout Africa, human capital robbery took its highest price in the Western part of the continent. The configuration of an economic and commercial order that began to globalized with the Modern Age needed wood to work, capitalism grew and the world became smaller. Each continent contributed to what could; European exchanges and provided controlled technology and products made, Asian la seda ansiada, spices and luxury items, America the metals that financed the party. The worst part would correspond to Africa, provide human fuel locomotive set in motion. A blank check marked so miserable the continent to the present day, damn scar that still can be seen at the root many problems.
One of the most embarrassing episodes of human history took place here in Benin, specifically en Ouidah. The process was simple; dominant tribes performed punitive raids against weaker peoples. If the main leaders of slave traffic would be in Eastern Africa, In the Gulf of Guinea the sultan of Abomey in collusion with the Portuguese would control the trafficking of negrara for thousands kilometers of coast. Mandingos, songhays, Congos ... Most Sub-Saharan peoples were caught, rated, separated and driven in harsh conditions over thousands of miles to the port of embarkation, there were sold to Portuguese traders were sent to America. Only one in four survived the journey slaves.
In the New World, while theological discussions were aimed at scrutinizing the existence of the soul of the new indigenous, and characters like Bartolome de las Casas fought a commendable and closed Indian defense, epidemics and exploitation were charged an inordinate number of lives. En only 80 years almost the entire Caribbean population originated from La Española, in Peru and New Spain the indigenous population was reduced to less than half in the next century. The output seemed clear if it was to maintain the system. Nobody moral or theological dilemmas raised regarding Africans and slavery. There was no doubt, after all the soul could not be black.
The number of slaves captured and sold to America during the three hundred years that the process lasted in a figure greater than twelve million people
Many tried to look away, The Spanish crown would be disregarding that lucrative business and during the following decades would sell the black seat to German bankers, Castilians, and even some royal butler. Finally, the Portuguese would get the license for more than two hundred years in exchange for a fee until the English started the concession to the crown after the war of succession. Today many researchers agree to place the number of slaves captured and sold to America during the three hundred years that the process lasted in a figure greater than twelve million people. The effects on the population that remained on the mainland were devastating, demographic potential loss in the absence of child-bearing age youth, vast areas depopulated, ethnic dislocation etc..
For his part, Slaves were configuring a bastard society in the New World. A new race awareness, after the Africans who came to the New World did not share many customs cases, lengua the identities comunes, had to invent on the fly own culture and country, only the strongest survived. There were rebellions, The famous palenques governed by dreaded Cimarrones and America were created gradually in a racial puzzle where the most tiny clarifice of the skin determined all lives; brown, ochavón, tornatrás…An infinite color palette to paint the canvas of slavery. As, The negreros galleons were throwing their enormous ballast of pain and death into the Atlantic.
Today Ouidah is a pleasant and picturesque, the traveler visiting Benin relaxing in their boundless beaches and coconut trees
Today Ouidah is a pleasant and picturesque, the traveler visiting Benin relaxing in their boundless coconut beaches of Grand Popo, visit the Temple of the Pythons, or sniffs in the yards of families hoping to witness a ceremony voudu. Can still see the remains of their dilapidated colonial houses, most dedicated members of the Portuguese slave trade, Souza family the major dealers in the city has been recently restored. However, if something is worth in Ouidah is making that journey infamous and symbolic, only 10 dusty kilometers, testimony of human barbarity.
The Route of Slaves declared a World Heritage by UNESCO in the year 2000, It flows abruptly at the door of no return monument created as a tribute to the captured slaves. Facing the Atlantic she bombards you with a lot of questions that remain unanswered to look the way they should make slaves swam to the tiny rocks where they were hoisted on board finally. The Door of No Return is one of those places that transmits more by suggesting that at showing, where the silences are loud and shake until the last recesses of the soul. You can almost hear cries million captives in the waves, pleas sent as messages in bottles lost in the ocean.