Port of No Return

On Saturday we drove down the Slave Road that leads from the village of Ouidah to the beach. Slaves were marched down this road in chains, past the Tree of Forgetting, where they would be branded and forced to walk around the tree to forget their homes and families. The tree is gone, replaced by a shrine to the Voodoo goddess Mamiwata.

Along the route is a statue of a lower leg in chains, which represents one of the many indignities these men and women were forced to endure. The prisoners were bound so tightly together that if one died (and many did before even reaching the ships), the easiest way to unhitch him from the others was to simply cut off the leg above the chain.

The final stage of departure was when the slaves boarded longboats that would take them out to ships, which would transport them across the ocean — often to Brazil.

Today that spot is marked by a gateway with murals and Voodoo revenants representing the spirits of the dead. The slaves knew their bodies would never return to these pleasant shores — so they counted on their souls to do the job.