Reading this week:

• Between Meals by A.J. Liebling

At the very tail end of 2024, my super amazing wife and I managed to get to Bunce Island! It was really fantastic and is a must-see if you ever find yourself in Sierra Leone. Unlike a lot of things in Sierra Leone, Bunce Island is in fact pretty well documented online. That means there is no need to belabor the history here, but Bunce Island was home to a slave fort/factory that was a base for enslavers along the Sierra Leonean coast for centuries. The site has a particular connection to the United States because of the local rice-growing culture. People from the region were especially prized as slaves in the Carolinas for their knowledge of rice growing, and there is a direct connection between Sierra Leone and the Gullah/Geechee culture in the United States.

Since Bunce is an island we had to take a boat to get there. We were joining a trip put together by VSL Travel, and so joined up with our trip companions at the SeaCoach terminal. The VSL crew was great and I can highly recommend them. At the terminal we loaded onto two boats. We were on the B Boat, but as we went along it became clear that the A Boat was having trouble. There was a lot of plastic in the water outside Freetown harbor and apparently their engine had sucked some up. That didn’t bother me too much because I was having a grand ole’ time looking at all the different boats in the harbor from slightly closer up than usual. As we went further up the river I really enjoyed seeing all the different fishing villages and fishing boats out and about. At one point we had to veer sharply to the right to avoid running over a line of nets.

The most unexpected thing we saw was the port of Pepel, where a bulk carrier was being loaded up with ore. The current major export of Sierra Leone is iron ore, and from the Marampa and Tonkolili mines it is transported via rail to Pepel, where it is loaded onto ships for transport elsewhere to be refined. That explains all the bulk carrier ships I always see in Freetown harbor, which is a connection I should have made earlier. It also explains the rail yard I saw from the plane. Happy that things all tie together.

After passing Pepel, we were soon at Bunce. From the dock at Bunce you can look across and see the ships being loaded with ore. There’s a metaphor in there if you care to use it. Bunce Island had been neglected for a while as a historical site but that started getting rectified in 2007, so the infrastructure is pretty good. There is a caretaker on the island with a nice little house, keeping the brick paths fairly clear, and you land at a convenient dock. The fort itself is of course in ruins but as far as ruins go they are well preserved.

Once the A Boat had limped to the island and we were all gathered, the first thing the guide had us do was pray, “no matter your religion.” This prayer consisted of him drawing a circle in the sand and pouring water into it as he played “Amazing Grace” on his speaker. It was better than it sounds in that sentence, I promise. The significance of the circle was lost on me but the guide mentioned that the song was by John Newton, describing him as a former enslaver turned abolitionist. What he didn’t mention I don’t think but was clearly a part of the decision to play the song is that John Newton was in fact himself enslaved in Sierra Leone, when he annoyed the crewmembers of his ship so much they abandoned him here.

After the prayer the guide gave us a short history of the island and the slave trade in Sierra Leone, which was necessarily compressed but pretty alright. Then we hiked the 100 feet or so on up to the fort (it’s a very small island). The fort is on a gorgeous spot to be the site of so much pain. You can see why they picked it. It’s about as far up the river as you can go in a ship (as evidenced by the ore loaders a mile away), and the island has a small bluff on which the fort is built. With the trees cleared you could see any threats coming from a ways off. We entered the fort through the main gate which brought us past the ruins of the apartments and then onto the main bastion, with cannons on the ground still overlooking the main approach.

The story continues next week!