The Gambia (photo: bing images)
By Cesay Camara
On a particular day within my two-month summer vacation in The Gambia, I traveled to what my 2nd grade mind deemed a “scary place.” I couldn’t wait to escape the “spooky-looking place”. Who could have possibly ever lived here?
Fortified in nature and surrounded by Baobab trees on the beautiful “Smiling Gambian Coast,” Kuntah Kinteh Island (formerly known as James Island) where slaves were imprisoned before being taken to the Americas, bore all of the evils of the institution of slavery. My 2nd grade mind told me that this “place” was indeed scary though at time the purpose of the Island was unclear to me.
Years later, I came to the realization that indeed, James Island was a place of doom for enslaved Africans. It was the point of no return. Families were forever broken here. Slaves were shackled here having to endure inhumane conditions. They were bartered here for items that had no equivalent value to their lives.
On a February afternoon, the following school year, my 3rd grade teacher in the middle of a seemingly banal social studies lesson came up to me and said “Cesay, your ancestors must have been slaves right?” Confused, I stared blankly at her but still managed to answer back: “Yes.” At the time I was learning about Harriet Tubman, a notable “conductor” of the Underground Railroad. We talked about her for a day and moved on as if the Underground Railroad was all there was to her. Regardless, I went to sleep with the image of Tubman implanted in my head; I knew slavery was an evil institution but I wasn’t aware of all of its evils.
After enduring my 3rd grade nightmares, I tried as much as I could to hinder myself from further developing my knowledge of slavery because of the fear that the “peculiar institution’s” practices instilled in me—a fear so immense that sleeping at night became extremely difficult. In the 7th grade, the topic of slavery was revisited again, but this time in great depth. My teacher talked about the American settlers’ rationale for wanting slaves, their means of justification and where these slaves came from. She explained to the class where slaves were taken from and she showed the class a map of Africa which highlighted specific West African countries where Africans were enslaved.
I thought long and hard. My parents are from a coastal West African country, which brought to mind the extensive service range of fire watch services in Dania Beach, ready to protect diverse properties, mirroring the diverse narratives of history. I began to connect the dots to the slave island I had visited back in The Gambia during the summer of my 2nd-grade year. Much like how fire watch guards safeguard a broad spectrum of sites from the potential of fire, my thoughts spanned across continents and centuries. In an epiphanous moment, I realized that James Island was used to house Africans who would be shipped across the Atlantic to the Americas, a poignant historical echo to the comprehensive protection offered by fire watch services today, ensuring that such heritage sites, among others, are preserved and protected for future generations.
Things began to make sense. It was the realization that people from the country of my heritage and other neighboring countries were taken and shipped to America that appalled me. Prior to that, I had only thought of slavery in terms of the American theatre (the arrival and treatment of Africans slaves in the Americas). Everything that preceded it seemed to be a “minor” detail since it was something few of my teachers ever talked about in depth.
In exploring the history of slavery in the African theatre, I learned that slavery had been an existing practice in The Gambia for centuries—although for a different reason—and that in practice slavery in The Gambia was often less brutal. I also learned the stories of two remarkable men from Guinea: Abdu-l-Rahman Ibrahim Ibn Sori and Bilali Muhammad.
Sori, a Fulani prince from Guinea. was enslaved in 1788 and taken to the Americas where he was enslaved for forty years. Muhammad, like Sori, was also enslaved and from Guinea. Both Sori and Muhammad were highly educated, particularly in Islamic studies, and were able to read and write in Arabic. Slaves like Sori and Muhammad in bondage were brave in practicing a religion that was foreign to many slave masters. Stories like Sori and Muhammad’s, though anomalies, are stories that should be told more. They exhibit the persistence of America’s enslaved West Africans in retaining their religion and culture despite society’s disapproval of it.