An independence square so to speak, in the city made a good photo backdrop.
Look at these beaches. Very white sandy welcoming beaches. People playing soccer, praying, spending family time. These are the beaches where tens to hundreds of people were taken into slavery and shipped to Europe, the Americas and some were enslaved and kept right here in Africa. The horrible vision that stimulates when you think about it is quite unbelievable really. To think that SO many people were taken and SO many died before they even reached where they were going. Not a few hundred people died but hundreds of thousands died before they reached their final destination. Unless you come to this part of the world or go to lectures given by authorities on the subject of slavery, or have managed to study up yourself on the history of slavery, you can't fully comprehend what happened here. The business of selling slaves were people turning on their own people. In most cases, European nations (particularly England, Spain, France and Holland)had established colonies in the Americas and were growing sugar, cotton and tobacco. The demand for help and slave trade began to increase. In most cases, European traders encouraged Africans on the coast to attack neighboring tribes and take captives. These captives were brought to these beaches and exchanged for European goods like guns and clothing. A big triangle route developed. The slaves were loaded onto ships to the Americas, the raw material they produced was sent back to Europe and the finished goods were sold in Europe and sent back to Africa in trade for more slaves. The whole system kept moving from the end of the 15th century until 1870 when slavery was abolished. As many as 20 million slaves were captured and up to half of those, 10 million died before they ever reached their final destination due to the overcrowding on the ships and poor unclean living conditions they were held subject to. Sadly, slavery still exists in Africa today. In Mauritania, in 2007, 3 million people lived in slavery, 18% of their population. Slavery there was criminalised in August of 2007.
Trying again:
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