Roots · Passage · Homecoming
Walk with care through stories of abduction, survival, freedom, return and cultural renewal.
Bunce Island
Bunce Island was a major British slave-trading stronghold. Enslaved Africans taken through the site were sent to North America and the Caribbean, creating ancestral links that endure today.
Rice-growing knowledge made captives from the Sierra Leone region especially sought after in South Carolina, Georgia and Florida. Others were taken to Virginia, Jamaica, Saint-Domingue, Grenada and Barbados.
Passage
Tasso Island appeared in written records in 1635 and later became a contested location between European powers and local rulers. British trading posts were established through negotiations with local chiefs. After the Dutch destroyed Tasso’s first British fort in 1664, the British developed a stronger fort on nearby Bunce Island.
A support island
While Bunce became the region’s dominant slave-trading hub, evidence indicates that Tasso continued as an agricultural and logistical support base. Its story exposes the wider systems that sustained the trade.
The human cost
An estimated 381,204 African captives were exported from the Sierra Leone region to the Americas during this period—families and communities permanently altered across both sides of the Atlantic.
Homecoming
Britain’s Committee for the Relief of the Black Poor settled around 400 men and women from Great Britain in Sierra Leone. In 1792, approximately 1,196 Black Loyalists arrived from Nova Scotia and helped found the Freetown Colony.
Return and renewal
More than 500 Jamaican Maroons arrived in 1800. After Britain abolished the transatlantic slave trade, Freetown became a base for intercepting slave ships. Liberated Africans settled alongside earlier communities, contributing to the emergence of Krio language and culture.
A living nation
Sierra Leone’s diverse communities—including Mende, Temne, Limba, Kono and Krio peoples—carry a rich tapestry of traditions, music, cuisine, language and hospitality. This is not simply a destination; it is an encounter with a nation whose history remains alive.