Goree Island, off Dakar, Senegal

Goree Island is only one of many ports used to transport slaves in the 18th and 19th centuries. The Maison des Esclaves was built between 1780 and 1784 but is now used as a tourist destination and museum that tells the horrors that the African slaves faced. It is believed that several hundred were shipped through the port annually until the late 1780s. The 'House of Slaves' contains small square cells - only about 8.5 feet in length - that were used to hold up to 20 men waiting to be shipped off to the Americas. There were separate cells for men, women and children - and for "recalcitrants" (resistors). These were smaller than the "normal" cells.

The men were forced to sit with their backs against the wall as their arms, legs, and necks were chained. They were only released from the cell for an hour each day while they waited for up to three months for their ship. Women and young children were kept in different - though similarly horrific - cells on the island. The slave traders would look over the slaves while they were free during the day and negotiate over their varying prices based on their muscle tone and ethnic background.

Male slaves had to weigh at least 80kg, or they were judged to be too small to work efficiently, and possibly too weak to survive the ordeal of the voyage to the Americas or Europe. Many were thus kept in the cells and fattened up to reach the minimum weight. Those too light to transport remained as slaves in the locality. The quality of women slaves was apparently assessed by the firmness of their breasts, any pronounced sagging indicating someone ageing, unprofitable and unlikely to bear children.

Once the traders had selected the slaves they wanted, the men would make the harrowing walk down the corridor to the 'Door of No Return' to board the ship. Some slaves tried to jump off the wharf and into the sea and others tried to run out of the corridor but neither route worked: the men were either eaten by sharks who circled the island waiting for the remains of dead prisoners, and the guards shot the men who tried to run.

The bleakness of the prison is in stark contract to the pretty streets and buildings on the island, many originally belonging to the slave-traders ......

The prison was reconstructed and built as a memorial museum in 1962 before being named as a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1978.