Goree

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Goree, the Memory Island

The Beer Island was uninhabited serving only for domestic uses and as a place of call for the fishermen living in the mainland.

This island of about 25ha with a volcanic origin at 4km from the west of Dakar entered European history in the middle of the 15th with the arrival of the Portuguese. They called it Palma. Its vast Bay of deep water very quickly turned it into the first port of call for the sailing-ships.
The strategic stake of the island made the butch occupy it quickly and give it the name of goede reede (the good roadstead). They bought the Island from the local people and built there two forts to protect their trade directed to the slave-trade.

Therefore the role of Goree as a transit place of slaves and goods was confirmed and its fate was connected to that of European trade companies.
This business counter rose greed from diverse powers who in the thick of the slave-trade in the 18th century firmly fought over the control of the island with determination. So, the french and the english took by turns the control of the island till the early 18's.

With the proclamation of the end of slavery, Gorée became the main place of the naval division in charge of the repression of illicit slave-trade. Having become a french port, the economic rise and the dynamism of half-bred families turned Goree into a real city and the island obtained the particular status of a common of France.
In 1832, the population of the island reached about 5000 inhabitants.

However, on the mainland Dakar and its harbour rose while Goree suffocated because of its insularity.
Little by little the island lost its economic and administrativ interest to be finally connected to the administrative entity of Dakar created in 1857.

In 1931 Goree counted less than 600 inhabitants. To save the island from falling into oblivion some voices rose up to plead in favour of conservation of this memory island. Already in the colonial time the french rulers of the island had taken regular steps to save the island from demolition and especially from disfiguration. After an appeal addressed to the international community by the UNESCO director general the senegalese Amadou Makhtar Mbow, Goree is a site classified in the humanity world heritage since september 1978.

Today Goree welcomes each year thousands of visitors, states men, artists, black of the diaspora, tourists. The visitor will of course, observe the striking contrast between the eventful past of the island and the quiet course of the present life.

Goree it's also its restaurants, museums, old ram-shackle houses, fortifications, narrow flourished roads, back-yards and the warm of the welcome of its inhabitants. A must for the tourist, a passage in the famous slave's house and the historic museum of Senegal which will enable the visitor to have an idea of the history of both the island and the country.

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