272: Senegal: The Door of No Return

The Rest Is History

Goalhanger

History

4.6 • 18.6K Ratings

🗓️ 4 December 2022

⏱️ 37 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In today's episode, Tom and Dominic discuss the Senegalese island of Gorée, and its complex relationship with the transatlantic slave trade. They look at both the history and mythology of the "House of Slaves", which still stands today as a vestige to human exploitation. Join The Rest Is History Club (www.restishistorypod.com) for ad-free listening to the full archive, weekly bonus episodes, live streamed shows and access to an exclusive chatroom community. *The Rest Is History Live Tour 2023*: Tom and Dominic are back on tour this autumn! See them live in London, New Zealand, and Australia! Buy your tickets here: restishistorypod.com Twitter: @TheRestHistory @holland_tom @dcsandbrook Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, welcome to the rest is history. I've never been a massive connoisseur of Senegalese
0:14.5	history. In fact, the first time that Senegal really impinged on my consciousness was
0:18.1	when Senegal beat France in the opening match of the 2002 World Cup in Japan and South
0:25.4	the former colonial power dominant. It's a former colonial power. Exactly. So it was a
0:30.2	sort of moment charged with historic significance and not purely sporting history. And Tom, you
0:37.2	volunteered to dip your toes into Senegalese history for this episode in our World Cup marathon.
0:43.9	And what have you come up with? Well, so I vaguely knew about Senegal's pro-ess on the
0:49.1	football field both because of the victory of France that you mentioned also. I think they won
0:54.2	the African Cup of Nations. They did indeed. So they're obviously very, very good at football.
0:59.7	There's one other thing that I know about Senegal, which is it's most famous tourist attraction.
1:07.8	And which featured on is one of the 12 original World Heritage sites that were chosen by UNESCO
1:14.0	in 1978 and now there are lots and lots and lots of them. So Stonehenge Landscape, for instance,
1:19.1	is a UNESCO World Heritage site for now. Maybe removed if they go ahead with their tunnel,
1:25.1	who knows? And actually four of those 12 original World Heritage sites Dominic feature in our
1:32.1	series. So the Galapagos Islands for Ecuador, we'll feature in our episode on Ecuador.
1:39.4	Two in our Polish episodes of the massive salt mine that goes from hundreds of miles,
1:45.5	central Krakow, and Senegal's most visited tourist attraction, which is on the Isle of Gore.
1:55.1	And you may be wondering, well, what have you heard of Gore? I haven't told them. I'm looking
1:58.9	forward to you educating me about it. Well, I won't educate you. I will let the UNESCO website
2:04.0	educate you. So this is how they describe Gore. The island of Gore lies off the coast of Senegal,
2:09.4	opposite Dakar. From the 15th to the 19th century, it was the largest slave trading centre on the
2:14.6	African coast ruled in succession by the Portuguese Dutch, English, and French. Its architecture is
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