Bunce Island

Last weekend, I visited Bunce Island. During its operation, from 1668 until 1807, British slave traders purchased, imprisoned, and loaded up an estimated 50,000 slaves on this very island. Bunce has been called “a little piece of Africa that was destroyed to build America.” The island provided an almost exclusive supply of slaves to be sold in South Carolina, Georgia, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts.

Today it appears dilapidated with crumbling walls succumbing to encroaching jungle, half buried cannons still bearing their colonial crowns, millions of bats who claimed the old dungeon and unlikely lilies offering a sweet surprise. Despite the decrepit state, the island holds an undeniable piece of history. Stepping onto its shores was a haunting but memorable experience. Our guide, a local elder, paddled over in a dugout canoe to give us a tour that was endearing but not overly informative. The most interesting thing I learned was that female slaves were twice the price of their male counterparts, a fact that made the feminist side of me grin with agreement until the humane side regained its righteous indignation against it all.