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More than 12 million Africans were enslaved during the transatlantic slave trade. Over the centuries, most were taken to the Americas, while millions of others died along the way. Today, monuments to this brutal history still stand along the coast of West Africa. But as NPR's Emmanuel Akinwotu reports in the fourth installment of our series along a rapidly developing West African coastline, some fear that preservation and commercialization are increasingly in conflict.
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EMMANUEL AKINWOTU, BYLINE: The Atlantic waves crash at the foot of the towering white walls of Elmina Castle, Ghana. It's one of several slave forts dotted along the coast in western central Africa. Inside, a tour guide leads a group of 20 people.
UNIDENTIFIED TOUR GUIDE: And about 150 female enslaved Africans were shared in this dungeon or were kept here (ph).
AKINWOTU: His voice echoes across the cobbled courtyard and in the surrounding dungeons where enslaved people were kept and tortured.
UNIDENTIFIED TOUR GUIDE: The materials we see here were all brought by people who visit the castle to pay homage to their ancestors.
AKINWOTU: Inside the cells, flowers have been laid to rest on the ground, once coated in layers of excrement and blood, which has slowly softened it over time. For decades, these monuments have drawn a growing number of visitors from the African diaspora connecting to their histories.
UNIDENTIFIED TOUR GUIDE: So please, before we leave here, if you want to pray to the ancestors, say anything or even take a picture of how we look at this place, you can do that before we see the next place.
AKINWOTU: But in recent years, interest in the legacy of slavery has surged. Ghana's 2019 year of return brought over a million mostly Black diaspora visitors, generating billions of dollars, according to the government. Its success has spurred other West African countries to explore the economic potential of these historic sites. All along the coastline, from Nigeria to Ivory Coast, government projects to develop these monuments are rapidly taking shape.
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AKINWOTU: And of all of them, the most expensive and ambitious plans are in the historic city of Ouidah, Benin, where the government is building La Marina.
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AKINWOTU: Slick video adverts show digital projections of what will become a vast tourism and memorial complex, complete with luxury hotels, pools and spas and a performance arena for Vodún, the indigenous religion in Benin. And at its heart is a life-size replica of a slave ship.
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AKINWOTU: It's all been built with investments including from China and constructed by China's state-owned construction company.
AUDRIO GOMEZ: (Through interpreter) The government is currently investing heavily in tourism. So there are a lot of renovations, which means that when people come, they want to come back.
AKINWOTU: Audrio Gomez (ph) is a tour guide in Ouidah. He's a descendant of formerly enslaved people who returned from Brazil and serves on a local committee advising the government. He welcomes the new development and describes how the site is being reconfigured. Workers are paving parts of the ground around the Tree of Oblivion, where enslaved people were made to forget their identities, where their plaques and monuments are being restored or even replaced, and a new gate will mark a fresh point of no return on the Atlantic shore, replacing the current beachfront archway. But the development has not been welcomed by everyone.
DOMINIQUE SOMDA: It's very commodified. It's Disney World. There's no dignity and humanity in the project.
AKINWOTU: Dr. Dominique Somda is an anthropologist at Kalamazoo College in Michigan. She was raised in Benin and has spent years studying African slave forts. She said tourism in countries like Benin, where they're making a concerted push to attract visitors, has a complicated legacy.
SOMDA: It will be very interesting to see in the future how tourists are actually responding to those new infrastructures, right? Is that what they are actually looking for? Are they looking for, for example, a replica of slave ships?
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AKINWOTU: All along our 600-mile journey, from Nigeria to Ivory Coast, former slave forts have formed a string of historical touch points for visitors exploring the legacy of the transatlantic slave trade. But in places like Benin, some are asking whether the balance between preservation and profit is tilting.
Emmanuel Akinwotu, NPR News, Benin.
(SOUNDBITE OF FUGEES SONG, "READY OR NOT") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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