For millions of African-Americans, clearly it is. “Slavery is not dead and done, and it won’t be until we find the words to talk about it,” writes Dee Parmer Woodtor in “Finding a Place Called Home,” one of several new guidebooks to black genealogy. But at best, most such searches end with the discovery of an early slave ancestor about whom very little history is recorded. That may be why “heritage” package tours to Africa are on the rise–and why such trips so often entail a powerful leap of faith.
A group that toured Goree last week, mostly professional people from Santa Monica, Calif., at first seemed unmoved. They listened quietly as the Senegalese guide graphically described the business of shipping slaves. He told how infants were crowded together in a tiny cell, how young women were rated by the firmness of their breasts.
Keith Webster, a contract administrator who carried a grainy photo of his great-great-grandfather in a pouch over his heart, asked why some blacks were made slaves and others escaped. Another man wanted to know if there was an age at which people were thought too old to be sold as slaves.
The guide continued, telling how shackled men fought over the one plate of food served them daily, how the ill were thrown to the sharks, how others were fattened on palm oil “like geese” for sale before being loaded onto ships through a portal called the Door of No Return. “And still I rise!” exclaimed Jeri Gardner, a member of the group, quoting poet Maya Angelou.
When it was time to leave the small courtyard, people hugged each other in tears. “Let them flow,” someone called out. “This is so deep–after the slaves survived this, think of all they had to survive in America,” said Gwen Randolph, a recent Vanderbilt Law School graduate. The group joined hands and prayed in “thanks for the spirit of our ancestors” and for an end to all hatred, all misunderstanding. “We stand tall–we are home,” someone said. The prayer leader concluded, “so be it, so it is.”
According to historians of slavery, only about 13 percent of the slaves taken to North America came from Senegal and Gambia. Nearly half came from Nigeria and Angola, which have no appreciable heritage tourism. But Senegal was the westernmost slave portal–and Goree is the best preserved slave center in Africa. Gambia, an enclave of 1.5 million people, meanwhile, trades on the fact that the late Alex Haley, author of “Roots,” placed his ancestral village in Juffureh, near the capital, Banjul. Another popular destination, Ghana, has several slave forts. All three countries are relatively easy to reach. During the peak season, Black History Month in February, Air Afrique offers round-trip fares, New York to Dakar, for under $900. (That may not be the best time to visit. “I want my people to experience Africa, and in November you see nothing but Americans,” said tour leader Jo Keita, from Los Angeles.)
By the standards of world tourism, the numbers remain small. About 25 million tourists visited all of Africa in 1998; Orlando, Fla., alone attracted 36 million. But the trade has been big enough to breed scams. A favorite trick is to take African-American groups to an ersatz African village where they can try a native dance, carry a baby, buy trinkets–and donate to the local chief. “They called it ’the bush’–I call it a tourist trap,” said Haidee Pitts, leader of a recent visit to Senegal by members of a Brooklyn church group.
The “Roots” village, Juffureh, may be the most pathetic case in point. Residents now enjoy electricity and running water. But it is no longer the simple place Alex Haley found before he wrote his phenomenally successful book 20 years ago. Last week the village elders were squabbling with the Ministry of Tourism over control of donations extracted from visitors, who arrive at a rate averaging 400 a month. Binta Kinte, said to be the seventh-generation descendant of Haley ancestor Kunta Kinte, asked a visitor for cash while still shaking hands in greeting.
Gambia’s president, Yahya Jammeh, is trying to clean up the country’s grasping image in an effort to rebuild the tourism industry, which once was the country’s chief foreign-revenue earner. And President Clinton last year appointed Alex Haley’s brother George, a distinguished attorney, as U.S. ambassador. But many African-American tour operators remain leery. U.S. groups repeatedly have complained of rip-offs. The emotion that springs forth in places like Goree Island may be pure, but those who seek profit from it aren’t necessarily so dependable. Would-be travelers are best advised to heed the guidelines of consumers everywhere: caveat emptor.
