The Well of Forgetting

A short memoir about visiting Badagry’s Heritage (slavery) Museum in Nigeria

Signpost on Gberefu (Photo Source: Vanessa Banigo)

The museum at Badagry is situated within the actual barracoon that transported slaves until well after slavery was abolished by the British. It is close to the shore, within easy reach of the Atlantic. A car journey from the commercial center of Lagos will take up a few hours there and back depending on the traffic.

In the museum are the ‘usual’ artifacts of the slave trade: Weighty steel chains for adults and children. You can even lift them, place them around your neck, walk around in them until — quickly — the metal starts to bite into your collarbone. Thankfully, you have the freedom to take them off and put them back whenever you wish.

There are a lot of pictures, most seemingly downloaded from the Internet and tacked to the wall. These are the ubiquitous images of slavery; the sketch of an African in a loincloth hanging from a tree, the steel mouth guards they wore to prevent them from eating the produce they collected, the pierced lips of slaves who talked too much, and the romanticized images of slaves kneeling piteously at the feet of white slave masters.

The locals who run the museum are pretty relaxed about the whole thing. They understand and may even apologize to the descendants of slavery who arrive, but they haven’t been trained in Western reserve and…