Sierra Leone draws Americans seeking slave roots
BUNCE ISLAND, Sierra Leone -- The ivy-clad ruins perched on a strip of mud in the Sierra Leone river hide a dark past, but have become an unlikely symbol of hope for many African Americans seeking slave forbears.
As a departure point for thousands of Africans on the perilous crossing to the New World, the once proud castle on Bunce Island is a crumbling monument to the horrors of the Transatlantic slave trade.
"There are probably tens of thousands of African Americans trying to trace their roots to Sierra Leone right now," U.S. professor Joseph Opala of James Madison University told Reuters.
Opala has worked for 30 years on the links between descendants of slaves and their West African origins.
"Sierra Leone is the most frequent result for DNA tests in the U.S.," he said.
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As a departure point for thousands of Africans on the perilous crossing to the New World, the once proud castle on Bunce Island is a crumbling monument to the horrors of the Transatlantic slave trade.
"There are probably tens of thousands of African Americans trying to trace their roots to Sierra Leone right now," U.S. professor Joseph Opala of James Madison University told Reuters.
Opala has worked for 30 years on the links between descendants of slaves and their West African origins.
"Sierra Leone is the most frequent result for DNA tests in the U.S.," he said.