Sierra Leone - Bunce Island

Bunce is a 1600 feet uninhabitted island lying approximately 20 miles up the Sierra Leone River from Freetown, the Capital city of Sierra Leone. Bunce Island was established as a slave trading station in 1670. From 1670 to 1728 two companies- the Gambia Adventurers and the Royal African Company of England ran Bunce Island one after the other. Bunce Island’s prosperity ran from 1744 to 1807 during private management by a consortium of London firms. At their slave trading heights British traders shipped tens of thousands of African slaves to the Americas from this place. The trading fort was subjected to attacks a number of times by other Europeans. Slave trading ceased on the island with the abolition of slace trade in 1808. It was however in the 1840 that the Bunce Island fort was finally abandoned. Bunce Island was declared a National Monument in 1948.