Joseph N'Diaye's Powerful Remembrance at Gorée Island Slave House

Joseph N'Diaye served as guardian and conservator of the House of Slaves on Gorée Island, a small landmass facing Dakar from which slave ships once departed. His thunderous voice would climb the staircases with harmonious, shell-like roundness as he addressed visitors in the courtyard, which seemed too small to contain the force of his words. N'Diaye was determined not to let the fire of memory extinguish, recounting chains, screams, weeping, and abandoned recollections of those deemed 'non-men.' For the descendants of enslaved people and for those from societies that practiced slavery, this remembrance remains painful. Tourists listened in silence as he described how enslaved individuals were torn from their lives, histories, and homelands, stripped of kinship—their children belonging not to them but to their owners. The article, authored by Marco Aime and Anita Romanello, was published on June 4, 2026.