GOREE ISLAND, Senegal (AP) — U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen paid a solemn go to Saturday to the salmon-colored home on an island off Senegal that is without doubt one of the most acknowledged symbols of the horrors of the Atlantic slave commerce that trapped tens of tens of millions of Africans in bondage for generations.
Yellen, in Senegal as a part of a 10-day journey geared toward rebuilding financial relationships between the U.S. and Africa, stood within the Gorée Island constructing often called the Home of Slaves and peered out of the “Door of No Return,” from which enslaved folks have been shipped throughout the Atlantic.
“Gorée and the trans-Atlantic slave commerce should not simply part of African historical past. They’re part of American historical past as effectively,” Yellen stated in short remarks throughout her go to.
“We all know that the tragedy didn’t cease with the era of people taken from right here. Even after slavery was abolished, Black People — lots of whom can hint their descendance by ports like this throughout Africa — have been denied the rights and freedoms promised to them below our Structure.”
The financial advantages that main slave-trading nations, together with the US, reaped for lots of of years on the backs of unpaid labor might quantity to tens of trillions of {dollars}, in line with analysis on the commerce.
And within the U.S., African slaves and their youngsters contributed to the constructing of the nation’s most storied establishments, together with the White Home and Capitol, in line with the White Home Historic Affiliation.
Yellen acknowledged the continuing ramifications of that brutal previous.
“In each Africa and the US, at the same time as we have now made super strides, we’re nonetheless residing with the brutal penalties of the trans-Atlantic slave commerce,” she stated.
“What I take from this place is the significance of redoubling our dedication to struggle for our shared values and ideas wherever they’re threatened — in the US, in Africa, and around the globe,” she stated. ”We’ve got extra work to do.”
Stefan Kleinowitz through Related Press
Yellen’s journey to the island is one which many dignitaries have made, together with former Presidents Barack Obama and Invoice Clinton and South Africa’s Nelson Mandela. Right this moment, Gorée Island is designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Website.
Yellen’s cease there throughout a visit meant to revitalize U.S.-African financial relations is one which evoked the huge prices of the slave commerce. There was a resurgence in curiosity in figuring out the true price of slavery on the generations impacted.
The Home Monetary Companies Committee in recent times has studied how U.S. banks and insurance coverage firms profited from the observe of slavery earlier than it was outlawed in 1865. There have additionally been hearings on the examine and improvement of reparations proposals in the US.