By Spy Uganda

Areport from Cambridge University Press reveals that Salaga was one of the leading slave markets in West Africa during the 1880s.

The story of the enslaved people—their origins, who brought them to Salaga, who purchased them, and their fate—can be reconstructed from accounts by a wide range of travelers, both Black and white, including officials, soldiers, merchants, and missionaries of various nationalities, African and European.

On the eve of European colonization, which eventually ended the internal slave trade, these accounts allow us to glimpse the scale and mechanisms of the trade, as well as the diverse attitudes towards slavery in pre-colonial Africa.

Ghana’s Minister of Tourism, Arts, and Culture, Hon. Andrew Egyapa Mercer, remarked that the commissioning of the Salaga Slave Market and Heritage Site is more than a commemoration of the past; it is an acknowledgment of the significant role slavery played in shaping the world today. He made these remarks at the commissioning of the site on Monday, July 22, 2024, in Salaga, located in the Savannah Region.

The site, an 18th-century slave market, was a key location where enslaved people were transported to the coast for export during the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade era. It also served as an outpost for the movement of slaves along the Trans-Saharan routes.