The Slave Route

The route starts in town, on a square lined with old houses, facing the residence of a prominent family. It ends on a beach, facing the Atlantic. In between: two to two and a half miles of red laterite track, coconut palms, statues and silence.

This is Ouidah's Slave Route. It is often described as "the path the captives walked." That is broadly true, and it is also more complicated. The current route was designed in the early 1990s. It brings together places documented by history and archaeology, places handed down by oral tradition, and contemporary artworks.

Understanding this route means walking it twice: once through the past of the slave trade, and once through the way Benin chose to remember it.

What the route is today

The Slave Route is a memorial walk that links the center of Ouidah to the beach where captives were shipped out. It has six stations:

1. The auction square, long known as Place Chacha.
2. The Tree of Forgetfulness.
3. The Zomai hut.
4. The Zoungbodji memorial.
5. The Tree of Return.
6. The Door of No Return, on the beach.

Depending on the source, the route is three to four kilometers long. According to a study by researcher Rossila Goussanou, published by the University of Liège, more than 27 artworks line it: cement sculptures, mosaics, and pieces in copper and steel.

The route is part of the "Notable Sites of the Slave Route in Benin," which Benin has placed on UNESCO's World Heritage tentative list.

Ouidah, a major slave-trading port

To understand why this route exists, it helps to recall what Ouidah was.

Before 1727, the town belonged to the Xweda kingdom, whose capital was Savi. European trading companies had their posts and forts there. In 1727, King Agaja of Dahomey conquered the kingdom and made Ouidah his port on the Atlantic. A royal official, the yovogan, handled relations with the Europeans.

Under King Kpengla (1774-1789), Dahomey tightened its control over the trade in captives, run as a royal monopoly. In the 19th century, the Brazilian merchant Francisco Félix de Souza became the main middleman of Ouidah's trade, with the title of chacha granted by King Ghezo after 1818. Our pillar on Francisco Félix de Souza tells his story.

According to estimates based on the Slave Voyages database, more than one million Africans were shipped from Ouidah, making it Africa's second-largest slave-trading port after Luanda. The main destination was Brazil, above all Bahia. The trade did not fully end until the 1860s. Our pillar on the Door of No Return covers that history in detail.

Where the captives came from

The people who walked this route were not from Ouidah. Most came from the interior, sometimes from hundreds of miles away, captured in wars or raids.

Dahomey itself was not entirely free to choose. From 1730, it paid a yearly tribute to the Oyo Empire, the powerful neighboring Yoruba state: a caravan of cowries, cloth and captives left Abomey for Oyo's capital each year. In the early 1820s, King Ghezo, in power since 1818, refused to pay. He defeated a weakened Oyo in 1823. Freed from that overlord, Dahomey stepped up its campaigns against neighboring Yoruba states to seize captives for the Atlantic trade and for labor within the kingdom.

Other captives came from the Mahi country to the north, or from even farther away. Young Mahommah Gardo Baquaqua, born around 1830 in Djougou, in what is now northern Benin, was shipped from Ouidah around 1845 and told his story in a book published in Detroit in 1854.

Kossola's three weeks in a Ouidah barracoon

For American readers, the best-documented life to pass through Ouidah is that of Oluale Kossola. Captured in a Dahomean raid in 1860, he was marched to Ouidah and held for three weeks in a slave pen, a barracoon, before being loaded aboard the Clotilda, the last known slave ship to reach the United States, with 109 other captives. In Alabama he became Cudjo Lewis. After emancipation, he and other survivors founded Africatown, near Mobile.

In 1927, Zora Neale Hurston recorded his story. Her book, Barracoon, published in 2018, takes its title from exactly the kind of enclosure Kossola waited in, here in Ouidah. Our pillar on the Door of No Return tells the full story of the Clotilda and of the Africatown Heritage House, opened in Mobile in 2023.

That wait could last weeks. Captives were kept in pens until a ship arrived and a sale was agreed. The route compresses that wait into a few miles.

What a human being was traded for

On the auction square, captives were exchanged for goods. Which goods?

The first was a currency from the other side of the world: the cowrie, a small shell from the Maldives, in the Indian Ocean. The Dutch and the English bought cowries in Ceylon, shipped them to Amsterdam or London, then re-exported them to West Africa. According to historians of money cited by The Conversation, at least 30 billion cowries were imported into the Bight of Benin between 1500 and 1875, about 44 percent of the total value of the region's imports. The cowrie became the standard currency there.

Prices soared during the 18th century. In Ouidah, a captive was worth 8,000 cowries in 1724; by 1748, the price had reached 80,000. Elsewhere in West Africa, in the 1750s, the young Olaudah Equiano, who later wrote one of the best-known slave narratives in English, was sold for 172 cowries.

Besides cowries came cloth, often from India, guns and gunpowder, alcohol, iron bars and, from Bahia, tobacco. That list makes the reading of Zomai as a gun and powder store easier to understand.

Behind these figures lies a reality the auction square makes concrete: a human being had a price, set in seashells.

A real route and a remembered route

This is the question many visitors ask: did the captives really walk this very road?

The honest answer has two parts.

What is firmly established. Captives were sold in town, then taken to the beach, where canoes carried them out to the ships. The general direction of the route, from town to sea, matches reality. At Zoungbodji, an archaeological dig carried out in 1992 uncovered bones, chains and irons at the site of a mass grave. The embarkation beach is indeed the one where the Door of No Return stands today.

What comes from oral tradition. The rituals of the Tree of Forgetfulness and the Tree of Return are not documented by any written source from the time of the trade. British historian Robin Law, author of the major social history of Ouidah, questioned the historical accuracy of several stations in an article published in 2008 in the journal Gradhiva. Rossila Goussanou also notes that these rituals lack historical documentation.

That does not make them false. Oral tradition is a full-fledged source in West Africa, and Ouidah families pass these stories down. But it is fair to present them for what they are: memory narratives that say something about how Ouidah thinks about the slave trade, rather than facts established by documents.

A good guide will make that distinction. Feel free to ask.

How the route was created

For more than a century after the trade ended, nothing officially marked this path. The turning point came in the early 1990s, with the return of democracy in Benin.

From February 8 to 18, 1993, Ouidah hosted the Ouidah 92 festival, the "First World Festival of Vodun Arts and Cultures: Americas-Africa Reunion." Launched by President Nicéphore Soglo, it responded to the 1992 commemorations of the 500th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the Americas, which had ignored Africa and the slave trade.

That is the context in which the idea of a memorial route was born. According to Rossila Goussanou, it was implemented by writer Nouréini Tidjani-Serpos, and the artworks were created from 1993 on. In September 1994, UNESCO launched its international Slave Route Project in Ouidah, on a proposal from Haiti. The Door of No Return was unveiled on November 30, 1995.

Place Chacha, the starting point, was restored in 1999 with funding from Germany.

Station 1: the auction square

The route begins on the auction square, long called Place Chacha after Francisco Félix de Souza's nickname. According to tradition and historical accounts, this is where sales took place: captives were exchanged for European goods.

Across the square stands Singbomey, the residence of the de Souza family. The chacha's descendants still live in Ouidah, and their relationship with this memory is complex. Rossila Goussanou quotes a descendant, Rachida de Souza, who regretted the casual use of the nickname "Chacha," feeling that it "takes away a dimension of power" from the man who was the richest and most influential figure in town.

At the center of the square stood a very old tree, called Tohounkada in Fon. According to the Beninese daily Matin Libre, tradition says it was planted in 1727, and it served as a landmark for the sale of captives. It was also called Dantin, because of the ceremonies held there in honor of Dan, the serpent deity. In June 2024, heavy rains uprooted it; its trunk split in two, damaging the entrance of the residence and the public benches. The authorities said they intended to straighten and restore it.

The square has been redesigned under the government's Bénin Révélé ("Benin Revealed") program, with a new sculptural ensemble. Check its current state on site.

Station 2: the Tree of Forgetfulness

About a kilometer from the square stands the Tree of Forgetfulness. According to the tradition told by guides, captives had to walk around it, men nine times and women seven times, to forget their origins, their family and their name, so they would not try to come back for revenge.

These numbers are reported by the University of Liège in its study of vodun sites in Ouidah. As noted above, the ritual itself is not documented by sources from the period. The site is now marked by a memorial. Our pillar on the Tree of Forgetfulness sets out what is known and what is not.

Station 3: the Zomai hut

The third station is the Zomai hut. According to guides' tradition, captives were locked in darkness there before departure, to get them used to the night of the ship's hold. The name is often translated as "where light does not enter."

The University of Liège offers another reading: the Zomai neighborhood served as a warehouse for the guns and gunpowder received in exchange for captives, hence its name, "fire does not go there." The two readings do not necessarily exclude each other. Our pillar on the Zomai enclosure presents both.

Close by stood the Zomachi memorial, "the place where the light never goes out," created by Professor Honorat Aguessy and demolished in 2024.

Station 4: the Zoungbodji memorial

The Zoungbodji memorial is the best-documented station on the route. Captives were gathered there before embarkation. Next to it was a mass grave, about ten meters (30 feet) deep and six meters wide, where the dead, the sick and the exhausted were thrown.

In 1992, during preparations for the Ouidah 92 festival, an archaeological dig carried out under UNESCO's auspices uncovered many bones, chains and irons. The memorial was built on the site.

This is not a station to rush through. It is a reminder that not every captive reached the sea, and that the figures of the slave trade do not count those who died before embarkation.

Station 5: the Tree of Return

Before the beach comes the Tree of Return. According to tradition, captives walked around it so that their spirit, after death, could come back to the land of their ancestors. It is the counterpart of the Tree of Forgetfulness: where one sought to erase memory, the other promised return.

As with the Tree of Forgetfulness, this ritual is known through oral tradition, not period documents. Yet it says something essential about vodun thought: death does not break the bond with the ancestors' land. For many diaspora visitors, this is the most moving station on the route.

Station 6: the Door of No Return

The route ends on the beach, at the Door of No Return. Unveiled in 1995, the monument was completely rebuilt in late 2025: 16.32 meters (about 54 feet) high, 23 meters long, with more than 200 sculptures by Fortuné Bandeira.

This is where captives were taken through the surf in canoes to the waiting ships. Our pillar on the Door of No Return tells the story of embarkation, of the monument and of its rebuilding.

The route's artworks

The Slave Route is also an open-air museum. According to Rossila Goussanou, more than 27 works line the route, in a variety of materials: cement, mosaic, copper and steel.

Most are by Cyprien Tokoudagba (1939-2012), a painter and sculptor from Abomey. Tokoudagba worked for years restoring the bas-reliefs of the royal palaces of Abomey, and his style, with its stylized figures and bold colors, draws on the royal and vodun imagery of Dahomey. He gained international recognition when he took part in the Magiciens de la Terre exhibition in Paris in 1989.

Other artists contributed: Fortuné Bandeira, Yves Kpèdé, Dominique Kouas and the Dakpogan brothers, known for their sculptures made from salvaged metal.

These works are not neutral. Beninese historian Romuald Tchibozo, quoted by Goussanou, argues that the Fon imagery of the monuments imposes a new kind of "symbolic domination" on the Xweda, Ouidah's original people, who had themselves been conquered by Dahomey in 1727. The point matters: the route tells the story of the slave trade with the symbols of the former conquerors.

A negotiated memory

For Rossila Goussanou, the Slave Route is a palimpsest: a place where several memories overlap and compete. Local families, vodun priests, entrepreneurs, artists, the Catholic Church and UNESCO have each claimed a part of it.

A few examples of those tensions:

• The de Souza family lives across from the square where the sales took place. It carries both the memory of a slave-trading ancestor and that of one of the town's great families.
• The Xweda see their history told through the imagery of the kingdom that conquered them.
• Private initiatives, such as the Zomachi memorial, coexisted with the official route, before some of them disappeared.
• Diaspora visitors bring their own expectations, their own rituals, and sometimes their own reading of history.

That palimpsest is not a flaw. It makes the route a living place rather than a simple exhibition. But it invites visitors to listen to several voices rather than one.

What the route does not show

The Slave Route tells the story of departure to the Americas. It says much less about those who stayed.

Dahomey's wars and raids did not only feed the Atlantic trade. They also supplied captives for labor within the kingdom itself, notably on oil palm plantations, especially after the Atlantic trade ended. Slavery was only abolished in French West Africa by a decree of December 1905, and its social traces lasted much longer. For many visitors, this is an unexpected part of the story. It is worth keeping in mind at every station: the people who walked this road to the sea were only part of those caught up in the wars and raids of the time, and the others stayed behind, in servitude, in the kingdom that had captured them.

Beninese researcher Nassirou Bako-Arifari has shown that, in 1990s Benin, the question of "who the slaves are" in society remained sensitive: some families descend from traders, others from captives who stayed, and those histories are not always spoken openly.

That silence is not unique to Ouidah. But it is a reminder that the route, because it looks toward the sea, leaves part of the story in the shadows. The Zomachi memorial, demolished in 2024, was one of the few places that publicly raised the question of African responsibility.

The route today: a work in progress

Since 2021, Benin's national heritage and tourism agency (ANPT) has been leading a broad redevelopment of Ouidah's memorial sites. It has already transformed several stations:

• The Door of No Return was completely rebuilt in late 2025.
• The Portuguese Fort is under renovation to house the International Museum of Memory and Slavery (MIME). We have found no source confirming that it has opened to the public.
• The Zomachi memorial was demolished in 2024, and the "Cité historique de Ouidah" monument at the Vassého crossroads in 2025.
• A Banyan Group hotel, Dhawa Ouidah, has been announced near the beach for late 2026.

So the route's face changes from year to year. Some online descriptions, and even some printed guidebooks, describe monuments that have disappeared or changed. Check on site, and ask your guide what has changed recently.

The route is also at the heart of the Vodun Days, held every year around the second Friday of January. According to Benin's statistics institute (INStaD), the 2026 edition drew 740,668 participants to Ouidah. Our pillar on the Vodun Days has the details.

Walking the route

On foot, from the square

The best way to understand the route is to walk it, on foot, in the direction the captives went, from the auction square to the beach. The gradual shift from the noisy town to the quiet beach is part of the experience.

Allow about an hour at an easy pace, and two to three hours if you stop at each station with a guide. Much of the route has little shade: start early in the morning or in the late afternoon, with water and a hat.

Six questions to ask along the way

At each station, one question helps you look differently:

1. Auction square: who sold, who bought, and what do you get in exchange for a human being?
2. Tree of Forgetfulness: what does it mean to want to erase someone's memory?
3. Zomai hut: darkness for captives, or a gunpowder store? What does the answer change?
4. Zoungbodji: how many people never reached the sea?
5. Tree of Return: what does coming back mean, for those who never came back?
6. Door of No Return: why rebuild a monument, and for whom?

Practical notes

• Getting there: the route starts in the center of Ouidah, about 45 kilometers (28 miles) from Cotonou by road.
• Entry: the route itself is free. Some sites in town, such as museums, charge admission.
• Guides: a local guide adds a great deal, as long as they distinguish history from oral tradition.
• Getting back: by motorcycle taxi (zem) from the beach to the center.
• Season: southern Benin has two rainy seasons, roughly April to July and September to November. The laterite track can get muddy then. The dry months, from December to March, are the easiest for walking, though also the hottest in the middle of the day.
• Photos: ask before photographing people or ceremonies.

Combining the route with the rest of Ouidah

The Slave Route is not all of Ouidah. For a balanced day, pair it with places that show other sides of the town:

• the Portuguese Fort, for the history of the European trading posts (check what is open during the works);
• the Temple of Pythons and the Kpassè sacred forest, for living vodun;
• the Fondation Zinsou museum, for contemporary African art, with free admission;
• the houses of Aguda families, for the history of returns from Brazil, told in our pillar on the Aguda community.

For more on visiting these places thoughtfully, read our guide to memory tourism in Ouidah.

Walk the Slave Route with a local guide →

Sources

• Rossila Goussanou, "La Route de l'esclave de Ouidah : espace de négociation des mémoires collectives," University of Liège (French): the six stations, the artworks and their makers, Nouréini Tidjani-Serpos, the critiques by Robin Law and Romuald Tchibozo, Rachida de Souza.
• Robin Law, "Commemoration of the Atlantic Slave Trade in Ouidah," Gradhiva, no. 8, 2008, and Ouidah: The Social History of a West African Slaving Port, 1727–1892 (Ohio University Press, 2004).
• University of Liège, memorial and tourist sites of vodun in Ouidah (French): Tree of Forgetfulness, Zomai.
• Place Chacha (Ouidah), Wikipedia (French) and Matin Libre, "The auction square of Ouidah: the story of a centuries-old tree" (June 2024, French).
• The Shell Money of the Slave Trade (Hogendorn and Johnson, Cambridge University Press), The Conversation, cowries and the slave trade and Maldives Independent, "The price of mankind".
• Ghezo, Wikipedia and Dahomey raids on Yoruba, Wikipedia: tribute to Oyo, wars for captives.
• Clotilda (slave ship), Wikipedia and Encyclopedia of Alabama, Kossola.
• Zoungbodji Memorial, Wikipedia (French).
• Ouidah 92 festival, Wikipedia (French) and Slave Route Project, Wikipedia (French).
• UNESCO, Notable Sites of the Slave Route in Benin (tentative list).
• Slavery and Remembrance, Ouidah.
• Nassirou Bako-Arifari, Journal des Africanistes, 2000 (French).
• La Nouvelle Tribune, demolition of the "Cité historique de Ouidah" monument (September 2025, French).
• Matin Libre, INStaD figures for the 2026 Vodun Days (French).