Named after the fictional character Kunta Kinteh that featured in the novel and TV series Roots, the title of this WHS suggests that this is primarily a slavery memorial site. But it actually comprises 7 components that put the African-European encounter at and along the River Gambia into historical perspective. Since that river is Gambia’s sole raison d’etre, it is a well-chosen WHS to represent the country.

The mouth of the Gambia River is flanked by two late 19th-century British forts and is best experienced from the Barra ferry. I took this ferry twice, once from the North Bank to the South and once the other way around. It’s a great introduction to the country for just 35 Dalaisi (0.50 EUR). Nowadays, crossings take 25-30 minutes since they put a new engine into the last ferryboat remaining last year. Although I had to wait over 1.5 hours for one to leave at the Barra side, I forgot to check out the fort (Fort Bullen) from up close. The dusty surroundings and chaotic traffic are not very inviting. At the Banjul side, I tried to walk to the Six Gun Battery, but access to it seemed blocked by the presence of the heavily guarded State House next door. Both forts can be seen from the ferry though and are very small. It’s the width of the river that is the most impressive.

A day later, I travelled further inland with my driver+guide for another hour to the town of Albreda. Here two other components can be found. There’s the large CFAO building, now in use by a women’s collective but still recognizable as the warehouse it once was. And there is the “Portuguese chapel”. Partly ruined, it may date back to the 15th century as that’s when the Portuguese were here. However, the information panel at the site raises doubts whether this was ever a chapel. It more likely was part of a French trading compound from the late 17th century, which were often constructed using a Portuguese-inspired design.

From the pier of Albreda, within 500m from both the “chapel” and the warehouse, a motored pirogue can be hired to take you across to Kunta Kinteh Island. The “Roots” tourist boom of 20 years ago has faded away (as I noticed in Gorée as well), so there are few visitors to the island nowadays. It is very small (and uninhabited) but with a perfect strategic location in the middle of the river so it could control both the inland trade and the Europeans arriving from the Atlantic Ocean. It changed hands many times (French, Dutch, British, and it was notably owned by the Duke of Courland as well) but the ruins that you see now are as when the British left them in 1779. 

It's here on the island that this site’s history mostly comes alive, you can just see those Europeans sitting there aiming their guns at unidentified approaching ships, or bookkeeping about the goods coming in. The nomination file describes it as: “the approach to James Island by small boat or canoe is as close as one can come in modern times, to what the approach would have been like in previous centuries”. 

Conservation of it all, including the island itself which is eroding, seems lacking. Baobab trees are slowly taking over the island.

On our way further eastward, we also visited the Maurel Frères Building in Juffureh. This late 19th-century British warehouse, an unremarkable brick building painted yellow-and-blue, is used as a small museum about the Transatlantic Slave Trade.