U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen paid a solemn visit Saturday to the house on an island off Senegal that is one of the most recognized symbols of the horrific Atlantic slave trade that trapped tens of millions of Africans in bondage for generations.
aimed at rebuilding economic relationships between the U.S. and Africa, stood in the Gorée Island building known as the House of Slaves and peered out of the Door of No Return, from which enslaved people were shipped across the Atlantic.“Gorée and the trans-Atlantic slave trade are not just a part of African history. They are a part of American history as well,” Yellen said in brief remarks during her visit.
The economic benefits that major slave-trading nations, including the United States, reaped for hundreds of years on the backs of unpaid labor could amount to tens of trillions of dollars, according to And in the U.S., African slaves and their children contributed to the building of the nation’s most storied institutions, including the Yellen acknowledged the ongoing ramifications of that brutal past.
“What I take from this place is the importance of redoubling our commitment to fight for our shared values and principles wherever they are threatened — in the United States, in Africa, and around the world,” she said. “We have more work to do.”
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