PAWLEYS ISLAND- A new historic exhibit, Bunce Island: A British Slave Castle in Sierra Leone, will be on display January 10 to February 28 from 12 noon – 4:30 p.m. daily at Brookgreen Gardens’ Wall Lowcountry Center, and is free with garden admission. The exhibit illustrates Bunce Island's history as a major port that transported African captives to the colonies in North America during the Transatlantic Slave Trade Era.
Noted historian Joseph Opala, the scholar who identified the historical link between the Gullah/Geechee people in South Carolina and Georgia and the West African nation of Sierra Leone, is the curator of the exhibit and will speak at Brookgreen’s Lowcountry Center Auditorium at 1 p.m. Saturday, January 15. His talk is free with admission to the gardens.
Opala lived in Sierra Leone for 17 years, working with community leaders to highlight that country's links to African Americans and has devoted decades to researching Bunce Island and promoting public awareness of its importance for African Americans. He calls Bunce Island “the most important historic site in Africa for the United States” and has documented that Bunce Island sent slave ships on a regular basis to South Carolina and Georgia in the mid- and late 1700s, when American rice planters were eager to have the skills of African farmers from the “Rice Coast”. He now teaches history at James Madison University in Virginia.
Brookgreen Gardens, a National Historic Landmark and non-profit organization, is located on U.S. 17 between Myrtle Beach and Pawleys Island, South Carolina, and is open to the public daily. For more information, consult our web site at www.brookgreen.org or call 843-235-6000.
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