Brazil's Valongo Slave Port Becomes UNESCO Heritage Site

Unesco designated Brazil’s Valongo port a World Heritage Site this weekend. The wharf marks the largest entry port for African slaves into the Americas.

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An estimated 900,000 African slaves were forcibly brought to Valongo in the first part of the 1800s. Brazil was the world's greatest importer of slaves, taking in about four million Africans — 40 percent of all slaves — and the last country in the world to officially abolish slavery in 1888.

Committee members described the historical landmark as "the most important physical footprint of the forced arrival of slaves from Africa to the American continent." The location was first nominated in 2016 and was submitted together with a 400-page report detailing Valongo’s history.

"In the application dossier, we explained that the entire neighborhood of the wharf has a unity and historical importance ... This is the only port of landing that has been materially preserved in the world, there is no other,” anthropologist Milton Guran, responsible for the candidacy of this archaeological site explained to Unesco World Heritage.

"From a historic point of view, this is a testimony to one of the most brutal episodes in the history of humankind," a statement from the United Nations body read.

 

Located in the heart of Rio de Janeiro, the port was discovered in 2011 during excavation for the 2016 Olympic arena. The area was designed in 1779, dedicated to hiding the “unsightly trade” from customers, with large holding structures dotting Valongo landing. Additionally, show houses and forges were located within easy access where new slave owners could purchase chains and shackles.

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“It is a place of unique memory that contains the only vestiges still preserved of the landing of slaves in America," Guran said.

During the excavation, a total of 1.5 million artifacts were uncovered which attested to the large flow of traffic that was the slave trade. Human bones, necklaces, earrings, pipes and religious objects were stored in a large warehouse, where city-contracted teams of archaeologists are working to display the items to the public in 2018.

“The wharf serves as a physical landmark; it turns the coming of African slaves concrete,” former Executive Secretary for Policies on Racial Equality Giovanni Harvey told Agencia Brasil.