The recently rediscovered Quay of Valongo, the arrival point for half a million slaves into Rio de Janeiro, is being considered for inclusion on UNESCO's World Heritage List. The city's black community want to ensure that descendants of slaves and their African heritage will be celebrated and not lost as the area becomes more of a tourist attraction. Rio Slave Port May be considered as World Heritage List, the news passes from Rio de Janeiro, Quentin Sommerville reports.
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Rio Slave Port
It was one of the busiest slave ports in the Americas, a filthy, bustling harbour where hundreds of thousands of Africans were sold into a life of exploitation and abuse. Archaeologists find remains of port where hundreds of thousands of Africans were sold to plantation owners. Famished, exhausted and with their heads half-shaved, the slaves were herded off ships, groomed in "fattening houses" and dispatched to sugar and coffee plantations across Brazil.
Now, nearly two centuries after Rio's notorious Valongo wharf began operating, local archaeologists believe they may have located the slave port's ruins during a multibillion-dollar, pre-Olympic renovation of the city's harbour. The possible discovery of the Cais do Valongo, or Valongo wharf, was made during the regeneration of Rio's port area.
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