Porto Seguro is locally known as Agbodrafo. It is a town in southern Togo found on the mouth of the Atlantic Ocean and Lake Togo. It is a community which grew around a Portuguese fort which is still standing near the Slave House. It was the Portuguese who named the town Porto Seguro, and the name is still in use and recognized, but the people maintained the local name Agbodrafo. Agbodrafo is vivid on signages and government listings.
The town's historical past and niche in the clandestine slave trade is still noticeable in the slave house also called "the well of the chained ones", some family compounds, and folklores; which seems to be gradually eroding away into the sea and may be lost if not collected and documented.
The slave House was owned and built in 1835 by a Scottish slave trader named John Henry Wood. The house was called "The Wood Home". It was known as the Slave House by slave traders, but was referred ordinarily as the Wood Home. It was actually a home in every sense, with a spacious living room and four bedrooms, but underneath the wooden floor of the house are hundreds of chained and enslaved Africans that are hidden and are about to be sold. How long they will stay depends on the time of arrival of the slave ship and when the. There is an inlet, a trap door into the well of the chained ones (cellar) situated in the large living room, but it is decieving because it looks like any other part of the floor. It was a gimmick used to decieve the British and its anti - slavery squadrons from detecting the unfrivolous slaving activities of the Slave merchants.
The reason why the house was called "the well of the chained ones" was because of the terrible experiences of the enslaved people in the belly of the house. It was like been chained in a well with no water, in pain, alone in the dark with no hope of rescue, hungry and eagerly waiting for death to come. For me to have a practical experience in the well of the chained ones, I entered the cellar and it was dark, I held the soil tight, made a prayer of reconnection with the ancestors, and I crawled, panted, and came out through a broken part of the floor, outside of the entrance door. The first thought on my mind was how the enslaved people coped under such a situation when it was impossible to stand. Who would they have complained to that their waist and neck bones aches. How were they moving in the cellar? It would have been difficult because of the numbers of people kept in the cellar anyway. Did the enslaved people in "the well of the chained ones" under the floor of the Slave House urinated and excreted on themselves?
This historical site at Agbodrafo is one of the most important slave history heritage sites in the world. It unfolds a unique and unknown history of the clandestine slave trade era. It clearly shows that when the world was forced to abolish the slave trade, it was still going on secretly. Enslaved people were forcefully brought from Aneho, northern Togo, and as far as Oyo to Porto Seguro.
Agbodrafo was no doubt part of what was called the "Slave coast" in West Africa. The knowledge and further research into the clandestine slavery practiced in Porto Seguro will help Africa Diaspora in the search for root reconnection. The slave House is not a Barracoon like the ones in Badagry, neither is it a slave fort or castle like that of El Mina, Cape Coast, or Goree. It It was established at a peculiar era of the nefarious slave trade to continue slavery undetected.
Anago Osho is an international tour guide, researcher, historian, cultural and nature conservationist.
anago.tourism@gmail.com