Lagos excavations reveal shackles used to buy slaves, unusual burial

Excavations in central Lagos have uncovered shackles, a brass ring used to buy people and a pit containing five skeletons, one of which showed signs of violence, the director of the Lagos Museum has said.

Lagos’s links to the slave trade were already known, but this is the first discovery of an object that was used specifically as currency to buy people, which “confirms that the slave trade took place here,” said museum director Elena Moran.

“Many of these items were made in what is now the Netherlands for the Portuguese, and this shackle, dating back to the 16th century, coincides with the time when the slave trade began,” the archaeologist said, adding that the shackles were discovered in 2023 in excavations near the city gate.

According to Elena Moran, Gomes Eanes de Zurara, the chronicler of the Infante D. Henrique, already mentioned in the Chronicle of Guinea the first major sale of slaves in Lagos, in which 235 people were sold near the city gates, a version confirmed by the recent discovery.

In the same area, just outside the city gates, archaeologists made another discovery: a pit with five burials, one of the skeletons with traces of violence, an episode dating back to the 16th century.

Unable to provide detailed information about these burials, which are being studied by the Lagos Municipality and the University of Coimbra, Elena Moran only says that it is an “unusual” situation in the urban space.

According to the person in charge, at that time the urban centre was organised with parish churches and associated cemeteries, and burials outside these spaces were not common unless they were people with contagious diseases, abnormalities or slaves.

“We dug about 50 holes around the perimeter, some of them were wells for water, others were for waste disposal or served as reservoirs. [A descoberta dos enterramentos] “It was completely unexpected,” he said.

In 2009, excavations for a car park outside the walls of Lagos uncovered a massive rubbish dump containing 158 skeletons, which were later exhumed and confirmed to be of African origin.

The skeletons were mostly simply dumped in the city’s large dump in Vale da Gafaria, although some were placed there more carefully, Elena Moran said.

“Any collection is enough for thousands of studies, and what is studied continuously is anthropological research. The studies are part of the world databases that allow us to assess the origin of these people,” he emphasized.

A proposal is being prepared for a competition of ideas for a monument to enslaved people to honor their memory and draw attention to a problem that still exists in the world.

“Slavery is not a thing of the past, the fact that we can talk about these issues helps raise awareness, be more vigilant, spot the signs and ultimately be able to report them,” defended Elena Moran.

The public art piece will be placed in Ghafaria as part of a project that is still being developed in collaboration with the Faculty of Design, Technology and Communication (IADE) of the European University.