From 1701 to 1835, 39,368 people were shipped from the Portuguese port in Cacheu, Guinea Bissau across the Atlantic where they were enslaved. In 2010, descendants of those people came from Brazil and visited the port of Cacheu. From this visit, the idea to memorialize those who were taken was born. In 2016, the Memorial Escravatura Trafico Negreiro Cacheu was opened. In 2021, two groups of Afrodescendants from the United States returned to Cacheu and decided that they would contribute English language materials for the museum as part of the Decade of Return Initiative in Guinea Bissau. This project is the first phase of that effort.

The beautiful museum is two-stories and contains a separate auditorium for group gatherings. The site took three years of work by Portuguese architects to establish the impressive structure that hopes for success of the same kind as the neighbouring Senegal’s celebrated Goree Island, another Atlantic “point of no return” for slaves that has become a must-see for visiting heads of state and celebrities.

The European Union donated $579 000 to the Cacheu project, 90 percent of its total cost, with the specific aim of increasing the cultural potential of such sites as a source of sustainable income for the country .

However, all of the Museums's displays are in Portuguese and there are no English-speaking tour guides.

TO REMEDY THIS, WE WILL CATALOG EVERY ITEM IN THE MUSEUM AND TRANSLATE ALL THE DISPLAYS FROM PORTUGUESE TO ENGLISH AND PUBLISH A FULL-COLOR CACHEU SLAVE MUSEUM EXHIBIT CATALOG.

The current Secretary of State for Culture, Francelino de Cuha met with the Decade of Return group in June and explained how the Museum was one of the focal points of the Ministry's program.

The Balanta B'urassa History and Genealogy Society in America (BBHAGSIA) created the Decade of Return to Guinea Bissau initiative to help the Ministries of Tourism and Culture market, promote and service the Afrodescendants in the United States whose ancestors are from Guinea Bissau. The next return tour is November 23-30, 2021 and our goal is to publish the books and have them ready at this time. The BBHAGSIA President Siphiwe Baleka now lives in Guinea Bissau and will oversee the cataloging and translating of the materials and use its on-demand-publishing service to produce the catalog.

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