The seven principal countries from which Africans were taken and their proportion of the total number of Africans enslaved in the West.

Africans were taken from all over the African continent, but especially from West Africa and Angola. They were gathered at points along the Western coast to be shipped across the Atlantic Ocean. One of the principal points for shipment was Goree Island off the coast of Senegal. Today the descendants of the enslaved Africans, from throughout the African Diaspora, can visit Goree Island as tourists. There they can see the buildings and courtyards in which the enslaved Africans were packed in extremely crowded conditions as they waited to be shipped to the New World.

You can touch the chains that hang from the stone cold walls. You can pass through the terrible "Doorway of No Return," the passageway through which many Africans were taken, never to see Africa again. Many say that they can feel the presence of the ancestors. Many break down and cry.

Visitors to Goree Island often stop off in Gambia, the tiny country surrounded on three sides by the nation of Senegal. There they can visit the village of Juffure, the home of Kunta Kinte. In his book, Roots, Alex Haley traced his roots back to a man called Kunta Kinte, from the village of Juffure, in Gambia.

Each year thousands of African-Americans travel to Goree Island, and from there go on to Juffure where they can meet the cousins of Alex Haley. Most of the Black population living in the United States can trace its roots to Gambia, Senegal, Nigeria and the other countries of West Africa.

Source: Africa: It's Not a Country, It's a Continent by Dr. Arthur Lewin.