Cape Mount

Cape Mount rises above the Atlantic coast near the mouth of the Mano River. Its prominent headland overlooks a coast of lagoons, wetlands and forest, inhabited by Vai and Gola communities. From the late eighteenth century the neighbouring Galinhas country became a centre of the Atlantic slave trade. Vai merchants and rulers dealt with European traders, while relationships of kinship and marriage helped bind foreign merchants to local ruling families. The trade brought wealth to some and forced captivity and exile upon many others.