Cape Mount

Cape Mount rises above the Atlantic coast near a country of lagoons and river mouths. Vai traditions recall a migration from the Mande interior to this shore and the neighbouring Gallinas, commonly placed in the sixteenth century. The cape became a place of exchange between African traders and ships from overseas. By the late eighteenth century it was an established centre of the Atlantic slave trade, while traders also began to seek captives farther west along the Gallinas River.