Goree island, Senegal (CNN) -- A short ferry ride away from Dakar, lies the quiet and picturesque Goree Island. Three kilometers off the coast, the Senegalese island is tiny and easily accessible by foot. Without cars or roads, the island preserves a charming ambiance with faded buildings revealing its European colonial history. Beneath its quaint facade, however, the island hides a brutal history. Known as Senegambia at the time and located at the westernmost point in West Africa, Goree Island used to serve as a strategic trading post for the transatlantic slave trade -- African men, women and children were held and traded here before being loaded onto ships to the Americas. Estimates vary, but all of them place the number of Africans who died while in transit in the millions.
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The charming Senegalese island of Goree hides a brutal history of slave trade.
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Senegalese government kept an old slave house as a museum for people to see the history
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The House of Slaves highlights the appalling conditions Africans experienced
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The House keeps the history of human being, not only for Africans, says the curator
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