390 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 19 42 



large for the present congregation, which is served by a curate from 

 Dakar on Sundays. The mosque is tumble-down. 



Housewives have to patronize the Dakar market, because canoes 

 no longer bring provisions to the island. The three or four little 

 general stores carry a few canned goods. A cistern boat supplies 

 the public reservoir in the dock square. 



Even in prosperous days the island was dependent on the nearby 

 Continent for vital services and supplies. The dependence was recog- 

 nized by the earliest French inhabitants. Two years after ousting 

 the Dutch, they treated with chiefs of Dakar and other hamlets in the 

 vicinity for the right to settle on the peninsula, but the treaty never 

 became operative. Not until the interior of Senegal was conquered 

 by French forces in 1857 and the slave trade thereby brought under 

 control was it safe to settle on the peninsula. Instead, for nearly four 

 centuries, the authorities at Goree repeatedly came to terms with the 

 chiefs of the opposite shore for specific privileges dictated by the 

 limitations of resources on the island. 



Chief of these was shortage of water. Even in days when little 

 water was used, the cisterns could not supply the town throughout the 

 dry season, which might last 9 months. A supplementary supply 

 was brought over by boat from the springs at Hunn, on payment 

 to the local tribe. In 1821 a vegetable garden and orchard was 

 planted by men from Goree on land watered by these springs. Even 

 earlier three or four houses had been built by Goreeans at Dakar, 

 to serve while their owners cultivated and harvested bits of ground. 

 The indigenes generally refused to part with arable land, already 

 insufficient for their own food supply. 



Wood for cooking was likewise scarce. By the 1820's wood 

 gatherers had to go inland 12 or 15 leagues.^" Sand and stone for 

 building were more easily accessible but, like the water and the wood, 

 could be had only on payment pursuant to treaty. 



Local fish, and millet and a little meat from the remoter mainland, 

 were brought to the island by natives from peninsular villages. They 

 were charged an excise for doing business in the port but evaded it 

 when they could. Merchant ships from overseas were supposed to 

 pay for the right to anchor between Goree and Cape Manuel, but their 

 masters tried to slip out of their obligation. 



There was no cemetery on crowded Goree. Captives who died 

 were thrust into the sea to the sharks. This practice was distasteful 

 when applied to residents. Freemen generally buried their dead where 

 they could on the peninsula; but the shallow, sandy graves, unpro- 

 tected by any sort of barrier, were frequently opened by beast, or 



Roger, quoted in Faure, op. cit, p. 49. 



